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Chapter Text

Part I

The tear seals with a rushing shift of pressure that leaves a dull ringing deep in Erys’enya’s ears. For a long moment that’s all she can hear, until the grating trill recedes into the thundering roar of her own heartbeat. That, at least, she can manage. A few deep breaths and her quickened pulse begins to slow, the jittering quake of the surrounding Fade calming in balance with her.

It is indescribably odd to return. Even more so that she should feel relieved to do so, in this wild place of raw emotion. And yet that’s all she feels. Hadn’t Rook told her? Hadn’t she heard everything from Lace, head raised high and eyes full of knowledge both ancient and sad? Elven bodies formed of titan blood. The spirit within her has returned to the Fade, and the sense of belonging is… acute. The relief, not as much, tinged with an old worry, exacerbated now as the body beside her sags with a barely audible gasp. She is quick to act, the Fade even quicker, and as her arms flash out to catch him before he hits the ground, the Fade shifts to raise a hillock of soft wildflowers and plush grass on which to lay him.

Solas’ eyes are hazy with pain, but they seek her out unerringly. There is so much to be said, but that can wait until the wounds of battle have faded. That is what she does now, right palm held aloft above his chest, her magic seeping into his skin to knit flesh. The blood will need to be cleaned away, she will need a firmer grasp on the Fade than she currently possesses to affect it the way the first of her people could, but for now at least she can pull at the ephemeral weave of their Faded surroundings to soothe the worst of Solas’ wounds.

Her fingers tremble, but her magic is steady, though slow to answer it flows well enough once pushed, even if it feels as though the Fade is resisting her somehow. Her bearing is calm, but her heart thunders. Her resolve is iron, but her thoughts are jagged and restless. There is so much, it’s all so much, she can scarcely begin to parse any of it, but at the root of the swirling maelstrom of her trepidation is the soul-deep certainty that she is, at long last, exactly where she wants to be.

“…You need not.”

She does not startle, Solas’ voice is too soft to scare her, pitched low as though she is a flighty creature in need of soothing. Perhaps she is; as certain as she is of her decision and her place at his side - how ardently and painfully she has ached to return here - she cannot deny that she is overwhelmed and overwrought. Head spinning, heart racing, thoughts and fears and hopes battering against her psyche in a desperate effort to unmoor her. The doubts that have ever plagued her, from Haven to Minrathous and beyond, following her across Thedas no matter how swiftly she runs, they threaten to catch her now as she stands - kneels - at the converging paths of a decade of decisions.

But the Inquisitor is not so easily cowed.

“Hush,” is all Erys says, tugging the sash from her waist. She severs the flow of mana to set about tearing the fabric into even strips, portioning off the last of it into a makeshift flannel that she can use to clean the worst of the blood. Solas’ hazy eyes do not leave her face, though they tighten at the edges whenever she brushes over a cut or bruise, no matter how carefully she strives to keep her touch light. The wounds are not terribly deep, but there are many, and her magic can only do so much for wounds inflicted by an Archdemon. She can soothe a portion, but the Fade will need to mend the rest.

There are a great many wounds the Fade will need to heal. Deep gouges hewn through both of their souls. What lies as the end of one tale stands humbly as the beginning of the next. The shape of that tale, however, remains to be seen. To be learned. To be lived.

“I’m furious,” Erys adds as she dabs the cloth against the corner of Solas’ swollen lips. “Just so you know.” Congealed blood gives way to cracked skin beneath, welling fresh droplets anew. She seals the cuts with a brush of her thumb, a gentle kiss of magic to soothe the worst of the swelling. Solas doesn’t wince, but his beaten body still thrums with tension. It’s not the pain, she knows; he is an expert at weathering all sensation from discomfort to agony. His current unease is born of her proximity, of the care with which she touches him. He is the flighty creature that needs to be soothed. The wolf is injured, he cannot rest until he is sure the danger has passed. It does not hurt her as deeply as it used to, that he still regards her as something that can harm him.

She’s always known that she can. Once, she might even have tried.

“That is your right,” Solas murmurs, as always so very measured, careful. The toll it takes on him now is more apparent than ever. How much longer he can remain lucid is a matter for debate. He needs rest more than Erys needs answers, but she has chased his shadow for so long. “I accept nothing less than the full breadth of your contempt.”

She almost laughs. “And you have it.” Oh, how his pain-filled eyes widen. It is cruel, perhaps, to tease him thus, but she has earned the right a thousand times over. “I hate you as much as I am capable, to the full capacity of my being… Which is not at all, ‘ma fen.”

Solas’ expression, half-splintered with grief, catches in a wide-eyed twist of shock. Erys wonders if surprising him will ever lose its tingling lustre. Even now she thrills at it. The mortal who stunned a god. That title rings better than Inquisitor ever could.

“I am exceedingly cross and desperately confused and do not doubt that I will have very much to say about recent events!” She adds, fighting an inappropriate smile all the while. “I will have answers.” She steels her gaze. He wilts beneath it. “I will have them all, Fen’Harel.”

Distress creases his face, furrowing his brow deeply enough to tug at the half-scabbed cut across his right eye. Erys dabs it with her repurposed sash, a finger and thumb pressed gently above and below his brow. The cut seals itself under a burst of her mana, a wisp of black smoke sputtering into the air between them like ink in water. It stinks of rot and bile. Blighted Archdemon blood. She suppresses a shiver. The wound is closed but not fully healed. She has neither the power nor the capacity to treat such an injury. Perhaps it will scar. “I— That is your right, as I said, but if I could have one condition—“

“No.”

“Vhenan, please—“

“I will not yield, Solas. You will have no quarter from me, and I will have honesty. I will have it in full. Do I make myself clear?”

“Not a condition, then,” Solas corrects. “A… mercy.”

Erys narrows her eyes. “What part of no quarter did you misunderstand?”

“I understand perfectly, I assure you. But do not call me by that name.”

Falling silent, Erys nods. She won’t apologise for it, but she will allow him this concession. She is here as much for his benefit as her own, it does not serve her to hurt him. Accountability she will hold him to - firmly - but she will not bestow fresh wounds.

As for old ones… She has already resigned herself to opening those. They never healed right anyway.

“Solas,” she says, unsure of where or how to start. He looks up at her, expectant, exhausted, unguarded for perhaps the first time since they met. She has seen the sunlit shades of contentment ease the shadows from his face, but never quite like this. Bare, open, vulnerable. For the first time in all the years she has ached to know him, she knows without a doubt that he will offer her the truth.

Faced with such certainty, she has no idea what to even ask.

And then she realises.

“We have time,” she says slowly, resting her palm against his chest, the one through which she can feel the steady, reassuring thrum of his heartbeat. “We have— We have so much time. I— can ask everything I’ve ever wanted to know. But it— it doesn’t have to be now.”

Solas’ bruised brow furrows. “You need not hold back for my benefit, vhenan,” he insists, grunting when she responds to his attempt to sit up with a firm nudge of her hand against his chest. He lowers himself back down reluctantly. “I am not so weak that I cannot simply speak with you.”

“I know,” Erys assures him, then proceeds to disarm him with a sudden, uncontrollable grin. It spreads across her face without her consent – wide enough to concern him, judging by his expression. “Solas, I know. But we have time. I can—” She hiccups a sob, an embarrassingly guttural snort of laughter cutting through the centre of it.

More than a brief realisation, clearly. The reality of her— of their combined circumstance finally hits her full force and the sheer depth of the relief that washes over her is immense. It’s done, it’s over, no more sleepless nights too afraid to dwell alone in the Fade without him, no more ceaseless wondering, tireless planning, endless worrying. It’s over, he’s here, with her, wounded but whole.

“Vhenan?!”

“You!” Erys cries, surging forward and cupping his face tightly between her palms, squishing his cheeks up to his eyes. “You absolute fool of a man! You complete and utter—Felasil! Dahn’direlan! Su an’banal i’ma, ma— ma fel’len i’tel’eolas!”

“Vhenan—”

“Ane’nydha!” Erys gives his cheeks a firm squeeze to illustrate her point. “Ar lath ma, ‘ma lath, ‘ma fen, vhenan’ara. But you can be so, so stupid!”

Solas blinks at her. For a long moment he doesn’t say a word – not that a response is required, necessarily – as though to give her ample time to continue and intensify her tirade. She sees the moment he realises that she has unleashed the breadth of her frustrations – for the moment, at least – and she wonders exactly what he was expecting her to say. Did he really think she would follow him into the Fade, into a prison formed of his deepest, most personal regrets, just to shout at him?

“I remember,” Solas murmurs after a moment, eyes tracing her face, “when your words wouldn’t come. I watched you scowl and hiss like a wildcat, unable to convey your thoughts the way you wished to in the language I stole from you, stumbling over sentences like a child in the dark.”

“Dirth’alan,” Erys tells him, proud. “Tel’dian dea undaralas.”

“So you did.” His voice is full of wonder. “How I have missed your beautifully defiant spirit.”

Erys laughs. “Who am I defying by learning my own people’s language?”

“Vhenan, if you please—“ She doesn’t, but she releases his face anyway, with one last squeeze of his cheeks for good measure. He doesn’t appear to currently possess the capacity for annoyance, if the faint curve to his lips is any indication. That will most likely change over the next few days, but Erys doesn’t particularly care. They finally have the blessed luxury of time. “Thank you. As for defiance—”

“I’m not sure I appreciate that descriptor, to be honest.”

“Vhenan.”

“Mm, you can’t get irritated right on the back of praising my defiance.”

“Erys’enya.”

“Yes, ‘ma sa’lath?”

Solas exhales shakily, turning his head away from her. “I have… withheld so much from you. All that I am, the faces that I wear— There is so much you do not know. To have you here, to have allowed you to follow me when all you know are lies—“

“Oh, hush,” Erys says, flicking him between the eyes. That shuts him up quite effectively, truth be told. It’s quite funny, actually. Her Solas, the man whose spirit entwined with hers within the ancient and beloved walls of Skyhold, she knows him. For all her doubts about his place in her world and her place in his, she has never doubted that the man she came to know then is the truest facet of himself he has shown in…

“How old are you?”

Solas blinks slowly. “…You’ll need to explain the process to me, vhenan. How did we arrive here?”

“Just answer me, I’m being deeply introspective and philosophical and need facts to iron out the details.”

“I can’t help feeling you’ve not fully grasped the situation at hand.”

“My grasp on the situation is perfectly adequate, thank you. I’m not the one who got concussed by an Archdemon.”

“I did not—“

“Age, please, ‘ma fen.”

“It isn’t a straightforward answer—“

“How can it not be? Time passes inexorably, or are you going to tell me that the first of the People could command time as well?”

“Not in the sense that you’re imagining.”

“Mmhmm. Are you misleading me intentionally or is it just a habit?”

Solas pauses at that. He opens his mouth. Closes it again. His brow furrows deeply. “Ah.” He clears his throat. “That… would be habit.”

Vindication. There are many benefits to flicking an ancient Elvhen spirit turned god-mage, it seems. Like resetting a stuttering clockwork mechanism with a hearty smack. “There we are. So. Age?”

Solas’ lip curls. “At best estimation—“

“You don’t know?”

“I never have. You try marking the passage of time when your entire being exists in timelessness and all that you need to sustain yourself is the primordial energy of the Fade.”

Erys gestures somewhat pointedly to her surroundings. “I was planning on etching a tally somewhere, to be honest. Though, the absence of the sun may make it a little more difficult.”

“And how would you mark a tally if you did not have hands?”

Okay, that point she will concede. “You really don’t know your age?”

“Before physical form, no,” Solas says. “I simply was. After, I… did not begin to mark time until it mattered. I was called to blood and pain, twisted and…” He exhales slowly through his nose. “I did not begin to mark the ages until Elvhenan was founded. Then the rebellion took much from us all, and the passage of time was not marked in hours or days or even years, but by our losses and our victories. When I fell into uthenera, it was a bittersweet return to the Fade I had been torn from. I dwelled there as a being of two worlds; trapped in physical form, yet free to return to my home in dreams. I did not mark the years that passed then, either. So no, vhenan, I do not know. Tens of thousands of years, perhaps longer than my mind can even recall. I would tell you if I knew, but I truly do not.”

Erys considers the weight of that revelation, unable to even begin to fathom the scope of it. “So, old, then?” She finally says, delighting in the surprised bark of laughter that slips from Solas’ lips.

“Yes, vhenan, I am old. An old, foolish wolf who has lived long enough to make too many mistakes.”

“We took an old wolf into our clan once,” Erys recalls, presently unwilling to delve into the depths of Solas’ mistakes. Not yet. She will have him settled, healed, and rested before she has him lay out his burdens before her. “It could no longer hunt, nor keep pace with its pack. One of our hunters happened across it in deep midwinter. By rights, she should have ended its life mercifully, but she said its eyes were heavy with old knowledge and could not deliver the blow. She brought it back to our camp and we tended it until its strength faded.”

“A sweet story.”

“I’m telling you now so that you know I’m experienced in carrying old, arthritic wolves around when they can no longer easily move by themselves. At least you can tell me when you need to answer the call of nature, rather than just pissing on the floor of an aravel.”

Solas’ smile is strained, pained, and hopelessly fond. “Truly, your compassion knows no bounds. I can attest, though, that arthritis is not an Elvhen malady.”

“So no pissing on aravel floors?”

“I will endeavour not to.”

“Well. Small mercies.” She takes her hand from where it lays over his abdomen, lacing her fingers with his. How long has it been since she was last able to touch him so casually? Once the realisation fully hits – after some much-needed sleep, she’s sure - it’s highly likely she’ll not be able to stop. That he is close enough that she can do so is… everything. “Then to continue my deeply philosophical musings with added information afforded me, I feel… honoured, I think. Privileged? Absolutely, yes. To have seen beneath Fen’Harel’s mask to the man beneath.” She smiles, admittedly somewhat giddily. “I have my complaints, but to know that I saw Fen’Harel at his most honest, as Solas… I’m trying not to let that go to my head.”

Solas makes an oddly mournful sound. “I had fully expected to need to spend at least the next decade convincing you of that very fact. That you saw…”

“More than most,” Erys finishes. “I remember. It took me quite a while to believe that, I wasn’t best pleased with you.”

“Understandable.” He makes another sound, a hitching huff caught strangely between amusement and irritation. “I had planned— No, I had feared… Wondered, perhaps? Briefly, in all honesty, that I would need to convince you of just how much of me you saw. In as much as I am a liar—“

“A poor one.”

“Erys,” Solas huffs. “What are you doing?”

“Talking to you,” Erys says, attempting innocence and then breaking almost immediately with a snickering laugh. “I’m sorry, I can’t help it. Solas, I’m— I don’t care, I don’t care. I don’t care about any of it! I want to know everything, yes, I want us to talk for— forever. But I need you to know, I need you to know just how happy I am to see you. Do you understand? You are here. With me. I can—“ She squeezes the fingers caught in hers, lifting his hand to press a kiss to his knuckles. She does not miss his soft intake of breath. “Touch you. See you, hear you, feel you real and warm beside me. I just…” She shakes her head helplessly. “I’m still reconciling that fact in myself. There is— a lightness in my heart I have not felt in so long.”

 “I…” Solas doesn’t seem to know what to make of that. His eyes flicker across her face, wide and curious and deeply intent. She can feel the weight of his gaze as a physical thing, lets him look, take her in, because if he is half as unmoored as she is by their reunion, then his heart is pounding in his chest and his lungs are fit to bursting with all he feels and cannot hope to convey.

Oddly, she thinks she wants to bite him. The psychology of that eludes her, perhaps it’s something about feeling him real between her teeth, the most primal of ways one can interact with the world. That must be it. To take comfort in his flesh, the taste of him, in a way her senses cannot deny. He is real and she is real and they are real, here, together. To sink her teeth into his skin, to feel the steady beat of his pulse against her tongue, lose herself in everything that makes him him. Full and blooded and alive.

And hers.

“Rest with me,” Solas says, voice thick with longing. “I cannot— Vhenan. Please come— Sathan, I—“

She does, of course she does. Stretching out beside him, laying her head on his chest in time to hear the ragged breath he drags between his lips rattle through him as a shudder. His arms wind around her, steadfast and immovable, pulling her close, his face buried in her hair, shaking, trembling.

Crying.

Oh, how the dam breaks.

As the torrent spills over, he cannot stop it. He clings to her fiercely, fingers digging into her skin and every aching shard of pain is dearer to her heart than anything else. The ferocity of his grip combined with the desperate vulnerability of his choked sobs breaks her heart and relives her all at once. His aching catharsis is her assurance that he is Solas. She came back to him to make one final, valiant attempt to stay his hand, hoping against hope that she could reach him but knowing she would fail. But in that last, overwrought moment, he chose to come back to her.

So, she holds him now through his tears, through his pain and his relief, ear pressed to his chest that she might witness for herself the beginning of his heart’s healing.

***

Dreaming in the Fade is bizarre.

That’s the only way she can describe it, and long after she wakes in the approximate-morning, she still can’t quite make sense of it. She would still say that she slipped into the Fade as she drifted off, but that doesn’t seem right because she is already in the Fade and it was more that… she expanded into the Fade. Her awareness seemed to spread to reaches further than she had ever been able to traverse when her physical body remained separate from the Beyond. She remained fully aware of her body, but able to observe the Fade at her whim.

The success of the attempt, though, leaves something to be desired. She’d just sort of… drifted, overwhelmed by an influx of information, memories she couldn’t quite parse, sensations and sentiments she had no frame of reference for.

Still, it’s nice to know that she isn’t locked out of the Fade while… locked in the Fade.

This is going to take some adjustment.

For now, while Solas rests – snoring away like he has never known a moment’s rest in his life – Erys endeavours to acquaint herself with their new surroundings and exactly what that entails.

The prison is… well, aptly named. While Solas sleeps, Erys takes the opportunity to wander across the dismal landscape as far as the fractured islands will allow, which isn’t far at all. The central island – if it can be called that – is separated from the rest, four in total, by deep, cavernous drops that… probably don’t end. Jagged rocks and grasping hands, hopelessness carved from Solas’ fury, his inconsolable rage at the cruelty of the Evanuris… The same cruelty he came so very close to losing himself in.

It does not do to dwell on such things now. She will have the full explanations from him when he is recovered, she will not agonise over what has passed and the mistakes he has made without offering him the chance to defend himself.

What she chooses to focus on in the quiet moment of solitude afforded to her – mostly to distract from their dismal surroundings – is just how much influence she can exert here. Her grasp of the Fade, allegedly innate as Solas tells it, cannot compare to his; she has been Dreaming successfully for only as long as she has known him, and often not entirely willingly. Before the Anchor, her nights were no stranger than any other mortal’s, the occasional bizarre nightmare notwithstanding. After housing Solas’ magic within her body for the better part of three years, it’s left her a touch… Faded. Though her ability to mould the fade to her to her whims is still somewhat limited. She remembers Rook calling it a prison of regret. She doesn’t know anybody who lives without some regrets, and hers alone are plentiful. Perhaps not carved as deeply as Solas’, since she has lived only a fraction of a fraction of his life, but still substantial enough. Will that be sufficient enough to hold her? How long will it take to soothe Solas’ regrets so that the rest of the Fade opens to them? Is that even possible?

What she really wants right now… is a bath. Everything else can honestly wait. Where exactly is she going to go? Nowhere, because the stubborn, grumpy old wolf she adores is here and here is exactly where she wants to be. Other than in a bath. And perhaps somewhere less grey, but after the Fallow Mire, she can handle this.

Eugh, even the memory of it makes her skin crawl. A simpler time? Not at all. A better time? That remains to be seen.

“I would like a bath,” Erys says to the vast greyness of the prison, just in case that will work. Predictably, it does not, but at least she can say she tried. She tries to visualise it next, the giant tub that had honestly been the best part of her rooms in Skyhold, filled with blissfully hot water scented with those expensive Orlesian salts she’d received as a gift from Celene after Halam’shiral. The ones Josie cited as a necessity for any woman of standing. Erys had been wholly reluctant to accept such frivolous gifts to begin with, but after the first bath that left her hair soft, her muscles soothed, and her skin smelling sweetly of freesias, she had been handily won over.

That is the bath she wants now. What she wouldn’t give for even a ten-minute soak. Five. Three and a half minimum.

She’s fairly certain there’s Archdemon blood in her hair.

Something glimmers in the corner of her eye and she turns the moment it registers because for a moment she is filled with such hopeful longing that she has managed to summon a bath, but— No. Nothing. But not nothing because it cannot be a trick of the light, there is no light here. Nothing that could have caused a possible reflection so what…?

“Oh!”

She doesn’t mean to startle half as badly as she does, but the sudden rush of something small and brightly glowing towards her face makes her recoil. The thing dances and wriggles about in front of her eyes, a soft tinkling like chimes in the wind emanating from within it, accompanied by a sweet sort of chirping.

A wisp? Here?

“Well, hello,” Erys says, holding her palms out. The wisp shies away, shivering to and fro for a moment before tentatively bobbing closer. After some consideration it settles above her spread palms, sparking a tingling sort of sensation in the right one that she has to consciously attempt not to scratch. “What are you doing here? How did you get here? Please tell me you’ve not been locked in here all this time?”

The wisp tells her nothing. It chirps and twinkles but Erys doesn’t speak that language, if it even is one, so she is at a loss. It’s incredibly charming, regardless, a gentle spot of light in the gloom.

“I wonder what you are,” she muses, tilting her head. The wisp shifts slightly to the left as though mirroring her, making her smile. “You’re certainly sweet, that’s for sure. Curiosity, maybe? You can’t have been here long, though. I imagine you’d have been nastily twisted if you had.”

The wisp thrums in her palm. Erys takes that as confirmation.

“So how did you get here, then, da’len?”

It strikes her then just how apt that endearment is. Did wisps ever become Elvhen? Children, perhaps? She’ll have to ask Solas.

The wisp hums, a single, soft note that rings comfortingly through Erys’ head. For a moment she is so keenly reminded of tumbling into the Fade beside Hawke and Stroud, battling to the Nightmare in one of the worst moments of her life, fear tearing at her insides and choking her from within.

…Now why would she remember that now?

Unless…

“Memory?” She guesses, frowning at the wisp. “Are you memory?”

The wisp jangles erratically. It doesn’t quite feel like a no, but it’s not a yes either.

“Not memory… Remembrance? A specific sort of memory? Recalling? Reflection? I’m… running out of synonyms. Recollection?”

The wisp pulses frantically, fluttering manically in her palm. That same soft tone rings again through her mind and she remembers her mother’s face smiling down at her, cupping her daughter’s tiny hands around a weak, flickering flame conjured for the first time.

“Recollection,” Erys repeats softly. “Did I draw you here?” She laughs. “Was my longing for a bath that bad?”

The wisp twitters like a lark, or perhaps helps Erys to remember birdsong so well that she thinks she hears it. Either way, she is utterly charmed.

“Well, I don’t suppose you’re strong enough to help me recall a bath so avidly that one materialises, are you? That’s probably too much to hope for.”

The wisp thrums and alights from her palms, drifting towards the junction between her neck and shoulder, nuzzling under the curtain of her hair. It is sweetly warm against her skin, the memory of a sweet embrace lingering in her mind. What a gentle little creature. She feels terrible for having drawn it here somehow, but ultimately uncertain as to how. A crack in the prison? Solas would not be so careless. She’ll ask him about it when he wakes, of course, but it’s definitely worth investigating. She’s feeling dreadfully unproductive in here, without much to occupy herself with. Solas had said this place would be terrible, but perhaps boring is a better descriptor.

…Once upon a time, she would never have dared to name a Fade-crafted prison for insane god-mages boring. That undoubtedly says something about the life she’s lived.

“Would you like a memory?” She asks of the wisp, settling herself on one of the less jagged rocks nearby. “There’s not much else to occupy us with, but I’d be happy to show you some of my recollections, if you’d like.” She thinks again of the bath. She’s fairly certain that didn’t come from her own mind, but she can’t be sure. She really wants a bath. “Was that you or me?”

Jingling softly, the wisp thrums a deep, pulsing blue. Erys has to turn her head quite far to see it out of the corner of her eye because it doesn’t seem to want to move from her shoulder. She can hear the faint rush of running water, errant droplets splattering against metal… She can feel the coldness of tile beneath her feet, though they are currently wrapped in horrible shem boots. The sensations, however, are so very physical, so tangible, that if she closes her eyes, she can see her washroom in Skyhold.

She sighs wistfully, lingering in the recollection for a moment longer before opening her eyes.

To a tall tin bathtub wafting heavy clouds of steam into the air.

She blinks. The bathtub remains.

“Are you actually serious?” She blurts, scrambling off the rock towards it. She reaches out, nearly stumbling in her haste, and though she fully expects her hands to pass through the ridged edge of metal, her hands find water-heated curves solid and steady under her palm.

“Oh, you clever little wisp!” She shouts, nearly jumping in place. “Thank you, thank you!”

She has never disrobed so quickly in her life, casts her prosthetic away with far more force than one should probably use on a state-of-the-art feat of magical engineering, but she hates the thing and is probably not going to ever put it back on. Void take the damn thing.

If she gave more than a half-second of thought to it, she would probably hesitate about baring herself in her entirety in a shadowed Fade prison, but the promise of hot water is too enticing to pass up. Even if the bathtub containing it is sat squarely in the centre of a cracked and jagged island suspended in the depths of the Beyond.

Honestly? Stranger things have happened.

And oh, how wonderfully hot the water is.

“You, little wisp,” she slurs blissfully, watching it dance above her left knee, “are my new best friend.”

***

Solas finds her while her hair is still wet, and the heavy sigh of relief he lets out when he sees her makes her stomach twist guiltily. She beckons him over, keeping her hand held aloft until he takes it and kneels beside her, eyes flickering reluctantly from her face towards the wisp resting peacefully in her lap. Shock blanches his face, brows climbing rapidly up his forehead.

“I’m so sorry,” she murmurs. “I wandered while you slept, I wanted to get my bearings, and then I found this dear little thing and we’ve made some wonderful discoveries together!”

“Is that…?”

“Recollection!” Erys tells him, grinning. “Apparently my fantasies about my bath in Skyhold were a tad too overzealous. I think I drew it here.”

“Longing for something would normally be sufficient enough reason for such a spirit to investigate,” Solas says faintly. “However, the fact remains; how did it get in?”

“Well, I was hoping you would know that.”

“To my deep consternation, I do not.” He looks back at her, reaching up to curl a lock of damp hair around his finger. “Which also prompts a second question.”

“I took a bath.”

“…Vhenan, it shames me, but I must have clarification.”

“Well, we’re in the Fade, Solas,” Erys says, rather enjoying the reversal of their roles from years ago. It’s not often she is able to enlighten him. “Shaped by will and intention, isn’t that what you always said?”

“In the broadest, richest parts of the Fade, yes,” he says, rubbing a hand over his head in genuine dismay. Erys’ teasing smile drops at once and she squeezes his hand reassuringly. “Not here, in this place of death and regret. There is no life in here, vhenan. The energies of the Fade are weak and strained, I ensured it. A being as powerful as Elgar’nan would be able to easily free himself otherwise. There is nothing here but regret, you understand that it is only by my complete atonement that I will ever be permitted a chance to leave.”

“Solas,” Erys says, leaning toward him to rest her cheek against his. “‘Ma lath. I am happy to discuss this with you, truly. We can puzzle this out together. May I say something, first?”

“I— Of course, ‘ma’asha.”

“Get in the bath and then you and I will cast that horrific armour and my blasted arm into the deepest crevice we can find.”

“Bath? Arm?” He looks down at her shortened limb, then seems to see her properly for the first time; the simple tunic, the cotton leggings, the well-bound leg wraps. His expression splinters with distress. “How— Vhenan! None of this should be possible!”

“Hush!” She says, gesturing to the wisp in her lap. “Recollection helped me. It was thankful I’d shared some memories with it, and it helped me remember well enough to form some clothes. There’s nothing insidious about being able to mould the Fade in the Fade, Solas. Your prison is impregnable, I’m certain. But I have made peace with my regrets. If I hadn’t, I wouldn’t be here.”

It had been the only explanation that made sense. Solas is weak here, sleeping longer, fainter when drifting the Fade in Dreaming, unable to fully heal himself. His regrets hold him still, the prison holds him fast. But Erys made peace with her decisions during her time as Inquisitor. Her nightmares linger because she endured horrors beyond reckoning, not because she is tormented by guilt beyond what is her due. She has only ever done what she thought was right, and to the best of her ability she never let her actions be swayed by anyone’s approval. Regrets still linger, she likely will not be able to leave the prison for some time, but she is not so mired in them that she cannot access her magic.

She wouldn’t have been able to heal him otherwise.

Solas is quiet, listening, digesting the information she has given him. She watches his face settle into consideration, brow drawn and eyes shadowed but in thought this time and not distress. She watches him quietly, taking in the remnants of the wounds she could not heal; the angry red scar over his right eye; a deep gouge down through the left side of his mouth; a lance across the top of his head. All closed, all clean, but too deep for too long before she could tend to them. They will scar, she is certain. Somehow, her love for him deepens.

“Your insight, as always, is keener than mine,” Solas finally says. “You would think I would have learned to concede to your wisdom by now.”

“I think you might still have me outstripped in that, ‘ma lath,” she tells him. “Your wisdom has never steered me wrong.”

He flinches. Oh, how he flinches. “Do not—“

“Your pride, however…”

Solas crumples against her, turning his face into her neck. She wraps her arm around him tightly, drawing him as close to herself as her strength will allow. Considerably, for the soft grunt he gives against her skin.

“Get in the bath, Solas,” she bids him softly. “I have clean clothes for you. I want that armour gone and I never want to see it again. Do you hear me?”

He chokes a soft laugh into her hair. “Ma nuvenin, ‘ma vhenan.”

She stays with him, of course. Giving him privacy to lower into the bath, she settles beside the tin with the wisp cradled against her chest. For all his previous distress, even he is not immune to the blessing that is hot water, and Erys smiles smugly as he bites back a groan of relief so palpable she can almost feel it.

“Told you.”

“Mmhmmm…”

“You’re welcome, by the way.”

“Mmhmm…”

“No sleeping in the bath, okay? I don’t know what happens if you drown in the Fade.”

“I’m not going to drown, vhenan.”

“You say that, but you’re sounding very sleepy.”

“Then talk to me.” The sound of water rippling and then his hand brushes over the top of her head, scratching pleasantly through the wet strands of her hair. “Tell me things. Anything. Let me hear your voice.”

Erys doesn’t flush. At least, not where he can see. “What shall I talk about?”

“Anything. Everything.”

Erys hums thoughtfully. “Well… Oh, that patisserie you like in Orlais changed the recipe of the icing they use in their frilly cakes.”

Solas makes a sound of mortal offence. “Why would they do that?”

“Some fad, I think. Josie was ranting about it for an hour.”

“When was this?”

“About a year after the Exalted Council. I was there on business. You know, I was under the impression that disbanding the Inquisition would give me a bit of free time. I was very wrong.”

“You disbanded the Inquisition to hunt me,” Solas reminds her. “So in essence, you didn’t disband it at all. You simply… downsized.”

“Significantly,” Erys grumbles. “I couldn’t risk it. Knowing how deeply entrenched your agents were in the Inquisition made it necessary.”

“And yet you continued to look for me.”

Erys snorts. “No, ‘ma’sa’lath, I did not look for you, as one looks for a missing book or errant quill. I hunted you. With single-minded determination for eight long years, I hunted you across Thedas, torn between ripping your heart out or throwing myself at your feet.”

Solas’ next breath is unsteady. “I wish… With all my heart, I wish that I had remained.”

“No, you don’t,” Erys says softly.

“Vhenan, I—“

“To claim such is dishonest and I swore I would not have that from you,” Erys says, getting to her feet. She turns, keeping her eyes on Solas’ face to preserve his dignity, and perching on the edge of the bathtub to better meet his gaze. “You may have ardently wished to remain, but don’t deny the part of your heart that ached to rectify your mistake.”

Solas stares at her, lips parted, expression twisted into something deeply pained yet oddly relieved. “You call it a mistake.”

“It was a mistake,” Erys says. “I never claimed otherwise. Solas, I never asked you not to bring down the Veil. I asked you to let me help. To find a way to do it without sacrificing the elves who live and suffer today. I believe you think that there is no way to do it, but I also know that your pride is your keenest weakness. Can you honestly tell me that your wisdom spans the depths it did before you took a body?”

If Solas were able to answer, Erys is sure that he would. As it stands, he doesn’t currently seem capable of forming words, caught between some deep level of horror and a surprising cut of grief.

“Solas?” She leans towards him. “‘Ma fen, what is it?”

When he finally manages to force them out, his hoarse words shudder through him. “How do you know that?”

“Oh, Solas,” Erys sighs, reaching out to cup his cheek. “I am sorry, ‘ma lath. There are a lot of things I wish I had first heard from your lips, but circumstances made enemies of us, and my allies reported everything of note that they could.” She shakes her head sadly. “It was your murals in the Lighthouse. I haven’t seen them, but Rook told me of the memories you hid.”

Solas bows his head and Erys is seized with such a surge of guilt that it sickens her. She wants to reassure him but she doesn’t even know if she can. To have the worst of yourself made bare to anyone, least of all the person you have given your heart to, must be a mighty wound to endure.

“Look away, please.”

His request is soft, flat, defeated. It takes a moment for Erys to understand but she is quick to obey once she does, turning her back to him so that he can leave the bath. She keeps her back turned, agonising for a veritable eternity over what she can say, how best to apologise for her misstep, until Solas steps into her line of sight, damp and flushed from the hot water, dressed in Recollections gifted clothes. Clothes so familiar that it steals her breath. The long tunic, the leg wraps, the weathered, torn trousers. Every inch the man he had been when she opened her heart to him. Every inch the man she had known him to be. Knows him to be.

And yet. “Your necklace. Recollection could not— Even though I remember it so vividly—“

“I am not fit to wear it,” Solas tells her. “It was a reminder of my duty and my oath. I upheld neither.”

“How can you say that?”

“Because it is true,” Solas says. He looks past her, lost in memory she is not privy to. “It was to be a warning. That the Dread Wolf rose to free the People, to stay the course and not turn to cruelty. I failed in that, so I may no longer wear it.”

If it hurts him, he is concealing it well. That is all the evidence Erys needs to understand that he is in agony. He never speaks so flatly as when he is shielding himself, the wolf hiding its pain, ready to lash out if threatened.

“Tell me,” she says. “Tell me why.”

His expression shutters, guarded. “Why I failed?”

“Why you rose to free the People.”

“Why I—“ He blanches, stunned. “How can you ask me that? The subjugation of the People, the domination of their minds, their bodies and their wills, it was an abomination. Elgar’nan had careened past any semblance of decency or morality from the moment he took his first corporeal steps! His tyranny was inevitable and looking back I should never have let it get so far. I should have— Killed him before he could amass so much power, I should have—“

“Why didn’t you?”

Solas falls silent. His eyes flicker restlessly over her face like she is a puzzle to be solved or, more likely, why she is asking him questions she knows will hurt him. She will not give him new wounds. She will reopen old ones to excise the infection within. She will not watch him fall to any poison she can cure, so she meets his gaze steadily though she trembles inside. “Why didn’t you kill him, Solas? Why did you hold back? Why did you let him gather enough power to subjugate the titans?”

Solas recoils as if struck. “I would— I would have— These awful truths that you know, what you think you understand—“

“Curtail your pride, Solas,” Erys says, rising to her feet. “Disabuse yourself of the notion that you are going to be hurt. I am not asking you these things to harm you, I am simply seeking understanding.”

“That you know these things at all hurts me,” Solas hisses. “To have my shame known by you, of all people—“

“Why is Elgar’nan’s cruelty your shame?” Erys counters. “Were you the only one who could have killed him? Could you have bested him in strength?”

“No, I—“

“Could you match him in raw power?”

“That is— No.”

“Then why were his crimes your fault?”

“Because I knew he was wrong and did nothing!” Solas cries. “Until it was too late! Until every Elvhen bore the brands of servitude to masters who should never have existed! I watched him, Erys! From the moment I formed my body, took breath into my lungs, I saw the wretch he would become. I did nothing. Empty words, empty threats, I did not act.”

“You did not,” Erys agrees. “Why?”

“Vhenan,” Solas moans mournfully. “You torture me.”

“No, Solas,” Erys says. “Never that, emma lath. I just want to understand.”

He covers his face, shoulders taut and tense, curled up to his ears as though to ward off blows. In that moment, Erys is filled with a hatred so deep and so bitter that she can scarcely contain it. “I think you trusted the wrong person,” She says, as calmly as she can force herself to remain. “And I think you and countless others suffered for it.”

Solas raises his head. “I did not trust Elgar’nan. He could never be worthy of such a thing.”

“I’m not talking about Elgar’nan. I’m talking about the one who reduced you to a quivering child with the mere spectre of her form.”

Solas’ breath catches. “I… I was never a child.” But he looks uncertain, confused, and worse still beneath the confusion, Erys can see the pain of his dawning realisation. “No. No.”

“You were Wisdom once,” Erys murmurs. Solas’ face cracks, a shuddering sob ripping from his chest. It is an old wound, it must be cleansed. “The mere act of taking a body twisted you from your purpose, didn’t it? Tell me what happened, Solas. I am here with you ‘ma vhenan. I want to hear it from you.”

“I didn’t want it,” Solas admits in a whisper, heartbroken and diminished, so far from what he should be that it hurts her to witness it. “I didn’t— There are no words in Trade that could articulate— It was an abhorrent notion deep in the core of myself. To sever the full scope of what I was, to condense myself into a stunted, blinkered form in order to—“

“To fight.”

“To command,” Solas corrects bitterly. “And yet I would not be the strategist I had hoped I would be. My only consolation was that I thought I would be able to guide, as I had for millennia. To find a way forward, to provide wisdom where it was sorely needed. Instead, I was formed to bloodshed and carnage and forced to command, to lead, and to kill!” He turns away from her, but not to shut her out, though her heart leaps in fear. He is simply restless, caught in painful memory, unable to remain still lest the pain of it overpower him. He paces back and forth, clutching at his arms, holding himself together so the form he hates so much doesn’t break apart and leave him shattered all over again.

“She said she needed my wisdom,” Solas grits out. “She was my dearest companion. I would have followed her into the Void, into madness. And I did. I should not have followed her; I should not have neutered myself to become her war hound. I am complicit and I am guilty. But— she should not have asked that of me.”

A lifetime ago, when Solas told her of ancient wars and mages raised to godhood, he spoke of Mythal’s murder as one prepared to exhume and tear apart those responsible again and again, until the end of time itself. A weary but all-encompassing sense of grief that reached deeper than Erys could fathom, a grim certainty that he would have vengeance for his dearest friend. Had it been her in his position, had she lost Cassandra or Josie or Dorian, any of her beloved companions, she would have torn the Breach open anew to rain fire upon those responsible.

What can she say to that? How can she agree or absolve him of something so vicious? It is not right, it is not just, but neither was calling him into a body and binding him into service. Did Mythal know? Could she comprehend the full scope of what she had asked of him? Perhaps, perhaps not. Like him, like all the other Evanuris, she was a spirit turned Elvhen; her purpose was surely as twisted as the rest of them. What right does Erys have to judge her for her mistakes when all she wants to do is help Solas to forgive his own? Simply put, she does not. Without the knowledge or the context, without experience or impartiality, Erys will never be able to understand. The right of judgement is not hers and neither does she seek to claim it. She bloodied her hands more than enough when calling judgement as the leader of the Inquisition, she has no desire to pass her verdict on sins of the past. She can freely hate the cruelty of the Creators, which she does with a passion that scares her, but it is not her place to pass judgement on the choices they made in another life, another time.

“You trusted her to leash Elgar’nan’s ambition,” Erys says quietly. “Neither of you wanted to admit that it couldn’t be done.”

“It could not,” Solas agrees. “How could it? Mythal was retribution, swifter than the tide. She would have vengeance for the lives lost to the Titan’s rage, and she needed Elgar’nan’s power to obtain it. I wanted her to see reason, thought myself above the taint that seeped into the rest of their hearts, but I was just as corrupted as the rest. She would not turn away from him and so I could not turn away from her.”

“But you did.”

Solas shakes his head. “I— tried. She was slain before I could free myself from the duty she had charged me with. Instead of parting from her on my terms, instead of freeing myself from the bindings of her expectations, she was taken from me and I was left with shackles and no key to unlock them. Stuck, imprisoned, grieving.”

So, the rebellion came second. Solas parted from Mythal and her unwillingness to admit she could not temper Elgar’nan’s tyranny, and he rose with the People against them all. She would not join him, but perhaps… Perhaps she would have. Had she not been killed, would she eventually have joined him, as he had hoped she would?

How long has Solas spent agonising over these same questions?

“You… disregarded the hurt she caused because you loved her,” she says slowly. Solas meets her gaze, weary, aggrieved. “Do not treat me as you treated her, and I won’t do the same. I won’t disregard the mistakes you have made to ease your conscience, but I will listen, and I will accept your remorse. I want no claim over your will, nor your spirit. I just want you to accept what has been done, and to absolve yourself of the guilt. I can’t do it for you, ‘ma lath.”

“I never…” He clears his throat, shaking his head. “I didn’t want to admit that she hurt me. To do so was to give her a power over me that my pride would not accept.”

“Mythal is not responsible for all the hurt you have suffered,” Erys tells him gently. “She was but one catalyst among many. Our capacity for hurt increase the more love we have to give. And you, da’fen, have more love to give than most.”

Solas exhales slowly, a tremulous breath that might have been a laugh if the deepest sort of grief didn’t hang so heavily in his eyes. “I doubt it could compare.”

“To mine?”

“Yes.”

Erys hums and dispenses with the careful distance between them. She steps forward, watching the ache of hope hang heavy in Solas’ eyes as she approaches, and gifts him a soft smile as she brushes her fingers across his brow, down the proud ridge of his nose. His eyelashes flutter and he twitches under her touch, thrumming like a taut bowstring. As well-controlled a flinch as has ever seen. “Do you remember my vallaslin, ‘ma lath?”

“Yes.” Mythal’s branches had anointed her brow once. “It was… confusing.”

“I can understand that. Perhaps more clearly than I ever could.”

A trembling sigh. “I cared not for you beyond my own magic carved into your skin. I thought— To use you. To guide you down the path I would lay for you. The sight of her mark on your face just made it easier for me to hate you, at first.”

Erys’ smile strains at the corners. “I said I understand, but that’s still rather difficult to hear, vhenan.”

“I said that made it easier, not that I ever did.” He reaches out, tracing her bare forehead, similarly to how she had touched him. His hands are warm, fingers calloused and so very gentle against her skin. “You must remember, I did not see any of you as people, back then. You were a weapon I could wield, as much an extension of my power as the orb had been, or the staff I had been forced to rely on.” His lips twist with displeasure. “To see you marked – however unknowingly – to honour Mythal, it…” He does not finish that thought. He does not need to.

“And somehow I managed to sneak past your defences anyway,” Erys says, trying to offer something to lighten the oppression of his pain.

It works, he laughs, faint but real. “You didn’t sneak, vhenan. You crashed through them like a charging druffalo. From the moment you first sought me out in Haven, even if it was just for the reassurance of another pair of pointed ears, you had so many questions. Even when my opinions frustrated you, you refused to part unless we reached some form of understanding, a happy medium where our viewpoints could align. You were relentless.” He chuckles fondly. “And I had never been gladder for anything in my life.”

“That’s a lie,” Erys laughs. “I drove you mad, don’t deny it.”

“You did, in the best of ways. A puzzle I was desperate to solve, a mystery I had to understand. A rare and—“

“Marvellous spirit, I remember. Hard to forget, nobody in existence flirts like you do, Solas. That should have been my first clue that you weren’t who you claimed to be.”

He huffs. “I was— adjusting.”

“Not well,” Erys teases. “Didn’t Bull have to stop you from choking the time I tore my breastband at camp? I’d never seen stew leave someone’s mouth at such high velocity before, it was impressive.”

Solas’ eyes widen. “I’d almost forgotten about that. You know you don’t have to remind me of my worst moments.”

“Where exactly does that memory sit on your scale of worst moments, then? Considering your long and fraught history? I want to know if I should be offended on behalf of my breasts.”

Solas chokes. Again. “Wretched woman.”

 “I’m serious!” She looks down at herself. “I always thought they were perfectly acceptable, what was it about them that offended you so?”

“Erys, you exist to torment me.”

“I do, yes.” She grins. “And to love you. And loving you also provides me with the privilege of mocking you, because somebody has to keep you humble. So what was it? The fact that I tore it during supper and they caught you by surprise? Or did their shape offend you? I imagine things were perkier during the days of Elvhenan—“

“Are those my only options?”

“If you can provide a third, I’m all ears.”

“How did we get here?”

“I wanted to see you smile.”

“By terrorising me?”

“It worked.”

He can’t deny it and he knows it. His scowl is diminished, rendered utterly ineffectual by the way his lips twitch with poorly restrained amusement. He’s actively fighting the smile she is determined to draw out and, seized by such a sudden and deep affection for her foolish wolf, Erys leans up on her toes and presses the softest kiss to his lips.

A sharp breath passes between them, Solas stiffening against her. She draws back, confused, meets the wide-eyed shock of his gaze.

“Solas? Do you not—“

He reaches for her face, cupping it between his palms. His wide eyes blaze at her, suddenly arrested by some dawning realisation she can’t follow.

“Erys,” he says, her name a benediction on his lips. “Come with me.”

“I— What? Where?”

“To the Fade,” Solas says, low and urgent. “Stay here with me, by my side. Follow where I go, lead me where you choose, just let us take every step together. Promise me it was your choice to join me here, swear to me that this is truly what you want. I’m asking you now, for— for myself. Stay with me. Sathan.”

Her heart throbs painfully. Oh. This foolish wolf of hers. How uniquely he treats his own wounds, how unaccustomed he is to letting himself. To ask her to remain when she cannot leave would be ridiculous under any other circumstance. But she has already made her choice, he just wants her to know that he wants her here, that he needs to hear her make the choice, to affirm what they both already know.

He wants the reassurance that she has chosen him. As if she had not made that choice a decade ago.

“Ame undara,” she tells him, an oath etched deep into her bones. “‘Ma felasil.”

He laughs, sweet and overwhelmed. He presses his lips to her brow, breath hitching soft and warm against her skin. He nuzzles her gently, cradling her like something precious. She aches sweetly in her heart, warm to the furthest reaches of her body.

They are going to be okay.

Chapter Text

While the prison constrains much of their magic, it means Erys is unable to conjure extensively within their temporary home to afford them the comfort that she wants. She can twist the weaker energies that linger here to create small items of necessity, like soap and fruits but nothing too grand or corporeal. The fruits she only summoned because it became clear very quickly that while they exist fully within the Fade now, they are still corporeal and therefore at the mercy of their bodies’ physical limitations. They still require sleep, food, and water, which Erys can provide for them without much difficulty – Solas is still bound by regret and far less able to cast effectively at all – but so far she hasn’t been able to do much for physical comfort beyond clothes. No shelter is forthcoming, though with each passing… moment? – she has no idea how to mark the time here, honestly – she keeps trying to imagine her rooms in Skyhold hard enough to manifest them.

So far, she is unsuccessful. She did manage to craft a pillow, at which Solas had laughed so heartily she had been forced to clobber him with it until it burst in a swarm of down and fluff. She is unrepentant.

“You could try helping,” she grumbles, forced to take a moment’s respite after potential hours of continuous casting. She could do with one of those clever Tevinter palm-clocks, the ones she had seen Magisters wear on chains. Anything to mark the passage of time, really. She has added a blanket to their modest pile of supplies, at least, and is currently collecting them all into a basket; the last item she had managed to craft with any real success. “Are you unable to cast at all?”

“It appears so,” Solas says, currently sat cross-legged on the ground with his eyes closed. “I am as limited as I was when Rook’s interference bound me here, perhaps more so in my weakened state. And I am endeavouring to help. I think if I can gather enough ambient energy from the Fade, I should be able to fashion something of use.”

“I’d like to request an Orlesian summer house, if you can manage it.”

He cracks an eye open to give her a look. “I’ll bear that in mind.”

“I appreciate it. Perhaps a long-term goal, though. For now I’d happily settle for one of the Inquisition’s awful canvas tents. It would at least be familiar, and I wouldn’t feel so exposed when we sleep. The absence of weather is disorienting, and the space is so vast that I can’t quite get comfortable.”

She would feel a bit bad about complaining so much about their new home if it wasn’t a fathomless pit of regret and hopelessness designed to trap blighted god-mages from the dawn of time. She can’t imagine Solas gave much thought to interior design when he made this place. If he did, she’s going to need to have a talk with him about his aesthetic sense. Or keen lack thereof. Dorian and Vivienne were right, it seems. How a Dalish outcast from the Free Marches has a better eye for comfort than an ancient Lord from the height of their People’s great empire, she will never understand.

It’s quite funny, really.

“The fully-formed tent may currently be… beyond me,” Solas admits with such disdain she has to swallow a laugh. “But if you’re happy to assemble it yourself, I could possibly make something happen.”

“Give me sticks and cloth, Solas, and I’ll craft you an aravel worthy of a High Keeper,” Erys vows. “Your Dalish woman has a trick or two up her sleeve, I can promise you.”

“My Dalish woman?”

“That’s right. Some rope and flint and I could make a camp a home. I may have been a First, but I wouldn’t be worth anything as a bondmate if I couldn’t tend a camp.”

“So was the proclamation intended to reinforce that you’re Dalish or that you’re mine?”

Erys grins, glancing over at him. His eyes are closed again but he’s smiling. “You were already aware of both of those, which one is confusing you?”

“I’m still adjusting to the latter, honestly. I’ve always been vividly aware of your Dalish roots.”

“Prissy Arlathan nobles,” Erys sniffs. “You should try slumming it with our lot.”

“Did you drag someone else through the Fallow Mire, vhenan?”

“Several people. You just complained the loudest.”

“I did no such thing.”

“Yes. Yes, you did.”

“Need I remind you that I led a rebellion? Comfort was hardly paramount.”

“You led it with Skyhold as your fortress. You hardly slept in caves.”

“I have slept in caves!”

“Thank you for bravely sharing your story. It will be performed in theatres across Thedas for ages to come.”

He mutters something that sounds suspiciously like disrespectful Dalish, so she throws a handful of grapes at his head. One pings off the tip of his nose and he makes such an offended sound that she falls about with helpless laughter.

“Come here, ‘ma vhenan’solan. Stop pouting and help me light this fire.” He does, though he flicks a grape at the back of her head in petulant retribution.

“Don’t tell me you still can’t work a flame?” He scoffs at her. “How many years have you been practicing magic?”

“First of all: shut up,” Erys tells him primly. He snickers. “Second of all: I am a frost mage. Fire never came easily, you know that, so I’ve got no chance of summoning flame here.”

“If I recall correctly, didn’t you follow the path of the Knight Enchanter?”

“I did! Quite happily until I lost my sword arm.”

That shuts him up. She’s getting rather good at this.

“You know I don’t blame you for that,” she adds, beckoning to him. He kneels before her, across the little bundle of sticks and dried moss she has pulled from the dead crevices of his prison. She has the power he currently lacks, but he has the knowledge she does not possess. Together, one of his hands above hers, they channel enough magic into the bracken to set it alight. It has been eight years since they last wove magic together and it feels just as sweet as it used to.

“Perfect,” she hums, settling back on her feet. “I’ll make us a home in this place yet, Solas, you mark my words.”

“So you keep saying. Is this some strange Dalish courtship ritual I’m unaware of?”

“It might be. Why, feeling courted?”

“I’m not entirely sure, I don’t think I’ve ever been courted. Especially not Dalish-ly.”

“And you never will,” Erys sniffs primly, tapping her hand against Solas’ until he begins to rub it between both of his, helping to warm it above the fire. “I certainly won’t be the one responsible for courting in this situation of ours.”

Solas quirks a brow. “No? Is that because I’m male or because I’m… Older? I’m not sure of the parameters.”

She gives him a look. “I’ve been chasing after you for a decade, Solas, that just screams desperate at this point.”

He risks his life by laughing but Erys is far too happy to see him smile to chastise him for it. “I doubt you spent the entire time chasing me with the intent to rekindle an old flame, vhenan.”

“Perhaps the oldest of flames. And it’s funny you should say that. When I followed that lead to the Brecillian Forest I nearly burned the entire place down to smoke you out. Of course, it was all bullshit and you were actually in Rivain doing Void knows what. In your defence, though, that was a particularly trying year for me. I may have been projecting somewhat. Misdirected anger... Or something.”

“Nine-forty-six,” Solas says, grimacing. “I remember. I… feel like I should probably tell you, for all that it might earn me a rather violent reprisal… I was actually there.”

Erys hollers. “I knew it! I knew you were there! I told Leliana’s that her intel was faulty, and she wouldn’t believe me. She said she’d verified it through her people but – and forgive me for saying this – unless she verified it in person, it was always going to be fallible information.” She grunts unhappily. “I knew it.”

“Perhaps it was for the best. I’m not sure how well you would have dealt with the consequences of a forest fire quite that big.”

Erys rolls her eyes. “Where were you, though? I sent scouts into that dingy old fort, but we only found a broken eluvian. I assumed you’d slipped through and smashed it, but Varric said I was starting to sound crazy.”

Solas offers her a pained smile. “It wasn’t the proudest moment of my campaign, I’ll tell you that... I hid in the coal store.”

Erys stares at him. “…You were about six feet away from me.”

“I was,” Solas admits. His expression softens with such a deep sense of longing that her heart stutters in her breast. “It was the first time I’d heard your voice in so long that I almost braved your fury just to see you again. It would be worth the risk, I thought. At least to my physical wellbeing.” He smiles sadly. “I wish more than anything that I had. Or that I’d let you turn me away from my path when you found me in the ruins— No, that night in Crestwood. That… Will always be my deepest regret.”

“The deepest?” Erys asks, startled. “Out of all of them?”

“Does that surprise you?”

“You could say that, yes.” In what universe does leaving behind a mortal woman compare to any of the other horrific things he did in the name of duty and love for the People, or the terrible mistakes he made while blinded by his own arrogance and pride? The man may be genuinely insane. “I’m still not courting you,” she blurts out instead of anything intelligent, because trying to reconcile all of that is just far too complex for her to handle right now. “It is absolutely your turn now.”

“Those terms are more than agreeable,” Solas says, tone thick with amusement. “But what was that face you made just now?”

“I’m doubting your sanity, honestly.”

“You’d not be the first.”

“That’s not reassuring?”

“No, but it is honest. Clarity in all things, vhenan. That is the promise I make to you now. You have but to ask and all the knowledge of my years, whatever wisdom I still possess, is yours.”

And isn’t that a wonder? Anything she could ask of him now he will answer. He had already proven that when she struck at the heart of his grief over Mythal. It hurt him and she pushed but he answered and now he kneels before her, warming their hands over a fire they lit together, teasing her, laughing with her, enjoying a moment of peace between the baring of his burdens. She may not have dreamed of this precise destination when she resolved to save him from himself all those years ago, but this, at least, she could never regret.

“Then can I ask you something slightly pressing?”

“By all means.”

“How are you planning on soothing the Blight if you’re stuck in here?”

“By careful and meticulous process,” is Solas’ unhelpful answer, which very nearly earns him a face-full of frost, but then he carries on and Erys silently chastises herself for her impatience. “I cannot leave this place, vhenan. I do not know if I will ever be able to make peace with my regrets to the point where I would be able to. But while I am here and once my strength has returned to me, I will begin in earnest to atone.”

“But… How?” Erys asks. Solas frowns at her. “No, really, how? Wouldn’t you need to get to the Black City?”

“…Yes…” Solas says slowly, giving her an odd look.

“And how do you plan on getting there if you can’t leave this prison? You don’t intend to attempt it while you dream, do you?” Erys’ chest seizes with sudden panic. “Please tell me that’s not your plan. Even to me that sounds incredibly dangerous. If anything happened to you, you’d end up Tranquil or-“

“Vhenan,” Solas says, squeezing her hand gently. “Be calm, please. Ir abelas, I’m not sure quite how to say this…”

“Well, you need to,” Erys snaps. “Otherwise I’m going to be agonising over the worst possibilities imaginable. How do you plan on getting to the Black City and what do you plan to do to soothe the Titans’ madness? I swear on everything that I am, Solas, if you’re planning on some great, self-sacrificing nonsense I will never forgive you and I will learn necromancy just to bring you back so that I can-”

“I created this prison,” Solas says, tugging her arm to guide her around the far to his side. Her knees scrape against the jagged ground, snagging at her leggings but she barely notices. He draws her hand to his chest, reaching up to cup her face with the other. “I created it to bind the Evanuris, to draw upon their own life force to keep them trapped. Regret would have held them captive for millennia, for even in their arrogance, they held regrets. The loss of potential; paths not walked, words not spoken, acts not committed, each of them can drive deeper than a blade and hold one locked in a self-made prison. I made that prison manifest.” He smiles bitterly. “And that is where I have brought you.”

“Where I chose to follow you,” Erys counters. “I told you, if we are together, it will not be terrible. The Fade itself is stronger than your manifestations, Solas. I wouldn’t be able to cast here if it wasn’t. Your prison would bind me, too.”

Solas’ smile softens into something more genuine. “Astute as always, ‘ma vhenan. And it does bind you, to some extent. It would take a great deal of power to free you, but I think it would be possible as you are now.”

“That’s the most irrelevant thing you’ve ever said,” Erys says hotly. She ignores the slightly offended twist of Solas’ expression because honestly. “Why would I need to hear about that? Why would I care about that? Why would I want you to free me if you would still be trapped here? Solas, aren’t you supposed to be clever?”

“…You are anxious, which I will take as the reason for your attitude.”

“If you like, but I think I’d prefer it if you were a little bit insulted. You can answer questions briefly, you know? I adore your voice and could listen to it for hours but not when you’re speaking effusively to distract me.”

“I am not-“ Solas cuts himself off, taking a deep, slow breath. He opens his eyes on the exhale, fixing her with an apologetic grimace. “…That is exactly what I was doing. Ir abelas.”

She slips her hand from his to jab him in the chest. “Tel’abelas. I know old habits are hard to break, but you need to try, Solas.”

“You are right, of course.” He takes her hand again, lifting it to press a kiss to her palm. “Please, vhenan, know that I am trying. I am… torn between protecting both of us and fighting the instinct that refuses to let me lower my guard. I trust you, please don’t think that I don’t, but I am…”

“Struggling,” Erys offers, sighing when he winces. “Solas, it’s alright if you don’t trust me.”

He looks aghast at the mere suggestion. “I have no reason not to trust you. You have- I told you in Skyhold that you had proven yourself a true friend to me- After all that I have done to you, everything that you have done for me, I-“

“I probably did prove myself,” Erys says. “And I wanted to, I wanted you to know that you could trust me, that I cared for you. You can trust me and I know that you know that, ‘ma lath, I know you do.” She leans up on her knees to nudge her forehead against his. “But that doesn’t mean you do trust me. I don’t think you’ve trusted anyone for… a very long time. It makes sense that you’ve forgotten how.”

It should probably hurt her. If she wasn’t learning – slowly – the parts of his past that have carved him so indelibly into the man before her, it would hurt her deeply to know that he doesn’t trust her. Instead, the only pain she feels is for him, for this wounded man who has made so many mistakes and known so many betrayals. He has lived a life of give and take, where the only gifts bestowed and received are distrust, betrayal, and grief.

How could he trust her? How could he trust anyone?

What matters is that he wants to. And one day he will.

“How can you bear that?” He asks in a whisper, leaning his forehead more heavily against her own. “How can you stand loving someone who does not trust you? I have done nothing to earn your trust and knowing that you have reason for your distrust in me does not make the guilt any easier to bear.”

She hates how uncertain he sounds. It is to be expected, he has led himself astray so many times, lost faith in his own wisdom under his hated, twisted nature. But to hear him so desperately uncertain is still a jagged tear in her heart. Yet all she can offer him is honesty, for whatever cold reassurance that may be. “I trust your heart, Solas,” she says. “I do not trust your mind. You are cold and calculating and you possess as much capacity for cruelty as any proud being can. I have seen it, I have felt it. You have lived in trickery for so long, but it is part of you, and I cannot claim to love you if I do not accept your faults.

“I do love you, Solas. But I won’t trust you fully until you unguard your heart. You won’t let me trust you.”

He turns his head sharply and pitches forward, nuzzling himself into the crook of her neck. She sighs softly, wrapping her arm around his trembling shoulders and letting him take whatever comfort there is to be found there.

“I do not want to think that this is my nature,” Solas mumbles miserably into her shoulder. “I do not want to be- this.”

“Oh, Solas.” She rubs her cheek against his temple. “Please don’t think me cruel for saying this, but… You aren’t a spirit any longer, you haven’t been for so long. Your nature is not set in stone. You cannot live in absolutes anymore. Why can you fully appreciate the nuance of living but not allow it in yourself?”

A laugh, shaky against her throat. “If I knew, vhenan, I would not be as I am…”

“We can figure it out together,” Erys promises. “You aren’t Wisdom or Pride anymore, my love. We can find out what that means together.”

One last shuddering breath and he nods. “That… means more to me than I can say, vhenan. Serannasan ma.”

She accepts his thanks in silence, appreciating the intention more than the actual sentiment. To be thanked for such things feels wrong, though his expression of gratitude is heartening. It must be terrifying to be faced with the truth of knowing so little about the person you have become, but that sympathy is dependant on his willingness to change himself. Even Cole had been prepared to change, if he felt the need to. She hadn’t been able to bring herself to ask that of him, and now she understands why Solas had been so vehemently opposed to Cole changing at all.

It scared him. To see a spirit do so challenged everything that he believed about his very being; that the only change he could accept was what was wrought upon him unwillingly. Wisdom twisted to Pride, duty before all else. No room within him for anything that deviated from the path he set himself upon, first the rebellion and then the Veil.

Such absolutes for a man who prizes the free will of all thinking beings above all else. Why is the freedom to choose something that he thinks belongs solely to others?

She supposes that, with time, they will find out.

***

Erys is now fairly certain of a number of things.

Firstly, her sense of time is so far beyond distorted she isn’t entirely sure how long they’ve been here or what constitutes a day and night cycle in any conceivable way. Given that the only way she has to mark the passage of time is through her own weariness, the day begins when she wakes and ends when she sleeps and whatever happens in between is just… everything else. The absence of the sun doesn’t seem to be impacting her physical health in any way and Solas’ answer had been – to his credit – as helpful as it had been cryptic. Fully unintentionally, she had realised at the time. Not wilful obfuscation, just his usual manner of speech.

“This was our kind’s first home,” he’d said, and Erys had tried not to make it too obvious how happy it made her to hear him refer to the Elvhen as their kind. “The lineage of your spirit recognises what your self has forgotten.”

That’s all well and good, but she still gets hungry. Just because she isn’t about to develop some form of brittle bone condition from lack of sunlight doesn’t mean she can go without other sources of sustenance. She’s thirty-two, she’s not exactly well-versed in the practice of subsisting solely on the raw energy of the Fade.

Secondly, the prison’s constraints on her magic seem to lessen the longer they spend here. They remain in the Fade, though cut off from the wider realm of it, but everything is still shaped by intention and will. Regardless of the finer points of Solas’ prison, which she honestly doesn’t care to understand too deeply, her intrinsic reservoir of power is still available to her. Like a weakened or injured muscle, something about entering this place has dampened her abilities – likely Solas’ intention to help keep the Evanuris restrained while their soul-deep regrets ensured the rest – but as with any muscle, she can strengthen it with determination and effort. Or, as was the case when she was an exuberant child with little to no self-restraint and a veritable bounty of enthusiasm, she’ll brute force it until she gets the desired result. There are no unfortunate aravels to accidentally set on fire in here, though she’s not entirely proud of how badly one of her spells misfired in Solas’ general direction. She certainly won’t be apologising for it any time soon, though. It hadn’t taken him too long to thaw out the ice encasing his legs. At least, not by her reckoning.

Thirdly, and perhaps most critically, Erys is very firmly convinced that this oh-so shadowy and mysterious Fade Prison of Solas’ design… is part of the Black City.

It is not a pleasant thought. At all.

She has yet to confront Solas about it because they are unofficially avoiding each other. Not because she encased his legs in ice for well over an hour while fully aware that he is still recuperating and therefore not able to summon enough heat to melt it, but because Solas is currently very uncertain and yet very set in his ways. He gravitates toward her naturally, a reassuring equilibrium that is remarkably easy to fall back into even after all this time, but he still needs solitude to work through the sort of thoughts he can’t yet let himself voice aloud. Erys is happy to afford him this courtesy, mostly because she doesn’t trust herself not to demand he explain everything before he is ready, but also because she is trying to reconcile her own thoughts on the matter. It is… remarkably hard to ache for the company of someone you cannot fully trust yet, even more so when there is no one else to offer any form of mediation for any potentially tense interactions. She is still so afraid of upsetting Solas, despite her vow to show him no quarter when it comes to honesty, and she doesn’t know how well she could handle him turning away from her here. Logically she knows he would not, but the old fear lingers, healing far more slowly than she would like.

Of course this was never going to be easy, but she expected a little less… tension. Or, at the very least, she had hoped any tension they experienced would be of the slightly more sensual variety, so she is still working through the disappointment of that.

Just a little.

Being faced with the reality of a broken thing not easily fixed is daunting. She knows the feeling well, it dogged her steps when she led the Inquisition, the physical manifestation of it seared into the jagged sky. Being faced with it here, though, she can accept. She chose this. She chose him.

But honestly. The Black City? If that is actually where they are, she may freeze more than his legs this time.

For now, though, she is content enough to bide her time. While Solas wanders, she works. With her newfound freedom of formation, she gets to work on making their promised home. It is not easy to do one handed, so she doesn’t. Having abandoned that wretched prosthetic the first opportunity she got and not regretting it in the slightest, the first task on her list is forming a suitable replacement. She is not versed enough in engineering to craft a prosthetic of her own, nor does she want to, but for all she lacks the manual knowledge of crafting, she makes up for in her understanding of magic. And here, in this place of thought and will, she is able to focus that will into something tangible, something real.

The flickering spectre of a forearm with the memory of sensation is far better suited to her needs than a mechanical limb she neither wanted nor asked for. It is difficult, more error than trial, but Solas’ encouragements are heartening, in those sweet moments he breaks his solitude to rejoin her. No matter how far he wanders, he always returns to their campfire when he tires, and they fall into the Dreaming wrapped in one another’s arms. It is a comfort, if a small one, because when they slip into sleep and allow their unconscious minds to expand into the full expanse of the Fade, Solas does not let himself touch her dreams. He will lie beside her, hold her against him, press soft kisses into her hair and praise her attempts to strengthen her grasp on the Fade…

But he will not join her dreams.

She wonders if he is punishing himself. Alright, that is an incredibly stupid thing to wonder, of course he’s punishing himself, she just doesn’t know the specific reason he’s chosen for this current period of self-flagellation. There are a lot of things he has done wrong, a lot of heinous, horrific, blood-chilling things, but she knew that before she joined him here. Does he think she just jumped into that jagged Fade tear on a whim? Does he think that, even after all this time, she is not painfully aware of his most critical faults? Genuinely?

She snaps awake in a cold sweat with that lone thought ringing like a bell peak in her head. Sweat pools in the small of her back, neck prickling with discomfort because that one, single thought is all she can focus on. It had cracked her dreams right down the middle, dragging her to consciousness with all the grace of a charging gurgut.

“Solas.” She shakes him. Quite roughly, truth be told, but she’s only half awake and desperate to allay her sudden and untenable fears. “Wake up, Solas!”

Obediently, he does, with all the ease and grace he has always possessed when waking. None. He scrunches his face up, blinking blearily towards the flat, grey sky of their prison, a low, unhappy grumble stirring deep in his throat. He yawns, jaw cracking, rubbing a hand over his face, quite contentedly discontent to drag himself into consciousness at his own pace while Erys vibrates with anxiety beside him.

She gives up on patience after his third jaw-splitting yawn, slipping a hand beneath his shirt, cold called to her palm.

“Fenedhis—“ He jerks away from her with a wounded sort of yelp, scrambling upright clumsily. “What was that for?!”

“You take too long to wake up!”

“Too long for what? What’s going on?” He scrubs at his face roughly. “Erys, why—“

“I had the worst thought and I’m panicking,” Erys snaps at him. She feels bad for a split second of clarity and no doubt will feel even worse about it once she’s more clear-headed, but right now you will excuse her for being less than composed. “Solas, do you think I’m here because I don’t know how awful your mistakes are?”

Solas blinks slowly. He cocks his head to the side as he regards her, an expression of utter bemusement splayed across his face. He opens his mouth. Closes it. Opens it again. “…What?”

“I worded that badly,” Erys allows. “It’s— You— Do you think that I’m here because I’m ignorant of the majority of your bad decisions? As in, do you think that I’m going to discover one of your apparently horrific long-held regrets and try and claw my way out of the Fade to get away from you?”

There is such a thing as delicacy. Currently Erys does not have a very firm hand on it. Solas will forgive her, she’s sure.

“I… wouldn’t say that’s a particularly common consideration, but I’ve entertained the notion once or twice,” Solas says, looking deeply uncomfortable. “This is what you woke me up to ask me?”

“Yes, shut up,” Erys says, flapping a hand at him. His brows raise, lips thinning, but he is just so stupid she may have to strangle him. “Solas, for the love of all that is good, I know. I know more than you think I do, apparently. What do you think I did for ten years? Just sat around waiting for someone to find you?!” He opens his mouth again. “Ah— Shush!” She doesn’t trust him not to start expounding on whatever thoughts are twisting across his face in their desperation to leave his mouth, so she leans forward and covers it for him. He is deeply unimpressed by the action, but he doesn’t move away. “Solas, really. There is nothing you could tell me that would turn me away from you. Not now. I have seen your worst, ‘ma lath. I have endured the aftermath of your actions countless times. I’m not going to wake up one day and realise I’ve made a mistake.”

“You can’t be sure of that,” Solas says quietly, half-muffled against her palm. “No matter what you think you know of me—“

“Solas, I willingly followed you knowing that you killed Varric,” Erys tells him. “Do you know how badly that tore me up inside? Getting that letter from Lace was one of the worst things I’ve ever had to suffer through. Knowing that you were the one who…”

She’d thought it would break her. That frigid, numbing moment of complete disconnection, reading the words, seeing them inked into parchment before her very eyes and yet having every fibre of her being deny it with such furious intensity. She had wept. She had broken and she had wept, hitting the floor before she even knew her legs had crumbled. She had cursed his name and screamed herself hoarse, until her lungs were empty and her heart cold. She had knelt on the floor for so long her knees swept past sore and into numbness so acute she could feel it chill her blood.

She had resolved, then, to kill him. If he had strayed so far that he would cut down a dear friend so readily, she would end him. He was no longer the Solas she loved. He never would be again.

And then there was the Dalish, and regret, and Morrigan’s otherworldly knowledge from ages past, Mythal and the Well, Rook and her almost deranged eagerness to take the wolf statuette from her. But more than anything else there had been the Dalish. Why had Solas saved them? They were nothing to him.

She hadn’t understood.

To stop now would be to dishonour those I have wronged to come this far!

And then she had.

“What did you do? After.”

She lowers her hand, drawing it slowly from his face. He won’t meet her eyes and she allows him this moment of cowardice. He will answer her, she knows, so let him bow his head in shame if he must. She would have him cowed, rather than prideful. She would have his remorse over his defiance.

“I knelt,” Solas says, swallowing hard. “In the space of a heartbeat, the scales had tipped and I was trapped in silence. I knelt because I hadn’t the strength to stand, but even though I knew Elgar’nan and Ghilan’nain walked free, all I could think…” He stares down at his hands, fingers twitching faintly. He takes a deep breath, closing his eyes. “It was not an accident, I will not dishonour him by claiming that it was, but I did not want to kill him. The dagger was in my hand and he was an obstacle. In that moment, he was not Varric and I was not Solas and it was easy to turn the blade against him. I did so unthinkingly. I can claim that I did not want to kill him, that I did not try to kill him, and that is the truth, but only because I was not thinking. There was nothing in me but the desperation to succeed, and…” He chokes on his next breath, shoulders shaking. “Oh, vhenan, I can’t stand it. If it had been you standing before me…”

She waits for him to finish, breath held, heart clenched.

“…I would have killed you, too.”

There is only one thing she can say to that. She says it now, softly, without hatred, without judgement. She says it because it is true, and because she has known that truth for longer than she ever dared to admit. Even to herself.

“I know.”

Solas’ head snaps up, tears clinging to his lashes, tenuous and frail. He stares at her, brows drawn, lips parted, agonised.

She smiles softly. “I know, vhenan. We had to bring you back, that was always the plan. We knew going into this that you had crossed a boundary we always knew you would but still hoped you would not. If you hadn’t, we wouldn’t have had to fight so hard to reach you. Varric…” She sighs heavily. “He knew the risks. And in some bizarre, twisted way, I think he would be glad to know that he was the catalyst for your redemption. Because I believe that the realisation of what you had done changed you, but rather than twist your nature further, I think it helped to restore part of it. The grief diminished your pride.”

“I have no right to grieve for him,” Solas whispers.

“What a stupid sentiment,” Erys scoffs. “And selfish, to boot. Grieve him, Solas. You must. He was a friend to you, even at the end. He would not have tried to stop you if he did not love you. And neither would I. No, he should not have died by your hand, it was a wicked, cruel thing you did, and you must make amends for it. He deserved better than to be martyred by your cause.”

She’d not possessed sense enough to consider it at the time. Too wounded, too distraught to even contemplate what Varric’s death might mean for their goal. All she had known, with sickening certainty from the moment she opened Lace’s letter, was that Solas was finally too far gone to reach. It had been a spear of ice in her heart, a stinging bite of poison to an already fearsome wound. She lost Varric. She lost Solas. Gods freed, Blight unleashed, all at the hands of the man she had once thought she would follow into death if he simply smiled and held out his hand to her. So she had resolved to kill him, no matter the cost. What could be worth more, she’d thought, than the life of her dear friend?

“Knowing that,” Erys says, a tremor in her voice she cannot fight, “I followed you. I chose this, Solas. I can forgive the Veil, the Anchor, Crestwood, and the ruins where you left me. I can forgive all of that. So I followed. Because loving you was my greatest folly and my dearest privilege. For all your mistakes, you got one thing right.”

Solas, now openly crying, finally meets her gaze. She reaches for him, cupping his cheek and breaking the trail of tears with her thumb, taking in the depth of grief roiling within the heavy lilac of his irises.

“Dirth ma, vhenan,” he whispers, leaning into her touch so desperately. “Sathan.”

“You love,” she tells him, listening to the way his breath stutters. “You love, Solas. Even when you did not see us as people, you ate with us, talked with us, taught and healed us. You listened to Varric’s stories, debated faith and listened to Cassandra’s woes. You comforted Bull and guided Cole, you theorised with Dorian and… Well, there’s not much that can be said of your dealings with Vivienne, but I suppose that’s to be expected when prides clash. You recognised the duty that bound Thom in his lies and treated him no differently. Even Sera, who vexed you constantly, you protected her as a brother might. You loved us all, Solas. And you hated it.”

He laughs. Impossibly he laughs, choked and wet, cloying in his throat. His broad shoulders tremble so she holds him, because as much as he has hurt her, she cannot deny him comfort.

“I am sorry,” he mourns against her shoulder. She opens her mouth to soothe him reflexively, but he continues, brokenly. “Varric. I am so sorry. I am— Ir abelas, ‘ma falon. Sule tael tasalal, durgen’len, ar ame ir abelas. Banalhan’isha en’misu, mi’nas’sal’in ma melava halani. Nuvas ema ir’enastela. ‘Ma falon Varric. Dar'atisha.”

Erys blinks and lets the tears fall, trembling against Solas and hoping he will not mark it and believe it to be his own. She feels cut open and raw, as deeply wounded by his grief as she had been by his actions, but all she can ask for him is what he has given: acknowledgement. Nothing can make this better, it can only be accepted. If it ever heals, it will only be with time. “You knew him as well as I. Would he forgive you?”

Solas sobs softly. “He wouldn’t need to. He wouldn’t think it even worth an apology.”

Erys’ smile is fraught but genuine. “He wouldn’t, would he? He’d be more likely to just use it to guilt you into letting him win a few hands of wicked grace.”

 “Ahh—“ Solas leans back, tilting his head up with a pained but fond smile. “Then I can indeed say that I had the privilege to know him well. As much as he had the misfortune of knowing me.”

“Because he knew the man you could be,” Erys corrects softly. “Who you are, underneath the grief and the guilt and the duty. He would not have come after you if he didn’t. And neither would I.”

Solas lowers his head to look at her, the fathomless depths of his eyes so very damp and sad. “Vhenan…”

“I am where I want to be, Solas,” she promises. “All I want to know is your story from your lips. Tell me how it was and what drove you to act as you did. I just want to understand you. Everything else… I know. And I chose to follow you anyway.”

His eyes flicker restlessly across her face and she wonders if he - the trickster god, the master of deceit – can see the honesty of her promise. There is no lie within her, she has made peace with her own foolishness a hundred times over. She loves him through the mistakes, even though she knows that she should not. She cares deeply for the wrongs he has committed, they hurt her and she cannot forget them, but he is hers and she cannot let him go, in spite of it all. Not again. It would probably kill her to try.

Solas drags a jagged, shaky breath through his teeth. Eyes wide, he takes her in, and she knows he cannot deny the truth any longer. “You are, aren’t you?” He murmurs, something like wonder in his voice. “You— Mean that.”

“I never didn’t,” Erys grumbles. “You were the one who always fought me about it. Honestly! It’s so easy to love you, Solas, as long as you don’t start getting in your own way— Oh!”

He drags her into his arms, crushing her against his chest so tightly her lungs protest, but that is a mild discomfort that is easily ignored. She has dreamed so long that he would hold her like this, without hesitation, without restraint, without fear. He holds her now the way she always wished he would, like there is nothing in all existence that could tear them apart. He is warm, solid and steady against her, one hand cradling the back of her head so tenderly her eyes fill with tears, and she does not hold them back, letting them drip down her cheeks to soak into the soft cotton of his shirt. She cries and he holds her and she burrows herself into his arms, weeping quietly, companionably, cathartically, in the safety of his embrace.

Chapter Text

When the dreams find her again that night, they are tangled and sweet, like a ribbon knotted into a braid, twisted and teased from a night of dancing. Too vast to remember, too much sensation to fully grasp, but for the brief snapshots of time she will recall on waking, he was there, and he did not hide from her. Instead, he is waiting to pull her fully into the Fade the moment her eyes slip closed, even though his soft gaze and tender smile had been the last thing she saw before succumbing, but she takes his hands the moment the world unfurls around them, to dance with him in Dreaming.

“Where are we, vhenan?”

She looks around them, hand clasped in his, breathing in the crisp scent of pine in the air, deep and resinous, refreshing her mind and her soul in a single breath. “South of the Minanter,” she tells him, scuffing her feet against the well-worn path beneath them. “These trees follow the shadow of the Vimmark Mountains, I walked these trails a hundred times as a child.”

“Show me?”

“A plain wooded trail in a forest like all the others we’ve walked?” She asks, laughing. “Are you really interested or are you just hoping my dream will show you what a gangly, clumsy child I was?”

“Does my Dalish woman not relish the chance to dwell among the forests?” He asks, pressing a kiss to her knuckles.

She nudges his shin with her foot. “It’s not inherently Dalish to like being among the forests, emma lath. Even if I am more at home in greenery than in stone.” She looks about again, tilting her head as she takes in her mind’s best approximation of the paths her clan had once walked so tirelessly. It all seems so very far away now, as though the memories belong to another person in another life. She is not the same woman she was when her only worries were ensuring her magecraft could keep up with the seasonal sicknesses that so often came for their elders and their children. Had the Breach not torn the sky and the Anchor not buried itself in her skin, would she be Keeper now? Bonded? Mother to children of her own, teaching them the Vir Tanadhal as her mother taught her and praying that they never manifested magic of their own so she wouldn’t have to send them away?

She wanted that life, once, so badly that she ached for it. To even think of it now, though, is a bolt of almost primal aversion through her chest. She is not that woman and they are no longer her dreams. She might revisit the memories when she longs for simplicity, for the comfort in what is familiar, but she has not longed for any home as dearly as she longed for Skyhold, or the man who gifted it to her.

“I want this,” she says, squeezing Solas’ hand. “Can we have this, in the Fade? Carve a pocket just for us? Do you think we have enough strength between us to change the prison? Even just a little?”

It takes Solas a moment to answer so she turns to look at him curiously. When her eyes meet his, there is a suspiciously misty glint to the pale lilac of his gaze. “I will ensure it,” he promises her, a vow as deep as any he has ever made to her.

“You mean that?” She steps closer, stomach fluttering giddily when his arms come up almost instinctively to wrap around her. Testing him, she tucks her face against his chest. Not a moment later his lips find her hair, cheek rubbing tenderly against her head. She waits. A heartbeat, then two, then three, then another half dozen and Solas does not stiffen and step away from her, he does not release a shuddering, reluctant sigh and part them with a sad, longing smile. He just holds her, quiet and content.

“With all that I am,” he murmurs softly. “Tell me, though, for I am curious. When did you realise this was a dream?”

Erys leans back to meet his eyes, giving him an odd look. “What do you mean? I went to sleep and you were waiting for me, there was no realisation. I haven’t struggled to distinguish them in years.”

Solas smiles so widely it almost physically stuns her. “I suspected as much. You’ve broken down more barriers than many mages under the Veil have managed after years of study. You’ve the mind of a Dreamer, vhenan.”

“How many times did we dream together in Skyhold?” She asks him pointedly. “If I could not dream with any skill after all your tutoring, I would have to claim myself a terrible student, and if there’s one thing I won’t let anybody say about me, it’s that I’m a slow learner.”

His suspicions are poorly veiled, she will say that much. He spent almost as much time lingering at the boundaries of her dreams as he did trying to escape her scouts, in the time they spent apart. Always watching, never approaching, and after a while she had stopped calling out to him, too pained to keep chasing his shadow. It wasn’t until he stopped appearing entirely, as either man or wolf, that she knew he was close to his goal. That realisation had been grim indeed, and she had told every single scout and soldier still loyal to the Inquisition that even the faintest whisper of the Dread Wolf needed to be chased mercilessly. If any path led to him, she would follow it. She would find him.

And here he stands now, learning how to open himself to her inch by inch, ready at long last to let her in.

“Agh-“ She grunts, summoning the flickering length of her Faded limb so that she can clasp his face between her palms. Solas accepts her sudden grip without comment but with a slight widening of his eyes. “I love you, you ridiculous man. Do you know that?”

He softens at once, nodding as best he can in her clutches. “Yes, vhenan. I do. It… feels indescribably better now that I can accept it without fear.”

“I’m sure.” She grins. “Did you ever actually believe I would stay if you told me the truth? Or was it a “run screaming for the hills” scenario every time?”

He sighs heavily, a wry twist to his lips as he raises his hands to cover her own. “I doubted that you of all people would run. I imagined some… rather aggressive reactions to be your first response, at least in the beginning.”

“From the Dalish duckling who clung to you like a terrified child?”

“…I think we may have differing opinions on how you came across during our time in Haven.”

“Oh?” That sparks her interest. “I thought you didn’t like me.”

“I didn’t,” Solas says, but he’s smirking at her. “You terrified me. A mortal child able to withstand the power of an Elvhen mage that had been amassing for millennia? Walking around, talking, snapping at arrogant Chantry fools, casting barriers and summoning ice without so much as stumbling in between closing tears in the Fade? I would hope you can now appreciate just how terrifying that was.”

Erys considers this. “…Fair point, I suppose. I did start following you around, though.”

“You did. I assumed it was because you recognised I could calm the mark and wanted to remain nearby the sole, competent, Elven mage for your own safety.”

“Partly,” Erys agrees. “Though it was also because you were hahren; older, wiser, and incredibly attractive. And I am something of an opportunist.” Perhaps the brush with death in the form of the Breach, the demons falling from the sky, the shems with swords who wanted to kill her, had activated some primal sort of response that sent her in the direction of the only other elf who appeared to have even the faintest grasp of what was going on. She won’t deny that was probably a factor, but he was also so mysterious and so lovely to look at. Older, calm, composed. Enticingly reserved with a quiet intensity that captivated her. “I’m so glad I ignored my better judgement and refused to leave you alone.”

Solas lets out a loud, sharp bark of laughter that has her grinning. He doesn’t even attempt to withhold it, letting it pass his lips unrestrained. “Is that what it was? You clung to me because you thought I was—”

“Unfairly handsome, yes,” Erys happily confirms. “You had this sort of… You had this way of looking at me. Little bit arrogant, but curious. Like I wasn’t worth your time but you couldn’t pass up an opportunity to learn about me or the Anchor. I remember thinking that if my presence could annoy you while I plied you with questions, that was an added benefit. I wanted to tease you as much as I wanted to learn from you.”

“You teased me ceaselessly.”

“I know. Are you actually allergic to halla? You never did answer me.”

Because he knows it will annoy her, Solas still doesn’t answer, smirking at her knowingly as he glosses right over the question with one of his own. “Was that a tried and tested method of yours, then? Annoying the object of your affections into finding you charming?”

“Affections?” She scoffs. “Don’t get ahead of yourself, Solas, that is not what I was after.”

She watches a brow inch up his forehead. He’s curious. “Oh?”

“You talked too much. You knew so much and you knew that you knew more than everyone around you. I did eventually realise that what you had to say was deeply valuable and that I could stand to learn so much from you, but at first it was more…”

“More…?”

Erys makes a vague gesture by tilting her head. “More… I wanted you up against the wall of your cabin, more.”

“…Ah.”

“Antagonising you into a heated tryst didn’t work,” she continues, lip curling in dissatisfaction at the memory. “You could only be baited by arrogance, and it had to be wilful arrogance, you never responded sharply to genuine ignorance or the desire to learn. And when I realised that you would freely answer all my questions about the Fade or our history, I couldn’t not ask them and baiting you just seemed… wrong. Annoyingly, I started to really like you.”

She wouldn’t have readily admitted that her curiosity was her biggest flaw, not back then when she was younger and cockier, but it has ever been a notable weakness, though one that has continued to prove useful in her… very confusing life. Surrounded on all sides by shems and their suspicion and their doctrine, she had found that the more questions she asked, of Cassandra, of Solas, of Leliana and Josephine, the more they warmed to her and her Dalish ignorance. She just had to make sure that the questions she put forward did not inspire them to respond in kind. She knew how they needed to perceive her in those fraught, early days; the poor little Dalish savage, so stricken with ignorance as to how civilised people conduct themselves. It was a part easily played; she had been dancing those steps since she could walk.

Let them assume your ignorance, let them hurry to correct you. They will divulge plenty in their eagerness to prove that you are wrong.

Erys had wondered if her father ever thought she would be using his tactics for haggling in shem markets to find leverage amongst pious Andrastians.

Probably not, but she vowed the moment she woke up in chains that she would protect her clan’s knowledge to the death, no matter what heinous cataclysms fell from the wound in the sky to blight the land more than the taint from the Deep Roads ever could. Any skills she possessed she would use, alone and outnumbered and bound to a god she did not believe in.

Guarded thus and firm in her resolve, she had directed her attention to the only person she would even consider trusting in that snow-covered voidhole. Simply put, he was an outsider like she was, clanless status notwithstanding. She may have disliked the fact that he was barefaced, but he was knowledgeable and trusted the shems about as much as she had. The enemy of my enemy, and all that.

She hadn’t expected much from someone who rarely did anything but stare solemnly at the Fade-warped wound in the sky, and while he certainly hadn’t been the only one in Haven to do so, she’d been under the distinct impression that he was perhaps the only one who saw anything notable within it.

And then Solas had met her initial questions with eloquent, valuable answers, given so freely after she had managed to allay his initial suspicions and had deferred to his experience in order not to ruffle his pride beyond her few snide remarks. Ironic, now that she thinks about it. But he had never seemed to tire of the hundred burning questions that scalded the inside of her throat daily, desperate to get out from the moment she realised how much wisdom he could share with her. She will admit – now that she is more mature and less… eager – that her initial attraction had given away to genuine respect far more quickly than she had anticipated.

The rest… Well, she was a lost cause from embarrassingly early on. She can admit that now. Because he loves her and that covers up a lot of the mortification over her younger self’s moon-eyed infatuation.

“I could have talked with you for hours,” Erys hums, warmed through by a sweet sense of nostalgia. “And did, more often than not. Do you remember the night Cass threw her boot at my tent because I kept asking you to translate more words for me?”

“Is that what that was? I heard you yelp and then you stopped talking so I assumed you’d found an insect in your bedroll or something similar.”

“You can’t be Dalish and scared of insects, they don’t let you.”

“Ah, is that the qualifier?”

“Mmhmm, last test before you get your vallaslin.”

“So then it certainly couldn’t have been you screaming when we found that nest of giant spiders in Crestwood?”

“No, that was Bull.”

“Of course. Screaming Fen’Harel’s teeth at the top of his lungs as he was often wont to do.”

Erys snorts, unable to stop herself. “You must have wanted to strangle me half the time. This little Dalish fool cursing by your title at every minor convenience.” Given how much he seems to hate the title, it can’t have been easy to hear. “I’m sorry, for what it’s worth.”

Sweet as a sigh, he brushes the backs of his fingers across her cheek. “You need not apologise, ‘ma lath, there was never any intention behind it beyond what your culture had taught you. Twice as often as you cursed the name, you left offerings at my shrines. If that doesn’t earn a curse or two, I don’t know what would.”

“Fen’Harel was still part of our pantheon,” she says, frowning. “And worthy of respect, not just caution. Tricksters exist in many theologies and myths across Thedas, some revered and some reviled, but only ever in keeping with the stories they belong to. I just wish your name hadn’t been the one that got misremembered.”

She has had many years to think about Solas’ place among the Evanuris. She’d like to know – when he is comfortable telling her - what it was like as a god among their people. He claimed he wasn’t and she knows that he believes it, but by the standards of her people that’s exactly what he was. That he only truly accepted the title when he incited his rebellion is very telling of who he is at the core of himself. But perhaps more so is the fact that he did not draw close to her until she sought out his wisdom. When he taught her, when she questioned him and listened and then asked more questions and begged him to tell her everything he could of the memories he had witnessed, that was when he let her become his friend. Wisdom again, after so long as Pride.

“I care little for that now,” Solas says, drawing her close to him and looping his arms around her waist. “The world can respect or revile Fen’Harel for as long as they wish, he is nothing more than a memory now.”

Erys shakes her head. “Fen’Harel ‘ma ghilana. Ar ish’lath because he is part of the man I love. He will never be just a memory.”

“Erys…”

“I love all of you, Solas,” she reminds him. “That includes the parts of you that are him, as surely as I would have loved you as you were when you embodied nothing more than Wisdom, however you appeared. Then, now, in the future, all of it, Solas. You are my home.”

Solas stares at her. For a concerningly long moment he does nothing but stare at her, as though etching every inch of her face into his memory. She lets him look, fighting the rise of self-consciousness that begs her to avert her gaze because she knows him well enough to recognise that he is searching for some form of comfort, of reassurance. She waits patiently for him to find it, though it doesn’t manifest at all in the way that she expects.

“It’s yours,” he says at once, shockingly forceful. “All of it. I will— I will carve a home for you into the Fade itself. I will make it a home worthy of you, with all that I am. Erys, I— I will spend the rest of eternity devoting every creation of my hands to you.”

“Dian, ‘ma uth’lath,” she soothes, placing her hands against his chest. “Atishan. I don’t need any of that. Just love me, Solas. That’s all I ever wanted. Just love me.”

She has no need for labour or proof. Just the soft certainty of his love in his presence by her side. That has ever been all she has wanted and now she has it. Solas, her Solas, nothing more and nothing less, free to love her has he wishes, beyond duty or fear. She has that, so how could she ever want more?

“Ar lath ma,” he vows. “Bellanaris.”

She thanks him with a kiss, a fleeting, gentle thing, and pulls him further into the dream.

***

There is no need for frozen hands or frantic words to drag Solas awake this time. He is the one to leave the dream first; in all the time she has known him, in those precious few mornings he released his duty for long enough to rest with her, he never woke before she did. Now it is his gently insistent touch against her skin that draws her from the Beyond and back into her body, the slow, comforting rhythm of his fingers combing through her hair, caressing her cheeks, ghosting across the blade of her ear.

She blinks her eyes open slowly, luxuriating in the sensation of sunlight warming her skin, of Solas’ unhurried, languorous caresses, and thinks she may be more content than she can ever recall feeling.

“It’s not like you to leave a dream unfinished,” she murmurs, throat thick with the heaviness of sleep. Solas’ soft smile is the first thing she is able to focus on when the haze of sleep finally clears from her gaze, though it’s the faint glow of the pre-dawn light pressing against the faded red fabric just over his shoulder that truly arrests her attention.

She scrambles up onto her elbows. Solas leans back onto one arm to accommodate her, looking deeply dissatisfied to have been dislodged from his tender explorations. Honestly, she isn’t too happy about it either, but really.

“What is this?” She demands, looking around wildly. “Are we still dreaming?”

“No, vhenan,” Solas says, his own voice still caught in the low growl of sleep. He runs his hand gently down her arm, drawing her attention slowly away from the woven fabric over their heads, the piled furs nestled around them, the softly creaking wood of the floor and frame. “You’ll forgive me, I hope, for drawing on your mana while you slept.”

“My…?” She blinks at him, casting another glance around the aravel. It is clearer now that the finer details are missing. There are no patterns embroidered in the fabric of the covering, no hinged hatch covering the steps leading to the slatted doors to stabilise the flooring. Little details so easily missed but so dear to her, and yet Solas had claimed this no dream. A manifestation, then, but one of his mind and not hers. One who does not know the markers of a Dalish aravel as well as she.

“Well, it wouldn’t be the first time,” she settles on, letting Solas tug her back down into the nest of furs. These, at least, are missing no details. Finely brushed and decadently soft against her skin, warmed from their shared body heat. She relaxes and Solas is quick to tuck her back against his side, an arm laid beneath her head so that he can bring her as close to his body as their separated forms will allow. She hopes he will attribute the sudden warmth of her cheeks to the flush of sleep.

“Perhaps, but on previous occasions you were in dire need of healing and I was… somewhat diminished,” Solas says. “Again. I hope you’ll forgive me for taking such liberties with your power, ‘ma vhenan, I simply wanted to offer you some small measure of comfort after you shared your dreams with me.”

“My dreams have been open to you the entire time,” Erys grumbles, turning her face towards his throat and making a home for herself in the warm, soft space between his shoulder and neck. “You’re the one who decided he needed to stay away.”

“Yes, well, if we could perhaps shift the focus away from my many failings, just for a few hours, I would be grateful.”

“Okay,” Erys hums. “If we can stay like this, I won’t bring any of them up for at least half a day.”

“Any of them?”

She presses her grin into his collarbone. “Not a one. As long as you’re content to remain as my pillow.”

She can hear the smile in his voice when he answers her. “I think that might be the one duty I happily accept.”

“Good,” Erys says, closing her eyes and burrowing further into Solas’ warmth, even going so far as to tangle her legs with his. He remains predictably stiff for a solid minute after she hooks her knee around his, but he slowly softens by degrees and even permits himself to curl a hand around her thigh to pull her closer. She may have to bite the insides of her cheeks about that, but that’s her own business. If her mind could stop bellowing the words Solas! and close! at her like a love-struck fool every few seconds, she would appreciate it.

Does she dare…? She absolutely does. As though she’s doing something she shouldn’t, she slips her hand beneath his shirt, pressing her hand to the warm skin of his waist, without ice coating her palm this time. Solas’ breath hitches - Erys holds her ground, determined – and with a knowing sigh, Solas gives her a firm squeeze. “You aren’t subtle, vhenan.”

“I’m not trying to be. I am, however, incredibly patient.”

He quirks a brow, nudging his knee against her own. “This is patient?”

“I’ve not gotten you on your back yet, so yes, I’d say I’m being exceptionally patient.”

Solas falls silent. Erys allows him his quiet moment of overthinking for the thirty seconds it takes her to find the most comfortable spot for her to curl up against him, before she pokes him right in the soft skin under his chin. He huffs, jerking his head back and catching her wandering hand to tuck it securely between them. “Which is it, then? Are you patient or an opportunist?”

“I’m charmingly multifaceted, ‘ma lath. I contain multitudes.” She wiggles her fingers in his grip. “May I ask you something?”

“Always.”

The open honesty is still taking some getting used to, she must admit. She still isn’t entirely sure where the line is. Where is the boundary at which he will draw away from her again? Does she dare to risk finding out? Obviously, that’s the whole point, but she is still so afraid of his isolation, those bitter moments when he shuts down and closes himself off, leaving her unbalanced and desperate to chase him. She can’t keep doing it, she doesn’t have the strength.

“Do you…” She wrinkles her nose, struggling to formulate what she wants to ask. She could just blurt it out but that seems unkind. “Have you ever…?”

“It’s not like you to prevaricate, vhenan,” Solas notes, cocking his head. “You’ve strayed into my territory. Are you alright?”

She makes a vaguely irritated sound in her throat. “I have a lot of things I want to ask you and I’m struggling not to just start interrogating you. We’re together without obstacles for the first time in all the years we’ve known each other, and yet there’s so much I still need to ask you. I should know these things after all this time, I should know these things – surely – in order to love you as much as I do, but… I don’t. And as much as I want to have you answer every errant question that pops into my head in a regimented and numbered list-“ Solas snorts at that. “-I’m trying to find some restraint.”

“We have time, ‘ma blar’eireth. Or are you in a particular hurry?”

“Honestly? Yes,” Erys mutters. “I don’t want to be stuck in this strange orbit of loving you tentatively. I want to- I don’t know, but I want to stop being careful. I want to already know all the things about you that I’ve ever wondered so that I can focus on learning the things I never even considered. I want… Nuvan latha ma banal’ras i’tel.”

She hopes that conveys what she is struggling to word easily. The concept’s translation eludes her, but Elvhen grasps more than the summary, more than the barest of intention. In this language they share, she hopes he can understand what she is trying to tell him.

“Eolasan,” Solas murmurs, to her great relief. “You are… hm, stuck?”

She leans back to frown at him. “I don’t… Ghilan em?”

Solas smiles, though if it’s because of her curiosity or because he likes the sound of Elvhen on her tongue, she doesn’t know. Both, probably, coupled with the fact that he deeply enjoys being called on for explanations. At least she knows that of him. “You want to move forward, for yourself, for us, but past actions and uncertainties have left you unable to.” He huffs a slightly self-deprecating laugh. “If there is any sentiment I can empathise with, it’s that.”

After a moment’s consideration, she has to conclude that he is absolutely correct, having struck right at the heart of the matter. “Is it bad of me to want to rush it?”

“No. Not at all.” He brings her hand to his lips, kissing her knuckles. “I would have nothing left between us, if it were up to me. I suppose it is, at least partially, but as it seems to be with you, I don’t think either of us are sure of what to ask and what to offer.” His faint smile fades. “From the way I used to shy away from your genuine attempts to know me, I cannot fault your uncertainty. It is my-“

Erys pokes him in the mouth pointedly.

“…An unfortunate consequence of the position I found myself in,” Solas corrects, brows raised. “You honestly won’t let me blame myself for my secrecy?”

“I wouldn’t say I don’t blame you,” Erys says. “It’s more that… Now I know why. It’s hard for me to fault you for quite a lot of things now that I know the reasons. They might not all excuse you, but they certainly go a long way to explaining you.”

“Perhaps,” Solas allows, as much of a concession as he will afford himself. Erys fights not to roll her eyes. They are in the Regret Prison, where Solas is stuck because of his regrets. It is, and will be for the foreseeable future, a work in process. “These… questions that you aren’t sure how to ask… You wish to know about Mythal?”

Erys groans and sits up. Solas is quick to release her, just as quick to follow, though his expression has shuttered guiltily. “Forgive me, I didn’t-“

“Oh, hush, it’s not that,” Erys says, waving him off. “I do want to know, absolutely I do, but while I’ll tolerate many things, talking about the dearest love of your existence while curled up in your arms is not one of them.”

Erys has tried to be many things in her life with varying degrees of success, but the one attempt she just cannot succeed in is to elevate herself above petty jealousy. It is as unreasonable as it is involuntary, given that she knows precious little of what Mythal and Solas shared thousands of years ago, but to deny the feeling would be dishonest, and she owes both of them more than that.

“I don’t think there is anything I could say to ease your discomfort over this,” Solas says quietly. “I am… well aware that the relationship between Mythal and myself is not easily explained by the standards you are familiar with.”

Erys had assumed as much, and she isn’t entirely sure if the confirmation is reassuring or not. She is not, after all, the one who bore witness to Solas’ regrets. Everything she learned came second-hand from Lace, as devoted a scout as there ever has been. Everything Rook’s team learned, be it relevant or not to Erys’ own endeavours at the time, Lace had ensured to record and report with as much accuracy as possible. Erys had been deeply grateful, no matter how fiercely her hand had shaken when the first letter detailed exactly what purpose the wolf statuette served. No matter how bitterly she had resented the fact that – after everything – she was not the one to uncover the deep parts of the man she loves.

Perhaps, though, it is for the best. She could not bear to pry such vulnerable secrets from him against his will. All she has ever wanted is to know him by virtue of what he shared with her freely. It doesn’t stop her from wishing she had shattered the statuette the moment she found it, tucked innocuously away in Skyhold’s undercroft along with brushes and paints and trowels, hidden as though to obscure the fact that they had ever been there, to try and wipe away any trace of the man who used them.

“It’s certainly complicated,” Erys finally says, because she doesn’t know what else to call it. “I’m not even sure I want an explanation. I’ve accepted it, as much as I’m able, I just… I think it’s…” She trails off, grimacing. She doesn’t really like what this says about her, or if she wants Solas to know this side of her. That there’s a small part deep within herself that resents him for devoting himself to Mythal so fervently when she struggled so desperately to try and reach him. A year could never measure up to countless lifetimes, she knows that logically, but it’s still somewhat painful to acknowledge that she is secondary. If Mythal hadn’t been slain…

The thought is discourteous and Erys physically recoils from it. She stuffs that part of herself down as far as it will go, disregarding it entirely. She does not want to be that sort of person. She will not allow herself to be. Whatever Solas was before, he is hers now, and that is what matters.

“I was hers.”

Erys looks up, dragging her gaze away from her lap to meet Solas’, though he is not looking at her. His own eyes are fixed on a point on a horizon neither of them can see, looking past everything that surrounds them, the façade of the aravel, into a past so distant she cannot conceive of it. “What?”

“I think that’s the only way I can explain it,” Solas says. “In a concept that you can understand. I was- I loved her deeply, I would have followed her into the Void if she had asked it of me. In her I saw everything I wanted, everything I needed, whether she had the capacity to give it to me or not. I shared my wisdom with her when she sought it, and for ages beyond counting, she was my dearest companion. But I was hers, Erys.

“I was young,” he says. “Not an excuse, simply a fact, I was so new. Wisdom, learning everything that I could. Greedily seeking the new and pondering over the old. When Mythal first came to me, she was Kindness. Benevolence. How I loved her.

“I do not know the span of time that we roamed the Fade together, but the memory of it is etched indelibly onto my soul.”

Erys’ own soul flinches. She does not let him see. “You… knew her as a spirit.”

“Yes.”

She hates that she asks, but… “Were you…?”

He makes a frustrated sound, closing his eyes as though to shut out the past he had sought. “It isn’t- Even in Elvhen I do not think I can explain this. I was hers. Whatever she asked of me, whatever she commanded, I would do. But she was not mine.”

“I… I don’t understand,” Erys says. “I’m sorry.”

Solas smiles, faint, sad. “Tel’abelas, vhenan. There is no comparison I can make to offer you understanding. In this, my wisdom is lacking and I apologise. All I can say is that I loved her and it…” He takes a deep breath. “My love for her subsumed everything else. I could not exist while I loved her.”

It takes an age for Erys to find the courage to respond. When she finally manages to push the words past her lips, she half expects Solas to berate her for it. “That… does not sound like love.”

“No,” Solas says. “It doesn’t, does it?”

“What was she, then?” Erys asks. “Was she a friend? A mother? Sister? Or…” She cringes, though she tries desperately not to. “A… lover?”

Solas exhales heavily through his nose. “All of them. None of them. We did not have families, vhenan. Spirits are not born from parents, nor were the first Elvhen. Elgar’nan crafted his body from the blood of a slain titan, called to like-minded spirits to follow him. The Evanuris, the pantheon of nine gods as you know them, they were not the first. Elgar’nan was, it was by his actions that Elvhen joined the physical world, but the eight of the Evanuris that were elevated were not the first to follow him. Nor was I among the first to take a body; I rejected the notion fiercely from the moment the Fade shook with the first Titan’s death.”

“You were there when it happened?” Erys asks, wide-eyed. “When the Titan died?”

“Not as such,” Solas says. “I was aware but I was not nearby. Still, the effects of it could be felt in every corner of the world. The Fade trembled when the first of us departed, the scream of a Titan slain rocked both the physical world and Beyond in ways no sentient creature had ever experienced. It was an aberration. The viciousness of it scattered every spirit in leagues, cutting us deeply and threatening to drive us all mad. It was wrong and we knew it, but those of us who sought knowledge and understanding, those of us drawn to power and to victory, Wisdom, Curiosity, Valor, Strength, we drew near. How could we not? It was abhorrent but it was new and I was Wisdom. I had to understand. We were all called in our own way and in each of our own ways we answered.

“To see the slain Titan, though, was to know a grief so heavy I think it changed something within me forever. Benevolence could not soothe me, her words of comfort barely reached through the haze of wrongness that drove deep through me at the sight of it. Even more so was the horror of seeing what Elgar’nan had done to himself. He had been a beautiful spirit, now diluted and trapped within stolen flesh. And yet he had been resplendent in his victory. I did not understand. As Wisdom, I had to. I had to know why he would do such a thing, how he could do it.

“Lyrium, was all he would say. Taste its magic upon your tongue, feel it thrum within you. There is a wealth of sensation awaiting us, withheld from us. New knowledge, new power, it awaits us if we would only reach out and take it. He was a spirit, he knew how to call to us. Many refused but so many more were entranced. Benevolence among them. I still do not know how.”

“How could he call to Benevolence?” Erys blurts, bewildered. “How could she see what he had done and choose to cross over?”

“I don’t know,” Solas says, steady voice cracking painfully. “She would not tell me. When I knew her best, I would have said that perhaps she believed her kindness would reach further if she had a tangible form. Perhaps Elgar’nan knew her better than I. Perhaps she had already begun to stray from her nature. I do not know and I never will. Thus I blamed Elgar’nan for my loss and I never forgave him.”

“You didn’t blame her?”

“Never,” Solas admits. “And I could not leave her. Though the shattering of the first Titan burned my soul and bid me to draw away, I could not. I would ever follow where she led. To be away from her was… untenable.”

Erys wants to be sick. Be it twisted jealousy or righteous anger, she does not know. Maybe neither. Maybe both.

“I resisted when she called for me to leave the Fade,” Solas continues. “I did not want to leave. I had no desire— It was abhorrent to me. But the Titans’ anger was bitter and unstoppable. The few spirits who had followed Elgar’nan were dying in agony solely for the crime of following. Mythal asked for my wisdom. I loved her, so I gave it.”

“You took a body.”

“I did. And I have regretted it for every moment of the blinkered existence that followed. She asked for my wisdom but did not permit me to give it. At every turn there were orders to give, lives to command, to take, to sacrifice. Leaving Wisdom had ruined me. The world I joined, the world I left the Fade for, was not what I wanted. But she was in it, so I endured. She still called upon me, if not for wisdom, then for support, for strength, to shore up the defences of our people against the Titans. I gave it all. Whatever she asked of me, I would give.”

“Why?”

“Because she was everything,” Solas grits out. “My oldest friend, her spirit the extension of myself. Because part of me believed I could bring Benevolence back from Retribution.”

“And you called me Mythal’s creature,” Erys accuses. She can’t help it, the sudden rush of fury is disarming. “You called me that for trying to preserve the knowledge of our people. You knew what it meant to belong to her, and you were unwilling to stop either me or Morrigan from drinking it.”

His expression darkens abruptly, a shadow cast across his brow. “I warned you against it.”

“Your warning was pathetic and weak.”

Solas looks away from her and she wants to scream. “It was.”

“If you— If you truly wanted to stop me, you would have.”

“I could not.”

His passivity enrages her. “You could. You— Some part of you must have wanted to know what it would look like to see another bound to her will. You just didn’t want to be alone.”

“Do you truly believe that of me?” Solas demands. “You think that is the truth? After everything? You think I did not stop you because I wanted a companion in servitude?”

“Why else wouldn’t you stop me?”

“I couldn’t!”

Solas’ strident cry echoes between them. Erys falls silent, watching, waiting. He shudders, drags a hand down his face. “I couldn’t. You watched her release me from her service. You do not understand the way I was bound to her. You assume devotion. It was, once. But whatever it had been was twisted along with the rest of me. It became obsession, mania. Her wants and whims were my reason to live. I bore her vallaslin. Just like you, I wore her brand, but no other etched it upon me. I formed my body with stolen blood at her behest and I chose to imbue her markings upon my face. I had seen those of physical form who served her and- I chose that.”

For all that she had once worn her own blood-writing with pride, Erys’ blood chills in her veins. “I can’t… Solas, why?”

“Love,” Solas says. That single word – usually so beautiful - strips her breath from her lungs. He does not elaborate.

“So— She… She compelled you?”

Solas shakes his head, diminished. “She owned me, Erys. I submitted.”

“You can’t claim submission just because you loved her,” Erys snaps. “You still made your decisions. You rendered the Titans Tranquil for her!”

“I did not strike the blow!” Solas barks, teeth bared. “I gave her the weapon. The dagger was mine, but she wielded it! It was meant for Elgar’nan to slay the Titans but I begged her to stay his hand. I asked her to sunder them, to separate them, to see if we could buy the People time to recover and to strengthen, to bolster ourselves after our loses and give ourselves the grace of time to find peace. I thought, if we could distance ourselves from the anger, the retaliation, if we could give ourselves time, we could…”

It is well that Solas lets his words fade into silence because Erys is no longer listening. She should be, this is so gravely important, but all she can focus on is the fact that Solas made the dagger. She’d known that. She’d known that, accepted it. It was the striking down of the Titans that had sickened her so. Lace’s letters, her experience of their pain, their madness, Erys had thought that in their position she would have preferred to die than endure it, if it had been a choice. She had tried to reconcile it within herself somehow, that Solas had been misguided, not cruel. But it is an horrific thing that he has done and he is complicit in their suffering. But his intentions… They may not matter to anyone else, they probably should not matter to anyone else. But they matter to her.

Absolve her of her foolishness in loving him. Please, just let her have this. They have fought so long, been twisted and damaged and betrayed and vilified. Can they not just have this?

“Ma nuvenin,” Erys whispers. “If it is as you say… I accept it. I am sorry I blamed you for an act you did not commit.”

Solas’ harsh expression does not soften. He is angry. Something warm sparks in Erys’ chest to see it. No fear. No, this goes deeper. Like she is glad of it. To see him angry, defending himself, not the morose, aggrieved acceptance of his duty through actions that she has hated since the day she learned who he was.

At last, Fen’Harel shows his teeth.

“Do not apologise to me for the things I have done,” Solas seethes. “I did not strike the Titans down, but it could not have been done without me.”

“I have no doubt of that, Solas,” Erys says flatly. “But… I am coming to understand. The fragment of Mythal within Flemeth… I thought her terrifying. I thought— I saw in her the spark of a rebellion I would have thrown myself at her feet to join. She wanted retribution for our people, for herself, and Flemeth’s tragedy kept that spark of defiance burning. I wanted to… I don’t know. She spoke and I was so ready to take up arms for her. I don’t know if that was the Well or if her cause spoke to the defiance in me, but it was… certainly compelling.” The Well had been able to compel her to seize Morrigan’s throat in front of her son. She does not doubt that Mythal’s hold over Solas could have compelled him to commit worse deeds in her name.

The offering of empathy seems to miss the mark entirely. “She spoke of retribution?” Solas’ gaze snaps to her, flinty, almost hostile. “Against whom?”

“Well— I assumed the Evanuris who slew her,” Erys says, alarmed by the intensity of his gaze. “I would think that— Well, I don’t know her as you did, but I should think…” She trails off. Solas is shaking. “…She meant you.”

Solas’ hand flies to his chest, gripping the fabric over his heart between straining, white knuckles. Erys’ own heart pounds. “Why would— Solas. What happened?”

The words are ripped from him, bloodied and raw. “We were all of us twisted.”

“Solas?”

“All of us,” he spits. “From the moment we left the Fade, we clung to the torn remnants of what we once were. Twisted beyond recognition, warped and deformed. I begged her to follow me, to abandon the Evanuris. For once, I thought if she would follow me I could… I would have done anything. She…” He swallows. “She was not… She did not deserve my devotion.”

“No,” Erys agrees, shaken. “It… Solas—“

“I…” He swallows audibly. “In all the years I knew her, I strove to be what she wanted of me. I would have broken myself down and reshaped myself into whatever she asked— I did that and it still—“

“Solas,” Erys says, reaching for him. A hand on his knee, firm enough to ground him but light enough that he can pull away if he wishes. He doesn’t, and that warms the coldness in her veins. “It’s alright, Solas, please. She is gone from you, ‘ma lath.”

Solas shakes his head, curling in on himself. “I would… I would like to stop speaking of her. You know- You know enough now. Please. It is enough that she released me. I want nothing more."

Erys screams inside her head; she should not have needed to release you! But what good will it do to tell him that? Who is she to demand he face this pain? For what purpose? To soothe his wounds, to hold a dead woman accountable for more mistakes? To ease Erys’ own bitter jealousy for something she has no way to quantify?

This is beyond her. This is beyond even Solas, and for her part, the best she can do is let him put this piece of the past to rest. Some wounds are just beyond her capacity to heal. Perhaps she can just ease the pain of this one when it flares.

She exhales sharply, gathering herself. “I’m sorry, Solas. Unless you wish to, I won’t speak of her again.”

He laughs. The sound grates through her like the clash of swords. “You continue to show me the mercy you were adamant you would deny. What changed?”

“That was for your dishonesty and mistakes,” Erys says quietly. “Not for the wounds others inflicted on you.”

That disarms him. “Why should that matter?”

“Because I did not know Mythal. I don’t know what happened to her, I couldn’t possibly try to guess why she did what she did. If she suffered, if she struggled, I would pity her. She would have my sympathy as I would offer it to anyone in pain. But… I hate her for what she did to you. And I can’t… I can’t make that better. I don’t know how. For this, I’ll only offer what you ask of me, what you feel that you need. I can’t do any more than that.”

Let Mythal - whoever she was, whatever she did - rest. She lives on now in memories within the last of her descendants, may Morrigan use the wisdom of her mother’s line as she sees fit. Erys is not content to spend the rest of eternity judging the actions of a woman she never knew. If anyone who still lives can judge her, it is Solas, and she will not demand he explain himself to her. Not in this. Never for this.

“I’m sorry,” Solas says softly, and all the defensiveness seems to drain out of him. He sags back against the wall of the aravel, tilting his head back against the canvas awning with a heavy sigh. “There are more shadows than I… had anticipated.”

“One less,” Erys counters. “One less now, my love. Thank you for telling me. I’m sorry I… I’m sorry I was jealous.”

Solas blinks. “Why would you— It has been— Erys, you need not be. There is no desire left in me for what I once wanted from her. I left that behind when we parted ways when she would not abandon the Evanuris.” He lays his hand atop hers. “I strove to be for her everything I wanted her to be for me, but it… it was never going to be what either of us needed. It was not right. I see that now more clearly than I ever could and I have you to thank for that clarity.”

As much as she appreciates the sentiment, that is not an accolade she can accept. “I doubt you would have been able to see it had she not released you. I worried that… Well, after everything, I half expected to find that everything you did was in her name.”

Solas stares at her. He stares at her for so long and so intently that her skin begins to prickle. “…I should hope you no longer think that of me.”

Erys winces. “I’m sorry, I don’t mean to be reductive. It wasn’t a thought I entertained for long, it struck me at my worst, when I began to doubt everything between us. When my resolve weakened and all I had to guide me were your own words and I was far past the point where I could rationalise.”

Solas looks away, releasing her from his pinning gaze. She is deeply grateful for it, the uncomfortable squirm of guilt in her stomach had been nigh unbearable. “I cannot fault you for that. My retribution for Mythal’s death came with sealing away the Evanuris. She released me from herself, from all that she is, all compulsion, all of my misguided devotion. My desire to bring down the Veil was always my own. The People suffered for my mistakes, I owed it to them.”

“I know. I do know, Solas. That was why I— I wondered if you were doing it for her, but the thought was errant, if anything. Disingenuous. You said you were doing it for the People and I believed you, so when she released you, I thought for a moment that I’d been wrong, that it had just been another lie and it was her wish and not yours.”

Who wouldn’t have made that assumption, in her position? Hundreds of elves had disappeared in the wake of Solas’ revelation, an exodus from clans, from alienages; half the Inquisition’s elven soldiers had fled without a word, the Arlathvhens had been almost barren. And yet when it came time for the ritual, Solas had been alone. Dorian had been the one to suggest, haltingly, that perhaps the cleansing of the lyrium idol had necessitated a sacrifice of untold proportions, and Erys had shut him down viciously. Solas, she had insisted, would never go so far. Even for the elves he had once refused to see as people - he had told her himself that his views had changed – he would never do such a thing.

“I know you, Solas,” Erys says, calmly resolute. Even as she says it, the truth of the statement settles so sweetly within her. She wonders if this is true faith; the certainty of knowledge beyond even the faintest shadow of doubt. “Whatever came before, whatever pains linger in your heart, I know you. I don’t doubt that the man I came to love is the truest version of yourself.”

He offers no immediate response. She watches him take the words, mull them over, sees the moment they settle into him and it is strange to see him not only hear her, but accept what she is telling him. There have been a hundred long conversations between them since the day he took her hand to seal that first rift, hours spent by candlelight speaking on all they could think of, trading words and stories and the wisdoms of two different lives lived. But Solas’ keenest flaw has always been his unfailing certainty in his own decisions. He is a keen listener, a gatherer of knowledge, but he is stubborn and – obviously – prideful, and heavily resistant to the notions of those that have not tasted of Elvhenan’s history. That he hears her now, listens, accepts, means more to her than she can say.

“You have always afforded me more grace than I deserve,” is what he eventually settles on.

“You deserve more than you’ve convinced yourself that you do,” Erys says. “And one day you’ll even believe that.”

“Perhaps,” Solas allows with a sad smile. “But I have much to atone for until then. It is difficult to bear the ache to hold you when part of me dares not touch you with hands stained so heavily with blood.”

“Does the healer not have the bloodiest hands?” Erys counters, gifting his own words back to him from a lifetime ago. “And even if they are stained, are they not capable of holding me tenderly?” Slowly, she draws her knees beneath herself, rocking forward until she is sat on her heels before him. “What was it you said? About accepting love without fear?”

“Sometimes I do actually wonder if I’m pleased about how keenly you listen to me.”

Erys scoffs. “As if that isn’t the entire reason you love me.”

Solas’ smile widens. Erys is exultant in her victory. “A considerable reason, perhaps, but not remotely close to being the sole reason.”

“Care to expound poetically on all the ways I charmed you?” Erys asks. She sways pointedly towards the pile of furs. “I know it’s my own fault but I really wasn’t ready to get out of bed…”

Solas’ soft chuckle is rich and indulgent and he finally shifts away from the aravel’s panelled sideboard towards the furs. Erys waits for him to stretch out comfortable atop them before draping herself across his body like a clingy blanket, humming happily when he pulls one of the spare furs over them, tucking it around them until they are bundled up cozily together once more. She rests her head against his chest, delighting in the steady thrum of his heartbeat beneath her cheek. “Go on, then. Flatter me.”

“You’re really asking me to flatter your ego?”

“You don’t have to, you can talk to me about anything, I just like the sound of your voice.” The tilts her head up to look at him. “I won’t lie, though, the compliments are certainly a pleasing side benefit.”

“Ah, yes, we mustn’t forget about the side benefits.”

“Now you’re getting it.”

She hums happily when his warm palm comes to rest against her back, stroking in slow, soothing strokes up and down the length of her spine. Silence reigns a long moment, and despite the absence of the voice she loves, Erys is still easily lulled into that sweet, hazy space between sleep and wakefulness. So much so that she startles slightly when Solas finally decides to speak.

“It was your curiosity, at first,” he murmurs. “Your questions were always so genuine. Honest. After you stopped trying to bait me like the insufferable Dalish you are.”

“Not sorry,” Erys hums, smiling into the cotton of his shirt. “You puffed up like an insulted cat every time. I would have stopped if I didn’t think that you secretly liked it so much.”

“…I honestly wasn’t aware you’d noticed that.”

“Oh, I noticed. You got this sort of glint in your eyes, the same one that sparked during a battle. Like you were given the chance to put your skills to use. I liked the thought that you saw me as a worthy opponent.”

“Cantankerous Dalish.”

“And proud. Continue.”

“Bossy Dalish. Ah—“

Erys tucks her hand back against her chest, smiling sweetly. “Something wrong, my heart?”

“…Pinching Dalish.”

She snickers childishly into his chest, the soft sound of his own laughter following hers. “It’s your own fault for falling in love with me.”

“A blame I shoulder quite happily,” Solas says, looping both arms around her waist to pull her closer. “But you’re right, I did enjoy that spark of defiance in you. You were… not proud, so much as resolved. You had a fighter’s spirit wrapped around the heart of a healer. I was… Well, I was drawn in every time I tried to pull away. No matter how much effort I expended to stay away from you, I was pulled inexorably back. It took me some time to realise why being parted from you – even for a moment – was unbearable.”

“You didn’t recognise what you felt?”

“I hadn’t felt it before, how could I?”

With that, offered so guilelessly, Erys’ face burns crimson right to the tips of her ears. Solas makes an inquisitive sound, curling a strand of her hair around his finger. The sensation is a delightfully ticklish prickle against her scalp. “You doubt me?”

“If it were anyone else, I would.” Her face is burning, this is wretchedly unfair. “But… Did you not…?” She trails off before she can break her own promise, but Solas does not seem bothered by the insinuation.

“There is no comparison,” Solas says simply. “You are two different people. I am not as I was when I was bound to Mythal. I… hm.”

“Oh, I know that sound.” Erys raises her head, grinning. She’s giddy, she can’t help it. “That’s the “damn it, Erys is right” sound.”

“That is not a sound I have ever made.”

“It is!” She sits up, grinning down at him and patting his chest with a teasing coo. “Did you realise that you are capable of change, ‘ma fen? How is the transient nature of the self treating you, hmm?”

Solas arches a brow with a remarkably prim air about him. “For some reason the word insufferable is coming to mind.”

“Ahh, did I prick your pride, ‘ma’isha?”

“Not so much my pride as my nerves, ‘ma blar’eireth.”

“Good. Annoyance is healthy. So - you are not the man you once were. Admit it. I’ll drop the point once you do.” Erys grins. It is not a kind grin. It is likely the sort of malevolent grin Fereldens would expect Magisters to sport when convening and plotting within the Magisterium. Judging from his alarmed expression, Solas is probably thinking something similar. “Fen’Harel’lin.”

Solas makes the most delightful sound she has ever heard. A sort of choked splutter of indignation, eyes widening comically. The only reason that it is the best sound she has yet heard him make, though, is because she has not put any intent behind the position they currently find themselves in. She’ll remedy that in due course, but she can still enjoy his disarmed spluttering until then.

Solas chokes. “Do not—“

“Fen’Harel’lin.”

“Don’t call me that—“

“It’s what you are!”

“I am not— Erys, that is inappropriate—“

“The ground shakes and mortals tremble before the might of Fen’Harel’lin!” She cackles, utterly beside herself. “Fear him, the Dread Wolfcub is come!”

Oh, she is gone. She laughs until her sides ache, until tears are clinging to her lashes and her lungs stutter in protest. All through it, Solas stares up at her with the moue of the deeply unimpressed, lips thinned taut to hide the amusement trying to desperately to escape.

“Are you quite finished?” He asks with great dignity once her giggles finally calm.

“Depends. What are my chances of giving the Dread Wolf a belly rub if I say no?”

Hah! Now it’s his turn to blush. He clears his throat delicately. “Currently? Non-existent either way. My mana is severely depleted, you’ll be casting for the both of us until I am able to manipulate the ambient magic in the threads holding the prison together. My ability to shift forms is beyond me.” His smile is wry. “I am less than I was when we first met. At least my body is producing latent mana again, though at a significantly reduced rate.”

“Is that because of the prison or because of the ritual?”

“A combination, I should think.” He lifts an arm to make a vague sort of gesture. “This place affects me far more greatly than you simply by virtue of how I designed it. You were right in that, vhenan.” He smiles at her, a softer shade of pride lightening his eyes that she finds she quite likes when it’s aimed at her. To be fair, though, she never disliked it when he got smug, back during their time in the Inquisition. He always had such an attractive self-satisfied smirk…

“Vhenan?” He gives her a gentle squeeze. “Where did you go?”

“Sorry!” She shakes herself, smiling apologetically. “Got caught up in some memories. Do you think you’ve… lessened some of your regrets then?”

“Not entirely,” Solas hedges. “I would say my physiology is simply adapting to the added strain of keeping the Veil in place.”

Erys stiffens, a sudden chill prickling down her back. She hadn’t even thought of that. Granted, she had been thinking much beyond how decimated Solas looked when faced with Mythal’s fragment, beyond how desperately she ached to reach for him, to stand between him and the world in spite of all he had done and still planned to do. He had cut into his palm so decisively in the end, an air of determined finality bleeding from him more profusely than the wound had. She hadn’t given a single moment’s consideration to how heavily that new burden might weight on him and to know that—

“Vhenan,” Solas says again, far more insistently this time, though when she drags her focus back to his face, he is smiling at her. “I promise you, there is no need to worry for me. The Veil is… mine. And as severely depleted as myself. Keeping the remnant of it in place is no great strain for me. It is just taking some time for my body and my magic to adjust. Prolonged exposure to the Fade’s energy is beginning to alter my magic and return it to its natural state, in much the same way as your own. Though it is equally likely that I have reached some semblance of peace within myself, as per your hypothesis.”

Erys lets out a sigh that she tries to pretend isn’t relief and Solas tries to look like seeing his words of comfort – genuine and honest – reassure her isn’t making him want to grin like a fool. Neither of them are particularly successful. “I like it when you tell me I’m right.”

“I enjoy telling you when you’re right,” Solas returns, grinning up at her. “You develop the most delightful blush across your nose, right up to the tips of your ears.”

“Oh, shut up,” Erys mumbles, ducking her head. Bad idea: his hand follows, pinching the tip of her right ear playfully and she doesn’t squeak but it’s a very near thing. “Solas!”

“Yes, vhenan?”

As cute as the feigned innocence is, it never fooled her before, and it certainly won’t fool her now. She is, however, incredibly susceptible to the way he tugs her fully into his arms, fingers lacing together against the small of her back. He gazes at her with open adoration, expression soft though his eyes flicker restlessly between hers and her lips, and though his smile is gentle, his eyes are dark.

A shiver ripples up her spine. Almost reflexively she banishes it, clearing her throat and looking away from him. “So, ah, I wanted to ask, things can live in the Fade, then? Not like— I know they can live here, but can things grow?”

“…It’s a matter of perspective,” Solas says haltingly, shifting awkwardly to remove his arms from around her waist, tucking one behind his head and failing utterly at an attempt to appear casual. He does not comment on her sudden shift and she doesn’t look at his face, uncertain she can handle whatever expression she might find there. Things are confusing enough without… Well, things are starting to balance out and she doesn’t want to upend their delicate equilibrium. It’s not a risk she’s willing to take just yet. “Yes, in a way, is probably the best answer I can give. Before the Veil, of course, there was no separation between the formed and the formless. Life was irrepressible and abundant wherever you looked. There are, for example, plants that only grow within the deepest reaches of the Fade, but it’s because since the raising of the Veil they only grow because the memory of their blooms remains within the Fade itself.”

“So… It’s the same as you said before,” Erys says. “A reflection.”

“In some aspects, yes. More a reflection out of time.”

“Like a ripple, then,” Erys adds. “The memory— The actual instance of life, the… spark or origin or what have you - before the Veil - that’s what creates the ripple and then the things that live on in the Fade are the waves the initial drop creates.”

“An apt metaphor,” Solas agrees. “A distorted reflection in some ways; the after-effects of what came before. Your analogy suits.”

“Thank you. I think I understand, then. By that logic I could, say, grow a tree from nothing. Stone, not soil, grown because I know how trees grow, but rather than following the biology of the tree’s growth, the Fade just recalls the memory of a tree living within it.”

She sees Solas nod out of the corner of his eye but refuses to look fully. She feels… uncertain. Wanting something she doesn’t know if she should want. Things are good, they’re finding their feet with each other again, she doesn’t want to ruin that with any extraneous messiness like desire.

As if wanting him is something she has ever been able to stop herself from doing.

“Physicality is the question and the Fade is the answer,” Solas adds. The clarification isn’t necessarily needed but she’s glad he hasn’t just withdrawn from her strange and sudden distance. With any luck he hasn’t even noticed, though the odds of that are laughably small. “A mirror, an echo, a ripple, however you wish to envision it, the result is the same.”

“Good to know,” Erys mumbles.

She is suddenly very conscious of her position atop him. Every inch of her body feels so uncomfortably present, demanding her attention in all the places she can feel him against her. There’s a fading hint of desire, an old ache that she remembers keenly, but it’s more that she is just so very aware all of a sudden. They have yet to even properly kiss since they arrived. Gentle touches, sweet embraces, a press of lips here and there to brow, cheek, hand, yes that’s all been fine. But finding their places beside each other after everything, with millennia of new knowledge and experiences… It will probably take some time before Solas is even remotely…

…Well, that’s certainly a thought and a half.

“I know that face,” Solas says, eyeing her warily. “You learned that from Sera.” The huff he lets out is deeply resigned. “I suppose if anyone has the right to ask anything probing and offensive, it’s you.”

“When have I ever?”

“Was I supposed to be under the illusion that half of Sera’s questions weren’t whispered to you first?”

Erys purses her lips. “…That’s not… not true.”

“And once again I am proven correct.” Despite the earlier awkwardness, Solas seems incapable of stopping his hands from gravitating back to her waist, except this time he walks his fingers up the ridges of her spine. “Am I right in thinking Blackwall’s terrible question about my relationship with spirits in the Fade passed your secretive vetting procedure?”

“Oh, gods, no,” Erys says, aghast. “No, they came up with that one all on their own.” She hesitates, then admits sheepishly, “I was curious about the answer, though.”

Solas rolls his eyes fondly. “Of course you were.”

“You can hardly blame me!” Erys defends, somewhat petulantly. “You had these moments of— You’d…” She bites her lip, struggling to find the right words. “You’d kiss me like a man starved. You’d touch me like you couldn’t bear to let me go, like you were moments away from surrendering yourself and… then you’d always pull away.” Her smile is rueful. “False pretences and all that.”

“False… pretences?”

“Well, they were your words,” Erys reminds him. “Isn’t that what kept you away from me? The terrible, hidden thing that reduced your touches to brief, gentle things, that made you pull back when it seemed that all you wanted to do was step closer? Am I foolish for thinking that, or was it the sense of your spirit self that held you back?”

“I did not hold back,” Solas says, the frown as apparent in his voice as it is on his face. “That is the thing that nearly spelled ruin for us both: my inability to stay away from you.”

Either he is being deliberately obtuse, or Erys is about to make a terribly belated discovery about the nature of spirits of Wisdom and the concept of desire. “Do you want me as a man, Solas? Did you ever?”

She meets his gaze steadily then, head cocked, imploring, and he looks back, expression open if slightly hesitant. “What do you think, vhenan?”

She glares at him. “Stop prevaricating and answer me clearly.”

“I will. I promise you that I will, but first I would hear your thoughts.” He reaches out to tuck a tangle of hair behind her ear, holding her gaze with a steadiness that unmoors her. “Give me your insight, vhenan.”

“I…” She swallows, licks her lips unconsciously. Solas’ eyes track the movement keenly and she is… very confused. “I thought so, at times. That you wanted… That you felt… There was a desperation in the way you would hold me, but your affections were only ever an answer to my own and… I doubted. Not that you loved me, I would have been a fool not to see that and it thrilled me as deeply then as it does now to have you look at me like— Yes, just like that.” Solas’ eyes crinkle when he smiles, she wants to press her lips there. “So, I assumed that whatever held you back was weighty enough to suppress desire. I know some of it now, and you yourself told me you would not lay with me under false pretences… I want to ask, what of us now that the pretences have fallen away? Was it the hidden truths that kept you from me? Or do you not want in the way that some mortals do?”

“Ir abelas, vhenan,” Solas tells her at once. “The distance I kept between us physically was my foolish attempt at protecting us both from the grief I knew would follow if I was too weak to stay away from you. My heart was lost so easily, ripped from my body to walk the world apart from me, but at the very least I could…” Absurdly, delightfully, he blushes. Blushes! Endearing, and it calls his freckles into stark, beautiful relief. She would count them with kisses if he would let her. “…Withhold myself from you.”

Her stomach flutters unbearably. This is dangerous territory, far too dangerous for her to dwell in, but she has to know. “You wanted me, then?” She asks hopefully, far too keen to feel even the slightest burn of embarrassment. “Back before—“

The aravel shifts alarmingly. No, that’s not right, of which she is made keenly aware when her back hits the aravel floor, half on the plush of the furs and half sprawled uncomfortably on the slatted wood. She can ignore that, it barely even scratches the surface of her awareness, because Solas looms above her, hands pressed to the floor either side of her head. His gaze is a physical caress, dark and hot and wanting, and Erys’ insides shiver and melt almost pathetically in response.

“…Oh,” she says faintly.

“Oh,” Solas echoes with a crooked grin, and leans down to kiss her.

Chapter Text

Solas kisses her.

He kisses her and in that kiss is time itself; ten years of longing, ten thousand years of loneliness, countless more of rage and pride and more still devoted to wisdom, to rebellion, to love. He kisses her with all that he is, offering everything he has left to give, and she drinks it greedily from his lips as though the thirst will kill her if she doesn’t. A hand curves against her back, bowing her spine to draw her closer as the other delves into her hair, tangling in strands and holding her so tightly her body sings with gratitude. May he never let her go, she will surely shake apart if he does.

She is dimly aware, through the haze of her fading senses, that he is speaking to her, murmuring oaths and promises against her lips. The Elvhen is too quick, too accented for her to catch even clear-minded, but every other word or so slips through, battering against her psyche as relentlessly as his lips move against hers. The words of their people flow like wine from his tongue, a soft, low purr that hypnotises her utterly, pressing words she does not yet know between her lips as though gifting them to her in the most intimate manner he can imagine; words like precious and desire and forever. Words like love and body and please. She shivers, overwhelmed, and parts her lips to him eagerly.

They have precious few rituals of intimacy to seek comfort in from before. It is only right that they discover new ones together.

She gasps for him when his hands stroke down her back, following the curve of her spine down to her backside, seizing almost desperate handfuls of soft flesh. He draws her towards him, his tongue tasting the desire on hers, the backs of her teeth, the swell of her lips, and parts her legs around his thigh to settle her comfortably against him. The intended comfort, however, is too fleeting when he nestles the expanse of his thigh against the budding heat of her, blunt, firm pressure that has her whimpering into his mouth. Worse, he undoes her entirely by guiding her hips into a slow rock and her mind splinters into incoherent shards.

He breathes her name against her jaw, catching her skin between his teeth. He hums a soft growl of longing, trailing a burning swathe of kisses down her throat before rising to press more kisses against any parts he has missed. Devotedly, he kisses her brow, the curves of each cheek, the tip of her nose, even, before resting his forehead against hers. When he speaks, his voice is a low growl that seems to rumble through the very frame of the aravel beneath them, all the way up Erys’ legs, to the very centre of her being. “All that you are calls to every part of me, ‘ma’asha. To exist with you, to fight beside you, to tend your wounds and hear your laughter, to return your teasing and bask in your affection, all of it the most exquisite torture because I could not allow myself to touch you, to taste you the way that I wanted. It would not have been right. But even knowing that as certainly as I did, I burned for you. As ardently then as I do now.”

“Solas,” Erys says faintly. It’s all she can currently manage. Any further words are liable to come out slurred and nonsensical. Her mind is a sea of cloud cover, fogged and immense, without a single coherent thought able to slip through the mist.

“‘Ma vhenan,” he murmurs, taking gentle hold of her face, stroking his thumbs over her cheekbones. “Islan pala na, ‘ma’lan, isalan gara suin na. There were days I thought of little else, when the barest of glances from you would have me stirring. Don’t ever doubt that I would have claimed you a hundred times over in every hall of Skyhold if I hadn’t bound myself to such a terrible lie. As much as I wanted you, I could never dishonour you like that. The moments when it became too much to bear, when I was overwhelmed... It wasn’t enough, ‘ma lath. I could not trust myself.”

When such beautiful, sinful proclamations drop from his tongue, Erys can scarcely find the coherence needed to respond. She wants to offer him something worthy of his decadent proclamations, something to match his desire, to tell him that all he feels is mirrored so keenly within her, that she wants him to dishonour her now, in every way he could possibly conceive of.

Too overwhelmed for anything poignant or coherent, she simply arches up, sinking her teeth into the juncture of his neck and shoulder as she has so primally ached to do.

A stuttered gasps tears from Solas’ lips, ghosting across the sensitive tip of her ear. She offers a pleased growl of her own, drawing back to press her lips over the reddened indentation of her teeth.

“Emma salin,” she croons to him softly. “‘Ma fen.”

He surrenders with a shuddering groan, growls her name his as he licks a burning trail over her pulse, along her jaw, nibbling his way along the blade of her ear so that he might take the sensitive lobe between his lips. She digs her nails into his shoulder, fabric twisting in her fingers and gives no further thought to anything beyond the approving purr he offers when he contentedly licks the taste of her from her skin.

“Solas.” Choked and unsteady, words do not come easily. A muted throb of pleasure thrums gently between her legs, driving coherency swiftly towards breaking point. “‘Ma lath, sathan.” She has no idea what she’s begging for. Anything. Everything. In her mind’s eye all she can see are their bodies twisting together, bared and desperate and she knows that she wants that but precious little else about the finer points of it. It isn’t inexperience that twists her thoughts to incoherence, Void knows that ship has sailed, but desire has rendered her nonsensical, and every thought is just him, a mess of want that leaves her with nothing but the animal desire for his skin on hers. She wants him every way she can have him, but she has no idea of how to distract his bewitching mouth long enough to obtain it.

Given the chance, she’d pin his hands to the floor and ride him until he begged for release. If her prideful wolf will submit to her.

“‘Ma’haurasha,” he calls her, igniting the blood in her veins. “Forgive me, I want— Everything.”

Her legs quiver, thighs clenching around his thigh, drawing her more firmly against the pressure she craves and she keens. “Solas, yes. Yes, I want— Have me.” She stutters it in a gasp, lungs emptying with a rush as he lifts her upright into his lap, cradling her to his chest, her legs snapping around his waist as her centre of gravity rapidly shifts. He nuzzles his face between the clothed swells of her breasts, breath warming the fabric. Her hand cups the back of his head, her cheek resting atop it as they breathe together, desperate and lost in a sea of want so overwhelming it robs them of sense.

And then he changes his mind.

But not, Erys thinks, entirely.

Her wolf shakes his head to clear it, forehead rubbing against folds of fabric she has never hated more than in this moment. “If you are truly certain—“

A growl rips its way from her throat. “By the fucking Void—“ One arm hooked around his shoulders, Erys throws her body carelessly to the side. She kicks her leg out, throwing much of her weight – and an unscrupulous spark of her magic – into the movement with the intent to send Solas deftly onto his back. He grunts, teeters, and with a bitten-off curse over the rapid shift of their weight they tumble right over until Erys can climb atop him, crashing with a regrettable amount of force into the mussed pile of furs. Slightly winded but ultimately victorious, she settles astride him, jubilant.

“Tell me I’m uncertain.” She delivers the challenge imperiously, shaking her hair back over her shoulders. Solas watches the movement hungrily, eyes wide and dark. “Tell me, vhenan.” If he needs the reassurance so desperately, she will offer it, anything to untether him so that he might claim her in all the ways she has wished. She is impatient, so impatient, but for him she will wait. Only for him.

Solas’ hands find her thighs, fingers splayed over the taut cotton of her leggings. “Vhenan—“ He chokes on the word, nails biting into her flesh when he clutches at her, each prick and pinch a shiver of delight beneath her skin. “I…” They glide up, warm and firm, beneath the hem of her tunic, up to her waistband where they find soft, bare skin beneath. She arches, she can’t help it, pressing herself greedily into his touch. She hums his name, catching her lip between her teeth and Solas’ answering growl is vicious in its intensity. “I can’t… But the things I would do…”

“Do them,” Erys gasps as his fingers trace her spine. “All of them, all of it, please.”

He shudders, leaning his face against her chest with a tight, hitched groan. Between her legs she feels him stir and a warmth of satisfaction blooms in her chest. He may resent having taken a body all those years ago, but she will show him how beautiful it can be to inhabit one. “Emma lath, you undo me.”

“Gladly, ‘ma fen,” she purrs, scratching her nails gently along the nape of his neck. She rests her shortened limb on his shoulder for balance, using the other to catch the blade of his ear between thumb and forefinger, rubbing at the tapered tip until Solas’ lashes flutter and his lips part around a breathless sigh. He is so beautiful, but it would be sweeter if he would just let go. He teased her with his potential, so where is the wolf she wants? “You still hold back. Why?”

He sighs shakily, spreading his hands across her back. “It has… been some time.”

She smiles, stroking her thumb up to the tip of his ear. He leans into her touch with the softest of sighs. Her heart is so full of him. “For me, as well, but I think I remember the gist of it.” Solas leans back to catch her eye. Gazes locked; she sees far more than he has ever permitted before. Boldly, she rocks gently in his lap, watching a startled flicker of pleasure twist across his face. A low moan catches in his throat. Unacceptable, she would hear it unobstructed. Unrestrained. “‘Ma’haurasha. Let me make you feel good.”

“Later,” Solas growls, slipping his hands higher up her back, dragging her tunic with it. “First I must—“

“I have waited for you, ‘ma’avin.” She spreads a hand over his chest, twisting her spine to dislodge his own questing hands. “The first taste is mine.”

Solas’ eyes blacken. “You’ll battle me for even this?” His fingertips catch against her skin, he tugs at her, trying to draw her down to him, to catch her mouth again but she holds firm. “Vhenan.” Reproachful, now.

“Are we fighting?” Erys asks, rolling her hips slowly. Solas’ lashes flutter, expression threatening to crack. “I thought we might try fucking.”

With a snarl deeper than the darkness of his eyes, Solas seizes her wrist. She feels a spark at the contact, an aching draw deep at the core of herself, where the reservoir of her power lies coiled against her spirit. A rush of mana leaves her, not enough to deplete her but enough that she can mark the loss, and with a harsh jerk of his free hand, Solas strips the very clothes from their bodies.

The sudden press of warm skin against the backs of her thighs is— disarming, but she can’t deny that the fervency of it delights her. Solas, the epitome of agonising patience, of seduction and denial, rigid, burning hot beneath her, so desperate to feel her skin against his own that he would steal of her power to banish their clothing. The slick catch of the coarse hair between her legs is maddening evidence of her approval.

“Behave like a quickling, if you wish,” Solas growls, clasping her back to pull her forward. His nose nudges against her breastbone, cheeks rubbing enticingly against the inner swells of her breasts. “But I will not fuck you like one.”

She whines. Oh, gods, does she whine. The growl in Solas’ voice, the barely veiled impatience that he will restrain regardless, it does things to her, sending her insides writhing with an ache so rich she can feel it in her back teeth. Perhaps, before everything, she would have wanted him to take her slowly, would have submitted to the tender caress of his reverent hands and lips, content to lie with him and let their pleasure find them in languorous waves. But she has wanted, searched, hunted for him for so long. She is senseless, instinct, and he is her prize.

“Isalan pala em,” she begs, summoning the spectral flare of her left arm so that she might clutch him to her more securely. “Solas. ‘Ma haurasha.”

She traces the ridge of his brow with her spectral fingers, casting gentle verdant shadows cross his features. She follows the line of his new scar, fingertip ghosting over the softness of his lashes. He watches her, gazing aching and full, pupils wide and dark as pitch, watching, waiting. She taps two fingers against his temple in quick, soft beats. Just twice, his name; So-las. His eyelids flicker in time with the caress, a lazy smile flitting across his face. She traces her tongue along the curve of his full lips to taste it for herself, laughing breathily when he nips ever so gently at the tip of her tongue with a growl both rich and playful. He is so dear to her, this foolish wolf with eyes so dark with lustful adoration, gazing at her the way he has ever been so afraid to unleash. The want in his eyes is a physical caress, almost heavier than the captivating warmth of his palms against her spine, her ribs, her scalp. She can feel him in every flicker of his eyes, every hitched breath of anticipation. Fingers flex against her hips, curling into fists carefully away from the softness of her flesh.

“’Ma’haurasha,” she croons again, stroking down his arms to pry his fingers loose. “Deras em. You cannot hurt me.”

“Erys.” He groans her name like a prayer, like the sweetest surrender, so thick with longing she finds herself desperately needing to taste it from his lips. He draws her in gratefully, as though the certainty of her declaration is the one thing he needed to hear, fingers twisting into her hair with no further hesitation, and when the evidence of his desire rises between her legs, she cannot help but shudder.

His hands tangle in her hair, and he chases her when she pulls back to breathe, drawing her back in, drowning her, delighting her. A moment of passion overtaking sense, desire burning too brightly to be ignored. How long has it been since she let herself feel without reason and let herself make all the wonderful, messy mistakes that come with being mortal? She wants too much all at once; every touch she will give her, along with those she can steal. How he can lull and rile her in turn with just the barest hint of desire maddens her. He is the insanity she clings to. She must have this discovery before she bursts apart at the seams. She cannot take her time to learn his body until she knows with certainty how well they fit together. There were nights she dreamed of little else, but the reality of it now is more than she could ever have dreamed.

A torrent of kisses is dropped against her collarbones. There are old scars there that his lips trace so reverently; a bursting bloom from an arrow, the stuttered grooves from the raking claws of a wyvern. He kisses them as though he was not the one to heal them, as though the patchwork of scars across her flesh is not testament to his resolve to keep her alive. He presses his mouth to the ridged tissue again and again, because he healed her when she was useful to him and now he caresses her because he loves her.

She loves him. She loves him, she loves him.

“Solas!”

His name hitches in her throat as his lips find the peak of her breast. He offers a deep, longing growl, lips wrapping around the stiffened bud of her nipple, drawing it into the wet heat of his mouth. A soft ripple of want courses through her, drawn to that single, blistering point of contact, arching her spine, stealing her breath. His fingers press greedily into the soft flesh, bewitched and entranced by the size and weight of them, kneading at her as his lips hollow, tongue tracing teasing trails across that sensitive bud. She shudders against him, catching her lip between her teeth, hips twitching forward seeking relief, anything.

He bites her and out slips her first, whimpering cry of the night. Day? Oh, who cares.

Her world tilts again but rather than pressing her back down into the furs, Solas keeps her suspended with nothing but the curl of his arm round her back. He drags his lips cross her chest, ensuring every inch of her sensitive flesh is lavished with attention, the molten glide of the damp heat of his tongue. Erys lets her head fall back, clinging to his shoulders, a litany of hitched gasps tearing from her throat. Solas’ growl against her skin is warm, possessive, and she melts at the sound of it. It is almost enough to strip her of the last vestiges of her tenuous senses, but every nerve in her body lights up when his hand finds a home for itself between her legs. His fingers meet slick flesh, so wet she would waver were his sounds of approval not so ardent. He purrs around her nipple, teeth catching sensitive skin as he drags a single finger between her dripping folds. Teasing her. Testing her. Pressing the pad of his forefinger against the swollen, needy pearl of her clit.

She keens. “Solas—“

“I will have this, ‘ma lath,” he purrs, tracing a brutally soft rune against her clit that has her whining. “For all the years I have wanted. Give this to me, vhenan. Tell me.”

She begs again, desperately trying to still the eager twitching of her hips. His finger ghosts against her. She is dying. “Deras em. Sathan, ‘ma fen. Sathan. Is— Isalan ma. Sathan, sathan, sath— Aah—!”

Force strikes at the apex of her thighs; a pulsing beat against her clit that has her shivering with a bitten-off cry. She feels no draw upon her own magic, and Solas’ fingers are still toying with her in that featherlight dance of madness, so it must have come from him, from his power; whatever meagre portion he has left that he has no qualms about using to draw out her pleasure. She had wondered— she had fantasised about what it would be like to take a competent mage to bed, but never had the opportunity. She had known Solas would likely be the most adept mage she would take as a lover, but he had been so reluctant she relegated those fantasies to her daydreams. To be faced with the reality of it – finally – winds a tight coil of excitement through her chest and deep between her legs.

His fingers spear her gently and she writhes.

She calls for him, choked to breathless, and he answers both her gasp and the ache within her with fullness, curling, beckoning, and the thought of it is enough to drive her mad. Magic thrums between his slender fingers, reaching deeper than she has ever been touched, and the sweet ache of it steals the last of her breath. He kisses her then, licking the half-formed whimpers from her mouth, the fingers not delving between her legs clutching at the bowed notches of her spine. His fingers spread, twist, curl. Erys shudders, toes curling in the furs, heat licking up her back, settling as a pulsing thrum low in the core of her. He presses hard, deep, tracing a slow and hypnotic glyph against her inner walls until her body is caught trembling between an involuntary stutter and clench.

“I have waited so long for you,” Solas murmurs against her throat, tracing the shape of the soft moans that form there with his tongue. If he is expecting an answer, he isn’t getting one. Erys can do little more than whine, lip caught between her teeth as Solas’ fingers curl and beckon, summoning an ache from deep within her that leaves her legs trembling. “My love…”

His magic – hers, stolen, gifted – sparks within her, the glyph he had traced throbbing against her insides and tearing a cry from her throat. Solas traps the sound between his teeth, pressing into sensitive flesh until Erys can hardly bear it, rocking her hips insistently against his fingers. He growls his approval, pressing harder, faster, dragging her swiftly towards a peak she has ached for. From him, with him, for him, she wants all of it, always, for the rest of her life, the rest of his, if she can steal it for herself. Let it be hers, this is her gift, this is her reward, this is hers.

He pulls her pleasure from her with the torturous curl of his dexterous fingers and her own ragged cry, sending her insides throbbing with relief. Her back teeth ache, her slick skin prickles, but he does not release her. The glyph sparks again, his thumb a slow, insistent pressure against her clit and her body buckles beneath the sensation as keenly as she attempts to writhe away. He holds her fast, kissing bruises into her throat with his teeth, murmuring vows of devotion as she squirms against him, breath caught in her throat between pleas she cannot hold back. She blinks and there is wetness clinging to her lashes and she is so— It’s everything and her body can’t withstand it, it’s too much, she can’t— She can’t —

She sobs, breaths hitching, back arching in his grip as the waves crash over her a second time. Her body thrums with the sweet ache of it, thighs trembling as his fingers shift gently from focused coaxing to soothing caresses. He kisses her jaw, her cheeks, and finally her lax, panting mouth, the shape of his smile pressed tenderly to her own.

The smile, when she can focus on his face again, is wickedly smug. “Ea son?”

A huff of laughter and she lets herself fall fully limp in his grip. He tightens his hold on her wit a faint grunt of amusement, lowering her gently onto the furs. He does not – she notes with some interest – move himself from the cradle of her faintly trembling thighs. It also does not escape her notice that he is very hard. Or that the Dread Wolf has an incredibly handsome cock.

She chokes on an inappropriate giggle. Solas gives her a look.

“Ame son,” she mumbles through her amusement. “Really. I just…” Her eyes flicker down between them. “I would have been a terrible Keeper.”

His bemusement is palpable. “…Is that relevant?”

“With how eagerly I’m spreading my legs for the Dread Wolf, I would say so.”

Solas’ expression twists in the most fascinating way. Like he wants to roll his eyes, growl at her, and kiss her all at the same time. That heavy-lidded shadow of arousal sits darkly in his eyes, even as his lips twist with reluctantly amused irritation. “Don’t say it.”

“Say what?” Erys asks, eyes wide and innocent. Solas is not fooled. Rightly so. “Oh, you mean the old Dalish curse—“

“Erys.”

“May the Dread Wolf take—“

“Erys’enya.”

“Well, I really wish he would.” She notches her fingers against his collarbone, rubbing her thumb over the ridge of it. Up to his shoulder, to the smattering of pale freckles that litter the skin there. She traces the constellation of them, effectively distracted from her teasing by the soft perfection of his skin. He is muscled and broad, but she’d known that before. She hadn’t known how far down his freckles ran, that they dappled across his ribs, his hips, his waist— His waist. Tapered and angular, abdomen taut, the jut of his hipbones begging for the press of her teeth.

She trails her fingers down his chest, the sculpted planes of his pectorals, circling a nipple with the tip of her finger, broken from her focus when Solas shudders lightly. She looks up at his face, catches him watching her, eyes dark, lips parted. An apology forms on her tongue but she bites it back. She’s not sorry. She wants to do everything in her power to keep Solas looking at her like that.

Her fingers drag lower. A silent challenge. Solas’ lashes flicker, abdominal muscles twitching beneath her fingertips. There’s a light sheen to his skin there, slick from where she’d pressed against him while he fucked her with his fingers. She doesn’t know if that’s her sweat or his on his skin. She hopes it’s both.

“Vhenan.” A warning, soft as sin. She traces the arch of his hipbone, left side, follows the V of him down, down.

Her mouth waters, saliva pooled on her tongue. He bows under the weight of his own rigid flesh, cock hanging heavily between his legs. Flushed, reddened, slick at the tip. The hood of him conceals what she wants nothing more than to press her tongue to. He teases her just by existing, sculpted from the Fade itself to tempt her beyond sense.

How well loved he must have been, in the Arlathan that he loved. A brief spike of inadequacy sours the intensity of her desire. All the time she had spent wanting him when he was close to her, she hadn’t known of his past, of the long years of his life. What could a precocious Dalish quickling know of the sort of pleasures the Elvhen could reach? Even with her magic, he must have reached heights she could never dream of. She had been confident, before. Now all she can think of is that she might disappoint him.

Her fingers curl, and she draws her hand slightly away from him.

Then her insides clench because Solas lets out the softest, most plaintive whine of protest she has ever heard.

“Oh,” she says.

Solas’ cheeks burn. “I, ah… That was…” He clears his throat, sitting back on his feet. “I didn’t…”

“No, no,” Erys says, reaching for him. “Solas. I liked that sound. I really liked that sound.”

“It was unintentional—“

“Then I like it even more.” Erys grins. “Solas. ‘Ma lath.” She pitches her voice to something softer, coaxing. “Won’t you tell me what pleases you?”

“You please me,” Solas says. Sweet, but Erys is beyond distraction. He’d once praised her indomitable focus. He may come to regret that statement.

“I would have you tell me what you want,” Erys croons, dragging her nails ever so lightly down his chest. Solas shivers. “Or, better yet, show me.”

“You’re playing a dangerous game.”

Erys rocks up onto her knees. Solas leans back. She presses against his chest. He lets himself be pushed down. Her desire suddenly seems so enticingly within reach. “I love a dangerous man. And apparently I can make him whimper.”

His ears twitch down, flushed to the tips. “Vhenan…”

“Ame,” she tells him. “Nea bellanaris.”

And because they have time, later she will ask him how he lived in Elvhenan. She will ask him to show her all the things that entice him, all the places he longs to be touched. For now, she will learn for herself and thus devote herself to learning the taste of the constellations of freckles that dapple his skin. She will commit the sound of his hitched sighs to memory, the way his lips part and his eyes slip closed, the way his long lashes brush the swells of his cheeks, softened by the intensity of his flush. She will memorise every twitch and shudder – starting now with the way he traps a mewl in his throat when the soft pouch of her stomach presses to his own, trapping the length of his cock between their bodies. She will learn – he will tell her softly, haltingly, in his own meandering way - after all the years she has spent loving him, that she is the first to touch him this way; because she wants to, because she can, because his pleasure intoxicates her, makes her bold, brave. He will tell her, when he finds his voice again, that she is the first giving caress he has ever known, pleasure freely gifted in love and not greedily claimed for the promise of power.

For now, she bows her head, gifting him a kiss as she takes him in hand, receiving gratefully the raw, hitched groan he offers in return. The sound of it is liquid heat down her spine, as hot as the sensitive flesh pressing his stuttering heartbeat into her palm.

“My sweetest wolf, my precious one,” she purrs against his jaw, drawing back the hood of his flesh, dragging her thumb over his slick tip, pressing lightly. Just once. He trembles beneath her. “You make such beautiful sounds for me.” Brows drawn, lips parted, breaths quick-paced and eager, Solas’ hands find her hips, his earlier hesitance gone. He clutches at her, the ache of his fingers in her flesh a burn she cannot resist. His own hips press forward into her grip, loosened to tease him and, yes, there it is, that sweet little whine of longing she wants to etch into her very spirit.

“You are more than I ever dared to dream of,” Solas gasps, groaning when she settles astride his hips. He is so deliciously hard between her legs and she aches for him so deeply she is afraid she may go mad. His own vaunted self-control – if the bruises pressed into her hips and the sharp jut of the muscles in his neck are any indication – is dangerously close to snapping. She will bait the wolf out of him later. When they come together again, and again, and again, with all the time they now have afforded to them, she will call it out of him, bare herself to him the way he deserves. But for now, she hunts, and claims her prize with a slow, downward cant of her hips.

The ache of him is sublime. He burns brightly within her, opening her body in ways she has longed for and been bereft of for so long. A guttural moan tears its way from Solas’ throat, back arching and it’s— real. The sound of his pleasure, of complete surrender, the flush on his cheeks, down to his chest, freckles in stark relief. The way his ears twitch, fluttering all the way to the tapered points. His shoulders dig into the furs, the long column of his throat practically begging for the kiss of her teeth. She wants so much, all at once, so many desires tearing at her fracturing concentration, all unable to override the stutter of excitement rippling in her chest that flares brightly when, hands braced against his chest, she lowers until the backs of her thighs touch the muscled planes of his, and the heavy fullness inside steals her breath.

Her lips part around a shaky moan. “Vhenan,” but the stuttered gasp is not hers. Solas is captivated beneath her, expression lax with a sort of overwhelmed pleasure she would immortalise in paint if she had the skill. Instead, she strokes her fingers down his cheeks, watching the almost restless flicker of his eyes across her face. He flexes within her and she moans softly, bowing forward to press her forehead to his.

“Erys,” he says, and she wonders how one word can be filled with such longing, such wonder, such adoration. That it floods her in the shape of her own name is far too much to bear. She wants to move, to watch the cracked fragments of his desire shatter into the smallest pieces; tiny shards she can embed within her skin, never to lose.

She moves. A soft rock, a shift, a nudge of his warmth within her. Solas’ head tips back against the furs - the sweetest gasp pulled through his throat. His fingers anchor into her hips. The shape of her name catches on his tongue.

“Too much?” The breathlessness dampens her teasing, but she truly must know. Because she loves him, because the tremble in her limbs is overwhelming her. She sits astride him, full of him, and if she cannot move, she will go mad.

“Yes.” His lips pull up, smile dazed. “Always.”

“Then can I—“

“Please.”

Oh, her mind is as full of him as her body is and she will have it no other way. Back arching, she rocks, thighs tensing either side of his hips. That tears a whine from the man beneath her, stutters the breath in her own throat, but the hot drag against her insides barely affords her the cognisance required to enjoy it. She is so full she aches.

“Vhenan,” Solas groans again, jaw clenched. “Please.”

“Ea son, ‘ma fen?” She croons, throat tight. “What would you have of me?”

His laughter is rich and strained. “Everything. Please, ‘ma lath. I have waited, I need—“

Erys lowers her chest to his, bringing her lips to within a hair’s breadth of his own. A shift of her thighs pulls her slowly off of him. Solas’ hands flex on the softness of skin at her hips. She wonders what he will do – only for a moment – before his grip tightens and he pulls her back down, canting his hips up almost mindlessly to meet her with a loud, cracking slap of skin on skin. Her body isn’t expecting him so deep so quickly, the rapid shift to accommodate sending a rippling flare of pleasure through her core. She whines through it, teeth digging into her lip for control, vision flickering, body clenching, and Solas growls, bucking up hard, again, arms encircling her waist.

She must make some sort of sound because Solas tucks his face against her neck with a gasp, lips hot against her skin. He says something - aching, twisting words, too quick, pressed into her skin, and then those words become a mantra, a chant, spilled clumsily against her skin as he pulls her closer and loses himself. She watches it happen through pleasure-hazed eyes, the moment his body loosens and unlocks, tension bleeding away in favour of that constant, sinuous roll of his hips.

“Vhenan,” he gasps, broad palms curving around the swells of her backside, guiding her into a grinding rhythm that tears a juddering moan from her chest. The glyph within her throbs and pulses, flaring delight deep inside. She rocks back with the motion to chase it, meeting the harsh thrust of his hips hard enough that ache intensifies into something sharp and warm. She keens with it, back arching, fingers clutching at the furs beside his head.

“Vhenan, vhenan,” he chants at her, brows arched, lips parted. The flush on his cheeks delights her; she peppers clumsy kisses across every freckle she can reach. His fingers knead the plush flesh of her backside, guiding her in his lap, rocking her, pushing pleasure through her body in sweet, aching pulses she must simply clench and shudder through. He is so hard within her, she thinks – drunk and lustful and entirely lost to sense – that she can feel every ridge of him, the cradle that the softness of her body makes for him, swollen head lodged against her insides, rubbing, pressing, fucking. He is bigger than she has taken before, in every way; the broad sculpture of his body, the vast knowledge of his mind; the depth of his feeling, his wisdom and his love. It’s all so very poetic, how she loves him and the vastness of all that he is, yes, yes, absolutely, but right now it’s the size of his cock that has her writhing, so she’ll praise the rest of his virtues later.

His name rips from her in a strangled groan, Solaaaaas, whined into his neck. She feels him shift, knees bending between her trembling thighs, and then his hands are at her ribs, her chest, pushing her up until her back is forced to arch so that his lips can find her swollen, reddened nipples and pluck at them again with his teeth. He grunts against her flesh words she knows, “lasa em,” and words she does not, “tua rosas’da’din.” His hips buck, she quivers, rocking back, forward, grinding, twisting blindly towards the pleasure he delivers so maddeningly. “Sathan, ‘ma haurasha, garas, ‘ma blar’eireth— ‘ma— ‘ma lath, arasha— vhena-ah— garas, vhenan, vhenan—! ‘Ma sa’lath, garas, garas—!”

Garas, she knows, but not like this – not spilled pleadingly from the begging tongue of the wolf she loves. Not begged against her sweat-slick skin, panted against her lips as she tries so desperately to kiss him through her own unsteady, gulping breaths. He raises his head from her breast to meet her eyes, his own wild and dark, saliva drawn from her flesh to his lips. She watches the glinting thread of moisture tremble and snap, claims his mouth clumsily, ardently, with her own. And that is where she finds the blinding crash of her release, sobbing into his mouth as her own taut threads snap, leaving her weakly trembling in his grip. Fingers curl into her hair, tangling in the slick strands. Solas’ heart thunders against her chest, answering the rapid-fire beat of her own, but it’s the near-pained cry that he gives as his body tenses beneath hers that she wants more than anything. He tries to ask, he tries so hard, but all she can do is clutch herself to him, “sathan, yes, sathan, I want—“

His teeth catch her lower lip, a hitching growl gusting across her skin as he— oh, he’s so warm within her.

“Erys.” He looks so dazed, this wonderful, brilliant creature. Not a single thought flickers behind his eyes, expression lax, sated beyond words. He says her name like it’s all he can manage and Erys can sympathise. She nuzzles into his throat, boneless and spent, halfway to spilling a torrent of giggles against his warm, damp skin before she can stop herself.

Something, something, worth the wait. She’ll tease him about it later.

***

“Solas.”

“Mmhn…”

“Solas.”

“Mmhn.”

Erys smothers a laugh against her forearm. The warm, pleasant weight sprawled across her back clearly doesn’t have any intention of relenting any time soon, though the next lazy kiss he presses against her shoulder blade is somewhat reproachful, as though admonishing her for interrupting his meticulous process. If he does in fact have one, it is a mystery to all but him, as most things are, unless he deems them necessary to share. For now, Erys is content to let him indulge, if only because his slow, hypnotic exploration of her body is lulling her into a sense of relaxation she cannot ever recall experiencing. The sudden release of tension in her muscles would be almost painful if his slow, languorous but thorough caresses didn’t serve to ground her so effectively.

“Solas, we need to get up,” she protests anyway, because remaining in the Fade-conjured comfort of an illusory aravel nest seems far too indulgent, even for them and all they have endured. She isn’t used to this sort of decadence, and as pleasant as she finds it, she can’t quite quell the restlessness within her. Though a generous portion of that is centred between her legs and is wholly Solas’ fault.

“No, we don’t,” Solas murmurs against the back of her neck, hair swept carelessly over her right shoulder. She hums, tipping her head forward in spite of her own protest, letting him and his skilled mouth draw the last of her resistance from her body.

“We need to eat,” Erys insists, ineffectual for the breathy way the words escape her when Solas catches the tip of her left ear between his teeth. He dares to suck softly on the tapered point and makes a deeply satisfied sound when Erys groans her approval.

“I will form whatever you desire,” he offers, breaths fluttering softly against her flushed skin. She shivers and Solas is unbearably smug in his victory.

“By stealing my mana,” Erys counters weakly. “If you take any more of it, I won’t be able to move for a week.”

Solas is quiet for a moment but somehow she can still hear his grin. “You bring me problems and solutions in the same breath. You are so wonderfully efficient, ‘ma vhenan. I see no downside to this plan.”

“Solas!” Erys laughs when he nudges her legs apart to settle between them, hips slotting neatly against her backside. She turns her head to glance at him over her shoulder. “You’ve a one-track mind!”

“Yes,” Solas says, guiltless and honest. For once. What strange times they live in. “Why do you think I held back from you for so long?”

“Because you knew I would change your mind and sway you from your path.”

“…There were multiple reasons.”

She can’t help but smother her laughter into the furs beneath her. The sound of Solas’ own soft mirth is a pleasant hum against her back. He kisses her again; a sweet press of lips against her shoulder. She can already feel him, warm and slowly filling against the curve of her backside. Protests aside, her body thrums with want for him anew, as though he hasn’t spent… innumerable hours coaxing her to completion again and again. This, though, she is willing to permit. For too many years to count, she has longed to see this side of him, the weightlessness, the freedom from the duty that bound him. To say nothing of how many years he must have longed to experience the same. She will indulge him forever, she has decided, because he deserves it, they both do.

And she really, really likes the way he fucks her.

“Predictable,” she mutters with a bitten back grin, bending her knees when Solas slips a hand beneath her to raise her onto them. He pauses, palm pressed against her stomach, and her cheeks ache with the strain of holding back her smile. “Have you wanted me on my knees the entire time?”

He huffs. “It’s not— I have no ulterior motives for the position.”

“Shame,” Erys hums. She settles comfortably onto her forearms so that her back is arched, hips tilted up invitingly. She is no longer the scrawny, underfed Dalish youth stumbling at the head of the Inquisition. She has filled out and softened with age, and she knows that she carries it well. Solas, ancient god-mage though he may be, is unmistakably taken with the size of her backside and breasts, as any hot-blooded man would be. So she arches for him, luxuriating under the appreciative heat of his wanting gaze. “I like the wolf.”

“Ah.” Solas’ hands stroke up the backs of her thighs, grasping a cheek in each palm and gripping the globes of her ass almost greedily. A little frisson of startled excitement sparks low in her belly when he spreads her, exposes her, and she catches her lip between her teeth to halt the gasp that threatens to slip out. “You would have me mount you? Rut mindlessly like some sort of beast?”

Erys moans before she can stop herself, then blushes so deeply it leaves her dizzy. She feels herself clench at his words, hides her face against the furs in embarrassment when she realises he can probably see her doing that.

“Erys’enya,” Solas tuts, sounding far too pleased with himself. “What would the Chantry think of the Herald lusting after such things?”

“I think Andraste herself would be cheering me on,” she mutters. “Solas.”

“Mmmm?”

“I hope you have more in mind than staring.”

“Impatient?”

“You could say that.”

“Good,” he purrs. A kiss pressed to the base of her spine like a secret. The soft groan that follows is ardent with longing. “I knew,” he says, almost accusingly. “I knew the moment I had you I would be useless for anything else.”

“A shame, truly,” Erys hums, wiggling her hips. “Perhaps I should have just tied you to my bed in Skyhold and come to you solely for advice and pleasure.” Solas falls silent and she wonders if the joke has landed poorly. “I’m only—“

“That.” Solas clears his throat. “Is certainly a… rich image.”

“Hah!” Twisting away from him, ignoring his plaintive little whine, Erys settles half onto her back to grin at him. “That is a sentiment I recognise. I wonder if it’s a common want in people with power they resent. The desire to have all command stripped away, offered to someone they trust.”

Solas clears his throat. “I believe many cultures have different names for it—“

“I’m familiar with the practice, Solas, I just wondered if it was a common desire in people in circumstances like ours.”

It’s an errant consideration, interesting at the edges but not exactly something she has any real interest in spending time musing on at length, though for once it seems like the consideration she is focused on has flown completely over Solas’ head. His eyes narrow. “How familiar?”

“Books, mostly,” Erys says, hiding a smile. “And several drunken conversations with The Iron Bull. I also lived with Dorian for the better part of two years, you learn things. Or hear things. Unavoidable, unfortunately.”

Solas’ lips thin the way they always do when he wants to ask a difficult question. She considers letting him stew on it until he gathers himself enough to blurt it out. She is not usually that unkind... But he does need to be humbled sometimes, so she waits, a knowing smirk twisting her lips.

“And…” Solas’ nose wrinkles. “While we were parted… Did you…?”

“Call me delusional if you like, but your answer of “I wish it could,” to my rather impassioned declaration of enduring didn’t read as the break-up you probably intended it to,” Erys says. “So, no. I made my choice. Annoyingly.”

“Annoyingly?”

“Well, ten years is a long time. When you’re leading the fractured remains of an organisation created to heal the world all while trying to locate a being powerful enough to end the world you just saved, it can feel like an eternity. When you are also not able to find suitable relief in your rare moments of peace because the man you love is off doing things he shouldn’t be, it can get a bit trying.”

Solas’ smile is somewhat sheepish. “How considerable is the urge to throttle me?”

Erys considers this. “After last night? And this morning? Significantly lessened.”

He exhales a soft laugh. “Well, that’s a relief.”

“Solas?”

“Yes, vhenan?”

“I love you.”

His smile is bright, his entire face creasing with the warmth of it. “As I love you, ‘ma blar’eireth.”

“I like this,” she says, reaching up to touch his unfurrowed brow. “I like this so much. You look… Do you remember the night after Halam’shiral?”

“The evening of, you mean?”

“No, after. Back at Skyhold.”

“Ah” He turns his head to kiss her palm. He does that a lot, she isn’t sure why. “Yes.”

Back at Skyhold. Those words, once, were everything. After a slog through the Fallow Mire; we can bathe and rest, back at Skyhold. Venatori sedition and treacherous attempts to destroy them; we must inform Leliana, back at Skyhold. A wound deep-set that lacking potion stores could not treat; lean on me, Inquisitor, I have you, we will see it mended fully, back at Skyhold.

Perhaps she will spend the rest of her life, longing for it. He gave it to her and she loved it, even before she understood how much right he truly possessed to offer it. Ownership, not discovery. Had his hands raised the stone they called home? Did he claim it or did he create it? Skyhold rang with so much ancient magic that she felt it loved her as much as she loved it. As much as Solas loved her.

His, then. In every way that mattered.

“You were so calm,” Erys recalls. “We celebrated a full victory. No needless deaths, the complete satisfaction of our labours—“

“Your labours.”

“Ours.” She smiles. “You looked then as you looked now. Satisfied. Calm.”

“I was,” Solas admits easily. “The Inquisition… As much as the events that prompted its formation were my fault, they were… quite possibly the happiest months of my life. The happiest since I’d first left the Fade, at least.”

“Oh, Solas.” She strokes his cheek softly, jubilant and grieved in equal measure, as she so often is by him and the fathomless depths of his existence. “They were for me, too.”

“Despite the horrific acts committed both against and in the name of the Inquisition?”

“I’m trying to see it through your eyes,” Erys says. “For me, the days when my friends and I made changes in a suffering world, those were the moments I lived for. The burdens were heavy and at times I resented what I was called to do, but I loved the Inquisition. I always will. For you? Yes, I can see how you would have loved those months. Called upon for wisdom, respected for what knowledge you could offer, brought into the warmth of companionship by those who respected and cared for you… Sometimes I wish those days could have lasted forever.”

“You’ve always afforded me more grace than I deserve.”

Erys scoffs. “I think you deserve the world, Solas. If that makes me biased… I can’t even argue. I’m allowed my biases, though, I saved the world.”

“You can have whatever you want,” Solas says seriously. “I would crown you with the stars themselves if you asked.”

“My eternal love,” Erys coos, catching the apple of his cheek between her thumb and forefinger. “You do spew some romantic nonsense at times, don’t you?”

“Your fault,” Solas defends, turning his head to nip at her fingers. “Now, if you don’t mind…” He strokes his hands softly down the insides of her thighs, gently guiding her legs apart.

“I can’t believe I’m saying this, but yes, I mind.” She barks a laugh at his disgruntled expression. “Solas, I’m hungry. Forget a coronet of stars, I want breakfast. Or lunch or whatever meal suits the blasted not-time of the Fade.”

Solas sits back on his heels, sighing fondly. “Ma nuvenin.”

“Nuvenan.” Erys grins, rolling to the side and taking the top blanket of fur with her. Draping it around her shoulders, she shuffles to the door of Solas’ aravel, quick to move across such a familiar space, unhooking the door latch and slipping down the steps, shielding her eyes against the buttery brightness of the sun that had been pressing against the canvas.

The day is bright, the grass soft beneath her feet, the air clear and balmy. She fills her lungs with the freshness of it, digging her toes into the lush greenery beneath her and luxuriating in the absence of cold stone. Solas truly is a master of the Fade, she has come to understand. How he could craft such a beautiful vista for them with just the barest borrowed portion of her magic is incredible. There is so much life within the dreamscape. The grass beneath her thrums with it, tinted a gentle, glowing blue at the roots, casting a soft hue of turquoise to the green blades. Odd, but still beautiful.

She feels powerful here. The sun above her, the conjured forest, the sweet air… Her heart is so full. Mana thrums in her veins, a pleasant tingle beneath her skin. She feels… She feels…

Dizzy. She feels dizzy. That’s not…

“Solas?”

“What is it?” He pushes the aravel hatch open, leaning out. “Are you…” He trails off, taking in their surroundings with wide eyes.

“This wasn’t you, was it?”

“No…?” Solas says, slowly stepping from the aravel onto its outer steps, his cotton trousers hanging low on his hips, still unfastened. “Just the aravel. The sunlight was illusory… That was what I intended, anyway.” He looks rather disarmed by the depth of his conjured vista. “I must have…” He looks to her. “Are you feeling well? I must have taken more mana from you than I thought.”

“No, it’s— Come down.”

He does and the realisation is swift. The moment his bare feet touch the grass his gaze snaps down and he drops to a knee, pressing a hand to the blades. The gentle blue glow intensifies beneath his palm and with a flickering rush, the grass recedes, stripped from existence like pencil erased from parchment. The familiar stone of their prison lies beneath, but the bedrock is now threaded through with shining veins of lyrium.

“How is that possible?” Erys asks, shivering through her magic’s instinctive response to the proximity. She shifts her feet, trying to find an unfractured portion of stone to stand on and keep her bare skin from the veins. It barely helps; she is still too close. She could level a mountain if she wanted, there is so much power flowing through her. “Did you use lyrium to build the prison?”

“No,” Solas says, voice deathly quiet.

“Then… How…?”

Solas looks up. His eyes are wide, terrified in a way she has only rarely seen. His mouth opens but he has to force the words out and Erys’ heart, flooded with the raw energy of lyrium, seizes in her chest. “The Titans are waking.”

Chapter Text

Erys is quick to throw a barrier beneath her feet. Amplified by the lyrium, it snaps into place like the crack of a whip, sharp and surging, but the sudden cessation of the lyrium’s warping press against her skin is a heady relief. Instinct carries her through her next movements while Solas is frozen in panic on his knees, because it is wrong that he should be so afraid, this resolute, indefatigable man that she loves. The protective spirit that she nurtures flares to life within her. With barely a gesture, she plucks at the very threads of the Fade around them and, suffused by the raw lyrium underfoot, Erys cloaks them with a swirl of mana. The cotton and furs barely covering their bodies are banished into motes of Fade that warp and twist, reforming into supple travelling leathers in a heartbeat. She is too afraid of the panicked intensity of Solas’ expression to marvel at her uncommon mastery; she wants to demand all sorts of explanations for this, for the lyrium, for his certainty that the Titans have awoken, but her mind is still reeling, head pounding, and the lyrium feels as though it’s creeping its way into her blood, even through the barrier.

Her sole reassurance, “it isn’t red.”

Solas blinks slowly as though rousing himself from a deep meditation. He is too close – veins pulsing deep within the bedrock below his knees – but he does not seem to register its proximity at all. He is, in a way she has not seen before – desperately afraid.

“It’s not red,” she says again, laying a hand against his shoulder. He is taut with tension beneath her palm. She shifts her hand to cup his neck, warm skin against his skittering pulse. He feels her and he draws a breath – unsteady, but deep. “Tell me why it isn’t red, Solas.”

“I… don’t know.” His admittance is soft, aggrieved, but as she had known it would – hoped that it would – the question sparks that keen curiosity within him, just enough to overshadow the fear. Why is it blue? If the Titans are waking, why have they not sent Blighted lyrium to pervade every inch of their tormented cage? “No, I— Perhaps—“ He shakes his head. “The bindings cannot— It should have been enough, I should have been enough, but… I don’t know, I don’t know.”

He is scared. Her mate, her heart, is scared, so Erys cannot be. His fear overrides her own, she refuses to let it strip her of her sense. At least one of them needs to stay level-headed and Erys has far less reason to abandon the title of Inquisitor than Solas has to abandon the mantle of Dread Wolf. She can call upon her experience without guilt, and she does so now, settling the skittering panic by force as she takes in their surroundings. With the illusion of the aravel and sunlit glade banished, the prison has returned and is just as grey and familiar as it has ever been, save for the splintering veins of lyrium now fracturing the ground. It has not touched everything; there are swathes of rock both foundational and floating that have not yet been permeated by its webbing touch, but as disjointed as this landscape is, it isn’t possible to find the source - an originating point - of the lyrium’s spread.

“There is little they can do in waking, I think,” Erys says, aloud for Solas’ benefit. Her mind whirls with the desire to understand - secondary to her need to comfort him - but no less insistent. “It can’t have been sudden. They can’t have just broken through the bindings, surely? I know you said it was degrading, but I thought it was the wear of the Veil that was causing the prison to fail.”

“It was,” Solas says and nothing further.

She has only seen him this unbalanced once, though his current fear has surpassed even that. Watching Valta answer the call of what Erys now understands was the single, unbound Titan – something she could not fathom at the time – had left Solas unmoored and driven to uncharacteristic silence. He had barely spoken a word throughout the entire ordeal, serving only to shield them with his barriers and set his rage upon the encroaching Darkspawn with more prejudice than she had ever thought him capable of. His flames had burned wild and hot, the pull of the Fade almost smothering in its intensity as he called upon it. He had been vicious, furious, a trapped wolf snapping at its captors, nothing left to lose but its life. She understands now more than she could have ever hoped to at the time.

This is his consequence. He is the Titans’ last living enemy, the reason for their entrapment.

But why is the lyrium blue?

“It isn’t Blighted,” Erys says. “At least there’s that. The danger isn’t immediate, we can— Solas.”

His gaze snaps to hers but he is barely present within it. She wonders how many years separate her from the memories he is trapped in.

Likely too many to count.

It is easy enough to extend the barrier beneath him and tug him to his feet. He follows willingly, if somewhat limply, until Erys can cup his face between her palms and angle his head down to meet her eyes. It takes a few quick blinks for him to focus on her fully, pupils narrowed to pinpricks in his unease, but he manages it.

“Hello,” Erys says, and waits.

“…Hello.” Solas echoes after a moment.

“Listen,” she tells him, inclining her head. There is no sound but their quiet breaths and the crystalline hum of the lyrium. “No danger. We’re safe for the moment. I think you panicked, ‘ma fen. The Titans have stirred, if anything. You’d know if they had actually woken up, wouldn’t you?”

“It’s not possible for the Titans to wake,” Solas says tersely, “not in the way you’re thinking. The aspect that is trapped within the Black City is the consciousness of Titans; sentience stripped from their corpses, which remain in the physical world beyond the Veil. The only part of the Titans kept within the Fade are their minds.”

“So they can’t wake,” Erys says. “You dramatic beast. You scared the life out of me! They’re still imprisoned, still insane, you just blurted out the first thing you could think of in a panic and scared the shit out of me!”

“When I say waking, I mean aware,” Solas adds quietly, and Erys gets to experience the wholly unpleasant sensation of her stomach dropping to the vicinity of her knees. “They have been caged for millennia, aware of nothing, trapped in their dreams – dreams that I tried to make kind.”

“Aware?” Erys echoes. “They know we’re here?”

Solas shakes his head. “We are not where they are. The ritual was interrupted.” He gives her a flat look and Erys hides a wince. “I was opening the failing prison to move the Evanuris away from the Blight, hoping that without their corrupting influence, I could soothe the worst of it as I brought the Veil down.”

Erys won’t lie, the entire time she had been following Rook’s exploits – penned letters from Lace or in-person reports from Morrigan – she had been under the impression that the ritual they had disrupted was Solas’ attempt to bring the Veil down. Even Varric had been convinced – you don’t hear tell of an ancient being preparing a ritual of unknown power and just let it happen – but now that she thinks about it with the added benefit of context, it makes sense that Solas would want to secure the Evanuris before he tore the Veil down.

“So we aren’t in the Black City,” she says instead of dredging up the old argument of why didn’t you let me help you, you colossal moron?

“We are,” Solas says.

She restrains the instinctive bolt of fear through sheer force of will. “Okay. That’s— We can—”

“And we are not.”

Erys’ temples throb. “Elaborate.”

“We are…” He seems to consider his explanation for an age before offering it, which makes Erys’ insides squirm unpleasantly. “We are not in the Black City, so much as… in the space the Black City occupies.”

There is a not-insubstantial chance she may yet throttle him, her desire to offer him comfort be damned. “You give me such a headache sometimes, do you know that?”

“I’m sure.” Horrifically, his ears droop ever so slightly, and now she feels just terrible about the comment, but the headache is very real and very present, so there can be no easy victory. “I’m not sure how to distil the explanation into one that will convey the concept in Trade.”

“Concept?” The headache recedes—somewhat—and her curiosity sparks. “Now, hold on, it’s not a physical location?”

He glances at her. His ears twitch hopefully. He’s likely not even aware of it. “No. Are you trying to—“

“Hush, Wisdom, I’m solving your puzzle.”

And up the ears go, perking like an eager puppy’s. Accompanied by the bright flush that sweeps across his cheeks, Erys wonders how this man could ever have led a rebellion. The Dalish would surely never have reviled him so deeply if they knew how endearing he looks when faced with genuine curiosity. And that Erys has in spades.

“You said dimensional. I assume you don’t mean it in the simple manner of its existence?”

“No,” Solas says. “In having dimension, something has mass, has presence, and so it is physical, tangible. Being dimensional, in this context, means existing within multiple spaces at once.”

“Can you tell me the Elvhen word for the concept?”

The warmth of approval in his expression delivers a sharp burst of pride right to the heart of her. She tries not to preen, but it is exceedingly difficult. To have Solas’ approval has always meant the world to her, but to have the approval of Wisdom? That’s a heady thing indeed. “Sahl’in’bel’an,” he tells her, watching her mull the word over with no small interest.

She turns the words over in her mind. She can pick at the core of them, separately the words make sense, the twist of many, place, now, in this moment, but when combined into the concept they embody, it is ultimately unfamiliar. To have dimensions, something must be real, but to exist in many places at once, how can something be solid, or tangible, when its very existence is transient?

“I’m stuck,” she says with a sheepish laugh. “It’s going to take me a bit longer to overwrite so many years of physical logic. I know the concept is something ephemeral, but I don’t think I’m smart enough to grasp it.”

“You underestimate yourself,” Solas says. “Think of how solid the rocks below your feet are. We are in the Fade, you know that to be a certainty. You also know that the Fade mirrors what you would call the physical world - we already discussed its reflection.”

He is so eager to have her understand, it warms her heart, with the added benefit of having distracted him entirely from the lyrium conundrum. She can’t deny that his enthusiasm charms her, he never seems happier than when he finds himself sought out to offer enlightenment on topics he has knowledge of. It was the same during the Inquisition, and it hasn’t changed at all. She wonders if she should point it out, that his nature is not so twisted and he still offers wisdom when called to. She’d like to tell him, but perhaps not yet. She’ll save it for when he needs to hear it most, a gift for those quiet moments when his regrets cut deepest.

“That’s why we can’t see it, then?” Erys says, trying to tear her mind away from Solas’ odd spatial concepts before she goes completely insane. “The Black City? We’re… where it is. But not in it?”

“Yes,” Solas says. His eyes have strayed back to the veins in the stone. He looks ill. “There’s no avoiding it. I need to check the bindings.”

“Okay,” Erys says quickly. “That’s fine. We can do that. We can start trying to figure out how-“

“There’s no need for you-“

“Finish that sentence, Solas, I dare you.”

Wisely, he does not. “Ma nuvenin.”

“If the wards are failing, can you reset them?” Erys asks flatly. “Do you have enough strength to do that? Do I?”

Solas hesitates. “It… may be enough. I can’t be certain until I test the bindings for myself, but the likelihood is less than I am comfortable with.”

Erys narrows her eyes, staring at those glowing blue veins. If she knew anything about harvesting lyrium, anything at all about how to treat it to make it… not safe, but safer for them to use… She could maybe…

She glances down at her spectral hand. Now that’s an idea. Lyrium exposure is only lethal if it’s prolonged, after all.

“Erys?” Solas asks, alarmed. She ignores him, crouching down to press her palm against one of the veins beside her feet.

Solas makes a loud, abrupt sound of startled displeasure, lunging for her shoulders as though to drag her bodily away from it. She resists him with a sharp snap of her barrier, focusing on the thrum beneath the Fade-touched form of her hand. It is muted by the lessened sensation in the magical limb, but the pulse is still strong, like the warm, steady heartbeat of a large, gentle beast. This lyrium is not angry, not Blighted, which raises more questions than it could ever possibly answer, but the Inquisitor is an opportunist, if anything, and far more competent at assessing the situation than Solas currently appears to be.

She dispels her barrier to grab his hand.

It feels like the simplest, most obvious choice she could make, she wants to do it - to be the one to give him this; if the Titans are conscious—or slowly regaining it—he needs her to do it. So she does. She lets the suffusing song of raw lyrium surge through her in a dizzying, unconstrained wave. Solas’ cry is startled, sharp, and with his free hand he clutches her wrist in the vice of his fingers, but he doesn’t tear her away. He holds her, fine bones grating under the force of his grip, but it is a discomfort she will gladly bear to be the one to flood his body with the mana he sorely needs to replenish.

Solas shudders under the onslaught but accepts it, something like relief caught at the edges of his eyes and, slowly, the webbing veins of lyrium begin to dim and fade.

The physical proof of how much mana his immortal body can contain is staggering. Erys is merely a conduit and even that is enough to overwhelm her. She keeps as tight a hold on the draw as she can, directing it instinctively so it doesn’t rip through her body in a torrent of acute poison, feeding it to Solas’ spirit as steadily as she is able. Until the stones beneath them fade to grey once more, and Solas’ next breath is a shuddering sigh of relief.

“Eurgh,” Erys mumbles once the flow is depleted, swaying precariously on her knees. “Didn’t like that.”

Solas grips her hand, holding her upright. He is trembling with equal parts relief and fury. That’s a combination she’s seen from him… oh, a decent number of times.  “That was incredibly stupid.”

“Do you feel better?”

“It was stupid.”

“Do you feel better?”

“Irrelevant! It was still—“

Erys makes a very rude sound with her tongue. Sera would be proud. “Stop complaining and help me up. My knees have gone numb.”

He does, of course he does, though the tightness of his grip is less stabilising and more admonishing. She minds it little, he has never responded well to the risks she is always so quick to take, but she can’t take his displeasure seriously when he looks better than he has since they arrived. Elvhen bodies are magic; the presence of mana is intrinsic to their being. Stifled, depleted, Solas was undoubtedly struggling – no matter how effectively he hid it. With the reserves of his power now filled, he stands straighter, brighter, eyes clear and absent of the lingering exhaustion that has followed him since their confrontation in Minrathous.

“Pout all you like, I’m not sorry.”

“That wasn’t yours to take,” Solas says stiffly. “It wasn’t yours to give. How could you take it so carelessly? Have the Titans not suffered enough? Did you forget what lyrium is?”

“Shall we tally up sins, my heart?” Erys asks acerbically. “No, I didn’t forget. But I’d rather make use of an unexpected boon than sit here panicking about it. What does it matter if we’re going to try to soothe the Titans anyway? If it’s so appalling to you, give it back.”

Solas’ ears quiver minutely as he seethes. Thankfully, he does it silently, which means Erys wins this round. By default, but she’ll take it. Although… technically she is up on wins over the Dread Wolf. Which is a little bit hilarious, when you think about it.

With a rough exhale, Solas finally surrenders the point. “I would caution you to be careful,” is all he says, through his teeth. Erys accepts that with as much grace as she can muster, if only because she knows the way he thinks and why he acts the way he does.

For the most part.

“Consider me cautioned. The matter rests.” She counters his disapproving glare with one of her own. “Give me something I can work with, now, please.”

Solas flexes his fingers again, staring down at his hand with a deeply displeased twist to his lips, though whether that is her fault or the lyrium’s fault, she isn’t sure. “I am… reasonably certain that I am the cause of the… instability.” His gaze flicks back up to hers. His displeasure is practically palpable. “None of this is entirely without precedent, but… The situation is still unique.”

Erys says nothing. She looks at Solas, shoulders squared, expectance writ plainly across her face. He is quiet for a good few seconds before he amends, “Seven whittled down to one is a considerable loss of sustenance.”

“There we go,” Erys says, taking a deep, deep breath. “So, when you said that the strain of maintaining—“

“That has nothing to do with it,” Solas says archly. “The Veil, our prison, and the wards over the Titans’ dreams  are not sustained by the same force.”

“So, you?”

Solas flexes his left hand almost unconsciously—he doesn’t seem to realise he’s doing it. “I sustain the Veil,” he says slowly. Erys wonders just how much of that fact he still has to accept. After so long… Well. They have an abundance of time. Or so she’d thought. “My regrets sustain this prison. The bindings imprisoning the Titans are incredibly ancient and exceptionally powerful, or they were at the height of Elvhenan, when the Fade was not diminished.”

“What manner of bindings are they?”

Solas drags a hand down his face, wearier than she has ever seen him. Even at the end, dagger raised to rend the Veil for good, defiance and determination still bolstered him. Now, as Solas—just Solas—he looks so very tired. “It… would be easier to show you, I think.”

Erys’ heart skips several beats. “You’re willing to show me?”

“Yes,” Solas assures her. “Or— yes, and no. I want you to know, you deserve to know, to see the manner in which I— we…” He trails off, looking away. “I…cannot shake myself of the fear that the next part of this history I reveal to you will be the final piece that…” He grimaces, pained. “Ir abelas, I should not doubt you. You have already offered me more reassurance than I deserve.” 

“Idiot,” Erys says pointedly. Solas’ response is a flat, empty smile that she dislikes intensely. “I don’t think you’re doubting me. I just think you’ve run out of precedence to act on. It was never supposed to happen this way, was it?”

He stares at her helplessly. “Erys…” 

“What do I have to do to prove you can’t scare me off?” Erys asks. “I’m genuinely asking. And please bear in mind that I watched you wrestle an Archdemon across the rooftops of Minrathous. And turn an army of Qunari into stone.” 

She’s well aware that there isn’t really any way to prove to him that this is it. All she has to offer are her words and her place at his side, but she is keenly aware that means little to someone like Solas. Her presence here is not a certainty, he can’t accept it because he won’t let himself, because it was never meant to happen like this. He is still waiting - and this is no slight against her – for what he has convinced himself is an inevitability.

He is so afraid of being alone.

But so is she.

She takes a deep breath. “You know, I’m terrified that you’re going to disappear.” Solas’ gaze snaps to hers, disarmed. “I am. I’m scared that you’re going to decide that you’re not worth it, and think that you’re sparing us both pain by leaving again.” 

“I wouldn’t—“ 

“You have,” Erys counters, and though she is careful to keep her tone soft, Solas still flinches. “You asked me to stay with you. I want to. Tell me what you’re going to show me and I will tell you that I will stay. It won’t change my mind.” 

She holds his gaze, a challenge. He takes her in and she hopes he can see the resolute determination in her face. She is drawing upon the full experience of her former title, the mark on her soul that will never leave her; Inquisitor, the status that gave her the strength of will to stand against Fen’Harel and claim his heart rather than carve it out. She just needs him to see. To believe just once that he is not alone. If she cracks that cage, lets the light in, they can face the rest together.  

“The dreams of the Titans are shattered and insane,” Solas says quietly. Despite his terrible words, Erys’ heart leaps. “I’m… I will take you to the weakest edge of the prison, the gateway through which I had planned to draw the Evanuris, away from the Blight, to seal them away from each other so I could dispel the Veil. Through that single point, there is an area of traversal. The Black City lies beyond.” 

She is, in spite of all the reasons she should not be, desperately curious. “A doorway?” 

“Of sorts. As I am now,” he raises a hand to coat his fingers in glimmering fractals of magic, “I could guide myself through.” He squares his shoulders, sets his jaw. “It is not your reaction to what you will see that scares me, vhenan, but what you may hear.” 

Screams, presumably. She is not so naïve; deranged, tormented screams that have cried out ceaselessly for millennia, is probably a more fitting description. She shivers and does not hold back from letting him see her discomfort. She will not lie to him. “Guide yourself through?” 

She watches the muscles in his jaw clench and ripple. His answering tone is suitably scathing. “You think I would allow you to step through?” 

“I think you’re going to have a very difficult time stopping me,” Erys snaps back. “I’ll even go without you, don’t test me.” 

“This isn’t a joke, Erys.” 

“Look at my face and tell me I’m joking!” 

“I’m willing to show you but that is as far as I am willing to go, I cannot let you get close to this—“ 

“I don’t care, Solas!” 

Her cry echoes. All around them, ceaseless and jagged, it echoes through the very Fade itself. Solas’ eyes are wide, wild with fear and anger and she is no better, pulse thundering, blood boiling, temper seething beneath her skin.  

Fine. Fine. If this is how it must be, then let them be done with this.

“I know you’re afraid,” she says when her enraged shout finally dies. “I can’t change that with words and you won’t let me change it with actions. I don’t know what you want, Solas. I don’t know what you’re hoping for or if you even intended to atone.” She waves him off sharply when he opens his mouth to counter her. “I don’t know. But you told me that’s what you were planning so I believed you. So answer me now, Solas. Is your version of atonement going to kill you?” 

He takes an eternity to offer her an answer, but he does and she is grateful. “No.” 

“When you bound yourself to the Veil, did you consider ending your life to bring it down anyway?” 

Solas’ lip curls. “A rather contrived version of the wolf chewing its leg off to escape the trap, don’t you think?” 

“Answer me, damn you.” 

“The thought crossed my mind,” he admits through clenched teeth. “An errant thought and nothing more, that died the moment you chose to follow me.”

Erys nods. She offers no judgement for that. What could she possibly say? Terrible idea? He knows that, it’s why he didn’t do it. “What do you want, Solas?” 

That, he cannot answer. He drops his gaze, shaking his head. She waits, but his silence endures. “Fine. Do you know what I want?”

His gaze flickers back to hers. Still silent, he nods.

“I want to get out of here,” she says. “I want out of this dark, grey, lifeless prison, and I want to get out as soon as is physically possible. I want to get into the Black City and soothe the Titans’ anger as you promised that you would, and I want you to stop fighting me and let me come with you. And after that, I want to get out of this— shitty prison of your fucking regrets, and I want you to show me every inch of the Fade that you love. I want you to show me the places you dwelled as Wisdom, I want to know all the spirits you loved. I want to see your Lighthouse and your memories, I want you to teach me how to cast frescoes so I can commemorate every moment of my life that I spend loving you. I want to live, I want to learn, and I want to do it with you by my side for however long I have left to live and I want to bond with you in whatever traditions suit us best, be our vows Dalish or Elvhen and I want you to forgive yourself!”

The tears that spill over are hot, angry, burning trails down her cheeks and nothing in her life has ever felt better.  

“I want to see you bring the Veil down,” she says, hoarse, undone. “I want you to do it. You need to do it. But you need to make it so that your world and mine can thrive. The dinan’shiral has ended, Solas. I won’t let you take another step further. Live, Solas. I know you remember how. I know you remember life before duty. Live that life with me. Soothe the Titans and then live. Please.” 

Just one crack. Just one. That’s all she needs and she will know, beyond doubt, beyond even the deepest certainty, that he is free. Mythal recalled Benevolence long enough to free him, one last kindness through Retribution, but Solas needs to free himself. He has tried; he has broken himself before her and reached out the only way he knows how, stunted and mournful and so desperately guilty, but he still believes that his own suffering that will bring atonement. Not altruism. Not benevolence. Not— 

It’s then that she realises.  

It’s then that she understands.  

“Oh, Solas.” 

“Don’t.” The word is sharper than any blade. His eyes— He has never looked at her like that before. Contempt, seeping, poisonous derision twisting across his face. “Don’t say it.” 

Her heart thunders in her throat. “It’s okay—“ 

“Don’t!” He roars, and all that pain, all that shame spills out of him in a torrent, released after far too many years to count. “Do not stand there and try to absolve me of this, Inquisitor. Don’t you dare try to offer me understanding for this. Give me rage, give me disdain, do not give me understanding!” 

She raises her hands in peace, as if she could just calm him. “I can’t offer anything else.” 

“Try!” 

Erys recoils, she can’t help it. It isn’t fear, she could never bring herself to fear him, but this is more of his grief than she has ever been permitted to witness. His tears, his vulnerability, his fears, he has let her see all of these; the gentle, pained side of his guilt, the manifestation that engenders empathy. Of course they would be easier for him to display, the softer parts of his pain that would call to her compassion. He has dwelt in trickery for so long he has forgotten that not all is guile and dishonesty, has forgotten how to ask that of others and of himself. He gave her what he hoped she would accept.  

But she knows him so well and he loves her too much, she has finally uncovered the rest.  

Below the regret, below the grief and the agony and the shame, is the truth he has tried so hard to bury. A truth he cannot accept, a truth he would never have shared with her, no matter how deeply he finally came to trust her.

A spirit of Wisdom died in the Exalted Plains. Erys watched it happen, powerless, helpless, as Solas burned his rage and his grief into the bodies of mages who did not know better, but that she still could not bring herself to forgive. Not when Solas mourned so bitterly, not when a sweet, gentle spirit had gazed upon him with such affection and claimed ‘ir tel’him with a depth of relief Erys will never experience. There are no mage bindings holding Solas and compelling him against his nature here. He was twisted from the moment he formed a body, trapped in pride, changed. There are no shackles she can shatter to free him, no mages she can strike down in recompense for what he has suffered. Of all the Evanuris he rose against, he is the last— not even Mythal remains beyond the fragment entrusted to Morrigan. There is nothing for him to overcome that will return him to the purest form of Wisdom. 

He was never going to admit it. She doesn’t even know if he could.

He is proud of what he has done.

“Solas,” Erys says, voice trembling with a deluge of emotion she must restrain, for both their sakes. “Please, listen to me.” 

Her answer is a cold, bitter laugh. The sound of it grates against her soul. “What could you possibly have to say to me now?” 

He won’t even look at her. She knows why, she knows why, but understanding doesn’t make it hurt any less. He has turned fully away, protecting himself from the judgement he has convinced himself he will find if he dares to look at her. She reaches for him, fingers grasping desperately at his sleeve but he shrugs her off with a growl, a deep, defensive warning. 

“Solas!” She reaches again. He pulls away. “Damn it, listen to me!” 

His ears flatten, shoulders cut up towards them, spine rigid. “What for, Erys’enya? How will you reason this away? How will you absolve me of these sins? You cannot, and I don’t think I could bear to hear you try.” 

“I won’t—” 

He scoffs. She curls her fingers tight against her palm, nails biting into her flesh until her knuckles blanche white and she regains enough control over herself to suppress the furious burn of lightning thrumming across her skin. He is angry, he is ashamed, she reminds herself that he is hurting and he is not thinking clearly. She will not lose her temper. She must stay calm until she can reach him. 

“Of course you will,” Solas snaps. “You’ve taken it upon yourself to reason away the worst of my mistakes and I am a fool for letting you try. I have told you before, one’s nature cannot be changed by wishing. I am what I am and I cannot be anything else.” 

“Those are the words of a coward,” Erys spits. She watches him stiffen but he still doesn’t turn. “Solas, face me, damn you. Don’t turn away from me because you can’t face the truth! I swore I’d show you no quarter. This is it!” 

“Forgive me for not wanting to hear your well-meaning attempts to—” 

Oh, she is going to kill him. “Fen’Harel, harthas su em!” 

“There is no point—” 

“Eolasan ane solas!” 

The silence is deafening. 

That’s good, that’s good, she only needs a moment. Just a moment to break through and make him hear her. “Solas, I know. Eolasan. You don’t need to hide it. Please, ‘ma lath, I don’t—” Her breath catches and she hates it, clutching at her throat to try and steady herself. “Please don’t do this. Don’t shut me out. I told you I would accept what I cannot forgive.” 

It is not Solas, but Fen’Harel who now laughs at her. Her skin crawls with the sound of it. “Ah. So I must suffer your resentment instead?” 

She yells, a wordless, furious shout of frustration. “That’s not what I mean!”  

“I know what you mean.” 

She has never been so close to ripping her own hair out. “What have I done?” She demands of him, edging dangerously close to hysterical. “You don’t speak to me like this. You don’t meet me with arrogance, Solas. You don’t get to decide what I have the capacity to forgive.” 

He bares his teeth. “I don’t want you to forgive this.” 

Erys growls right back at him. “What is the alternative then, Solas, tell me. Please, enlighten me! Is this it, then? Is this the point where you decide that nothing before this mattered? That I came here for nothing? That everything we’ve done, everything we fought for was worthless?” There is ice in her veins and her heart, splintering down her arm, crystallising in her palms. She trembles with it, a frigid torrent of anger with nowhere to go. “Do we part here?” 

Solas draws a sharp breath between his teeth. There. A crack, so very small, but it’s enough. 

Please let it be enough. 

“You’re proud of what you did,” Erys says, stumbling over her words in her sheer desperation to get them out, to make him hear her. “Why wouldn’t you be? There’s a part of you, even if it’s small it’s there, you don’t need to hide it. The power, the cunning it must have taken to sever the Titans’ dreams, as much as it shames you, there’s a part of you that takes pride in the accomplishment. Victory for your people. A victory that no one else could accomplish.”

Solas is stone, unmoving, the rigid line of his spine drawn taut as a bowstring. He does not speak. 

Panic spikes higher through her but she does not relent. “You hate what you did, you regret what you did. I know you, I know how deeply this cut you. But denying your pride won’t absolve you of the guilt or the responsibility. You already want to atone but you can’t suppress the part of you that revels in the victory. Even if the killing blow wasn’t yours, the victory was owed to you. Tell me you’re proud of it.” 

Silence. 

“Sil’ahn’ar!” 

“I can’t.” 

“Because you can’t admit the truth?” 

Even with his back turned to her, Solas covers his face. “I can’t admit it to you!” 

“Oh, well, thank you,” Erys snaps. “That’s wonderful, I’m so grateful. I’m so overwhelmingly fucking thankful that you won’t admit that you’re ashamed of the pride you feel over what you did to the Titans, even though your twisted nature is the reason we’re here. You’ve been Pride from the moment you left the Fade. You can’t keep claiming that people can’t change their nature, you’ve seen it happen! 

“You’re not a spirit, Solas. You’re still trying to live in absolutes and I can’t let you do that. The nature of the self is not set in stone. To claim it is would be to refuse to accept any responsibility for what you’ve done. Pride does not regret. You regret. I need— I need you to hear me, ‘ma sa’lath. I need you to hear me. Sathan, ‘ma fen. Please don’t let this be what takes you away from me. Not again. I can’t do this again.”

Solas shudders. He drags a hand down his face, tears a breath past his lips that catches all the way down. A show of weakness, a splintered crack in the armour of his pride; Erys throws herself forwards, curling her arms around his waist and burying her face against his back. His heart is a thundering war drum in his chest, quick-paced and frantic, but Erys is stubborn and angry and determined, and she will not let him turn away from her again.  

“I can’t bear to let you accept this.” A trembling admittance, yet his hands come up to clutch tightly over her fists across his abdomen. “I need to show you what I have done but I can’t— I can’t bear the thought of you seeing the horrors I have wrought and absolving me of them. Even if you don’t forgive them, you will still know the things that I have done. Why should I be spared your judgement?” 

She laughs. High, strangled, terrified. “Who am I to judge you?”

Solas trembles in her grip. “The only one who can.”

“How?” Erys demands. “How can I? I have not lived the lives you have, or endured the years you have witnessed. I haven’t had to make your choices, or fight your wars, or bear your pain— I can’t judge you, Solas, because I don’t know what I would have done in your place.” She presses herself closer, screwing her eyes shut against the burn of tears. “It’s not my right, Solas. It’s not that I won’t judge you, it’s that I can’t. I don’t want to. I don’t want to be your arbiter; I just want to be yours.” 

“It feels like the most unbearable cruelty to let you.” 

“And turning away from me again doesn’t?” 

In a heartbeat, he is gone from her arms and the panic nearly undoes her. But then she is caught in his and pulled so tightly against his chest she half expects her body to dissolve into him. He presses his face into her hair, clutching her to him with a low, fervent slew of Elvhen too quick for her to follow. 

“Solas-“ 

“Never,” he gasps, tangling his fingers in her hair. “Dir’vhen’an, ‘ma vhenan. I cannot, I am not strong enough. I am proud, too proud, a coward and a fool and I have-“ His voice cracks. “I’ve hurt you again.” 

“Oh, absolutely,” Erys chokes, pressing herself closer to him. It will never be close enough; there is a space carved for her between his very ribs and she aches to curl into it. “You’re a bastard, Solas.” 

“I know, vhenan. Ir abelas. Ir abelas.” 

“I don’t care if you’re proud. I don’t care. I care that you want to fix what you’ve done. I don’t know how many times I can tell you this. You need to believe me. I need you to trust me.” 

“Ma ghilana, vhenan.” 

Erys pulls back sharply, staring up at him. Solas’ eyes are heavy with pain, but he meets her with a smile so soft, so broken, it catches the breath in her throat. “Ane nadas?” 

He kisses her forehead, lingers there for a breath before drawing back. “Ame nadas. Ame amahn, ele’vhen josal saron. I will not hide from you again.” 

She shudders. Does she kiss him or strangle him? She honestly doesn’t know. “Thank you. You’re still a bastard.” 

“Of that, ‘ma lath, I am well aware.” 

“Good.” She steps back, dabbing at her eyes with the heel of her palm. “I nearly electrocuted you.” 

He lowers his head in contrition. “Deserved, honestly.” 

“Stop it.” She delivers a decisive smack to his arm. “Don’t be— Don’t. I’m angry with you, I am so angry with you. And— Gods, Solas, I don’t even know what to say after that.” 

He winces, shamefaced. “There isn’t much I can offer you save an apology. Again. There is a conflict I cannot easily explain, between the self that I embody now and the nature I was torn from. It is not wilful, vhenan, at the very least I can assure you of that. I am not— I have no desire to turn away from you. I never have. I have no right to ask it of you, but please, just a little more patience. I have struggled with my warring natures for countless years. If I can overturn them for anyone, it will be you, but it will take time.” 

So goes the folly of a mortal loving a god. Or whatever Solas wants to claim that he is. A spirit who never forgot, a man who struggles to learn. Whatever it is, Erys has to admit that his plea for patience is deserved. Even hurt she can recognise that this is not just her struggle. She is no longer on the outside begging to be let in, so she cannot shy away now that she has been permitted to see the harsher sides he had tried to hide from her. It wouldn’t be fair to hold him accountable for that.  

The headache is back with a vengeance, but at least they have reached an understanding. He resisted but she reached him all the same. His nature may not need to change at all, if all the facets are already within him, he simply needs to learn to make peace with the fact that he is both Pride and Wisdom, along with all of the other messy parts that come with being alive. It is far easier to accept the flaws, the mistakes, and the pain, when she knows where they come from. To know the cause of the sickness is to treat it, to know the reason for the injury is to accept it. And Solas is so much more than his struggles and mistakes. Just as he accepts her with the good and the bad, so will she accept him. Even if he gets into his head that he needs to fight her about it.  

She holds her hand out to him. He takes it without hesitation.  

“Show me,” is all she says.  

Solas bows his head, emboldened. Decided. “Ma nuvenin.”

Chapter Text

They walk. In the sort of oppressive silence that follows heated words and lashing tempers, they walk, and Erys cannot think of a single thing to say. Her pulse is still racing, a quick-sharp trill in her veins that leaves her with the sort of anxious irritability that renders hands clumsy. To fight it, she keeps them curled at her sides and pretends she cannot see the way Solas’ eyes keep straying towards her white knuckles. He seems as unsure of himself as she is, if his silence is anything to go by. He is verbose when required but also no stranger to contemplative silence, but this just feels awful. The heavy blanket of quiet hanging over them bears the weight of too many years to easily throw off.

Four times she opens her mouth and four times she closes it again soundlessly, infuriated by her own ineptitude. She has not Dorian’s gift for loquaciousness, nor Josie’s canny sense and beguiling tongue. She has all that she ever has; a deep sense of curiosity and a drive to understand. At present, she does not—nothing about their surroundings or the presence of the lyrium makes any sense, nor does Solas’ strange description of sahl’in’bel’an offer much in the way of enlightenment. In this oppressive silence she can do little else except mull it over—obsess over it, more like—and fumble silently with half-formed questions that die before they can pass her lips.

She is hurt, still. She is hurt and Solas is— Solas. Which is as comforting as it is frustrating.

The gulf between them is nowhere near as wide as it once was, but the distance between them is still as vast as any disparity can be between mortal morals and the strange, incomparable nature of one so long-lived. It is easier, somewhat, to approach his viewpoint if she takes the time to consider her instinctive response. He is old and wise and weighed down by burdens she could never fathom, so of course he would not always see cruelty in actions that horrify her.

True as that may be, it is a cold comfort to her wounds. He inflicts them so easily it should scare her.

Why doesn’t it scare her?

Their steps and the silence continue, along the seemingly endless pathways of jagged and cracked stone, both above and below the misshapen platforms that hang suspended in the gloom, drifting ever so slowly back and forth as though guided by an unfelt breeze. Every step they take seems to unveil more of the path, as ceaseless and unchanging as the stone they have already traversed, with no clear end in sight and nothing but the thick wall of distant grey shadows ahead.

Erys has never been truly afraid of the dark. It is easy to summon magelight to banish creeping shadows and there are dozens of Dalish prayers and songs to inspire a brave heart in the darkness, but something about watching their endless path appear from such opaque, oppressive shade sends dizzying creep of dread swirling through her insides. These otherworldly shadows are absolute, with not even veilfire able to cut through the suffocating cloak of them, so she simply swallows and steels herself and follows Solas down the foreboding path and Solas, for his part, offers no reassurances. She isn’t even sure what she’d want him to say if he did.

Solas’ steps do not falter, but the steady pace of them slows somewhat. She doesn’t look at him, not even when she slows her pace to match his. It’s not like she can stride on ahead, she doesn’t know where they’re going. She doesn’t know why they’re going anywhere. What more can there be except jagged stones and ominously floating platforms? What else other than those cracked crevasses filled with creeping stone hands that she doesn’t understand but still hates twice as much. She doesn’t know anything about this bloody place because it’s not the proper Fade—in her opinion—and as far as she’s concerned she’s not spending a moment longer in this prison than she has to.

She doesn’t want to talk about any of that right now, but the silence is slowly choking the life out of her.

“Say something,” she finally demands, far beyond the limits of her tolerance, at the exact moment Solas tentatively begins, “would you like—” and then they are both staring hesitantly at each other, except this new silence is not oppressive, it is just painfully awkward.

“…Please,” Erys says, clearing her throat and gesturing for him to continue.

Solas nods, dropping his gaze to look anywhere but at her face. “I thought, perhaps, some clarity…?”

“Would be appreciated, thank you.”

“Of course.”

Erys waits. Solas offers nothing further. “…Are you waiting for me to ask?”

“No,” Solas says, hesitating. “No, I…” He clears his throat, hands tucked to the small of his back. How she could ever have mistaken him for a humble apostate, she does not know. He never bowed his shoulders, softened his stance, and his attempts to diminish himself to slip beneath notice were… inconsistent at best. Even now when he can’t quite bring himself to look her in the eye, he stands tall. “Honestly, I find myself wanting to apologise.”

“Again?” Erys asks, before common sense can tell her how poor a response that is. Her carelessness hits the mark—Solas’ eyes tighten and guilt prickles up her back. “I didn’t mean—“

“I know what you meant.”

Irritation is an old friend at this point. “Do you? Do you really, Solas?”

“I don’t wish to argue with you.”

“This isn’t an argument! This is me showing you just how annoying I find your arrogance.”

He glares at her then, eyes narrowing to pinpricks, brows drawn, severe enough to chill the air around them. So it might be an argument. “I wanted to apologise.”

“I don’t need more apologies,” Erys snaps. “I don’t want them. I told you, I’m angry because you keep— shutting me out. Every time I think you’ve let me in, you push me away and I’m tired. Can we at least agree, based on the bountiful evidence of the past decade alone, that you actually don’t know what’s best for anyone? Can’t we figure it out together, rather than let your self-flagellation get in the way of anything positive that might happen for us?”

The victory of her—at least in her opinion—expertly delivered point is diminished by the expression on Solas’ face. She had hoped for some form of remorse, nothing meek because he unilaterally does not know how to be, but for something to show her that he hears her and she isn’t just arguing with a brick wall. Instead of anything like that, she is met with a rather fierce snarl—lips pulled back from his teeth as though she has deeply insulted him.

“Oh, don’t stop now,” he says, stepping closer until he is all but looming over her. “Please, do continue to tell me about all the things I don’t know.”

“Hah! Gladly.” She jabs him in the chest. He stares down at the point of contact in quiet disbelief. “You can shove that behaviour right back where it came from. I’ll happily talk to Solas, get your damn ego out of the way.”

“My ego?”

Her own harshness shocks her, but still she does not hold back. “Yes, that particular personality flaw that makes you unbearable.”

Solas sneers at her. “So says the clueless Elvhen pretender.”

Her hand flashes out before her mind can offer conscious command. The strike is aimed instinctively for his cheek, open-palmed and charged with such a visceral burn of anger that even Erys is shocked by the heat of her temper. Contact never comes, the harsh sting of flesh struck never blossoms in her palm; she meets the unyielding force of a barrier that repels her hand violently back, but with it comes a surge of blistering pain up the length of her arm that is enough to force a cry from her lips and drag tears to her eyes.

She staggers back, cradling her scorched arm to her chest with a ragged groan of pain. She can smell the sickening stench of charred flesh and cloth, lightning-struck, and the swell of nausea is a heated, heavy pressure in her breast.

“Erys!”

Solas’ cry is loud, horrified. He lunges, reaching for her instinctively and she lets him. Even after he scorched her, she lets him, because something is—wrong, but she hasn’t got the words or the capacity to describe or discern it. Instead, she just whimpers through clenched teeth as Solas grips her shoulder before her knees can give out, and the hand not supporting her curves around her arm—careful not to touch—to spill a gentle pulse of healing into her skin. “I have you, I have you. I didn’t mean for that- to say that— That wasn’t—”

“I know,” Erys gasps, gulping down a shuddering breath as the well of nausea eases under the cooling balm of his magic. “I know— I know, I know. I tried to hit you. I tried— I wouldn’t—"

“I know,” Solas echoes. He marks the moment the pain fully eases and pulls her tight to his chest in apology. There is an undercurrent of steeled tension beneath his skin, a protective rigidity in the way he grips her. “Are you alright?”

“Think so.” She flexes her arm in the limited space between them. Her sleeve crumbles away in thick, uneven clumps but the skin beneath is whole. “Yes. Thank the stars for that. I don’t have a surplus of limbs to spare.”

Solas exhales shakily. “Really? Now?”

“Just proving my point.”

“Your timing is atrocious.”

“Noted. What was that?”

“I… would say Rage, at best guess, though I am not entirely convinced.”

“Rage?” Erys echoes, blanching. “The demon?”

Solas nods and, content that she isn’t about to keel over or descend into shock, frees her from the protective cage of his arms. He does not, however, release her hand. She wonders if that’s as much for his comfort as her own. Either way, she won’t complain; she feels unsettled in a way she isn’t familiar with. The burn of anger is still there, leaving her irritable and thin-skinned, but now that she is aware of it, it seems almost painfully obvious that it isn’t coming from her. Not all of it, anyway. “I’ve been suspicious ever since you drew Recollection to you.”

Honestly, she hadn’t given it much thought. He’d been disarmed at the time by the wisp’s appearance, but then other things had seemed far more important at the time and she’d assumed they’d both been sufficiently distracted from something she didn’t deem particularly notable. Of course Solas would dwell silently on something he found strange and not share it with her, secretive bastard that he is—

“Oh,” Erys says. “Oh, that makes a lot of sense.”

Solas smiles thinly. “Am I to assume from that reaction that you’ve been feeling a certain sense of amplified disdain for me, as well?”

“Little bit.” She frowns. “What do you mean as well?”

“I nearly singed your arm off, vhenan. Extrapolate.”

Point taken. Even if she doesn’t feel as though she’s done anything particularly incensing. “So there are demons in your prison now? And yet we still can’t get out?”

“It seems safe to assume so, yes.” He looks about them, as though the source of their ensorcelled rage will kindly reveal itself. She doesn’t miss the brief flash of light in his eyes, but still their surroundings remain silent. “I spent months trapped here and nothing manifested but the echo of my regrets. It isn’t entirely unlikely for something else to have gotten in when Elgar’nan and Ghilan’nain got out, but I should have sensed it…”

“Does it have to have been then? If your wards are failing, couldn’t something have slipped through more recently?”

Solas hesitates before admitting, as though it pains him, “that… isn’t impossible. If that is the case, though, the situation is far more precarious than I would like.”

She hates to ask, but, “how precarious?”

“Precarious in the manner that, if the wards have deteriorated enough to let demons through the boundary, there is nothing left to stop the full force of the trapped Blight being unleashed against us.”

She really shouldn’t have asked. “You’re remarkably calm about all of this.” He is, though she would expect nothing less, truth be told. He has lost his composure before her precious few times over the years, and usually when she is the one in danger. Oh, he’s easy enough to frustrate, but she doesn’t think she has ever heard him truly afraid.

“There is little use for it.” He isn’t the type to shrug, but she recognises the dismissal for what it is. “My fear solves nothing. Giving into it is an indulgence we have no time for.”

“Ah, yes, fear. That well known indulgence.”

“Erys.”

“Don’t Erys me. Just— Tell me what we need to do.”

“We reach the boundary. After that… I don’t know yet.”

“I like it more when you have an answer for everything.”

“I shall bear that in mind.”

Ignoring the manipulated surge of anger with acute effort, Erys wraps her arms around him, gladdened by how immediately his own raise to envelop her in turn. “We face it together, okay? Whether it’s demons or Titans or some horrific third thing yet undiscovered. Together. Right?”

“Together,” Solas agrees, pressing a kiss to her temple. “I hope you know that I certainly couldn’t face any of this alone.”

“You don’t have to, so don’t dwell on that.”

She can’t bear the thought of him attempting this atonement by himself, and he very nearly had. Ar ghilas vir banal. Had he been less diminished by his battle with the Archdemon, she doesn’t doubt he would have barred her from following him. Or perhaps she is simply jaded by all the times before—too used to watching him walk away from her. Even so, she won’t ever forget the aching gleam of hope in his eyes when she had stepped forward to join him, even as he warned her away. One final time, and at last he’d let her follow.

When Solas is ready to lead them forward, they continue on hand in hand. The Rage lingers, but it is easier to ignore now that they know what is causing it. It still isn’t pleasant, by any means, and if Rage is here then Despair can’t be far behind and Erys hates Despair demons more than anything. Cold has always been her calling, but the lifeless, creeping chill of those bastard things is a mockery of the very power she wields. She isn’t so much afraid of them as she is the feeling they inflict, which may well be the same thing but there is a distinction, in her mind. Despair is the hardest for her to overcome. Rage, at least, can be a tool when channeled properly. Despair has nearly ended her more than once.

“Is there anything we can do?” She asks, careful to keep the desperation from her voice. “Against the influence of the demons? If we come across more, I mean.”

“It’s guaranteed that we will,” Solas says, having turned suddenly and inconveniently honest. “As for countermeasures: no, to put it plainly. For all intents and purposes, we are two mages, physically in the Fade, who have recently been exposed to an overwhelming quantity of lyrium. We are everything they desire to exploit, perfect targets, save one detail.”

“They can’t use us to cross the Veil.”

“Indeed. But that won’t deter them.”

Erys exhales heavily, deeply unhappy with that revelation, even if she had suspected as much. “So we fight them.”

Solas nods solemnly. “We fight them."

She notices he does not offer the proviso of if. A certainty, then. “Alright. Just like old times, then. What was it you said? Survive the first thirty heartbeats?”

“Whilst I’m glad you remembered that instruction, no. These will not be the ilk of demons you know. If they have been touched by Blight, or even just in proximity to the Titans’ madness, there is no telling what they may be capable of. Best not to let the fight reach anywhere close to thirty heartbeats, if we can manage it.”

“Can we?”

Solas looks at her. There is an edge of something fierce in his smile that flusters her strangely and all she can think when she sees it is Fen’Harel. “I can.”

It’s the most reassuring thing she’s heard so far, if reassurance also includes a very poorly timed and inexplicably dread-tinged sense of arousal. “I’ll take it.”

***

The first demon to attack them is not Rage.

The only warning they get is the sudden cessation of that roiling sensation of anger, noticeable only because they are both so very conscious that it shouldn’t be there. Like a stone caught in a boot, present with every step, the abrupt absence of it is enough to signal to the pair of them that Rage is finished playing with them.

The relief is short-lived.

“Loathing,” Solas says, loudly, bringing them to a slow stop. He lets go of Erys’ hand, turning in place to face the direction they came from. Erys follows suit, but the path behind them is just as bleak and empty as it was before. “You feel young, lethallen.”

Wisely, Erys holds her tongue. Even before she discovered the truth of Solas’ origin, she would have deferred to his expertise in dealing with spirits. Demons, aside from the obvious, are scarcely different. If anyone has a chance to placate the twisted spirit, it’s him. The best thing Erys can do to help him now is give him room to work.

Still, she wordlessly drops a barrier over him: a silent reassurance that she is there. Solas’ right ear—the side of him turned to her—flickers in acknowledgement.

“You need not hide,” he calls to the air. “We will not attack unprovoked.”

She doesn’t understand why he is trying to cajole it. Even spirits cannot be easily reasoned with; demons are obstinacy incarnate. Solas is only halfway to demonic—a thought she hasn’t dared to entertain fully before but denial has so far only had them at odds—and he is as stubborn as they come. But not entirely unreachable. A pure demon would surely be deaf to any attempts at reason.

Unless, perhaps, a bargain could be struck for what it wants, if he cannot help it recall its purpose.

But what would Loathing want?

“I see,” Solas says mildly. Erys frowns at him, confused for just a moment before she realises that the demon, wherever it is, is speaking only to him. “What would you have of me, then?”

He inclines his head, listening placidly to whatever silent reply is offered. He nods, considering, before shaking his head. “You must understand that isn’t possible.”

Erys is convinced this entire interaction was tailor-made to torment her specifically. She bites down hard enough on her tongue to make herself wince, but through sheer force of will she keeps silent. It is the hardest thing she has ever done.

“Very well,” Solas says, resigned, and raises a hand. He brings it down roughly, fingers clenching, and Erys half expects a Stone Fist to follow, that old, ephemeral magic she had once been so used to seeing him cast. Instead, with a piercing shriek that rips through Erys’ head, a demon is ripped from the very air itself and slammed into the rocks beneath them hard enough to make the very ground tremble.

She doesn’t have time to raise her own hands in offence, no time at all to even consider what spell she might cast, before Solas sweeps an arm before him and the torn, cloaked form of the demon disperses into mist, a primal scream echoing in the darkness.

“What—?”

“Be ready,” Solas says, gripping her arm to draw her close to him. “More coming our way.”

Hah.

Now this she can handle.

It has not been so long that she has forgotten how to fight with the vigour of her younger years. She reaches for her staff instinctively, is met with a wrapped shaft of smooth wood bound with leather, and though she had not been armed—has not been since she stepped through the tear—she is able to flourish a finely crafted staff of dragonbone and samite. It feels right in her grip, steadying in a way she hadn’t known she needed to feel, and when the slithering forms of three more demons crawl over the edge of the platform, she meets them with a crashing spear of lightning so bright it leaves spots dancing in her vision.

She turns her fierce smile to Solas who grins wildly back at her. For one blissful moment, they are together among the saw-toothed crags of the Hinterlands, crafting spells between skilled hands beneath the ominous glow of a spitting Fade tear.

Except this time Solas is no longer forced to hold back.

In a strange reversal of the roles they had once filled, she weaves a careful barrier over him as he steps forward, something viciously pleased bursting in her chest when he sends a streaking path of ice splintering across the ground. It feels as though it’s meant to honour her, somehow, and the knowing glint in his eye dispels her doubts.  He catches one of the demons laid low by her lightning strike, encasing its ephemeral body in a glacial cage. It spits and hisses, shrieking and twisting grotesquely as it fights to break free, but Solas is a force of nature, unstoppable now, and when his eyes glow and the ice shatters, the demon fractures along with it.

“You’re just showing off now!”

“Obviously!”

 Not one to be outdone, and with a vested interest in humbling Pride, Erys spins her staff deftly between the fingers of her right hand, crafting an array of six chilled spears above her head. Solas, the cocky bastard, physically halts his assault to watch her, brows raised in mild interest. Huffing, Erys sends the spears flying, letting out an exultant hah! when each hits its mark. Solas simply smiles, annoyingly indulgent, then detonates the spears with a careless wave of his hand. Each of the pierced demons shriek as the shards rip through them, a cacophonously discordant harmony of agony as they disperse into nothing.

“You are the worst,” Erys tells him, like that wasn’t one of the most attractive things she’s ever seen him do. Worse, Solas looks like he knows it.

She really likes that he looks like he knows it.

With remarkably little forethought and an alarming dearth of good sense, Erys does something she has always want to do. Charged with the heady adrenaline of a good fight, blood flowing hot and strong in her veins, she reaches out to grip the back of Solas’ neck, leaning up and pulling him down in tandem, until she can crash her mouth to his.

They meet too forcefully; a faint spike of pain blossoms as his teeth split her lip, the soft ache intensifying sweetly when his tongue traces the tear, chasing the bitter taste of her blood with a growl that trembles all the way through her, from the crown of her head to the soles of her feet. Accompanied by the bone-deep thrill that ripples through her when Solas’ broad hand presses to the small of her back, bowing her body against him, she can do little else but melt into the warmth of his body. Her pulse spikes. She can feel his heartbeat pounding against her chest.

A screeching shadow repels off his barrier, forcing them, red-cheeked and panting, apart.

Well. She’s allowed a poor decision or two.

They move as one.

The next demon to rise against them, bloated, Blighted, and taller even than any Pride demon she has fought before, receives the full, unrestrained force of Solas’ fire. An engulfing torrent erupts from his palms, vicious and overeager, which Erys thinks may be her fault. At Solas’ side she raises her hands, calling cold to shape the fire, guide it, focus it into a single, white-hot stream. The demon retaliates with an enraged downward stroke of its arms, cracked and misshapen claws hammering toward them. Erys, throwing herself away from the blow at the last moment, skids painfully across the bedrock, sharp stones tearing at her clothing as the blow connects, sending ripples across the foundation every which way.

The demon rears back with a howl, its vicious claws chipped and splintered, and Solas rolls his shoulders as though he hasn’t just countered a point-blank strike from a creature the size of an ogre.

“Down,” he orders, the single word ringing with command, and as though mirroring the demon’s own strike, brings a hand forcefully down to the ground, splitting a fissure through the rock and sending the howling demon tumbling into endless shadow.

Erys sits there, breathless, awestruck, until Solas grabs her arm and hauls her to her feet, dragging her into a sprint that her legs obey readily before her mind can catch up. There’s something so giddily primal about it, the speed to which he pushes them, fingers entwined so tightly with hers. Feet pounding the stones, sharply measured breaths, heartbeat in her ears, and Solas. Eyes narrowed with the focus of intent, jaw set around a fierce sort of grin that doesn’t help her heart rate at all. Why are they even running? If he could so handily decimate any foe before them?

She chances a glance over her shoulder.

Oh.

“Solas?!”

“I know. Keep moving.”

She’ll obey the command but still has to tell him. “Shit prison, vhenan!”

“I know!”

There is a flood of demons at their heels, a writhing, shadowed mass of echoing shrieks, ice and fire and lightning in flavouring cacophony. They could have bested a hundred, perhaps, between them. But not if they keep on coming.

“If your plan is just to keep moving—“

“In part,” Solas calls back. He does some sort of bizarrely complicated manoeuvre with the hand clutching hers; untangling their fingers and pulling her closer by the wrist, until she grips his shoulder instinctively and he can duck lower to wrap his now-free arm around her waist. Adrenaline snaps lightning-quick through her veins, dizzily exultant, and she blames him entirely for trapping all her attention on him so that she can’t glean his intention until it’s too late.

He pulls her to him, chest to chest, and his eyes are all she can see, burning with mana white-hot, save for the sliver of his almost giddy smile. Why is he looking at her like that? They have a tidal wave of demons bearing down on them, why is he so happy?

It’s only then she feels the ground leave her feet. Only then that she sees the jagged edge of the rocky crevice rise above them. Only then her body marks that they are falling with that twisting, dizzying weightlessness surging through her insides. A scream traps itself in her throat, restrained only by the way Solas holds her to him, cradled in the ironclad cage of his arms.

She fills her ears with the sound of his heartbeat, swallowing back her fear. The darkness rises to meet them.

***

“If you ever pull a stunt like that again…”

The fact that she is able to threaten him, however weakly, is a good sign. The fact that Erys is apparently now blind is… not.

She can’t remember the fall, or, more accurately, can’t remember landing. Tumbling into the dark, crushed against Solas’ chest – that she remembers, but there is an alarming swathe of time between then and now that is missing from her, not unlike the strange passing of time in a dream. Honestly, that makes enough sense that she’s content to disregard it, even if her entire body is still trembling unsteadily as the last of the adrenaline ebbs away.

She casts her gaze about her, useless as that is because she can’t see anything. She holds a hand up in front of her face, not even an inch past the end of her nose. Nothing. No flicker in the dark, no subtle shift in the air. Whatever magic is causing this is stronger than she can dispel, and frustratingly immune to any attempts to brighten with magelight.

“…Solas?”

She holds still, listening over her heartbeat and holding her breath. No immediate response, but she receives one all the same; one understandably slow in coming – a quiet groan in the dark, huffing and displeased, though far deeper than she had expected. She shifts to kneel up, tucking her feet beneath her, and presses her hands to the ground to feel for what lies below. Cold, ridged, smoother than stone, but no discernible pattern in the shapes she can trace with her fingers. She can dig her nails into the slim grooves between them, drag the pads of her fingers over the oddly glossy pebbles, but she isn’t at all sure what she’s actually touching.

“Solas, are you alright? That had better be you and not some… I don’t know. Creature. Say something so I know where you are.”

This time, her answer is a low, rumbling whine, curtailed by the sort of wet sneeze of a beast. She stiffens, heart thudding sharply, and shifts her hands soundlessly against the stones to trace the sigil for a barrier. It slithers reassuringly into place across her skin, humming the gentle buzz of its presence.

She doesn’t much fancy her chances, fighting in such oppressive darkness, but she’s sure as hell going to give it her all.

There’s an oddly warm sound to her right and she snaps her head in its direction, listening to the soft susurrus of movement. Not quite fabric, not quite skin, and definitely larger than one tall elf should be able elicit. Erys holds firm, immovable, until another rumbling whine sounds and five bright spots of blue light up the darkness, a decent distance away from her knelt position, though wholly impossible to judge with any real accuracy. Those apparently floating gemstones of cold fire blink in sequence: the lower pair; the pair above, and then one solitary wink – an unpaired glint – at the top of the cluster of three. They seem to focus on her after the moment’s brief obscurity, and Erys’, perhaps foolishly, ventures, “…Solas?”

A soft, nasal huff, strong enough to gust against her face from here. An acknowledgment? Hopefully that and not a precursor so making a meal of her.

“Yes.”

Erys clutches her chest. “Oh, thank fuck.”

With the eyes as the only visible part of him, it is a struggle to mark the way that he moves, but he seems to rise up slightly and then slowly draw closer, if the soft vibrations in the ground are any indication. There is a pause, and then the eyes lower more to her level, though they still hang markedly far above her head. Something cold and slightly damp touches her forehead. Is that…? His nose?

“Ir abelas. I… miscalculated.”

She’s never heard him sound so grumpy before. It shouldn’t be nearly as endearing as it is, though that’s second only to her relief. She sighs through it, letting her barrier drop and reaching up to map the unseen contours of his face. Her hands find his muzzle, the cool, leathery dampness of his nose, the faint prickle of his whiskers, and then – exhilaratingly – the deep, warm softness of his fur.

She’d seen him from such a distance across the rooftops of Tevinter, fang to fang and claw to claw with the Archdemon, and though her heart had quickened in fear, the image of the Dread Wolf had etched itself so indelibly into her mind.

So, quite reasonably she thinks, she digs her hands into his fur, desperate to acquaint herself with this version of him.

…She’s almost certain he was bigger before. And significantly less fluffy.

“Vhenan,” Solas intones, rough and deep and chiding, oddly directionless and yet alarmingly close, though not quite within her mind as spirit speech. “Is this really the best time?”

“Solas, I’m terrified,” she says with false joviality, curling her fingers around great tufts of fluff and – fuck it – pressing herself as close as she can to the fur of his ruff. He is warm and so very soft and his heartbeat is heavy and steady and thunderously loud. “I can’t see a single fucking thing.” She tugs handfuls of his fur in admonishment. “You threw us off a cliff.”

Solas’ head dips and he nudges the jutting bone of his snout against her cheek with a sort of sheepish whuff. “I miscalculated. I did not expect there to be so many.” He bows low over her, tucking her against him with his head at her back, nuzzling against her. “I thought I could shorten the fall, but the Fade still resists me here.”

“Oh, so the miscalculation wasn’t in the throwing, but the misjudging of height. That’s so much better.”

“We survived, I think should be the main focus.”

“It’s not like you to take risks like that.”

“I was— distracted. And significantly disarmed by the strength of force in our opponents.”

“Fancy way of saying you got caught off guard.”

“Given the evidence, it seems to be a frustratingly common occurrence. I am, as it turns out, frequently easy to surprise. Not always pleasantly.” He shifts against her, the sudden chill at her back marking the rise of his head. “Thankfully we have not fallen far beyond where I intended us to land.”

“And the paws?”

Solas is quiet for a long moment. “…I panicked,” he admits after a considerable pause, sounding pained. “The momentum of our fall was beyond what I could safely mitigate on impact. The Wolf was necessary for manoeuvrability.”

Erys frowns. “You’re not hurt, are you?”

“Slightly bruised, but otherwise whole, I assure you.” He nudges the top of her head with his nose. “You are sweet to ask.”

“Almost as though I love you, or something.”

“Yes,” Solas says, amused fondness thick in his otherworldly tone. “Almost.”

“And my sight?”

“Hm? Oh.”

He licks her face.

He licks. Her face.

She can’t see it coming, so she isn’t expecting it, and certainly can’t guard against it. A hot stripe of a tongue almost the bloody length of her, rough and hot and uncomfortably moist right up her face. She shrieks and stumbles back, swiping at her face with her sleeves— a sleeve and a half. The right one is still a charred and flaky mess. “Solas!”

“Blink, vhenan, if you please.”

She definitely does that, all while wiping desperately at her face to scrub the nauseatingly viscous saliva from her skin. At the very least, it doesn’t smell like a wolf’s breath, no rancid old blood or meat or fat. It just smells like Solas. Warm, soft parchment. Book dust and starlight and the earthen tang of soil and marble. That makes it considerably less offensive.

“That wasn’t—“ She cuts herself off, blinking again. She can see… something. A subtle shift of shadow below Solas’ eyes – the ripple of fur at his ruff; warping strangely as her eyes adjust.

Goosebumps erupt down her arms, hair prickling at the back of her neck, and with a brief but rather unpleasant sensation of pressure behind her eyes, her vision swarms with colour, bright, nonsensical, and then settles into- 

“Oh!” She reaches up, squinting through the strange, ink-like fog covering her field of vision. She can see Solas in front of her, shades of black and grey overtaking all the colour of the world she would normally recognise, and each movement leaves a wisp-like after image lingering for a heartbeat. She waves her hand, watching the shadows trail after her fingers. “What is this?” 

“Itha’ove ‘ma’itha.” Solas says by way of explanation.  

“Look behind… your eyes?” 

“My eyes,” Solas corrects. “Itha; to see.” 

“See… through your eyes,” Erys ventures. Solas dips his head into a nod and the wraith-like swirls persist. “Solas, you don’t see like this all the time, do you?” 

A dull thump at his back draws her attention. His tail, thick and long, thuds against the ground. It is such a relief to be able to see some indication of his pleasure, even though his voice, when he next speaks, is tinged with a sense of longing she cannot understand. “No. This is sou’i’ve’an’ithast. Veil-sight. Even in the darkest reaches of the Fade, no elgar shall be blind.” 

The recitation feels heavier than she can explain. Her breath catches in her throat. “Is this…?” 

Solas nods again but remains bowed, muzzle resting against the top of her head. “You see the world now as a spirit. How does it feel?” 

The idle curiosity doesn’t fool her, she knows him well enough – can see him well enough, now – to know that he is desperate to hear her reaction. She’d like to offer him something worthy of the experience, considering he has let her see the world as he had when he roamed the Fade as Wisdom. 

“It’s… Odd,” she hedges. “I can see… It’s like ink in water. Whenever there’s movement, I can see shapes… shadows. Tendrils in the air. Like the movement is disturbing the Fade. Or the Fade is… following the movement. Imprints of…” She gasps and Solas’ tail thuds rapidly at her realisation. “It’s a memory.”

“Exactly right, ‘ma vhenan. Even the smallest action influences the Fade, footprints in the sand that water will rush forward to fill. Thoughts, feelings, movement, decisions, the Fade remembers them all.” Solas nuzzles at her, whuffing softly against her cheek. It might be the strange warping of her magically-enhanced vision, but even in the strange grey gloom his mouth seems to pull into a lupine smile.

“This is incredible,” Erys says, turning to take a step, then swaying precariously and throwing a hand out to grab Solas’ nearest foreleg. He is quick to steady her, even in this form, lowering himself for her to brace against. “Actually— You can still lead. The vertigo is… considerable. And I don’t know where we’re… going.”

Trying to parse anything her enhanced sight is showing her is an effort in futility. It’s reassuring to be able to make out vague shapes in the dimness, but finer details are lost on her. She thinks she can see pillars? A short distance away, clustered around them like great, stone trees that reach up so high into the shadows above them it sends another wave of roiling dizziness through her. The ridged and pebbled ground beneath them, while blessedly no longer formed of cracked, sharp stone, twists and ripples in time with the living sway of the sou’i’ve’an’ithast. She may as well be walking on water, for all the sense it makes.

“Are these mosaics?” She asks with interest, now that she can see them, at all, if not entirely clearly. She runs a foot lightly over the smoothly ridged expanse to gain an understanding of it through her other senses. The pattern is too vast and her vision too ephemeral for her to make out the finer details.

“Yes,” Solas says. He shifts his weight from paw to paw. “No path in Arlathan was without one. Magic charged the stones to light them at night.”

“Is this here because of you?”

Solas exhales sharply. “This is all here because of me. The prison has not latched onto your regrets – will not – as fiercely as it does to mine.”

“Because…?”

“This prison was never intended for you.”

“…What does that mean? It wasn’t intended for you either.”

Solas makes a low mrrr noise in his throat, butting her gently with his nose. “As you say. Now. If you would indulge me?”

She glances up, wincing. Solas’ eyes flare brightly, glowing ripples she struggles to focus on. He’s vast and dark-furred enough that the rippling afterimages don’t seem so pronounced when he moves, so when he lowers his belly to the ground, he’s the clearest thing she can see. “For my own peace of mind, if nothing else. I have little control over anything that might manifest here. I would prefer to have you close.”

She glances from his face to his back. “You want me to…?”

His tail thuds against the ground. “Would you mind?”

She doesn’t, but every Dalish Keeper who has ever lived would balk at the notion. Erys won’t pretend she’s not somewhat exhilarated by the blasphemous, rebellious act of climbing onto the Dread Wolf’s back, but mercifully Solas does not comment on her eagerness to do so. Besides, it’s not the worst thing she could do with the Dread Wolf. It’s honestly not even the worst thing she’s done with him in the past twenty-four hours.

“I’m not too heavy?”

“Not at all,” Solas assures her, chuffing an odd, wolfish laugh as he rises onto his paws and she yelps, clutching at his fur for balance. His ears, now that she’s close enough to see them, twitch back toward her attentively. She reaches out to scratch the base of one, charmed by the way it twitches, as well as the soft, growling rumble he lets out.

“Fen’Harel’lin,” she murmurs, snorting when he heaves a sigh that nearly unseats her. “How come you have fur now?”

“I’m not anticipating an Archdemon’s attempts to immolate me.”

That makes a surprising amount of sense. “Well, that’s good, I suppose. I really don’t want to have to fight a Fade-strengthened Archdemon in a pit of your regrets.”

“You make it sound as though you’d be amenable to challenging one elsewhere.”

“I probably would be.”

“Your eagerness to charge down dragons continues to terrify me.”

“I am who I am,” she defends with a shrug. “I like a good fight, nothing wrong with that.”

“Ultimately unsurprising, I suppose. You shared Bull’s battle-lust in that regard.” His tone deepens to admonishing. “No matter how significantly your adrenaline-fuelled mania contributed to the stress levels of those around you.”

Though he can’t see her, Erys nods solemnly. “Taarsidath-an halsaam.”

“…Erys.”

She digs her nails into the fur at the base of his skull, scratching her nails against the skin beneath. “You’re thinking about it, too.”

He doesn’t answer, which is more incriminating than if he’d just agreed with her in the first place. “Shall we move on?”

She rolls her eyes. “By your leave, Dread Wolf.”

He bounds forward half a step to jostle her roughly upon his back. She reaches up to yank on one of his silken-soft ears. He chuffs a rumbling laugh and she presses her answering snicker into his fur.

“Always,” he says as he pads into the waiting dark. “I am always thinking of you.”

Chapter Text

“Why a wolf?”

Solas’ gait is measured and steady, the rhythmic padding of his paws and the steady beat of his heart beneath her lulling her into a hypnotic state of calm despite the oppressive darkness. The stone pillars she had thought to be trees are neither, in the end, but the branching, vast stalks of those rising and grasping hands that had so unsettled her before. She keeps her eyes closed, face turned into the warmth of his fur for comfort, for reassurance, but the drawback is the steady beat of his heart and the soft warmth of his fur and body drawing her into a sense of torpor made acute by the ebbing adrenaline.

His ears flick back at the sound of her voice. “Hmmm?”

She huffs. The effort of speaking is almost not worth it, but she is curious. “Why a wolf? You. Why do you turn into one?”

“Ah. I had wondered when you would ask.” For a moment Erys thinks that’s all he’ll say, but then she feels his ribs contract with the force of his sigh. “Shapeshifting is an ancient magical art. You’ve seen it done yourself, by the witch Morrigan, no less.”

Something in his tone makes her frown. He’s never particularly liked Morrigan, but the open disdain is a bit much. “You can just call her Morrigan. She deserves that, at least. I owe her a lot.”

“You may well feel that way, and you are right to credit her for what she has accomplished. To me, she is just one more painful reminder.”

Ah. “She isn’t her mother, Solas.”

Solas gives a throaty huff of derision, so thick with distaste she’s honestly shocked by it. “Her mother is not even her mother. Whatever bond might have been forged between mother and child was entirely subsumed by Mythal’s will. Such is the nature of her intent.”

“Their relationship isn’t something for you to pass judgment on. That’s unworthy of you.”

“I bear neither of them any ill will,” Solas says evenly, like that makes it any better. “And I am… grateful, I suppose, for Morrigan’s willingness to help Mythal break my shackles. But I would prefer not to spend any more of my life thinking of Mythal or her descendants. If she is gone from me, let it be fully.”

She should have just let him keep explaining. The guilt is… considerable, but thankfully not too sharp to bear. “…Alright. I’m sorry.”

“Da’rahn.”

“Is it?”

“Yes, vhenan.”

She considers pressing him, but what good would that do? Other than to communicate in no uncertain terms that she doesn’t believe what he’s telling her. It would be galling to him, certainly, when he is trying to be honest, as much as she is trying to trust him. Although… That does make it sound like he has some compulsive pre-disposition to lying, which couldn’t be more wrong. His bitter past and history of personal betrayals make him disinclined to trust others – even her – so when met with curiosity, no matter how genuine, it is natural for him to try to defend against revealing what he has come to protect; that which he knows and has painfully learned is seldom valued by others. She also wonders if, perhaps, he holds no compunctions for lying to those he considers beneath him. Not servants or the like, but… well. She isn’t Elvhen. It wasn’t long ago she managed to clumsily and wholly unintentionally prove a realm of people’s worth as living creatures of sentience. He’s not going to overturn that long-held belief easily, and she’d be a fool to think he could.

“Ma nuvenin,” she finally says. “Ir abelas sul nu ma.”

“You need not be. The wound is an old one.” He sighs heavily once more, a plaintive sort of hitch to the breath. “And… I spoke poorly. You are right that I know little of what transpired between Morrigan and the mother she knew; it is not right for me to make assumptions. I know not what influence Flemeth had over Mythal’s will in turn.”

“It’s alright if it makes you angry,” Erys offers, combing her fingers through the patch of fur over his right shoulder blade. “Or even jealous. I don’t think anyone could blame you—“

“I appreciate the sentiment, but please,” Solas says stiffly, “do not attempt to guess at my feelings on this matter. I do not wish to feel them, so I would prefer not to discuss them.”

Honestly, that’s on Erys. “San, I’m sorry. Again.”

He does not respond this time. She doubts that he’s truly angry with her, more likely just frustrated and resentful of the old pain that still lingers. He’s quite right to be upset with her, though. Even if she’s still set on her path of mercilessly demanding explanations. At least she has a vague sense of when to push and when to relent.

“So, Wolf?” She continues when the silence draws on too long. “It’s just… what, a preference?”

“No,” Solas says, abrupt, then softens with the explanation. “No, it is an extension of myself. I would not bind a dragon to myself, as was to become custom among the Evanuris. Or— Perhaps not custom. They saw it as their right alone to do so, but I would not. Nor would I bind a wolf, or any creature, for that matter, but the shifting of the shape into something draconic was a so-called privilege reserved for the highest of us.”

“Why?”

She isn’t sure how she can hear the smile in his voice when his mouth does not possess the ability to curve that way, but this is the Fade, and fuck-all makes sense here. “Why not? If you were a being possessed of nigh-limitless power and wished to display that effortlessly to the masses, with the added benefit of instilling a desired sense of fear and awe, would you not turn your will toward the subjugation of such a fearsome creature?”

“I’ll have to take your word for it,” Erys says, wrinkling her nose. Limitless power is so far past the scope of that she can imagine, though that’s probably why limitless is the best description. “I had limited power for roughly three years, and then significantly reduced power for the next eight, and I didn’t care for it at all. I can’t imagine having more.”

“Your humility was what made you a desirable leader,” Solas says, purely matter-of-factly. Even without the intention, though, there’s enough praise contained in the statement to heat her cheeks. “Something that all nine of us lacked.”

Her brows raise in surprise. “Nine of you? You include yourself in that count?”

“Well, my name isn’t Athimathe , is it?”

“That… is an exceptionally good point.”

“I have been known to make those occasionally.”

“Infrequently, I suppose,” Erys hums, snickering into his fur when he mutters something distasteful under his breath. She catches Dalish and disrespectful and an amusing handful of far more colourful descriptors. She pokes him in the back of the head for his attitude. “So, dragon was out, and that apparently left wolf as the next best thing?”

Solas cocks his head, right ear twitching. “Not so. There is a brief moment in lyrium-formed flesh, before the self settles and the spirit fully melds, when the form is entirely malleable. In that moment, when I was afraid and vulnerable and angry – a wild thing reluctantly tamed – I found the wolf.”

“You just… found it? Became it? What?”

“Think of it as… discovering a facet of yourself. A part of your nature you had not known before. That is what it was to me: a sense of self before I understood the concept of physicality. As an entirely new entity, I did not have the knowledge to understand its place within me. I’m not entirely sure I do, even now. What I do know is that it was there when I was at my weakest. Whether it was another spirit that bonded itself to me, or simply the manifestation of my desire to feel safe, I don’t know. But it is as much of myself as any other part. We are indivisible.”

Grateful as she is to him for sharing, it tugs at something painful below her ribs. The way he speaks of his past makes her wonder why he ever wanted to bring it back. The idea of Solas truly afraid is wrong, it doesn’t fit within her image of him at all. Even watching him cower before the lyrium hadn’t felt truly real, like watching some false version of himself.

“Could I shapeshift?” Erys asks, to offer him some grace.

“I see no reason you could not,” Solas says, gone thoughtful. “It is powerful magic – old magic, but the knowledge remains and can be taught. I’m honestly surprised you’ve not yet attempted it.”

“Maybe you can teach me after… After. There will be an after, right?”

“Yes,” Solas says with a conviction she cannot doubt. “No matter how long it takes to soothe the Titans’ anger, there will be an after for you and I.”

Erys settles more comfortably against his back, nuzzling into the divot between his shoulder blades. “I like the sound of that.”

“As do I.”

They lapse into a gentler silence this time. Quite unintentionally, she matches the pace of her breathing to the slow sway of Solas’ body, because she had consciously tried to match it to his steady gait, and had nearly hyperventilated. When she tried to match his vast and even breathing, her lungs had ached and her head had clouded over. Unsurprisingly, the lung capacity of a Fade-born spirit-wolf is greater than that of a quickling elf. The sway of his body, though, with each padded step, is slow and even and steadily paced, enough to match her breathing without inspiring loose panic or daze. She’s still so tired she could almost drift off, if she were not so afraid of the dark.

 “Solas?”

“Mm?”

“Is there…? Can you feel that?”

“Yes,” Solas says, body thrumming with the low pitch of his voice. “Despair.”

“Oh,” Erys says, swallowing. Now that she knows for certain, the prickle against her skin feels obvious. She doesn’t want to hate demons, not after Solas taught her what they are, what perception commands them to be, and after she learned that she loves one more than sense or sanity should permit. She doesn’t want to hate them. But she is so afraid of Despair.

“Is it—“ She clears her throat for something to do that isn’t quivering against Solas’ back, though she still digs herself into his fur as though she can make some sort of living mantle for herself out of his pelt. He tilts his head upwards as far as he can, twisting, three of his eyes straining back to catch a glimpse of her, though he is not successful. His irritation is palpable, but she is not brave enough in this dark place to walk at his side. If he dared to retake the form she knows best, perhaps she could, but something in the darkness prevents him from abandoning the wolf. His ears are twitching – right up, left banked – to catch her words when they come. “Is it… just Despair?”

“It has been some time since I could discern natures at a glance,” is his measured answer. He lowers his head with a wet sneeze, shaking out the strain in his neck. His tapered ears quiver. “But no. It is not alone.”

He is calm, which upsets her. She wishes no distress on him, not after everything, but she is undone by the mere mention of Despair waiting in the dark and cannot abide being frightened while he is not. “They’re not attacking.”

“They have no reason to. We have nothing that they want.”

“Then why…?”

Solas’ head dips, ears twitching down against his skull, pinned in reluctance. “Why did they attack us on the surface?”

She nods, then remembers he cannot see her. “Yes.”

“Because I struck first.”

That… isn’t what happened, surely? Erys thinks back, to Solas’ calm, one-sided conversation with the demon called Loathing. It was a— negotiation? At least, she would name it such, but she had only heard Solas’ words.

You must understand that isn’t possible.

That’s what he’d said. To a request, or a demand maybe, that she hadn’t heard. And then Solas had… But he’d said he wouldn’t attack unprovoked. So it must have…

“What did it ask you for? Loathing. What did it want?”

Solas’ steps do not falter, but his distressed ears stay flat against his head. “Something I was not prepared to lose.”

“But what did it want—“

“Erys.” Sharp. Teeth bared and resolute. “Don’t.”

It tugs painfully beneath her ribs, the rejection. She’s used to it, from him, and she would think it might start to hurt less, after all this time, but acclimation has not inured her. It stabs just as deeply, every time. She thinks she might quite like to walk, now. Perched on his back, she is too close, and her skin hurts with the proximity. If he will not open to her, then—

A sharp inhale. The sting of ice in the air. Unnaturally cold, with the bite of bitter frost, as clarifying as it is excoriating.

“It’s attacking,” Erys says, clutching handfuls of Solas’ fur like anchors. The realisation is as much relief as it is dread. “Despair. It’s trying.”

“Don’t get down,” Solas cautions. “Whatever it makes you feel, stay close to me.” His ears flicker, pinned with wariness, but still they search for her voice. “Do not let it draw you away.”

“I won’t.”

None of her emotions here are real. Whatever part of his prison they’re in, she cannot trust anything she feels. She has never been more terrified. “Do you think Fear…?”

“It is likely. Younger, but likely. But you’ve bested the Nightmare before.”

“You’re not scared?”

“Vhenan.” He huffs. Be it wry amusement or exasperation, she cannot tell. “I am terrified.”

The honest admission of his fear soothes her own. Bizarre, perhaps, but it means she is right to be afraid – that there is something out there in the dark that she is supposed to fear; that she is not just a coward frightened by the unseen and the unreal. There is comfort to be found in reason, when fear runs wild. She twists her fingers into his fur, a rhythmic combing to calm them both. “You said that before. About it being younger. What does that mean?”

“The longer a spirit is perverted from its purpose, the harder it becomes to realign it – to untwist it from the perversion of its nature. If a spirit is young, it may yet be soothed and returned to what it was.”

“Is it always a demon? When a spirit’s nature changes, is it always demonic?”

“When its purpose is perverted, yes.”

“No, I mean…” She searches for the right words, hesitant. “You speak of spirits like they should never become more than they are. Like they aren’t beings that can handle change, whether good or bad.”

“They cannot,” Solas says. “Spirits are formed when wild, primordial magic is given focus. An idea. A concept. They are the embodiment of that single notion, conceptualising it with their entire existence. A spirit cannot not evolve the way that mortals can. To adapt, for them, is to become something new, and what they were is swept away.” Gently, he adds, “it may seem strange to you, when in your experience the nature of the world is ever changing, and the self reflects that. But spirits are not beholden to – nor capable of – adaption in mortal terms.”

Erys raises her hands to scratch her nails at the base of his ears. “I’m going to tell you something now, ‘ma fen. I don’t think I’ve ever said it quite so explicitly before, but I really think you need to hear it.”

His ears twitch against her knuckles, curious. “Yes?”

“I think you’re wrong.”

As expected, that disarms him. His steady, padding gait halts at once, bringing them to a rather abrupt stop, almost dislodging Erys from his back. She sits up, waiting patiently while he thinks himself into knots around her words, trying – bless him – not to offer an instinctive respond that would likely be significantly less than courteous.

“…I can’t tell if you’re trying to distract me or goad me,” he finally says, though it’s entirely likely – almost certain – that he knows full well and doesn’t want to admit it. “While I would accept the former with some gratitude, I am concerned for the latter. Are you really claiming that I do not know the nature of my own kind?”

It’s good he can’t see her face. She’s grinning like an idiot. “Yeah.”

Well. He can hear the smile now, without seeing it, he knows she’s playing some sort of game, though the fact that he doesn’t know what game is probably more infuriating than her casual claim of his ignorance. And it is a casual claim, but she does believe it. She’s even willing to tell him why. But he has to ask.

His tail swishes rapidly, a gentle gust at her back. “…You are playing with me.”

Erys hums, considering. “In the dark, surrounded by demons? That does sound like something I’d do.”

“A distraction, then.” He sounds relieved, shifts to continue their unknowable journey. “For a moment—“

“No, I really do think you’re wrong.”

He stops again, smacking a forepaw down against the ground in an almost petulant stomp. She smothers a laugh behind tightly-pressed lips. “You are goading me on purpose.”

“Yes. Obviously.”

“Why?”

“You said you were afraid.”

“Ah—“ He falls abruptly silent. Erys looks around them, dreading for a split second that something has finally dared to approach them from the smoky darkness, but there is nothing but silence. Then, Solas bows his head, a light sort of shiver rippling down the length of his spine. “That is a dreadful habit you’ve picked up.”

He’s trying not to laugh.

“Yes, well, it’s not the worst habit I picked up from Dorian.”

“I dread to think.”

“Day-drinking, mostly.”

“If that is the worst, then his influence is lacking.” He cocks his head. “I think Despair has withdrawn, for now. Well done.”

That surprises her. “I didn’t do anything?”

“You may combat— Hm. Perhaps the wrong term. That implies more aggression than is necessary. You may counter a demon’s attempts to weaken you with the memory of what it once was. As trite as it sounds, a Despair demon can often be turned away by something as simple as laughter. It is a cruel reminder of what it once was, and they cannot usually stand to be so stridently reminded.”

“It’s odd to think of laughter as cruel.”

“Can it not be? You’ve surely heard jeers and mockery in your life, at your own expense and others’.”

“True, but… I don’t know. In this, it just seems… sad. To hear genuine laughter and know pain because of it.”

“It is sad,” Solas agreed. “But sometimes such reminders are necessary. It can be a catalyst, if the perversion does not run too deeply, to return the demon to its purpose.”

Erys hears what he does not explicitly say. “Is that… something you felt? When you walked with the Inquisition, your counsel was sought by almost everyone for some matter or another, not just by me.”

“It hurt,” he admits softly. “To be so surrounded by receptive minds after so long, when burdened by what I felt I had to do. Yes, it is close to what I felt. Something that went a long way to restoring something I had feared, unconsciously, was lost to me forever, though I will never be as I was. The act of taking form changed me utterly, and I knew from that moment I would never truly be Wisdom again, that I would never have cause to offer wisdom to anyone again. Perhaps I fooled myself into thinking that the only chance I had lay within the resurrection of Elvhenan. Ah, there is no perhaps about it, now that I have said it – that is exactly what I believed.”

“What is wisdom, though?” Erys asks, abruptly taken by the notion. “How would you describe it? Is it the sum of knowledge or experience? Wouldn’t that be Archive? Or the gathering of knowledge? But that would be Study, maybe?”

“Why do you ask?”

“It’s who you are. And I’ve always wanted to know everything about that. I can finally ask you without watching you twist yourself through a hundred stages of grief and confusion while you try to think up a terrible lie or omission.” She grins, certain he can sense it, even if he can’t see it. “You have to be honest now. No more air of mystery. Though you can’t be cryptic to save your life.”

Solas gives a wolffish grumble, a growling whine of indignation low in his throat. “Ah, so you’ll divine all there is to know about me through philosophising over the nature of my spirit?”

“I’d love to.”

“…Truly?”

“Passes the time, keeps the demons off us, stops me from spiralling in fear of the dark, and has the added bonus of getting you to talk freely about yourself while I get to learn things. There are quite literally no downsides, I think.”

Solas is silent for an inordinately long time, though she reads no offence or petulance in his bearing. Finally, he says, softly, sweetly, “I’ve missed you more than I think I could ever convey, vhenan.”

Erys’ chest fills with a warmth so vast she can barely contain it. “I missed you, too.”

“Then speak to me of wisdom, ‘ma sal’shiral. I would know what it means to you.”

As much as she’d love that, she wonders, “do we have time?”

He gives a decidedly canine sigh. “Perhaps not. I had hoped that I could avoid having the demons follow, but even as they withdraw I can feel them near… If you are prepared, we can press on.”

If that means what it sounds like it means, then he’s been loping along in this terrible darkness pointlessly all this time. “Solas, for fuck’s sake.”

“I know. I am sorry.”

“No, not for that. Look, I pushed you because I was angry, but if you’re not ready—“

“This isn’t the sort of thing I will ever be ready for, vhenan,” Solas counters with surprising gentleness. “I am bringing you to the site of the act that ruined our people: the greatest regret I have ever had to bear. I am thousands of years old and if I live a thousand thousand more, I will still not be ready. I do this because it is right, because I have nowhere left to run, because I am the last living enemy of the Titans. There is no other recourse, you were right to push me.”

Even if every word rings true, it doesn’t fully ease her guilt, but she understands and that helps. “Stop a moment?”

He does, the very second the request leaves her lips. He slows his measured pace, huffing a questioning breath when she shifts to dismount and drops the the ground beside him. The stone beneath them is damp as though from recent rainfall, a slew of water perhaps an inch deep splashing faintly underfoot as she lands. From this vantage point, Solas towers over her like a shadow, and the veilsight makes his eyes flare alarmingly in the gloom. He lowers his head to her level, folding his great body into something smaller, less frightening, unnecessary as that is. She’s almost as accustomed to this form now as she is the one she fell in love with. She reaches out a hand to pet his cold, damp nose.

“Will you change back?”

Again, he complies without hesitation. A cold surge, ice on the still air and a rush of vacuous power and the world folds in on itself along with Solas’ form, dissolving him before her eyes and reforming him as she knows him best. He is quick to reach for her now that paws no longer hinder his grip, and he finds her hands ready and waiting to twine fingers with his. “Are you alright?”

“A little uncertain, but I’m okay,” she answers honestly. She squeezes his hands gently. “This is better.”

He understands what she means, though her ability to read it in his expression is somewhat hampered by her inexperience with the veilsight. Every time she blinks it leaves those odd burning flares in her vision, and it feels as though she needs to focus twice as hard to parse what’s in front of her. The darkness still yields nothing of value; an empty pocket of space with no horizon and no conceivable end. Just the ground beneath them, the expanse of shallow water unlit by dimness too thick to reflect, and the cloak of shadow blocking her sight. But she can see him, and that is enough.

“Tell me how this goes,” she says. “What lies ahead?”

She could – and does – trust him to show her, and would easily follow should he chose to forgo and explanation and lead her, but there is something vulnerable within him that she doesn’t want to leave unsoothed if they are about to step into Solas’ deepest nightmare. Yes, she had demanded this of him, honest in her anger and stubborn in her refusal to let him shy away from the duty he has claimed, but that doesn’t mean she’ll force him to do it without sympathy or understanding. He claims he will never be ready, but she doesn’t know how true that is. Not that she thinks him dishonest, just that she doesn’t think even Solas knows how to gauge such a thing. Erys herself thinks he is perfectly ready, because a short while ago he never would have considered this a viable path. That he is willing to make the attempt at all speaks volumes.

“Do… you understand why the Veil could only be sustained by Elvhen blood?”

Erys moves to nod before stopping herself. She’d received fractured information from several sources, most from Rook herself, but secondhand information was always going to be incomplete. “From what any of us could gather, it was based on power – magical aptitude. Dorian supposed that it was perhaps biological, and the fact that it involved blood magic seemed to corroborate his suspicions.”

Solas turns his hand in hers, palm up. The ripples of her vision seem to part to offer a clear view of the scar along his palm. His skin is almost silver in the darkness. “It is blood magic, it’s quite appropriate to call it that, but the term is only correct on a technicality. While the dagger and the Veil would have accepted whatever blood stained the blade, the life force of whomever bled to sustain it would not have been sufficient, without the presence of lyrium.”

“Oh,” Erys realises, eyes widening. “So that’s why it had to be Elvhen.”

“Yes. I… believe that…” He swallows, shifting his weight between his feet. “Had I injured Varric with any other blade or means…”

It hurts her to hear, as much as it hurts him to tell it. “He might have survived.”

Solas nods. “The Veil’s draw upon his life force was too great. It weakened the barrier enough for Ghilan’nain and Elgar’nan to break free. The Veil will remain in place by virtue of my blood because my life force is vast enough – the presence of lyrium within the bodies of Dwarves is depleted generationally. They are mortal, their connection to the Stone varies from child to child, it is not that they lack the presence of lyrium-based magic in their bodies, it still lingers faintly even now, but it is their mortality – anyone born of Thedas as it is now would have insufficient power to sustain it.”

“Is that why some can sense the Stone more strongly than others?”

Solas nods. “That has long been my hypothesis, yes. Please don’t think me callous when I say that Varric’s death proved it.”

The lash of grief is instinctive, but undirected. “I understand.”

“Thank you.” The relief is heavy in his words. “…That being said, my… failure to secure the Evanuris comes from my initial mistake in binding both the Titans and the Evanuris to the same prison. When I first raised the Veil, I borrowed the…” He falters, brow creasing. “I… stole a portion of power from the Titan consciousness we had severed. While abhorrent to me then, it is perhaps only time that has truly given me the clarity to understand how reprehensible the act was. At the height of the empire, that power was coveted by enemies, and used freely by Elgar’nan and his ilk for their own ends. It was treated with less respect than any common spoil of war, for all its true worth.”

She supposes… as cruel as it is, Erys can at least understand the reasoning. To her now, within the realm of what she has come to know, it is indeed abhorrent and her spirit recoils in desperate horror to hear him tell it. But at the root of the matter, perhaps if she had lived as he had, during the ages that he had, she might be able to understand that the spoils taken from an enemy would rightly be put to use for the good of the victors. War is often messy, or so she has come to understand, but the way Solas describes it makes it hard to reconcile. War against a race that moved to defend themselves against an act of aggression, but pitted against a new race that did not know any better… Caught somewhere miserably between inexcusable and understandable.

“With that power, I fractured a piece of Elvhenan, encasing it within the deepest reaches of the Fade – or so I thought. What I had thought to be an abundance of caution turned out to be an unintentionally greedy miscalculation. The spell I designed to trap the Evanuris took nigh on a century to cast, and combined with the power I stole from the Titans’ dreams, the outcome could only ever be terrible. But I was desperate.”

“The Black City…” Erys breathes. “It was part of Elvhenan?”

“The heart of Elvhenan,” Solas corrects, expression twisting with grief. “I had beguiled them and their counterparts into Mythal’s grandest courtroom, the tales are correct in that; I had conspired to betray each side of an unseen war, as if the Titans had not been lesson enough, as if I could not hear their furious screams when I wrenched their bound strength and bent it to my will, as if I did not know that what we had done felt to them as unending torture without reprieve.” He brings their joined hands to his chest, laying her palms flat as witnesses to his heartbeat. “When I woke to my failures, I could only stave off the weight of guilt, not solely by promising that I would reverse what I had done, but by telling myself that I had at least succeeded. It was a cold comfort, but the Evanuris were bound, and that was enough.”

Erys waits pained and patiently, heart aching for him. Solas hunches his shoulders, a faint gasp slipping past his lips. “I am so tired, vhenan.”

She realises then that he had not been offering the explanation she had asked for. Instead, he is telling her in his roundabout and solitary way, that he is afraid. “Solas…”

“Can you understand?” He asks her softly. “There is no force or power that can absolve me of this guilt. You chose to come here because you loved the man known as Solas, the man I so dearly wished I could be. But he is a farce, a lie carefully constructed so that I could distance myself from what I have done. You asked me why this prison would not latch itself into your regrets as keenly as mine. I told you this prison was not intended for you.”

Somehow, she manages to respond to that, though her voice threatens to crack around every word. “But it was intended for you?”

“And the rest,” Solas agrees quietly. “I would bind myself by blood to the wards, ensuring the locks on this prison would never falter. My life would be the seal, binding me to the heart of this place so that the Evanuris could never escape. That was the penance I chose for myself. The ultimate sacrifice of freedom.”

To him, she supposes the punishment must fit the crime. Nothing in all existence matters more to him than the freedom of all thinking creatures, whether corporeal or unformed. She can see the justice in his decision, but all it serves to do is chill her blood so thoroughly she struggles to take a breath through the pain. To this admittance she has no response to offer but to stare at him in horror.

“Why do you look at me so?” He asks her. “It did not come to pass.”

The unspoken though it should have rings like a death knell in her ears. “I hate that it was ever a possibility. You tell me wonderful and abhorrent things in the same breath and they lilt like poetry though it hurts me to hear them. Why do you— How can you offer counsel as though there is no one wiser in all existence, and yet every plan you concoct for yourself is contrived and horrific? I’d call you stupid if I didn’t know better! You certainly don’t.”

She doesn’t mean for half of that to come out of her mouth, and while she can retract not of it and stay honest, she would have delivered it in a far gentler way, if she could. Solas says nothing, watching her with eyes both assessing and weary. She will, she hopes, one day know all there is to know of his past and how he once lived and loved and fought and grieved, and when that time comes perhaps she will no longer be so confined within the petty morality of mortal teachings and find it as inexplicably horrifying as she does now. Because in mortal eyes, he is no better than the gods he claimed to oppose, and his only absolution lies in the fact that he did oppose them.

Unbalanced, she almost slips. The old Dalish prayer is quick to jump to her tongue, Mythal’enaste, may Mythal have mercy. But she will not invoke the god that bound him, no matter how dearly they may have once loved one another. Erys swallows the careless prayer that splits wounds down the inside of her throat.

“Ir abelas.” She offers it on a sharp exhale. “I didn’t mean to be so harsh.”

“It is deserved.”

“Just—“ She holds a hand out to him. “Shut up. I’m not the one who needs your apologies. I made my choice and I am still glad to have made it. Would make it again and again until I die, if I had to. I’m not your— We’ve had this argument. I’ve said my piece, I won’t say it again.”

“Ir— Ma—“ Solas begins on reflex, then falters. “Nuvenin,” he finishes, somewhat haltingly. “You are…” His eyes search her face. “I’ve asked so much of you.”

“Nothing I’m not able – willing – to give.”

“…No,” Solas agrees slowly. “I… No. Of course. As you say.”

Hesitation is writ in every tense line of his body. The words hang on his tongue, trapped behind his teeth. She squeezes his hands. “Ask me. Or— Tell me. Whatever it is.”

He nods. Once. “I need a memory. Your memory. As the last to wield the Anchor – the only one to wield power in that manner, if you can recall how it felt to— I need that memory. I need you to give it to me.”

A dozen questions bubble up within her, the first being how. It is only by virtue of how many questions clamour to be the first asked that she is afforded a moment to think. Stalled before she can frame her demands for understanding. A memory. A dream, then. She can do that. There are few memories so bright in her recollection as the burn of the Anchor within her flesh. Even after all these years she can feel the whispering ache of it within her absent limb. The healers had said she might be able to feel lingering sensation in its absence as the mind sought connections that were no longer there, and they had been right, but she always harboured suspicions that the sensation would not be so strong if the wound had not been magical in origin, or the presence of the Anchor so vast and heavy against her spirit. She will remember how it felt for the rest of her life.

She is not caught up in the how. She is more concerned with the why. “You still want the Anchor?”

Erys doesn’t mean to inject so much doubt into her words, but it is instinctive. Solas neither bows nor flinches beneath it, simply nods and offers his honesty. “A transference of power is not wise, not here, where you have little control over the extent of your magic. While not absolute, the prison is exerting a dampener on your will, suppressing it. You’re likely not fully aware of how deeply, but the strain of transferring power to me would likely harm you, and I’ll not allow it.”

“But I’ve—“

“Not in the quantity that I would require.”

Erys closes her mouth. Opens it again. “What will you do with it?”

His lips twitch upwards, as empty a smile as she has ever seen. “Open a rift, of course.”

Why had she imagined a gateway? He’d even said— For some reason, she still expected some entryway to lead them into the Black City, some physical boundary line they could cross. Of course it would not be so easy, but forming a rift from one part of the Fade to another does not sit well with her. “There’s no other way?”

“One,” Solas says. She perks up at that, until he continues, “I could weave a spell to open the way, but it would require constant channelling to first find a fluctuation within the fabric of the Fade – and the prison – that would be suitable for our purpose. Then I would need to widen it, all the while ensuring that nothing could slip through while I did so. It would be an open conduit between the Black City and the prison, and any wandering spirits would be drawn to the excess power. Not to mention it would allow the demons we’ve found within the prison the chance to enter the raw Fade.”

Erys chews the inside of her cheek. “I could guard the way while you channel? How long would it take?”

Solas inclines his head. His eyes flash a startling, brilliant white for a moment, burning into the dimness of her vision. His lips thin. “As we are now, perhaps a decade. Give or take a month or so.”

“Oh,” Erys says. “Is that all?”

“If you would rather—“

“I just—“

They both fall silent, waiting for the other to finish. Solas watches her expectantly and Erys groans, long and loud. “Tears in the Veil were bad enough. The idea of tearing a rip in the Fade itself is making my hair stand on end.”

“It would be instantaneous,” Solas assures her. “And I would seal it once we stepped through.”

She realises then that he can only offer this possibility because she is here. Had she not been, he would have been forced to resort to the latter, guarding and channelling by himself and fighting – likely for his life – to maintain the spell alone.

She takes a breath. “Okay. How do I…?”

His relief is palpable. ”Dream, vhenan, it is no different.”

“Here?” Erys casts a doubtful glance around them. “I don’t think I can… rest here.”

“You need not. Forget the physical, vhenan. To exist within the Fade is to dream. Hold on to me and cast your mind out, extend it beyond your reach as though you are touching the Veil to draw power for a spell.”

“But instead, I’m…” She tests the shape of the concept in her mind. “Not just showing you the memory? I have to give it to you?”

“One step and then the rest.” His lips press to her forehead while she’s distracted. He draws a thumb along the line of her ear, from lobe to tip. Her body leans into him unconsciously, because she still can’t quite fit logic into the task at hand. To dream when awake, to offer a memory like lending a book. If pressed, she could possibly imagine some way of representing the action, but to actually do it, and do it successfully, seems unlikely.

“You might need to…” She pauses, looking down at their joined hands. “If I…”

“What confuses you?”

She huffs. “All of it. No, just the— No, all of it. Making a memory real enough to give you. How do I…?”

“You’ve formed from the Fade before,” he reminds her. “Just remember. That’s all.”

She nods, doubtful but determined. It’s easier to close her eyes, to search for some focal point in her memory. She wishes it could be different, but to recall the memory of the Anchor, she must focus on the pain. There was always pain, no matter how often Solas soothed it, a fact that should have made her suspicious for how often and how effectively it managed it, but love and relief could cover a multitude of misgivings. But the pain she remembers; the splitting, buzzing ache that seeped into her joints until the bones felt stiff, grating. Until the pain became something she expected, a weight she bore silently until she couldn’t any longer, nights spent curled around the limb, teeth grit and eyes stinging against tears she refused to shed. That will be the memory she offers him. She doesn’t know if she can do that.

“Erys.” He cups her face. “It’s alright.”

She hadn’t noticed her breathing pick up. She swallows, takes a deep breath to slow her quickened pulse. “It won’t be pleasant.”

“I know.”

“I don’t want you to…” What? Know the truth of it? Feel the pain as she had? Know for certain how badly his mistake hurt her? All of the above? She grimaces helplessly. “I don’t want this to take you back.”

Solas gives her a slightly more genuine smile. It is, as always, softly sad at the edges. “There is no world in which your pain won’t hurt me, vhenan. But I can take this. The purpose is not remonstrance.”

“I know, but…” The hesitancy is hers. He faces her, ready – perhaps readier than he has ever been to take this step. She is the one blocking the way now, and the thought does not sit well. “Alright. Alright. Are you— Yes. Okay.”

“Good. Do you need me?”

Always, she thinks wryly, but no, not in this. She is determined to find her own way, now, and not flounder in this realm that he walks so freely. She is filled, then, with such a fervent desire to see this succeed that it tightens her chest like excitement, though the hot rush of nausea she could do without. But to do this, the last duty left to them, will be to close this chapter of his life for good. Wounds sealed. She can bring them from the prison, if she does this. She can return him, cruelly stolen thing, to the Fade he loved and lost so many years ago.

She can bring him home.

Chapter Text

The night is hot, cloying and close, which is no balm to her feverish skin. She has kicked the sheets away, to the end of the bed at first, and then churlishly onto the floor when their absence offers no relief. Pettily, foolishly, she chills the bedsheets beneath her, slick with sweat, but even that is not enough to calm the fever in her skin and the draw on her mana is spluttering and unsteady, leaving her hotter and far more tired than before.

The Anchor burns in her palm. She throws her arm across the bed to keep it away from her. The heat does not lessen. Nor does the pain.

It is one out of perhaps a hundred similar nights spent this way. Some nights, she banished her pride and took herself to the rotunda to seek Solas’ assistance. Others, she called for fresh, cold bath water and chilled it further herself, dousing herself in it until the prickle of her skin gave way to shivers – equally unpleasant but infinitely preferable. She does neither this night, too tired and too weakened to seek help nor relief, sweating deliriously into the sheets and pretending that the dampness on her face is just perspiration and not tears.

Solas says nothing, though his fingers tighten around hers. “This is the strongest memory you have?”

Erys nods, a sense of almost curious detachment settling over her as she watches herself, pale and trembling, curled into an agonised ball in resolute silence. “Other than— Yes. It’s the strongest memory.”

She feels Solas shift beside her but doesn’t turn to look. His gaze is a heavy weight against her skin. “What memory is stronger? It doesn’t matter what you show me, you need not worry, but the stronger the recollection—“

“The Darvaraad.”

Solas falls silent. Then, “this memory will suffice.”

She’d expected as much. “Will I forget?”

“No.” Solas steps away from her, towards the bed where her past lies wracked with pain. The only sounds are the rustle of sheets, and heavy breaths forced even. The sight of herself so determined to bear this alone strikes Erys somewhere between her ribs. Foolish. Arrogant. Lonely. She remembers it well. She cannot remember, though, if this moment was before or after Solas. She flicks her gaze to the western balcony. The memory warps and when she focuses, the faded edges sharpen. There – just beyond the edge of the drapes. A crack in the glass, circular, rippling.

After, then.

“You’ll keep the memory, this affects nothing,” Solas continues. Erys doesn’t think it necessary for him to sit on the bed, watches curiously as his fingers twitch almost restlessly towards the self of her memory. It serves no purpose, the memory is old, but it is sweet of him. “…Was this after?”

Erys’ gaze slides almost guiltily back to the crack in the window pane. “Yes.”

Solas’ shoulders tense. “Dorian could not…?”

“He tried. I think, when it got bad, every healer in Skyhold had given it a go. Weirdly, I still didn’t… I never even thought. Never made the connection. I just assumed because of what you knew, you had some skill they all lacked. But I never blamed you for it getting worse.” Solas nods. She can’t see his face, but she can picture his expression well enough. “Don’t do that.”

He huffs quietly. “I don’t think I can help it.”

The Erys on the bed, a decade younger and still so violently opposed to weakness, shudders. A soft sound slips past tightly clenched teeth and it draws out an almost unconscious response from the man at her bedside. He rests a hand on her thigh, over the almost translucent fabric of her shift, twisted and soaked, though there is nothing erotic about the scene. He murmurs something too quiet for Erys to follow, but it does not soothe the woman suffering between them. This is a memory, and he cannot change the past.

“It will suffice,” he says again. “Do not rush, there is no need to try to force it for brevity and comfort. This is something that must be felt, unfortunately.”

Unfortunately. Yeah, that about covers it. “What do you need from me?”

“Nothing more,” Solas says. “Just maintain the memory. I will do the rest.”

The rest is, apparently, nothing. Erys watches because maintaining the memory now that she’s within it takes no conscious effort whatsoever. It’s as simple as letting a dream unfold – she is the tether, not its navigator – and Solas is more than adept at walking the ways of the Dreaming in ways she may never fully understand. So, she watches, infinitely curious but ultimately dissatisfied with the spectacle, as Solas sits beside her younger self. That’s all. Just sits.

“…Is this it?” She can’t stop herself from asking, even as a rush of shame burns hot. She feels like a child, impatient and petulant, but Solas does not respond in kind. Instead, he holds out his arm, showing her the centre of his palm. The ridged scar left by his vow is glowing a soft, whispering green.

“Oh,” Erys says. “You’ve— How?”

“The process is slow,” Solas murmurs, “but the Anchor is raw power born of the Fade. It exists beyond the Veil, without the limitations inherent to life of the realm of your birth. Its presence in your life is etched indelibly into your memories – your spirit. From these recollections, I can build upon the memory of its presence, and bring it into my own.”

“The Fade… makes it real?”

“In a manner of speaking.”

“Is it hurting you?”

“No. The power was always mine. It was born from me and meant to return to me. It cannot hurt me; does a flame conjured by your hand harm you?”

“Not unless I sever the connection to the cast. And the risk of bursting a blood vessel trying to get the bloody flame to ignite. Once it leaves the boundary of my body—“ Erys cuts herself off. “Okay, yes, I understand. You’re sure it isn’t hurting you?”

“I’m sure,” Solas promises. “I cannot say the same for the memory itself.”

She’d known. It’s why she hesitated. “You weren’t here. It couldn’t be helped. I—“ She winces. “Okay, I didn’t mean to say it like that.”

“I know.” The Anchor flares in her counterpart’s palm and Solas hushes it instinctively, though it serves no purpose. “I want you to know, I felt… every day. There were millennia that passed more quickly for me than the years I spent away from you.”

“Why do you want me to know that?”

Solas frowns. She sees his expression pinch in profile, the way his brows shadow his eyes. His lips part wordlessly. “I… suppose I wanted you to know that because… I don’t know. I don’t know. To prove…”

She could finish the thought for him, she has a rough idea of the purpose of his words, even if he doesn’t. But she has never wanted him to prove his pain to her. She doesn’t want to think of him alone, she was never strong enough to bear that thought and she isn’t now, all these years later. “You know, I think there was a small window, when I would have wanted to hear that. Near the end, funnily enough. In the early days, I was just confused. I was still young; back then I thought it was my fault. I watched the Inquisition thin, everyone went back to their lives and I was… stuck. I was desperate for someone – anyone – to stay with me. They didn’t, for reasons I don’t hold against them. But I had to learn to be okay with that. After you, it was easier.”

“I thought…” Solas swallows, she can hear the click of his throat from here. “I thought so many times about what would happen if I asked you to come with me. Not even asked, I knew, at least in part, that I wouldn’t have to. If I raised my arm and showed you the place at my side you could have taken, you would have stepped into it willingly.”

“Which is why you never let yourself, I’m guessing.”

His laughter is soft, rueful. “Exactly.”

“Teldirthalelan.”

“I did,” Solas corrects with a more genuine laugh this time. “Eventually, I did.”

“No, if you had, we would be in very different circumstances. Or maybe we wouldn’t. Who knows? Not you.”

“Cruel, vhenan.”

“Sometimes.” The edges of the memory begin to fray, softening in her distraction. She sharpens her focus instinctively, concentrating on the finer details of the room around them, the familiarity of her quarters in Skyhold, more of a home to her than anywhere she has dwelled before or since. It has been so long since she and Solas stood within these walls together. She wonders how far she could extend the memory, or if she could walk from the haze of this one down to the rotunda. Just to see the frescoes again, to walk through halls she would know blindfolded.

“Vhenan,” Solas calls softly. “It is done.”

Erys blinks, drawing her gaze back to him in time to see his fingers clench around a familiar glow. It shines between the gaps in his fingers, turning the skin a shining pink from within. “Already?”

“It was a strong memory.” There is praise in his voice and his smile, but his eyes are distant and tight with pain. “I am… sorry for that.”

“It’s alright.” She flexes her own hand, watching the light of the Fade ripple in place of flesh. “I’d have given anything to stop the pain, at the end. But I wouldn’t change it for anything. I’m glad the Anchor came to me.”

It’s as true as it’s ever been. Moments of weakness found her inevitably, but oh, how she’d fought against them, denying the creeping tendrils of misery when they reached for her. She denied it then, again and again, until the mantra sank into her bones and turned her lie into the truth it became by her third month as Inquisitor. But even when it was difficult, painful, impossible, she never wished for the Anchor to be bound to anyone else.

Seeing it flare in Solas’ palm now, fills her with an almost overpowering sense of jealousy. Odd, considering it was always his power to claim.

“Will you keep it?” She asks, gaze fixed on his palm as he approaches her.

“The Anchor?” She nods. “Well, yes.”

Erys shifts uncomfortably. “Alright.”

Of course Solas catches the minute shift in her bearing, and of course he mentions it. “What is it that bothers you? The proximity? It can’t hurt you, vhenan. The power is where it always should have been – an extension of myself. The glow will fade shortly, it is simply finding its way within me. This is just the magic’s memory of how it lived within you.”

“It’s not… that,” she mumbles, distinctly uncomfortably. “I just… Part of me—“ A very large part— “wants it back.”

Solas looks at her. Properly. In that peculiar way he has that makes her feel as though he is seeing into her, beneath her skin and sinew to the heart of her spirit. Which… is probably not far from the reality of it. “Is it the power you miss?”

She shakes her head quickly. “No. No. I never wanted— No. I’ve no need for anything like that. Solas, what elf has ever dwelled within the Fade? I’ve seen things, learned things that the Dalish could only dream of. And when this is over, I’ll… I don’t know. But it’s not the power, it was never that. But the Anchor… It was mine. I know the power was yours, but the Anchor and everything I did… I always thought it was… I liked to think that… Only I could have…”

She flounders uselessly, unable to find the right words. “Ignore me. I don’t know what I mean.”

Neither does Solas. His expression twists with the desire to understand but she does not know well enough what she means to give him that understanding. Perhaps they will, given time, but for now she wants to let the matter drop. Her insides are twisting, her head filled with things she cannot explain. She is tired, and the memory is running like wet paint because of it.

“San,” Solas murmurs, kissing her forehead. “I am sorry.”

“Don’t be. Please.”

He nods, drawing her close with an arm around her – his right, she notices. She wonders if he intended to capture the Anchor within his left, he isn’t left-side dominant the way she is. Perhaps it felt right, to him. She’s in no position to question it, her entire life has been a series of actions taken because they felt right, often to the detriment of explanation. Still, she’s grateful he does not caress her with the hand bearing her… his mark. How strange it must have been when their positions were reversed.

With a slow gesture, Solas dissolves the memory around them, plunging them back into the darkness of the prison. She returns to herself, to the present, in the soft manner of wakefulness, blinking as physical sensation bleeds in. Between that moment and the next, Solas dispels the barrier around them, and Erys breathes a sigh of relief to see that it was ultimately unnecessary. The demons had left them alone.

“What now?”

Solas doesn’t answer immediately. He regards his palm as though some priceless artefact lies upon it, learning the shapes and edges of something unseen. What must it feel like, for him? A body built to contain such power – power that had come from him initially, formed over countless years of healing sleep? Does it feel like coming home? The return of something lost? Relief? Sadness? She can glean nothing from his face except curiosity, but she would know the rest if he would share it. “Solas? Ahn’ane sildearal?”

He blinks, slowly, as though the memory has not left him fully. Slow to wake, as always, and the sight comforts her. Slightly. “I wondered, often, if you’d ever made the connection; if the Anchor felt familiar to you. If it felt the way my magic did.”

Erys considers, surprised by the question. “It might have? I can’t honestly say I would have leapt to the conclusion, even if it had. Magic and Fade were always synonymous with what I thought of your magic. I wouldn’t have been suspicious, not about that. And… Well, to tell the truth, it always hurt a bit too much for me to examine in any detail. It’s obvious, now that I know, but it wasn’t at the time.” Like almost everything else she had come to learn. Hindsight is real and it is her enemy.

Solas nods. Obviously, he’d expected a similar answer. “I ask because I can feel you. Within the Anchor. The power is mine, undeniably – it feels familiar, as it always has. But there is a— current. A thread within it. A signature. It is undeniably yours.” He smiles, then. A wide, real smile that alarms her as much as it delights her. “You change everything.”

“Oh, stop it,” Erys blurts, face hot. “Don’t get— Shush.”

He has the gall to laugh at her, but the sound is undeniably fond. Like the wolf he is, he leans down to nudge his cheek against hers, humming softly. She presses against him, a moment of quiet comfort before she pulls away. He moves to follow her, halted by a hand against his chest. She looks meaningfully to his palm and hates the way his body tenses.

“Of course.” He nods, a quick exhale. “I should not… Are you prepared, vhenan?”

No. Yes. In many ways and yet in none at all. She won’t be, neither of them will, until they can see the truth of what awaits them. The streets and walkways of the Black City may be familiar to Solas, but it has been millennia since he walked them, and the Blight has spread unchecked within. His worst imaginings likely will not come close and Erys, for her part, has no frame of reference to draw from. They are both blind in this, but they have no choice.

Determined, “rajal’em,” she bids him. “Fen’Harel. The full consequences of your rebellion must be known.”

“Ma—“ His breath catches. He closes his eyes. Nods once. Only once. “Ma nuvenin.”

Then, quietly, so low she can barely mark the words, “Eal mith’em.” She doesn’t know if he meant her to hear them, so she does not answer. Instead, she takes his hand, Fade to flesh, as tightly as she dares.

She doesn’t know how long they stand there, hand in hand, shoulder to shoulder. She has no way to mark the time in the darkness, nor does she have the inclination to count their heartbeats. She just waits, for whatever broken paths in Solas’ mind need to untangle in order for him to move forward. Perhaps she should have pushed for more time here. Or perhaps delaying the inevitable would have caused him more pain. She doesn’t know what is right, or if there is any right in this. All she knows is that he made a promise, and she will not help him break it.

Solas raises his hand. With a precision she could never hope to achieve, he parts the Fade like a waterfall. Before them, a tear opens so seamlessly that she can barely mark the incision. The world parts with the smell of sulphur and veilfire flooding in, a curtain in whatever passes for reality in the Fade. She can’t see through it, there is no glimmering refraction, nothing she is used to, nothing she remembers. This is not a hastily ripped gap in the Veil, torn open by careless, greedy fingers.

His hand clutched in hers, tight and trembling, they step through it together.

End of Part I

Chapter Text

Part II

His hand slips from hers like a ribbon plucked from lax fingers by errant winds. It isn’t at all like passing through a tear in the Veil, no cloaking whispers sucking sickeningly at her skin like wet clay, no film of reality banishing the suppression of mortality and bolstering her mana in ways the waking world cannot. Erys simply steps forward, hand in hand with Solas, clutching tightly in fear of the unknown.

And then she is alone.

The warmth of another’s skin lingers against her palm for a moment before it is lost, and her ears mark the vacuous rush of the rift sealing itself as it had when… She blinks and tries to recall. She knows she’s felt it before, but she can’t remember when.

She flexes her fingers slowly around nothing. The warmth dissipates entirely and with it, so does the last vestige of memory. She does not remember where she came from. She does not remember why she is here.

She blinks.

Morning light streams through high, arched windows, the dawn’s gentle breeze tugging playfully at gossamer curtains, thin as a dragonfly’s wings. She watches the fabric dance in the buttery light of the sun and stretches languidly across the bedding left warm by sleeping bodies.

Hadn’t she been standing…?

Ah. Dreaming. Of course.

With a soft hum and a dry, lingering thirst in the back of her throat, she lifts herself up against the pillows. Half strewn across the vast, canopied bed, several flung to the floor. The ache in her hips signifies the cause and she smiles, indulgently, to herself as she beckons her fingers. From across the room, silent-footed, a young girl bearing the burnished vines of Justice steps forward, pitcher in hand. She fills a goblet with crystal clear water, offering up the gleaming vessel in such a way that their skin does not touch when it passes hands.

A wave, sleep-lax and languid, and the girl is gone. Alone now, she sips from the goblet, washing sleep from her throat and considering the day ahead. There are a thousand thousand tasks she could invent for herself, a hundred paths she could walk with and without purpose, and she finds the latter infinitely more appealing. She has long been at war with her house and family. To put it aside for a moment would be a balm to the stirrings of a weary soul.

Decided, she stands, goblet empty and abandoned upon the bedside table, wrought from gold. She moves across the room, toes dug into plush carpet, and brings herself before her mirror. Her hair, pitch against pale skin, is a hopeless mess of tangles and knots and she warms within at the sight of it, low, between her legs, still bitten and bruised and tender. With a sigh of longing she banishes the marks and untangles her hair in the same breath. It is so long now, and completely unmanageable without magic. She turns to admire her reflection now that it is sleek and soft again, considering a morning bath. She had never considered it worth maintaining, before Skyhold and those wonderful Antivan oils that…

She blinks.

The Dream still clings. How odd.

The Fade-tinged memory slips from her grasp between one breath and the next and is forgotten entirely by the time she is dressed. The azure robes are softer than mist against her skin, and the dawn’s honeyed breeze caresses her bare midriff. The gift was well received, when it came, as Sylaise had known it would be. How thoughtful her children are, even after all this time. When it suits them, of course.

“My love.”

She turns, catching only a glimpse of the figure in the mirror’s surface before she takes in the solid form in the doorway of her chambers. Infinitely preferable to a reflection, Elgar’nan offers her a smile filled with more heat than gentle warmth and she wonders if he imagines the imprints of his teeth lingering beneath the robes. She would never dream of disappointing him with the truth.

“It is a rare morning indeed that finds me waking after you,” she tells him instead, sauntering closer. He raises his hands to take hers when she offers them, bringing them to his lips to grace her knuckles with the gift of his kiss.

“I could not bear to disturb you,” he murmurs. “Rarer still is rest for Justice. You slept deeper than you have in an age, my heart.”

She feels rested, more so than she can recall in recent years, true to his words. There yet lingers a deep, rich looseness to her limbs that she is loathe to release any time soon. May her day be filled with nothing that would take it from her. “Owed in no small part to Ambition, my love. Your efforts linger.”

His smile turns crooked, eyes turning to playful crescents in his face. “Ah, but the ache is pleasant, I hope?” His gaze flickers to the bed and she considers prolonging the morning indefinitely. If the Eldest of the Sun commanded it, would it not surely halt its procession across the sky and preserve this moment for them both to relish? Or so the legends of his name would claim.

“Deeply,” she assures him with a purr. His answering growl is felt in her heart. “But you stirred early. Why?”

Elgar’nan’s smile dims at the edges. Noticeably. “I would not take the morning from you. Matters arose and were swiftly handled. You’ve no need to trouble yourself.” She narrows her eyes. Elgar’nan shifts uncomfortably. “Do not look at me so! Had the matter warranted your attention, I would have brought it before you. There is no judgement purer.”

“That it was not a matter requiring judgment is what concerns me.”

“Console yourself with the fact that there was no guilt to be judged, my heart. It was not a matter of punishment. I would never deign to step within your realm.”

Mollified, she allows him to wind his arms around her waist, his lips finding the column of her throat. She bares it to him eagerly, sighing softly and dreaming once more of a lingering morning of indulgence. Yet the unease persists, small, but insistent. If the matter were grave enough to rouse Elgar’nan before sunrise, should she not have been present? What could have drawn him so swiftly, and why not disclose it? What troubles him so greatly? Or is it truly no trouble at all, so far beneath his care that he sees no reason to speak on it?

Oh, how she wishes for that to be true.

He notices, and sighs, drawing back from her. “It concerns you.”

“That you believe it doesn’t concern me, concerns me,” she counters, tense in his arms. “What do you hide, my love?”

He sighs through his nose, caressing her cheek with gentle fingers. Absent of his armour, his edges are soft in the way she adores, and she leans into his touch despite her misgivings. And despite the way something deep within her scrambles and tries to pull away. It is an odd, discomfiting sensation.

She has never wanted to pull away from him before.

“I…” She swallows. When was the last time she hesitated? When last did a sentence unfinished slip past her lips? What is this uncertainty and what has begotten it? Why does disgust rise within her now, looking upon the face of her spirit’s very counterpart?

His expression pinches, eyes roaming her face. “Mythal?”

A ragged breath tears past her lips. Her hands fly up without her command or consent, pushing roughly against his chest. He leans back, unbalanced, but the force serves to push her away from him, rather than reject him. Her palms itch and crawl, her breaths speeding, chest tight. When she looks to her hands they are pale, clawed things, the thrum of her blood blue beneath the skin. She is panicking. Why is she panicking?

“Mythal!” Elgar’nan calls again, reaching for her. His words are loud, threaded with concern. “My heart, why do you pull away?”

“That— No.” She rears back, clutching her arms around herself. “No, that’s not— I’m not—“

Look!

She shakes her head against the pounding in her ears. Her own lungs resist her, choking the breaths from within her. She cannot pull enough air into her body and her vision tunnels because of it. Some fell magic has seeped into her, poisoning her. The goblet? The girl— Had she? She wouldn’t— She was handpicked, trained from Forming, the mark of obedience writ into her very blood. How could she have—

The mirror!

“Stop that!” She commands, voice trembling with fear. Justice does not fear. “I am… I am Mythal! I will not be—“

You must look!

“I will not—!”

The mirror! The mirror, vhenan!

“Stop it!” The cry wrenches from her, hoarse. “Stop it, stop it!”

Cease your crying, idiot girl! Look to the mirror!

She whirls in place, meeting the pale, panicked eyes of her reflection. A hairline fracture mars the stillwater perfection of the pane, spreading fast across its surface. As she watches, her form begins to splinter, cracking, cracking, out of the frame, up the walls, across the floor, the ceiling, until the glass bursts outwards in a shower of glittering shards, taking the entire chamber with it. She rears back with a wild cry, covering her face as they rain down on her, slicing thin, searing trails into her skin, licks of fire and frost like whip-cracks upon her flesh. She howls in fear, great, shuddering sobs ripping from her chest.

And then strong, firm fingers are gripping her arms, wrenching her upright.

She stares into her own face, the lines of her living reflection’s expression shadowed and severe. A Dream. A Dream, just a Dream, a— nightmare. She has not awoken and the morning awaits her. She is…

“Idiot child,” her reflection tells her. “I am so sick of mortal panic. Get ahold of yourself!”

She is shaken. Roughly. “I— I’m—“

“An idiot,” she is told crossly. “Why did you let go of his hand?”

She has no answer. The Dream dims around her and her call to the Fade goes unanswered. That, more than anything, erases the fear in favour of rage. She is of the First called to flesh! She is the Mother, Justice made manifest in an ailing world, how dare the Fade refuse her call? She reaches out with her magic, defiant, and it whips back into her body with a crack that stiffens her, makes her cry out. The pain is unspeakable, a smothering, soul-deep lance that threatens to unmake her where she stands. The bonds of flesh threaten to fly apart, trembling across fault lines in her spirit where the Lyrium lingers thickly. If she does not recover herself, reclaim herself, she will fly apart.

“Fenedhis, he picked an idiot!” Her reflection barks. “Who are you?”

“I—“ She shudders. “Mythal, I’m—“

“Try again!”

“Mythal!” She sobs, eyes stinging with the salt of her tears. “I’m Mythal, I’m—“

“Try harder!”

“I’m…!”

Something pushes against her senses. When she forces her wet eyes closed she can feel it, pushing against the barrier of her panic. Moss. Salt. Pine. Parchment. Dirt soaked by rain and the sweet scent of overripe berries burst underfoot. The creaking sway of an aravel and the rumble of its wheels. The bleat of spring’s first halla calf, high and rich and curious.

“Dalish,” she chokes. It is the first word that makes any sense, at the same time her lips have never formed it before. “I’m— Dalish.”

Her reflection’s lip curls with dissatisfaction. “It’s a start. A pathetic one, but a start.”

She is not expecting her own reflection’s hand to come speeding towards her face, nor the burst of sharp, clarifying pain that follows. It wrenches her head to the side, fills her mouth with blood as the soft flesh inside of her cheek bursts against her teeth. It is startling, painful, and brilliant.

Her knees buckle beneath her. She is released from that cruelly tight grasp and left to hit the floor with a crack to her knees, but each burst of pain sharpens her mind further, each throb severing whatever force has gripped and warped her mind.

His hand. She had come— She was holding— And then she wasn’t. One moment there, gone the next. Where? Why?

And then she remembers.

If it is a dream, it is a cruel one, Erys thinks as she arches forward like a retching cat and vomits across the floor. No plush carpet lies beneath her now, just a broad, grey expanse of cracked and dust-laden marble. Even that dimly registers, the hot flood of bile scorching her throat and sending tears streaming down her cheeks. Yet amidst it all she cannot find the panic that has gripped her so tightly.

She is Erys’enya Lavellan. And she has bested the Nightmare.

“Well, I would not go that far.”

She whips her head up, mouth wet and heart still pounding. Her reflection— No. The form that had burst from the mirror looks down at her in disgust, unbridled and unrestrained, though there is something softer edged around her eyes. She wouldn’t recognise the woman if she hadn’t seen her step forward when summoned by Morrigan. And that realisation threatens to overwhelm her mind all over again.

“Mythal?”

“Give me strength,” Mythal gripes. “You were supposed to be clever.”

Slowly, Erys sits back on her knees. The chamber around them has… not dissolved in the way a dream would – or in the way she has come to expect her dreams to. It lingers still now that she is awake – and she is awake, she is at least certain of that, now – but it is as though centuries have passed in the instant between now and waking. Dust covers every surface, the furniture – the tables, the bed, the mirror – has rusted, cracked, crumbled, and decayed. The remnants of the curtains flutter weakly on their railings, dirty and torn, as bleak as the overcast sky visible through the once-ornate frames of those high, arched windows. The memory had been bright, soft, ornate like a painting. Reality is a shattered fragment of something once-great.

“By all means, take your time,” Mythal says. “We are in no rush.”

Erys wipes her mouth on the back of her hand. She will not admit – on pain of death – that she considers using the hem of Mythal’s robe for the same purpose. “I thought…” She coughs. Grimaces. Spits. “I thought sarcasm was a post-Veil phenomenon.”

“Your savage tongue contains very little by way of intention,” Mythal tells her flatly. “If you could match my speech, you would not think the tongue you’ve attempted to steal so bland.”

“Steal?” Erys repeats. She forgets, then, exactly who she is speaking to. If she can even trust what her eyes are trying to tell her. “It’s my language!”

“Debatable.”

“Oh, fuck you,” Erys spits. “Fucking— Blight-warped, Fade-shit—“ Now she sounds like Sera. She has never felt more kinship with her old friend than she does in this moment. “Piss off. I’m— Whatever spirit you are, just piss off.”

“Would that I could,” Mythal says tonelessly. “Do you think I have enjoyed my time spent aimlessly revolving within your empty head, child? Not even a single worthwhile thought to occupy myself with. Some of your memories had merit, I suppose, but by the Void, how insipid your every consideration!”

“My what?” Erys says bluntly. “My…? What?”

“I should have gone to the witch,” Mythal mourns softly.

“What witch?” Erys demands helplessly. “What are you talking about?”

It’s one of those moments – and it doesn’t even take hindsight to reach that conclusion – where realisation crashes down the moment the words leave her mouth. Mythal notices, must do, because she doesn’t take the opportunity to bemoan her apparent idiocy once again and instead leaves her to her particularly groundbreaking comprehension unbothered. It doesn’t help in the slightest because Erys is now having to deal with the fact that she is talking to the fragment of Mythal to which she had almost managed to forget she is intrinsically bound.

Well, then.

…Quite literally.

“How many fragments do you have?”

“Enough,” Mythal says tersely. “And none of them strong enough to wield as effectually as I might wish.”

“Right.” Erys may be sick again. “But you are Mythal.”

The goddess herself inclines her head. “As much as a single piece makes up a puzzle, I suppose. Through no effort or skill on your part, I might add. My manifestation is a result of the magics of the Fade, the presence of lyrium, and proximity to my own blood. Tainted and stagnant, but potent nonetheless.”

Oh, because that makes sense. “Right.” With a surge of defiance stronger than her own shaken body, Erys gets to her feet. “I have one question, in that case.”

It might be a trick of the clouded half-light beyond the windows, but Mythal looks almost disappointed. “Just one?”

Erys nods. “Just the one. Where the fuck is Solas?”

She’d had his hand. She can feel the ghost of his grip in hers, white-knuckled and desperate for the comfort of her presence at his side. And she had let him go. Not intentionally, it hadn’t felt particularly heinous at the time - it’s only after the fact that the act is beginning to terrify and shame her. Beginning, because her head is still pounding with the remnants of that awful nightmare and Mythal’s heavy-handed interference. She’s also not entirely sure there hadn’t been some horrific metaphor tucked in there somewhere; the mirror being her mind and Mythal shattering through it like some force of nature, no matter what it might do to her unwitting host.

“Somewhere near, though I cannot sense him clearly,” Mythal says, and like a curtain falling, the derisive twist to her expression drops. Her sculpted brows pinch, her full lips twisting. Whatever her feelings for Erys – disdain, apparently – she is clearly concerned for him, and it takes phenomenal effort on Erys’ part to force herself not to react poorly to that. She loosely considers telling Mythal that she has no right to feel any concern for Solas’ wellbeing after what she has done, but there are many reasons that isn’t a good idea. Firstly; Mythal may not be a true god, nor even a fraction of her fully formed self, but she is still an Elvhen mage whose power outstrips Erys’ own to an inconceivable degree.  Secondly; her affection for Solas, however misguided – and in Erys’ opinion, historically poorly demonstrated – suggests a mutual goal that lends itself to strained but beneficial cooperation. Thirdly… Well. To her eternal consternation, Erys is jealous. She isn’t proud of that fact, but she has never claimed to be above such things. Fought viciously against them, yes, and to varying degrees of success, none of which is doing her any good now.

“Then we find Solas,” Erys says, decisive. As if there could be any other recourse. “If anything happens to him after I let him go…” The I’ll never forgive myself goes unspoken. 

Mythal offers her no words of comfort and Erys neither wants nor needs them. Retribution would naturally not take kindly to the perceived slight, even an unintentional one, of losing someone she favoured.

Something twinges in Erys’ memory. “That… nightmare. Memory? Was it yours?”

Mythal arches a brow. “Does it matter?”

“Elgar’nan called you Justice.”

The goddess’ face shadows. Defensively, she asks, “what of it?”

Memory, then. That answers that question. “I thought… Others called you Benevolence.”

“And?”

Erys bites back her frustration. “I was just asking— I was curious. About what sort of spirit you actually were.”

“By all means, then. Wonder to your heart’s content. I’ve no need to explain my existence – or to reason the nuance of it – to anyone.”

“I was just—“ Erys physically bites her tongue. “Of course. Ir abelas. You are not a… curiosity… for me to gawk at and pester.” As much as it stings her pride to say it, Erys can’t deny that the truth rings clear. Mythal is not Solas, not a friend, not someone she can ply with questions or bother to sate her own interest. She’s not even a person, not fully, but she is, despite the entire bizarre situation, worthy of respect as an entity. More closely aligned to a spirit, at Erys’ best guess. No matter how she feels about what Mythal has done, she does not know this woman. Words out of the mouths of those she loves compels Erys to hate her, but the truth is never so clear cut.

“I…” Erys huffs. “Are you… willing to help me?”

“No,” Mythal says flatly. Before Erys’ heart can drop and her temper can flare, she adds, “but Solas? Always.”

Good enough. And not unexpected. Or true, historically, but Erys will take it. “Ma serannas, then.”

“Ama mar seranna,” Mythal says, golden eyes flashing. “I do not want them.”

At a loss for how to respond to that, Erys chooses silence as a suitable response, and turns away. The moment Mythal is out of her line of sight, something unknots in Erys’ chest, a tightness so vast she’d been unable to perceive it fully until it loosened. Mythal’s presence is far more daunting now that Erys isn’t looking directly at her. In her periphery, she is almost diminished, a true fragment, but when looked at head on, she is overpowering and difficult to look away from. Out of sight entirely, she looms like a storm on the horizon. Erys has long since lost the reverence she once afforded her old gods, but tradition so deeply ingrained is not easily overwritten. Neither can she fully tolerate the way she had so carelessly spoken to a figure she used to revere so deeply.

The ghost of her vallaslin itches.  

Ultimately, it matters little. With every second that passes, a new, deeper ache winds itself tighter in her chest.

I’ll find you, ‘ma fen. I promise.

May he forgive her for letting him go.

***

Mythal’s chamber – or whatever it was – is in a tower, situated at the very top of a gruelling number of steps. Erys thinks, roughly a third of the way down, that the Elvhen must have been immortal purely because they liked to build structures impractically high above the ground and needed the extra time to get up and down their stupid staircases. By the halfway mark, she hopes it’s halfway, her calves are burning and her jaw aches from the near-constant jolt of her steps and she has lost almost all of what remains of her fascination with ancient Elvhen structures. A truly grave result, because as long as she can remember, the sight of the edifices of her ancestors had filled her with an incomparable sense of wonder.

Yet despite her burgeoning hatred of Elvhen architecture and staircases, she keeps her lips tightly sealed around any complaints. She knows Mythal is following by the sheer oppressive weight of her presence alone, because her footfalls are utterly silent. It is the most alone Erys can recall feeling in another’s company, and knows without a doubt that her younger self would have been utterly heartbroken to find her chosen goddess so cold. Without all of the additional information she has since had forced upon her.

Oh, she aches to ask. She has so many questions, perhaps more for Mythal than she still holds for Solas, and what she wants to ask him could fill every hour of every day for at least a half dozen decades. Everything she has been told of Mythal, from her cruelties to her kindnesses, has been from the mouths of others. Not entirely unexpected when speaking of the deceased, but Mythal has – as Solas had once said – endured. They do not die so easily, as Erys has been so kindly reminded time and time again.

What she wouldn’t give for even a sliver of Mythal’s experiences. To know from the goddess herself what transpired between her and Solas, her and Elgar’nan, her and the other Evanuris. She wants to ask so badly she aches with it, more so than even her abused and tense calves do from these fucking endless stairs.

Through sheer force of will she keeps silent. When they reach the bottom step – at last! – the entire journey has transpired in a disquieting silence that Mythal seems entirely disinclined to break. By comparison, Erys’ voice seems almost deafening when she attempts to finally break it.

“Do you…” She coughs, rising up on the tips of her toes to try and loosen the tension in her legs. “Any ideas on… where we should go?”

Mythal looks at her. It isn’t necessarily unkind this time, more like Erys has failed to live up to utterly ineffable expectations. “You’re an incredibly incurious creature, aren’t you?”

Erys, who has never in her life been accused of such a thing before, stares at her with her mouth hanging open. At the risk of giving Mythal another reason to denounce her intelligence, she says, “I… don’t follow.”

“Mortal thing,” Mythal tuts as one might coo at a child, though somehow she manages it without even the barest trace of motherly affection. For someone bearing the title of All-Mother, that’s quite a feat. “You respond so oddly to information beyond your ken. It is to be expected, I suppose, but I had hoped for better. Perhaps you might take a step outside? Let the gravity of the situation sink in?”

Though she bristles, Erys holds her tongue. She harbours no illusions that she is going to need to take a walk and scream her frustrations at the sky until her lungs give out, once this is all over. Lest she hold onto all these bitter feelings and they kill her. Outside, as Mythal says, lies past a gilded archway that has turned a sallow sort of brown with age, barred by a rotted doorway that is more mulch than wood. Somehow, it is still relatively solid when Erys pushes against it, juddering open on bent and rusted hinges so that they can leave the small room that houses the base of the winding stone staircase Erys never wants to see again in her life. If the descent was unbearable, the ascent may actually have killed her.

She steps through the doorway, assuming, without really caring, that Mythal follows her.

Then all of the air is punched out of her lungs at once.

It is hard to even begin to quantify the depth of the grief that swells within her, because surely such a virulent twist of pain is too much for one person to bear. If she had not frozen as though braced for pain, she would have fallen to her knees for a second time.

The heart of Elvhenan, Solas had called it. And in all records of their fractured history, what place had been said to have beat so vibrantly than her greatest city? Erys sees now and so she understands; a city ripped from time, from existence, and suspended within the Fade itself. The finer points elude her, but the evidence is damning.

The Black City truly had been golden once. She sees it in the faint glint of towering spires, within domed rooftops and the vast but cracked mosaics underfoot. Like stepping into a living fresco, Erys trembles under the weight of the knowledge that she is the first mortal creature to stand within the city’s boundary since the transgression of the Magisters Sidereal.

She barely notices that she is weeping. She doesn’t know if she will ever stop weeping. She had thought, perhaps naively, that watching the South fall to the Blight would be the most harrowing sight she would ever be forced to witness. In that, she saw ruin overtake the familiar, a wound to her heart as much to the world that she loved. Somehow this… is worse. To know she stands on the shimmering walkways of Arlathan as it had been, as it still is, preserved within the Fade, her enduring ancestral home, and to see what it has become, breaks her heart all over again.

She had not seen D’Meta’s Crossing. Faithful Lace had issued it to Charter, who served it into Erys’ hand herself. A second report, from Morrigan, delivered tersely in person with a grim twist of fury and sympathy at war in her expression. Erys had understood but not known, not tangibly, how vilely the Blight had struck. Not until it burst from its festering nests beneath the coves of the Storm Coast, the crags of the Wastes, choking the map with its poison as she could only watch, horrified, desperately moving to marshal old forces and beg, desperately, for aid.

To see the way the Blight chokes Arlathan now, chokes her in turn. She cannot breathe, sees unseeingly, blinded by tears. Like jewels, toxic and vile jewels, clusters of pulsing Blighted boils cling to rooftops, spires, walkways. They drip and ooze from marble and stonework, dug into crystalline supports, seeping from cracked windowpanes like raw, infected wounds. Jagged tendrils have erupted, perhaps centuries past, from the ground like diseased trunks, grasping towards the memory of the sun at noon. It hangs above them now, a sickly and wan umber that bleeds rather than shines.

“Mythal’enaste,” she sobs before she can stop herself.

“What would you have of me?” The blessing’s very beneficiary asks. Her voice is flat, toneless. “You cannot fell an oak with a shard of glass, girl. You cannot boil an ocean with a single hot coal. I am, in this, as I ever was. Powerless.”

Erys dries her tears roughly with the heel of her palm, for all the good it does her. The tears won’t stop. “The air is… wrong. Sweet. Like decay.”

“And cloying on the tongue, yes,” Mythal agrees. “Enough to make you sick, I’d wager. Pull yourself together. If you tremble at this, you’ll take no step further. This is the shell. The heart of disease lies further.”

“I’m not—“ Erys exhales, choking on a reflexive gag. “I’m not here to— I can’t do that. I need to find Solas. He’ll be…” Gods, she can’t even think it. “He’ll be looking for me.”

If he is well. If he is not hurt— No. Even if he is hurt, he will be looking for her. Whole and well is the hope, she needs to find him whole and well, but if he is hurt, she will find him and she will heal him. As many times as it takes.

“You’ve placed an extraordinary amount of trust in the man your people name the betrayer.”

The hair at the back of Erys’ neck prickles. Her feet shift almost unconsciously against the chipped mosaic beneath her feet – whatever the image once depicted, time and Blight have worn it away – stance slipping unconsciously into something battle-ready. Her palms itch. She sets her jaw. Carefully, picking her words with pinprick precision, she says, “a bold statement, coming from the loveless Mother.”

A beat passes. Erys’ heartbeat kicks up triple-time to fill the weight of a second that stretches eternally.

“Turn and face me, girl, those are words best flung head on, don’t you think?”

Fear coils around her heart but Erys is not and has never been a coward. She turns, slowly, head held high as she meets the All-Mother’s gaze. She does not know when it happened, she hasn’t been looking because it hurts to do so, but when she settles her gaze on Mythal once more, the diaphanous wrappings of her immodest robes are gone. In place stands a soldier, not a noble woman at rest in peacetime. Gauntlets cover her hands, shining silver and clawed. Her arms are bound with leather and metal, pauldrons spiked, collar woven. She stands as a General, the horns of a coronet resting upon her proud brow like the crest of a dragon. Claw-tipped boots cover her feet, greaves cling to her thighs. The fabric draping the armour is a deeper shade of red than Erys has ever seen, blood drawn and stained.

And Mythal is beautiful.

“Again,” the All-Mother commands. “Insult me again.”

Erys, forced diplomatic by title but hot-headed and sharp-tongued by nature, obeys.

***

It is a surprise to no one, least of all Erys herself, that Mythal puts her into the dirt.

At the very least, she thinks as the numbing haze of pain turns her thoughts syrupy-slow, the absolute mouthful of abuse she’d managed to hurl at the goddess’ unblinking face was some of her best and most creative work yet. Sera would be proud.

Mythal spits a mouthful of Erys’ blood onto the ground. “Again?” A crack in her derisive façade. She sounds eager.

“Fuck no,” Erys groans, struggling to roll onto her side. There a revoltingly sickening crunch from within her that signifies a decent number of broken ribs. That she can still breathe – quick paced and panting – is a miracle of its own. She’s less upset about the ribs than she is the deep, purpling punctures driven into her right forearm in the imprint of savagely gripping teeth. The word unnecessary comes to mind. “You fight like a dragon.”

“Thank you,” Mythal says, preening.

“No, like a— great, slobbering beast only fit to bite.”

“Thank you,” Mythal says again, no less pleased. “If you can manage to stand, I will heal you.”

Erys exhales a thick mouthful of frothy pink blood. She wipes it clumsily from her lips. She should be in more pain than this, surely? “Fine, but it still counts if I fall straight back down again.”

Mythal clucks her tongue unhappily. “Fine.”

Erys manages to get to her feet. She sways precariously as her vision swims but doesn’t fall, thankfully. She isn’t sure the precarious integrity of her ribs could handle it. True to her word, though, Mythal steps closer, hands raised and palms glowing with the soft hum of healing magic. It takes no time at all for her to rejuvenate Erys’ body and heal her wounds, until all that remains is the full ache of exertion.

“I have to say,” Mythal begins slowly, “You’ve certainly proven the flexibility of your mother tongue. I’d no idea Trade could reach such… colourful heights.”

“You speak it well enough,” Erys says, rolling out her shoulder. “You… seem less… awful?”

“I’m content to call that a successful petition,” Mythal says with a gleam in her eye. “You should be familiar.”

“I followed it once before,” Erys agrees. "The Petitioner's Path." Though, that time hadn’t required her to be beaten bloodily into the ground at the hands of… “What are you? You're more flesh than fragment, but you can command more power than…”

Mythal considers her for a long moment. Erys must have done something right, in holding her own against the goddess, because Mythal delivers a heavy sigh and answers her. “Have you any knowledge of how my people shared information?”

"I saw the ruins of the Vir'dirthara," Erys says. "The books were physical, but the information inside wasn't. It was like... seeing the words, but feeling the event. Knowing without knowing."

Her lips twist. “Given your proximity to Solas and his adoration for the sound of his own voice, I assumed you would know something.”

“It isn’t the sound of his voice he loves,” Erys snaps, curiosity forgotten behind a sudden and nearly overpowering lash of anger. “He is a teacher who eagerly shares what he knows when asked. You would know that if you ever lent him the respect of your attention.”

“Oh, the petty, plucky mortal wishes to speak to me of respect?”

“It would be pointless if I tried,” Erys sneers. “Teldirthalelan. Countless centuries wasted. He loved you. He loved you.”

“He loved what he wanted me to be to him,” Mythal says, slow, measured, as though speaking to a child. “Roles I could not fulfill.”

“Tell me, then. Did you fulfill a role to anyone?”

Mythal arches a brow. “Is that my purpose? To fulfill the roles of demanding, clinging children? To diminish myself for their comfort?”

“If you claim the title of All-Mother, you should be a mother,” Erys counters. “And a mother is protective. Fierce, kind. A mother listens to their children. A mother provides. A mother teaches. A mother is compassion. A mother need not diminish themself to show their children how to flourish. A mother’s happiness should be an example to their children. And if a mother is none of those things, offers none of those things, then they have failed. No, Mythal. A mother, you are not. A master, yes. An owner, absolutely. But no mother. Solas called you the best of the Evanuris. I fail to see why.”

She would be better off on her own. She is an accomplished mage, stronger here, with a well of mana bolstered by the Fade. Even here, in the ruins of Arlathan. She does not need Mythal to help her find Solas, she never needed anyone to do that. She knows now what she had not known when she first thought him lost: that she will forever be inexorably drawn back to him. He is her tether and she is his anchor and nothing will keep her from him now that he has unchained his heart.

“Sit with me,” Mythal says.

Erys pauses. “What?”

“Sit.” Mythal does, sinking to the floor like a wave, graceful and smooth, legs tucked neatly to one side. With her hands, she shapes a formless glyph, summoning a circle of fire between them that she puts to the ground like a planted sapling. It needs no kindling, rests above the mosaic like an amber aurora, flickering and dancing in silence. No crackle of wood, no pop of burnt air.

Biting back her misgivings, Erys eases herself down onto her knees.

“I would put to you a question, vhenan.”

Erys chokes on her own saliva, startled beyond comprehension. “What?”

Mythal’s gaze is fathomless and inescapable, centred wholly on her. “I would ask your opinion on a matter of some consideration. If you are so opposed—“

“What did you call me?”

Slowly, Mythal’s head tilts. She regards Erys in silence for so long Erys fully expects her to disregard the panicked question, but she smiles, a small twitch of her lips that would almost seem playful if Erys did not know better. “Vhenan?”

So she hadn’t misheard her. “That’s not— You can’t—“

“I am formless,” Mythal says, before Erys can work herself into a blabbering frenzy. “I am bodiless and untethered to the world and to the Fade, by design and by choice, but not one I would have made for myself without coercion. You, precocious creature that you are, stand as my anchor. In the most primal and literal sense of the world, I exist because your heart beats. I am a memory, a sum of every life gifted to the Well of my own. A living repository of experiences, crafted with intent to preserve myself. That repository – how we once so faithfully transferred knowledge with care and intention – lives within you now, so I dwell there. What are you, then, if not my home and heart?”

Erys swallows roughly. “I would have said “enemy”, to tell the truth. I don’t want— I don’t want you to call me that. Vhenan. That word can’t exist between us, I won’t allow it. That’s not for you to call me.”

“Hmm.” The sound is less than curiosity, dispassionate and dismissive. Erys would think her entirely unaffected, if not for the strange glint of approval in her eyes. “Then… what do your enemies call you?”

Tempted to crack a smile, Erys tells her, “Inquisitor, usually. Savage Dalish bitch. Knife-ear, on their less creative days.”

Mythal’s lip curls. “Inquisitor. Yes. That will suffice. But now I have a second question.”

Huffing a sharp breath through her nose, Erys nods. She was never not going to feel utterly unbalanced in a god’s presence, and Mythal serves to prove that point with painful precision. “Ask, then. If you’ll respond in kind.”

“I see no reason not to.”

“Okay. Good. Then… ask.”

“You sat in judgement over the guilty brought before you,” Mythal says at once, almost without enough pause to take a breath. “By what rules did you judge them? What laws guided your verdict?”

“I…” Erys falls silent. It is not a question she could ever have predicted. As such, she is in no immediate position to answer it without consideration. Nor is it so easily addressed. She cannot say with any honesty that she followed any law when handing down her verdicts. She cannot say that she knows the laws of the lands that raised her, beyond the ones designed to ensure her transgressions. Mage. Apostate. Dalish. Facets of her nature beyond her control that would see her judged and punished without conscious action on her part. She knows what laws exist to hamper her people’s existence and prosperity, just as she knows it is against those same laws to take an apple from a market stall without payment. No, she has never been taught the law, and relied heavily on Josephine’s guidance to reach a point of litigious literacy that would befit her role.

But her judgement? “I weighed their crimes against the suffering of others. If their caused pain and suffering, I delivered what I believed to be suitable consequence.”

“And how did you prove this suffering?” Mythal asks. “Or, how did this suffering prove itself to you? Did you pass judgment on the back of hearsay? Petitions made to your title?”

“No, never,” Erys says at once. “I was no formal adjudicator. I didn’t preside over matters of estate or property or… It was more— Within the realms of my position. Commanders of enemy forces, allies to the enemy, these were the sorts of people brought to me. I wouldn’t have dared to preside over the fates of… say, someone who contested the validity of a will. Or a thief accused of trespassing. That wasn’t— I had no right to make those decisions. If it pertained to the Inquisition or its efforts, I was called.”

Mythal considers this. At least, Erys assumes she does, based on her silence. “And you thought yourself suited to this task?”

“Hah!” The bark of laughter leaves her before she can curtail it. “Not once. My advisors— I agonised over every decision. I refused to let my…” She halts, faltering. “I tried not to let my feelings impede my judgement. I failed, often. I sentenced a man – Livius Erimond. I beheaded him myself because of what I had seen him do. I’ve spent years coming to terms with that. The only comfort I could take from the choice I made was that I would have killed him on the battlefield without hesitation, given the chance. And I nearly had, but… There were complications.”

Yes, being flung into a chasm and rending the Veil to escape death had certainly been a complication.

“Circumstance gave you the chance to judge this man, then,” Mythal says. “And you chose execution.”

“I did.” Erys does not shy away from the weight of that decision. “And I would do it again. Whether that is right or wrong, I don’t know – I could have chosen to hand him to the people he hurt the most, but then their judgement would have been far more brutal than mine.”

“Death is not brutal, to you?”

“For the prevention of further suffering, no,” Erys says. “I don’t know if I accept it as a worthy punishment, or if I should ever have been given the power to deliver it. But between the possibility of torture at the hands of his victims, or a life spent hollowed out and living but dead in all ways but physical, I chose what I believed to be right.”

“Then,” Mythal says, “the law you followed was your own.”

“I suppose— Yes. To be completely derivative and ignoring the circumstances, yes. It was my own sense of justice that drove my actions.”

“In this then, we are kin.”

Erys frowns. “In what way?”

“Damn your fractured lives and all it has taken from you,” Mythal says, sweetly, pleasantly, as though speaking on the weather and nothing more pressing. “Sahl’in ele’tuathem. Ane emma, ame ma. Does that suffice? Can you understand?”

Though claiming no true fluency of her ancestor’s language beyond what she had fought, studied, and bartered to learn, Erys does understand. Within Mythal’s lyrical deliverance of their partially shared language, Erys feels her intention more clearly than her words could convey in Trade. Mythal claims her here as kindred – a sharing of the self almost as intimate as a lover’s touch, but somehow deeper. She is telling Erys that she sees her and that she sees herself therein.

Shifting uncomfortably, Erys turns her gaze to the fire. “And what does that mean to you?”

“It means, Inquisitor, that you might understand how a spirit of Justice could come to be, when the laws of people are not inherent to nature.”

“Might?”

“Yes, might,” Mythal says. “Do you understand at all how there can be justice before there are laws? Do you think a primordial world concerns itself with morals? What beyond nature makes sense to beasts whose only instincts are to fight, feed, and fuck? I lived a thousand ages before I ever took a form, and in those lifetimes I saw kingdoms of ancient species form and fade, I learned their laws and remembered them when they were dust. I am not the Justice that demands recompense for a slight in accordance with what a governing force proclaims is correct. I am the Justice that demands vindication for the suffering. In pain I was first called to existence, and it is by pain that I offer my judgment.”

Might indeed. Because Erys does understand. So keenly then that she takes a sharp breath that rings with clarity. “You claim an action is only wrong if someone suffers for it?”

“How else would you quantify it?” Mythal asks. It seems like a genuine question; there is no trace of mockery in her tone. “Only actions require judgement. A thought, an idea, can only be judged if it is voiced or acted upon. If an action causes no suffering, there is no need for justice.”

“...I would quantify it with change,” Erys says softly. “If a transgression causes harm, I would say that justice lies in the hearts of those who are changed by the injustice they witness. Those who stand and say “no more”. Justice lies with them, and not in the deliverance of punishment to the guilty.” Something she could not do. Something she had wanted, as Inquisitor. Not just to save the world, but to change it. An impossible feat, perhaps, in a world resistant to change, not least of all pleas for it that came from the mouth of a Dalish elf. The city elves had claimed she turned her back on her people, a refrain that had cut her so deeply to hear. But to their eyes, her guilt was clear – intention identical to inaction when progress could not succeed. If any alienages within Orlais lie empty, it is not because of her.

A soft breath draws her attention from the fire. Something within her startles, an icy grip on her heart, to see a glittering trail of tears dripping down Mythal’s sculpted cheeks.

“That was what I wanted,” the goddess murmurs. “Change. Not punishment. If I had been worthy as Justice, I would have succeeded, and my people would still live. If I had been worthy, I would have recused myself and not dared offer the judgments I was called to delivery. I would not have failed them. I would not have failed my dearest companion.”

It isn’t a question of comfort. If it was, Erys would have no idea how to offer it. Mythal is not… Erys is struggling to see her as mortal. As anything beyond the divine figure of her culture’s pantheon. She doesn’t know what to say, or if it’s even her place to say anything.

So she doesn’t. Be it wrong or right, it is her decision either way, so she sits in silence as Mythal weeps soundlessly in the firelight, offering little more than her company, which has, somehow, become a little less imperative and a little more voluntary.

When the tears finally dry, Erys plucks at the threads of the Fade to fill her palms with strawberries and wordlessly offers the ripened fruits to her companion. The sharing of food has ever been a companionable practice in her heart, when food became less of a scarce resource needed to survive and more of an indulgence. She doesn’t know if Mythal even needs to eat, but she hopes that the gesture conveys something she clearly does not know how to articulate.

Slender fingers pluck a single berry from her palms. When Mythal puts it in her mouth – leaf, stalk and all, lacking any of the delicacy Erys would have expected from a goddess – she offers Erys a small and genuine smile of thanks. That Erys can taste the fruit on her own tongue speaks more of their connection than anything else, but it seems that her tentative gesture has been accepted and appreciated.

Chapter Text

“You have a peculiar ability to make me forget almost every question I think to ask you.”

Mythal brushes dirt and ash from the skirts of her armour with effortless grace. “Are you daunted by my divinity?” She throws out with relish.

Erys’ temples throb. “No, I think I actually hate you so much that my frustration kicks everything else out of my head.”

In answer, Mythal throws her head back and lets out a shockingly brash peal of laughter, hearty and hoarse, more suited to a tavern-soaked merchant than a goddess. As such, Erys finds herself once again able to do little else but stare at the Elvhen woman until her boisterous laughter tapers off into quiet, mirthful chuckles. “Oh, I was so determined to despise you, girl, but find myself completely incapable.”

“Thanks…?” Erys offers lamely. “That doesn’t change my opinion, though.”

“Nor should it,” Mythal says. “Absolutely not. It’s refreshing, I’ll admit, to be hated as myself and not for what I represent. I just wish you’d been given the chance to develop a natural hatred for me, and not one cultivated by your…” Her nose wrinkles.

“If the next word out of your mouth is anything close to canine, I will rip out the nearest Blighted tentacle stump and beat you to death with it.”

She lets out a half-strangled cry of alarm as Mythal abruptly rushes her. She closes the distance between them so suddenly Erys can’t mark the movement, but between one moment and the next, she is towering over Erys, whose chin she has clutched painfully in her gauntleted fingers.

“Don’t push your luck, ise’dun’miol,” Mythal purrs lowly, lips a hair’s breadth from Erys’ own. “I may find your vitriol amusing, but the sole reason your heart still beats is because it ensures my own. Test me beyond what I am willing to tolerate, and I will kill you. I have died before, da’len. It is nothing to me.” She presses a tender kiss to Erys’ left cheek, featherlight and soft. It is a gesture that would be heartbreakingly sweet if it didn’t serve to make Erys’ skin crawl on contact.

As though nothing has happened, Mythal releases her and steps away. “In the absence of any sense from you, I will lead the way. I trust you have no complaints.”

Erys considers spitting at Mythal’s feet. She’d thought— She’d hoped they’d found some common ground. That the moment of vulnerability Mythal shared with her had opened some understanding between them. It is frustrating – but not entirely surprising – to be proved so vehemently wrong. “You said you couldn’t sense Solas.”

“I am not looking for Solas,” Mythal says calmly. “If the boy retains any sense, he will go to my court – he will come to me.”

Something about the way she says that gives Erys pause, though she cannot place why. “Why there?”

“Why there?” Mythal’s entire countenance darkens. “It is where I died.”

“Why would that matter?” The glare Mythal shoots at her is bitterly cold. “I meant— As far as Solas is aware, the last remnant of you lives inside Morrigan. He won’t be looking for you! He doesn’t even know you’re here. If he did… I’m almost certain he’d kill you himself.”

“Hah! It wouldn’t be the first time he tried.”

“What?”

In that intensely frustrating way of hers, Mythal doesn’t so much as refuse to elaborate she she deigns it entirely beneath her to respond, extinguishing the magefire and striding off down the mosaic-inlaid walkway toward the heart of the city. Erys, teeth grinding so fiercely her jaw aches, swallows down the burning desire to cast a spear of ice towards Mythal’s back, and follows.

***

“My second question,” Mythal says, waving a hand to clear a space between two closely packed buildings that have toppled toward each other, “is slightly more personal.”

“Then you can fuck off,” Erys says, picking her way carefully around a puddle of hissing Blighted waste. “And I mean that sincerely.”

She’s lost track of how long they’ve been walking for. She’s tired, she’s so tired, more so than she can recall feeling in recent years, which isn’t unexpected since Mythal nearly killed her and the nightmare – she still isn’t sure if it truly was a nightmare or a genuine memory of Mythal’s – had definitely worn her down, but this exhaustion feels deeper than even those events should allow. It’s a bone-deep sort of exhaustion, the type that lingers behind the eyes, sinks into the marrow. Every blink leaves Erys feeling a little dizzy, lightheaded and faint, which has never been a state she tolerates of herself. Still, she will not be sidetracked. Somewhere, Solas walks within Arlathan, faced with the reality of what the city has become since the culmination of his rebellion, and she can’t stand the thought of him witnessing it all alone, not after she promised that she would be with him. Her guilt lodges jaggedly in her throat, cutting her with every ill-timed swallow, but there is nothing she can do to soothe it. Not until she can take Solas’ hands in hers and beg forgiveness for letting him go.

Just ahead, drawing her hand up, Mythal parts two fallen, cracked crystal spires, holding them in place with her arm extended. “Under, if you please.”

Quickly as she’s able, Erys hurries beneath the makeshift archway. Mythal follows her fluidly, and the spires crash to the ground behind them with the ear splitting screech of shattering glass. Erys has just enough time to erect a barrier to deflect the largest shards, but Mythal seems disinclined to expend the same effort. Erys blinks in alarm to see a dozen tiny cuts open up across the goddess’ face like little, glistening ruby mouths, but they seal themselves in the next instant and Mythal is hale once more.

“Would…” Erys lowers her barrier and wets her lips. “Would you tell me what you are, now?”

Mythal flicks a disinterested glance her way. “Memory manifested. That should suffice.”

“It doesn’t.”

The goddess brushes past her without a second glance. “Shame.”

With a furious growl, Erys follows after her. “I’m starting to understand why Elgar’nan stabbed you.”

That gets her attention. Mythal’s head whips towards her, expression suddenly hot with fury. “It was not Elgar’nan. He would not dare and I would not suffer such a fate at his brutish hands. The spineless coward could never do what needed to be done.”

Her frigid words settle wrongly against Erys’ awareness; a broken bone healing poorly, nagging, painful, insistent. “Needed to be done?”

“Ambition sees the greater goal. His vision is unparalleled.” Something in Mythal’s voice turns soft, wistful. “I had never seen such potential in another. His pull was inexorable, his will inviolate. But for the sake of a single goal, he could not see the branching paths of opportunity when they arose. His determination, while incomparable, was singleminded and therefore limited.”

“And you could?”

Mythal’s golden eyes narrow. “Is it always to be a comparison with you? Are you unable to accept any person’s experience as unique?”

“Minds seek patterns,” Erys defends tacitly.

“Mortal minds, perhaps. For all your simplicity, you do enjoy overcomplicating matters.”

It is entirely possible, Erys thinks – unsure why it hadn’t occurred to her before – that Mythal is quite mad. This iteration, at least. Rook had reported an encounter, vicious and aggressive, with another fragment of Mythal in the Crossroads, one younger and allegedly deaf to reason. But even that fragment, she’d said, had been measured. Cold, but calculated. While this fragment certainly possesses the same icy capacity, she is given to fits of temper, burning hot and unpredictable, and yet, Erys is certain, still tightly restrained. Even when Mythal had met Erys’ invited insults with violence, her attacks had been precise; inflicted the highest amount of pain with no intent to kill. In a question of skill, the answer had been extraordinary, even Erys can admit that. For a fragment – a memory – Mythal is indeed powerful. But she is not whole, not remotely, so it would stand to reason that her mind would be similarly fractured.

“A great many things in the world lie outside our comprehension,” Erys says, a poorly-timed laugh bubbling up her throat, halted only by a pang of terrible longing. She sounds like Solas. “We draw parallels to try and fit them into our perception.”

“And when that fails?”

Erys smiles faintly. “We panic. Usually.”

Mythal heaves a great scoff of disgust. “Mortals.”

Erys opens her mouth to counter that, but ahead of them, worryingly close, a strident, inhuman shriek pierces the eerie quiet of the pall upon the city. Erys flinches instinctively but Mythal’s head snaps towards the direction of the cry – not like prey might, more the pricked senses of a hunter. Slowly, a vicious smile curves across her full lips. Teeth bared. Excited.

A sound of distressed alarm slips past Erys’ lips, then, as Mythal sinks to the ground, leaping forward sinuously like a feline in ways that her body’s somatic limitations should not allow. In a flash of silver and scarlet, she winds through the ruined streets, likely with little thought or care for if Erys follows her. She does, of course, scrambling over debris in her haste to catch up, her enfleshed palm scraping against jagged marble in her haste. Heart forced into her mouth by unnecessary and deeply reluctant concern.

She has to drop to her knees to drag herself beneath a crumbling partition that may have once been the entrance of an arched walkway, which makes her body ache oddly. More than the inconvenience of scrabbling haplessly after a capricious quasi-deity, is the mournful loss of her chance to explore, to touch the tangible evidence of her ancestors’ existence, to see how they formed the foundations of the lives they built. If it had happened any other way, if Erys had not lost herself in the arrival and subsequently lost Solas, she would be peppering him with questions all the while they journeyed to wherever he led them. She is supposed to be at his side, not following the unknowable whims of a goddess who does not seem to even know her own mind.

Fingers dug into dirt, Erys hauls herself free of the wreckage, twisting onto her back to kick with her legs for better leverage, just in time to see a shadowy mass catapulted through the air above her head. It jolts the partition a half dozen feet above her, making the old structure groan and shudder around her, showering rockdust and jagged marble chips from the impact. She turns her head to shield her eyes, wriggling the rest of the way free to the accompanying backdrop of vicious squawks and snarls, then shrieks in pain herself as something catches hold of her hair, wrenching her from the ground and hefting her off of her feet in a wild, dizzying tilt of the world. She grapples frantically above herself, fingers scratching clumsily at something her eyes are stinging too sharply to see, each tearing prickle and pop of her hair rending from her scalp sending violent waves of nausea roiling through her gut.

Hot, rancid breath fans across her face in a wet, guttural growl. She gags, kicking her legs out as adrenaline rushes in to soothe the pain. Magic sparks across her skin, panicked and ineffective. She can’t cast, she can’t— Unarmed, unprepared, sightless and defenceless. She gurgles a choked scream, fighting, fighting—

A howl. A sickening rending of flesh. A scorching splash against her face she is just quick enough to close her mouth against.

Erys hits the ground hard, clutching at her burning scalp with a shuddering hiss.

A severed arm, thick as a tree trunk and just as gnarled, drops to the ground before her. Clawed fingers twitch, Blighted flesh spitting like oil against hot metal. The stench is overwhelming.

She doesn’t have enough time to gather herself to defend, but the instinct is strong, though entirely unnecessary. The creature that grabbed her, grotesque, mutated thing, bubbles and gurgles, clawing with its remaining arm at its own chest in the panicked desperation of a barely-sentient beast. A heartbeat, then two, and it bursts at the seams of its fetid flesh.

Through the fine haze of bloodied mist that hangs in the air, Erys sees Mythal, bright and resplendent against a colossal horizon of towering Blighted pillars. The goddess chokes on a frenzied cackle, hand pressed to the face of a hulking mound of shambling flesh, burning it in a writhing wreath of flame. Teeth bared and eyes gleaming, she is the most savage thing Erys has ever seen; vengeful, violent, and terribly beautiful.

The acrid stench of singed, diseased flesh hangs foully in the air. Mythal tosses the corpse away like a discarded cloak, drawing the wreath of fire about her like a whip. She is, Erys notes then, utterly surrounded by the bent and broken bodies of more than a dozen darkspawn.

“Come to me, woeful misbegotten!” She croons jovially, hair an ink black halo around the crest of her coronet. “You may yet die well!”

Erys watches in horror as the pockets of Blight across the ground begin to bubble and boil. She’d seen their like in the heart of Minrathous, hoped against hope she’d need not witness it anew, and it strikes her with a pure and burning fear all over again. Clawing, mindless limbs burst from the pustules, gaping maws and sightless, weeping eyes, bent bodies twisted and mutilated by the infection. Mythal howls jubilantly, spreading her arms wide to welcome them to her, and Erys – for all her warring feelings for the woman – will not let her fight alone.

She pushes herself onto her knees, dragging her fingertips against her prickling, bloody scalp to call ice and soothe the burn. With a huff she shoves herself upright, then cries out and sinks back to a knee. Pain when she breathes, bent double and shaking, abrupt and so overpowering she can taste copper on her tongue. Her fingers probe at her ribs, left side, low, where the aching grip seizes her tightest. Her fingers come away wet from the untorn fabric, bright, sickening scarlet. She stares, mouth open, at the sight of a wound she had not marked. No matter. No matter. She slams a palm tightly against it, feeling a fresh bloom of blood well hotly against her skin. She shudders against the sharp ache that thrums beneath, pushing magic into the wound. Her breaths stutter, she feels the soothing tendrils seep into the gash she can feel but not see, but they do not catch against torn muscle and flesh. They jar against it, twice as jagged as the wound itself, and her skin refuses to mend.

A heart-stopping consideration bullies its way between the gaps of her thoughts. Blighted? No. She can’t be. She cannot be. She can’t abide that eventuality, won’t even tolerate it as an option. She will not fall here, gone from Solas, kept from him, she will not fall to this.

It takes more effort than her exhausted body can bear but she forces it with gritted teeth and sheer determination. The spell doesn’t catch immediately but she pushes, straining against her own limitation to summon a single spark of heat in her palm. She focuses on the pain, crashing into it headlong to steal the memory of its burn to fan her own, and at last the spell catches, igniting across her palm. With her left, she scrabbles at the cloth of her tunic, ripping at the buckles of her wide leather belt so she can wrench the fabric out of the way and slam her flaming palm against her skin. It hurts, she can’t hold the scream back, roaring out a guttural snarl of agony as her flesh pops and sizzles beneath the excoriating burn. She can feel it in every inch of her body’s resistance – the barely controlled gag, the honed instinct to coat her form with a barrier, the trembling, shuddering shivers through her prickling limbs. She pants wetly through her teeth so as not to smell the melting flesh for all the good it does – the stench seeps in through her gasping lips – and yet when she pulls her hand away, releasing the flame, new blood wells forth, dribbling down to soak the fabric of the leggings taut across her thighs.

She can’t heal it. She can’t seal it. The wound itself resists her.

Blighted. She’s Blighted.

The ground shakes beneath a detonation, sending her rocking forward onto shaking knees, the heat of an unseen explosion washing over her like a wave. Her ribs protest, the wound in her side shrieking its defiance at her. She can do little else but curl around it, gasping.

Cool fingers find her throat then, and she is guided up to stare, blearily through dimming eyes, at Mythal’s unblemished face.

“Careful,” the goddess murmurs, brushing slick hair from Erys’ forehead. “Steady, da’len. I have you, hush now. Oh, hush now.”

Where are your gauntlets? Erys thinks dizzily, but her mouth is full of cotton and her tongue will not obey her. She feels so unclean, tainted in a way that makes her thrash weakly in the goddess’ grasp; too sullied to permit her touch. Mythal defies her muted protests, easing Erys off of her knees, shifting until she can gently rest Erys’ back against her chest. She cups a feverish cheek in a blissfully cold palm, resting her head lightly against Erys’ hair, even as the elf in her arms chokes out a clumsy “Blight,” and tries to ineffectually push her away.

“Quiet, da’len,” she croons, curled around Erys like a blanket. “It isn’t Blight. I know it hurts, I know. It won’t be long, I promise.”

Then what’s happening to me? Erys wants to ask, dragging a stuttering breath between dry lips. It shivers wetly all the way to her chest. She tries to speak but all that comes out is a damp, whistling moan.

“I know,” Mythal soothes mournfully. “I know, da’lath. It has to hurt, I’m afraid. You must feel this. It is necessary, it is necessary.”

Her words don’t register, glancing off of Erys’ comprehension like a parried blow. She shudders limply in the goddess’ arms, keening with little breath to spare. She would panic, let it drive her into madness, if she could think beyond the pain, beyond the wild, lashing desperation that she promised him it wouldn’t be terrible if he was with her.

“Vena’ish,” she spits with all the strength she can muster. Her magic, shivering and desperate to seep into her wound but blocked and banished by whatever force had opened her up in the first place, redirects to the weight of her words, easing their passage from her damp lips. “Sa-Sathan, Mythal. Ven— Vena’ish i ama’ish’… ama’ish’eth.”

“I will not,” Mythal says calmly. “That is not my duty.”

“Boran su’ma,” Erys forces through her teeth. The drag of ancient words on her leaden tongue. “Don’t— Ish lathem ma. Don’t punish yourselves. Don’t be alone.”

Silence and pain are her only answers. Had she the strength, if a thrumming numbness had not dug itself into her joints, she would writhe against the blistering torment scorching her body from the inside. Her ribs expand like vines with every breath.

Every regret she has tried to lay to rest seems so close now.   

Something cold presses against her sweaty temple. It doesn’t occur to her belaboured mind – not until Mythal’s breath fans tremulously cool against her overheated skin – that the goddess has kissed her. “You—“ It is a strange thing, Erys thinks hazily, to hear a god overcome. “You vile, vexatious bitch.”

Erys receives no chance to draw breath, so when Mythal slams a palm alight with cold blue fire against her wounded side, the scream that wrenches out of her is fraught and breathless. Her legs kick out of their own accord and the renewed, deeper pain threatens to unmake her where she lies, limp and trembling, across Mythal’s legs. She can only glimpse the All-Mother’s face as she writhes, fractured glances of a darkened, enraged expression that spurs an instinctive rush of fear that would overwhelm her if the pain had not stripped her capacity for all else.

And then as quickly as it had come, it ebbs.

The relief deranges her.

Erys sobs, overcome, silent, wracking cries gusting from burning lungs. She sobs until her eyes sting, full and heavy and swollen in her face, and still Mythal does not release her. She is caught, weeping, in the goddess’ unrelenting grasp, the rising certainty that she is not safe there slowly intensifying with every struggling breath. Had she any control over her limbs she would scramble away – or at least attempt to. She has gone completely mad with relief but not so insensate that she is foolish enough to believe the goddess would release her easily.

The evidence presents itself in the form of a pale, clawed hand wrapping itself around her throat.

“You beg me,” Mythal seethes through bared teeth, “you attempt to compel me, to seek him out. With your dying breath, no less! You would deliver me that compulsion as I strip you of your burdens and call it kind.”

Decay weighs too heavily on Erys’ tongue for her to answer just yet. She isn’t entirely sure she could if she tried. She can’t remember ever feeling this afraid. The fury of a god is a terrible thing to witness. Even if the divinity is questionable, Mythal is the closest thing to divine she has ever encountered.

“I should kill you,” Mythal goes on, an ache like longing thick in her voice. “You are not strong, Inquisitor. You are no more than any mortal who has come before you. It would be so easy.” Her fingers tremble against Erys’ throat with the desire to clench. “I should. I want to. I must.”

Erys swallows convulsively. The ripple of her throat nudges against the All-Mother’s frigid palm. She says nothing. To plead for her life – something she has never done – is sure to do nothing but hasten her end. Oh, the words rise, ready to be spat desperately, pleadingly, but fear ensures her silence; an intrinsic, cultural reverence holds her tongue.

A tremor runs through Mythal’s arm. “May you be bound,” she spits, golden eyes sliding closed with a finality Erys cannot fully comprehend, “as I was bound. I cannot. I can decree no justice here.”

She throws Erys away from her then. It is a sharp, callous movement and Erys’ body twists alarmingly as she hits the dirt, crying out with the impact and rolling onto her side with a reedy, winded groan. There is, at least, no lingering tenderness in her wound, only the memory of that sickly agony, but the memory has dug deep enough to haunt her. It will be some time – if she does in fact possess much time at all – before the spectre of it abandons her. Every move she makes, every stretch, bend, grip, will remind her.

Whipping her tangled, bloody hair out of her face, Erys forces herself up onto her elbow. Strength cruelly sapped, she cannot manifest her Faded arm. It is no matter, she coped without it for long enough, and it’s no real struggle to accommodate for it; instinctive, even now. Rising to the elbow, then onto her knees, so that she can face the still-crouched goddess with some meagre form, Erys tries and fails to summon a barrier. She is depleted.

She knows that this, too, is Mythal’s design.

“How is it settled?” Her voice is hoarse. Mythal’s gaze snaps to her, golden and unfathomable. “Whatever customs you invoke with your actions, I would— know them. Tell me how I meet you in this.”

Even to her own ears her voice is thin, weak, but her conviction remains, along with the unassailable suspicion that if she were to open a new would in her flesh – a notion her mind and body physically recoil from in the memory of pain – it would appear upon Mythal’s own skin. She can see it clearer now than she could before; healing Erys has dimmed Mythal’s form.

It is necessary, the All-Mother had said.

“There can be no true entreaty,” Mythal says, deadened. “I compel you, even when I make no conscious attempt. No exchange between us is licit.”

The geas is present, but inactive, and yet that very presence is what shames Mythal. Erys could argue – is even tempted to – that she entered the binding willingly, but they both know that isn’t true. The contract of spirit is binding, as little as she knows about it, Erys knows that well enough, having entered into it under duress. She could have let it fall to Morrigan, but even now she can’t regret that choice. She would still know by what metric Mythal has decided this. “By what law?”

“My own,” Mythal says simply. “I can judge by no other.”

Erys accepts that wordlessly, and thinks. “You…” The shape of the words remind her of stale, dry bread – sharp, hard to swallow. “You tried to kill me.”

Mythal inclines her head. “There is no try, ise’dun’miol. I am killing you.”

Erys prefers her puzzles trapped within ruins older than memory, usually concealing something vast and ancient and valuable; be it knowledge or artefact or – in rare and wonderful cases – both at once. She likes them less when they obfuscate the intentions of people. Especially people she cannot fathom her own feelings on. “This… is the nature of the Well? Not a repository—“ At Mythal’s derisively twisting sneer, she amends, “not just a repository. A… conduit?”

“Anvallenim,” Mythal counters. Womb. “Apt, no?”

“Vir’abelasan,” Erys parries back. “Why Sorrows, then?”

“People are moved to far grander displays of reverence in mourning than in supplication,” is Mythal’s answer. “A miscalculation, in hindsight. I had not anticipated that reverence to become so obsessively protective. Not one devotee dared to take it for themselves, and no outsiders could breach the outer defences, at Elvhenan’s prime. Then it was forgotten.”

“You anticipated revival sooner?”

Mythal nods, pride gleaming in her eyes. “You catch on quick.”

“Keep your approval,” Erys snaps. “If I wanted it, I would bear your vallaslin still.”

“Do not pretend you made that choice knowingly, girl,” Mythal dismisses. “You dishonour yourself with that lie. Do not pretend you let him peel it from your flesh for any reason beyond his approval.” She tuts. “And you thought it so hard won.”

If it’s a blow meant to wound her, she’s ashamed to admit that it finds its mark unfailingly. “I was—“

“Young, foolish, mortal, stupid? Pick one, if you like, but stick with it and do not pretend you did not ache to see the approval in his eyes.” Mythal’s voice turns mocking. “Was it a sweet moment? I flit amongst the memories but I’ve always found mortal responses so lacking. What did you feel when he looked upon your bare face? When you turned it up to him so hopefully for your reward?”

“You’re sick,” Erys spits. “Why are you doing this? Jealousy?”

“Hah!” Mythal’s bark of laughter is loud and brutal, a wall of force, echoing. “Would that make it easier? Shall we squabble, dear Inquisitor, like sisters vying for the attention of the same suitor? Would your flighty, mortal mind find it easier to understand my contempt if you thought him the cause?”

Erys’ magic sparks weakly down her arm. Her pool is weak, her head swimming with exhaustion, and the only things keeping her conscious now are anger and fear. “It would give me something! I am trying to understand you. I am fighting to understand you.”

“Yes.” Jarringly, Mythal smiles at her. It is tender, in all the right ways, softly fond. Her eyes are so terribly golden. “I know you are. Your curiosity is not so absent as I thought. Dimmed and dulled, yes, but present, still.”

“Then help me understand,” Erys begs softly. “Please.”

“Oh, very good,” Mythal praises with an almost giddy laugh. “Very good. An exceptional attempt at humility for one so unpracticed at pleading for her life. One criticism, though, if you’ll permit me. Bargain only when you are certain that your opponent possesses the desire or the capability for negotiation. I have no reason to gift you understanding. I have no reason to help you attain it. You understanding, ise’dun’miol, does not get me what I want.”

“But you healed me,” Erys tries again, fighting to keep her voice from edging into desperation. “Why heal me— You were— All you had to do was let that Darkspawn… It…”

How, exactly, does one obtain a knife wound to the ribs with no knife present? What nonexistent blade can rend flesh so deeply, even in the Fade, with no conjuring force behind it, save that of a memory? A memory that has, over countless ages, accepted the offering of thousands of supplicants by way of their own experiences? A repository. A womb. A Veil rising to derail a contingency, carefully laid, before a dagger could find its mark through betrayal?

“If the Well had gone to Morrigan,” Erys says faintly, “what would have happened?”

“Ah,” Mythal breathes, eyes burning with something dark and eager. “Clever girl.”

“Answer me.”

“You do test my patience. I never want to be so contrary as I do when some whelp attempts to compel me.” Mythal’s lip curls. “If it comforts you, know that you live now, healed of my wounds, because your shameless pleas for his wellbeing and with my own were put to me as a petition. If I had let you die, I would have been compelled by my own code to obey.” She shudders delicately. “Thank all that is pure that we sidestepped that catastrophe.”

“Your wounds,” Erys echoes. “The—“ Her hand presses to her side, now hale and whole. “That was…”

“Yes,” Mythal says. “Isn’t it incredible what blood can do? Spilt so very long ago, and yet there lingers just enough of a trace of it to be useful. You are dying my death, Inquisitor.”

Under threat of sword, on pain of death, Erys doesn’t think she could even attempt to name how she feels. Ironic, really, if she thinks about it. Mythal may have healed her, but she isn’t so foolish as to believe that has changed her plans, whatever the extent of them may be. A single impassioned plea cannot overturn a mind so ancient. Erys knows this well. A decade had not been enough for Solas. Her final pleas had not been enough, at the end. Her assurances had been his comfort, but only after…

“Will you kill him?”

Mythal blinks. “Who?”

“Solas. Will you hurt him?”

“I considered it,” she hums. “I had little connection with my fragmented selves as it was, less now that the memories passed to the young witch have been defanged and diluted. Be that as it may, he did kill me. It is my right to claim penance from his flesh, should I choose.”

“But will you?”

“Oh, let’s say yes, for argument’s sake. What would you do, Inquisitor? How would you stop me?”

How indeed. If she so chose, Mythal could undoubtedly rip the wound open in Erys’ flesh anew, finish the job and leave her cold in place of her own corpse. The finer points elude her, but the disadvantage could not be greater, or more apparent. “I would speak with you. I would know your motive, and question your judgement.”

“Ugh.” Disappointment crowds Mythal’s expression. “Boring. Boring! You’ve spent such little time among your own, Inquisitor. You cannot injure my pride and goad me the way you can the Wolf. I’ll allow that you certainly managed to get me to talk when I was unwilling, so for that you have my heartiest congratulations, but I must still proclaim you utterly boring. Too mortal by far. You could have been wonderful, you know. It should enrage you, the legacy that was lost to you before your father ever deigned to bed your mother.”

“The People endure,” Erys says. “In ways your kind cannot fathom. Solas couldn’t see it. You certainly can’t.”

“Why would I want to?” Mythal asks, sounding perfectly genuine. “Tell me that. Oh, let’s all crawl in the dirt and lament what was lost while doing nothing to help ourselves! Surely, this is how our people should be!” She scoffs, suddenly bitter. “It is the old, pathetic refrain again and again. I tire of it.”

“A fragment of you released Solas. You didn’t want the Veil brought down.”

“She didn’t,” Mythal corrects icily. “You’ve no idea what I want.”

“If you’d tell me—“

Mythal clicks her fingers. It is a soft, muted gesture that silences Erys simply because it is so unexpected. Then a well of blood dribbles from between Erys’ lips, still half-parted around her halted words, and she scrambles to cup her face in alarm. There is no pain, no surge of agony, not even the prickle of discomfort. She opens her mouth fully, working to spit the welling blood onto the ground, but instead something soft and fleshy slips free, splatting against the dirt between her knees.

She stares at it. Mute. Horrified.

Her tongue. Mythal severed her tongue.

“Oh, that’s a relief,” Mythal sighs. “Blessed silence! Finally.”

Erys lets out a choked, gurgling whimper. Her mind refuses to parse the loss, her mouth numbly registers the loss but the connection won’t form. She can’t even raise her gaze back to Mythal, morbidly entranced by the sight of her damp, pink and bloodied tongue laying so innocuously on the ground. Her fingers twitch toward it but she can’t bring herself to actually touch the thing.

Panic lies a hair’s breadth away. She is too afraid to feel scared.

“There,” Mythal says as though Erys has handily proved her point for her. “Little more than a child. No Elvhen would be disarmed by such a thing – this is a base insult at best. Regrow it, if you can. The Fade could be no closer, you kneel within the realm of your birthright and yet you panic. Where is your rage, child of the Veil? You should hate him for what he has done.”

Is this it, then? Erys can form no defence. With her magic depleted, she had only the weapon of her speech left to her, and Mythal has stolen that. She can offer no reason, no common cause, no persuasion or understanding. Negotiation, whatever form of it she could have reached, lies completely out of reach.

It’s strange to be so finally, completely defeated. Even when Solas took the Anchor, she’d had contingencies. Allies. Hope. Now she has nothing, Mythal has seen to that. And without anything left for her to use in defence of her own life, Mythal will undoubtedly complete her strange, slow ritual and take Erys’ life for her own.

“Ah, you look so betrayed,” Mythal muses. “I wonder at it. You surely never considered me your ally? I gave you no reason to. If you have been betrayed, it’s because you searched for trust where there was none to be found. Rage at me if you like, I welcome it, in fact. But do not pretend that it is a true betrayal. I offered you no promises, and I told you no lies. Sit with your frustrations awhile, and learn.”

Erys offers no counter. Can’t. Strawberries, she thinks, and her eyes threaten tears.

Mythal is unmoved. She rises sinuously to her feet, head cocked as she takes in the younger elf knelt in the dirt. “I hate that I’m curious,” she admits like it pains her. “I do want to see what you could make of this. You’ve triumphed against insurmountable odds before and I almost want you to do so again. But I have waited so long for this chance. It unfolded better than I could have dreamed. To bring yourself physically to the Fade – to the Black City, no less! Conveying me to the heart of our empire. To have done so after you took from the Well, to have worn vallaslin in honour of me. It’s all so poetic I may vomit.”

Justice turned Vengeance. Against who? Erys doesn’t know. If Mythal’s goal isn’t Solas’ death, then her ultimate desires are unknown to her. The gods are dead, her killers do not live. If she’d just wanted to live, Erys could have understood. She’d fight for her own life, her instinct to survive warring viciously with Mythal’s own. She would have lost that fight absolutely, but at least she could have consoled herself with the fact that she did not surrender. In this, defeated so utterly before she even understood the rules of Mythal’s unknowable game, she has never felt so ashamed of herself.

Why? She thinks miserably. Why come back? What life is left for you?

“None,” Mythal murmurs, startling her. “Living was never the outcome. I died at the hands of my children because I threatened their way of life. I prepared this contingency because Solas threatened mine and I never forgave him for it. Could you? If you carved happiness for yourself from an existence of pain and then the ardent pleading of someone you loved showed you the truth of the life you loved so well, would you not rage at them? If their once-beloved words became admonishments that struck at your spirit at every turn, would you not learn fury? Does any part of you believe in death as absolution?

“I wish I did. I delivered death as a punishment when called to. Not as some grand, noble declaration of forgiveness for the trespassers, but because I adored the light of gratitude in the eyes of my petitioners. Like you, I chose execution for the men brought before me by my own law. I became loved, then feared, then adored. That my place of power rested on the backs of the unwilling was a fact I had learned to ignore. I often wonder how long I could have lived that way, if not for Solas’ pleading.”

The goddess looks away from her. Erys cannot do the same. Her eyes are fixed on Mythal, intent. “I loved my title. I loved my People. But not in a way that was good for them. Elgar’nan, for all his failings, loved his People. That love drove him to retaliate against retaliation – he would not suffer the Titans’ ire, however justified, when the first of our children fell to the blades of theirs. We were all of us twisted, no longer defined by the natures we once embodied, but we clung to them for the same reason a child clings to a favoured toy. Comfort. Security. Familiarity. You cannot command a people to prosper. We knew no better. And still, we thrived and called it progress. The People suffered and we called it ingratitude.

“I will be forgiven,” Mythal vows darkly. “I am owed it. I have suffered. I have waited. By virtue of your tenacity, I stand where I fell. I am here, again, and it will not be as it was. I will not walk toward my children knowing they hide a blade behind their backs, ready to accept my place as catalyst of Fen’Harel’s rebellion. You see, I am not without remorse, Inquisitor. I knew even then that I would serve his rebellion better as its martyr. But by my own decree, I was guilty. I faced my sentence with my head held high and I bled to death for my folly. This is my redemption.

“For what it’s worth,” she adds, softening, “I truly am sorry that you will die for this. Centuries ago, I would have honed your potential keenly by my own hand. If it is any comfort to you, know that I will remember you.”

The form of the All-Mother unfurls, then. Like a thread unravelled, she twists until the image of an Elvhen woman melts away, coiling into a mass of rich, writhing white scales. Her thick, long neck arches, body following the sinuous motion like the flow of a stream, and then the dragon of Mythal spreads its wings, leaping into the great grey sky of the Fade. She rises on vast, mottled wings, soaring towards the tallest spire of the city.

Within Erys’ flesh, Mythal’s ancient wound reopens.

***

“Should I be honoured or concerned that you come to me thus?”

Solas ceases his restless pacing and turns, eyes wide and bright with relief. Under the light of the pale, twin moons, his eyes are shadowed and silver, though they brighten so sweetly as Mythal approaches, cloak drawn tight around her shoulders.

“I didn’t think…” He shakes his head. Long, auburn hair shivers around his shoulders, the locks that aren’t wrapped in neat braids wisping freely. The ones that are bear delicate chains of gold, clasps fastened into each tuck and twist, inlaid with delicate amulets of bone, feathers of birds lost to ages. He holds his hands out to Mythal who lays her hands in his. For a moment they clutch each other, heads bowed over their joined hands. “But you are here.”

“Your words rang in my head ceaselessly,” Mythal chides, caught between reproachful and guilty. “Your letter was not kind.”

“You cannot admonish me for not doctoring my words simply because you dislike the truths they hold,” Solas counters. “You would not be here if they did not strike true.”

“Or perhaps I came because I have not seen you in so long.”

Solas’ expression shutters. “You have made it impossible for me to stand where I once did. The jeers and mockery I could bear easily from the lips of your children, but not from you. I have told you this. A single word would silence them, you hold their loyalty absolutely, and yet you permit them their cruelties.”

“You claim their words unfounded?” Mythal arches a single brow. “They would not hound you so if you did not harry them constantly. If your place at my side is no longer welcoming, then you have made it so. I warned you that it would come with trials.”

“I have withstood their jealousy for aeons.” Solas doesn’t quite glare, but the affection in his face dims with displeasure. “I have never craved their approval. If jealousy was the cause, I would stand beside you in pride. You have convinced yourself that they possess no deeper cruelties in spite of all my warnings and you dishonour me with your complacency.”

“You mistake complacency for impartiality.”

“The mistake is not mine.”

Mythal releases his hands, affronted. “Then what would you have me do? Your letter spoke of amends. Clearly distance and time have not curtailed your audacity.”

“No,” Solas agrees readily. “The years I have spent apart from you have given me a clarity I could not hope to attain in your company. You cloud my judgement.” He throws her an accusatory glance. “I did not part with you lightly. In distancing myself, I risked giving you over to the whims of your children entirely. Tell me how you have sought counsel in my absence?”

“Ah, you think that I promptly forgot your lessons the moment you turned your back to me?”

“You have no indication that my lessons reached you while I was present,” Solas says dourly. “Walls make for better students than you. You fill your ears with cheap flattery to drown out common sense.”

“And graves make for cheerier company than you.”

“Is that what you want?” Solas asks. “To fill your days with indolence and indulgence? You would add another bauble to your collection of admirers? Do you not have enough of them?” His eyes darken. “Your disregard earned my silence.”

“Rightly,” Mythal says flatly. “Despite your nagging insistence to the contrary, we are at peace, Solas. You are the sole voice among us that would call us back to war.”

“Calling for justice is not warmongering.”

“You would upset the very stability we bled for,” Mythal ripostes. “The sort of upheaval you beg for would crack the foundations of the empire!”

“Then it does not deserve to stand!” Solas cries, sharp as a blade. “Let it crumble and rise anew, because it stands upon broken backs! You cannot think that I…” He looks way from her. “The last time we spoke, I was unkind. But do not pretend you did not look at me in horror. Do not pretend the sight of my face did not enrage you.”

“Because you had stolen away to abandon me in secret!”

“Abandon you?” Whatever response he had been expecting, that had evidently not been close. His eyes widen, expression dropping in shock. “You saw it as abandonment?”

Mythal bares her teeth. “How could I not? How could I not? If you believed it just, you would not have hidden yourself away and then returned to me so boldly to show your disrespect. You knew it would insult me! And you did it anyway.”

“Erasing your mark from my skin was not an insult,” Solas says quietly. “That you see it that way scares me, Mythal. Did you worry that you had lost my obedience?”

“If I ever had it,” Mythal smiles contemptuously. “Wilful thing that you are. You knew it would horrify me. Why else would you not have come to me before?”

“Perhaps I wanted to offer you grace you did not deserve,” Solas murmurs. “To deny you the opportunity to attempt to change my mind, or compel me to abandon the idea before I could actualise it. No, do not look at me so. Do not dishonour us both by lying. To see the open displeasure on your face would not have changed my mind, it would only have bolstered me.”

“It is a truly unruly child that skulks guilty around its parent, Solas. Concoct whatever lies you like, but I know you would have come to me if you deemed it a worthy act.”

“I did not come to you because I couldn’t bear to see the truth of your displeasure. When I came to you after, I received it anyway. Tell me now, in full honesty, why it insulted you so?”

“It was a gift to me!” Mythal exclaims. “Your service was a gift I treasured and you revoked it. Your callousness insulted me, not the act. If you wished to abandon the vallaslin, I might have taken it from you without pain.” Her golden eyes flick up to the scar in his brow. “In desperation, you have wounded yourself. I would have spared you that.” She shakes her head, brows pinched. “Oh, Solas, enough of this. Come home. I will bend to your requests, whatever you have need of, within reason. None of my children will speak against you, I swear it. Just come home, my love. Come back to me.”

There is an undeniable ache of longing twisting Solas’ expression. In that moment, he wants nothing more than to obey. It would be so easy, as Mythal claims, to slip back into the space beside her, to reclaim the boons of her affection and to cloak himself anew in the mantle of Pride. She is open to him, beseeching, and he only has to step into the warmth of her presence and be accepted.

He hesitates. “They would accept me without vallaslin?”

“Of course not,” Mythal says at once. “But it is no matter. I will gift it to you again. A reaffirmation! You need not concern yourself with that. They will not contest my judgement.”

It is the worst thing she could have possibly said.

Solas’ expression shutters instantly, not just shaded, but closed entirely. Pain flashes in his eyes, hesitance turned to rigid refusal, and he clasps his hands behind his back, squaring his shoulders. Mythal marks the change, brows drawing, and then there is a moment of abject horror and pain as she realises her transgression. “Solas. Don’t do this.”

“We are committed to misunderstanding one another,” Solas says, meticulously measured to the point of detachment. Not a single movement betrays his emotions. “But I did not invite you here solely for a chance at reconciliation.”

“Solas,” Mythal says, anger replacing grief so seamlessly the latter may have been nothing more than a trick of the light. “Stop. Do not denounce millennia for the sake of your injured pride. Say nothing that you will come to regret.”

“I denounce nothing,” Solas says without the barest inflection. “It is because of the affection that I hold for you that I offer you this counsel. The bindings are failing. You would do well to be wary.”

“Impossible,” Mythal says at once. “We would know.”

“Then you have nothing to fear and my words are as they have always been: useless.”

“Do not be so petty!” Mythal cries. “There has never been cause for you to concoct such outlandish lies for my attention. My heart has room for all of you. I will… I will explain away your vallaslin. I will make it right.”

“My vallaslin was never the issue,” Solas says. “It is the Elvhen you have deigned to own whose vallaslin I revile.”

“They are safe with me, Solas. Must we have this argument every time we meet? Must it always be the same, exhausting refrain?”

“Until your defence becomes a worthy one,” Solas murmurs. “Your excuse remains that you are the better owner for the People? I can attest personally that you are not.”

The words are picked with honed precision, and delivered with exacting care. Softly spoken, for all that they inflict the highest amount of harm possible. The exact wording of the Elvhen speech reveals more than anything; the concept Solas conveys with his words is one of torment. You are making me watch, he tells her, threaded through the lyrical statement like a vein. You are making me watch as you become something I cannot love.

“In time it may not matter,” Solas adds. He turns his face up towards the twinned moons. “The binding is fragile, I would caution Andruil to stop scratching at the bonds for its blessing. She has never quite forgotten the call of its madness, but her greed weakens our wards. She is not solely responsible, but it is her form I chase away most nights.”

If Mythal hears the warning, she gives no indication. “You no longer love me, Solas?”

“Of course I do,” he breathes, eyes widening. “If I did not… You would be lost to me, and I would…”

No clandestine meetings in the moonlight. No sweetly gifted dreams of companionship. No memories of fledgling spirits, twining gently in the cradle of the Fade.

“I have given you my counsel, as always,” Solas says, defeated. “You may do with it what you will, but I will not chase away greedy fingers when next they seek out their prize. I will be its guardian no longer. May… May you learn, All-Mother. For the sake of us all, may you learn.”

The memory fades.

***

Erys does not wake up alone.

Awareness does not come easily, wading clumsily through a haze of exhaustion and pain – fear, though dulled and blunted – it is not an easy or pleasant process, given that she cannot mark the point at which she fell unconscious. More than the distressing space in her mouth where her tongue should be, the ghost of a bitter taste of copper and bile clinging to the shredded nerves of what’s left, is the softened, muted burn of pain in her upper abdomen, less sharp and encompassing than before, but all the worse for the memory of it. Still, Erys has been in worse pain. At least physically. The absence of her tongue, the cruelly dispassionate disfiguration, stabs sharply at her very self; a violation she isn’t sure she can bear.

So she doesn’t try.

Slowing her breaths to a measured pace, she counts each one to keep herself steady, rolling herself onto her side and then pushing herself up on shaking arm to her knees. Other than a few superficial scrapes and bruises from being tossed about – and an unpleasant ache in her scalp that worries insistently against her nerves – the wound in her mouth is probably the worst, but that thankfully stopped bleeding while she was unconscious. The wound belonging to Mythal, when she wrenches her tunic up to check it, is no more than an inch wide and not even half as deep. It oozes a slow trickle of blood when she prods the tender skin around it, but it aches no worse than a bruise might. For the moment. She is under no illusions that it will worsen over time. Mythal may have rethought how swiftly she had initially wanted to kill her, but she hasn’t reversed the process entirely. As little credit as she wants to give the All-Mother, she’s not entirely sure Mythal can reverse it.

For the moment, though, it is of little consequence. The wound is small, not yet deadly, though she knows it’s only a matter of time before that changes.

Erys is surprisingly calm, within herself. Whatever panic had gripped her before is blessedly absent now that she isn’t dying with any immediacy. She’s as clear-headed as it’s possible to be, given the circumstance, though her jaw aches oddly and the shape of her mouth feels wrong; space too wide, not enough to fill it, and her jaw aches from the absent but intense and unconscious clench of her teeth.

All in all, she is injured but not incapacitated, and that is something she can work with.

Exhaling slowly, Erys gets to her feet.

The weight of another’s presence prickles against her returning awareness. She reaches instinctively for the well of mana within her and finds it – unsurprisingly – depleted. Frustrating, but not unexpected. It will replenish naturally given time, and with any luck the Fade will speed her recuperation, but until then she is defenceless. Once, she might have fought tooth and nail in absence of her magic, had, several times in fact, but it has been many years since she’s had to, and weighty ceramic prosthetics do not lend themselves to fluid hand-to-hand combat. She is competent enough to hold her own, but that is against predictable opponents. She doesn’t much fancy her chances against Darkspawn.

Inclining her head, she checks her periphery. The dulled fear flares until she swallows it down, fighting for control, and stills herself. A dozen or so pairs of sightless red eyes are fixed on her, watching, waiting, and that is the only thing keeping Erys centred and safely away from the dizzying torrent of panic. She is surrounded loosely by a cluster of Darkspawn; pathetic, husked creatures and perhaps a handful of hurlocks at a guess, though her classifications have always been rudimentary at best. She is no Warden, but she has battled her fare share for someone who isn’t bolstered by the taint.

They don’t attack her, which is a heady sort of relief and absolutely terrifying prospect all in one. They just watch, chittering in that low, insect-like susurrus that makes her skin crawl, clicking and chirruping amongst themselves in their diseased language. Watching. Waiting. She couldn’t ever hope to guess at what they might think of her, if Darkspawn can be said to think at all. More than that, she’d had no time before to consider it strange for Darkspawn to reside within the Fade, but then again she hadn’t known that the Blight originated from the Fade until recently. It wasn’t like Solas had ever volunteered that particular knowledge. If he’d even known it. Surely he had? She’ll have to ask him. She’ll… She will get to ask him.

She wonders what creatures they’d once been. Elvhen, most likely. Spirits, perhaps, if spirits can be tainted. It stands to reason that they can, given that the Blight is formed from nothing but maddened memory tainted by poisoned lyrium.

It does her no good to ruminate on these possibilities now. She must shut her mind down to nothing else but survival, and it starts with getting herself far away from these clustered creatures as quickly as possible.

She risks a step forward. The chittering stops. Her heart leaps into her throat, thundering a sharp, staccato beat against her larynx. Another step and a hurlock close to her left side snarls wetly in warning.

Movement will aggravate them, then.

Her eyes scan the ruined buildings around her for some sort of escape route. Adrenaline will serve her well enough – she is confident that she could clear at least a sizeable wall of debris should she need to, but she has to make sure she has a clear shot and the necessary stamina to facilitate it.

Once chance. She can’t afford to make mistakes.

She wonders, then, with a ruthless sort of analytical calculation, if the pools of festering Blight might be of use to her. The taint is strong, and undoubtedly carries at least a bare trace of lyrium. It would be beyond reckless, utterly foolish, but it could serve to bolster her mana enough for a single, well-timed Fade-step. She need not imbibe it, but perhaps a moment’s proximity would be enough… Between dismemberment by Darkspawn and potential, currently unfathomable consequences, she knows which one she’d pick.

Erys shifts her weight onto her left leg. Slowly. So slowly. Inching towards a pool of ruby red disease, she dares not even breathe for fear of setting the creatures off inadvertently. As long as she moves slowly, doesn’t rush, doesn’t react, she can do this.

The Darkspawn continue to watch her in silence. The absence of their chittering is almost as chilling as their presence.

Had they been Elvhen, once?

The sole of her foot meets warmth and wetness. The cloying, viscous sensation of the physical Blignt beneath her feet is almost enough to have her retching, but she has no tongue to force a swallow, the movement reflexive but currently beyond her. All she can do is measure her breathes, dig her nails into her palm to soothe the revulsion with sharp little pinpricks of pain. Clarity. Patience.

It’s faint, so faint, but there is an unmistakeable thrum within the Blighted blood that she recognises. The proximity makes her dizzy, sets her vision to trembling, but she grits her teeth and bears it. Just for a moment, that’s all she needs. The well within her where her mana resides churns sluggishly, limbs prickling with the itching need to replenish. For a single spell, it will be enough, and then she must rely on her physical strength and run. Her window is a sliver of space between two watching genlocks, their grotesque heads cocked as they regard her with an expression carved into their melted faces that she could never hope to name. Hunger? Fury? She’d have better luck translating Old Tevene while drunk and blindfolded.

One mortal elf trapped in the Fade, powerless and alone. She can’t say she ever could have predicted this outcome. In every imagining of every possibility, Solas was beside her. Shame wars with her fear, but even that does not scratch the surface of the deeper dread lingering at the edge of her awareness, banished by willpower alone and yet threatening her weakening defences. There’s no possibility in which he is safe, but she can hope – and does so with every fibre of her being – that he is unharmed. Whatever has befallen her is her own fault – she let go of his hand.

Her right arm tingles numbly. A cursory expansion of her awareness, of the sense that governs her magic, and her meagrely replenished mana rises in preparation to prime the spell. The Blight sucks greedily at her flesh, a vast and domineering presence pressing down against her thoughts as though attempting to smother them. She is braced, as much as she can be, for the suffocating guile to thread itself through her thoughts, the clamouring whisper of a twisted, diseased song to try and pry a duet out of her. She is ready for it, and therefore unbalanced when it doesn’t come. She can feel the Blight curling through her head, slithering between her thoughts just from the barest contact of her skin, but it doesn’t feel like it’s trying to dominate her.

It feels like it’s trying to know her.

Instinct wins over sense. She recoils as wildly from the questioning presence as she would a violent one, deranged by a sudden sense of revulsion so deep it aches. She stumbles, arm flailing wildly for balance, and in her distraction, she is caught utterly unaware. Clawed hands seize her arm, hot, rancid breath snarling across her face as a hurlock lunges for her, ruined maw twisting into a chittering snarl. Erys cries out as the backs of her knees are swiftly kicked, forcing them to fold. The vicious grip on her arm does not keep her upright, she bends easily, choking on a wince as her knees hit stone. She fights and spits with all that is left in her, but her body bows under pressure anyway, chest forced to the ground and face— thrust toward the coiling pool of vibrant Blight.

She has no time to take a breath, but seals the seam of her lips against the poison anyway. Already, her lungs protest, but she fights her body’s need, frenzied. The Darkspawn is trying to Blight her.  She’s absolutely terrified that it will succeed. She’ll need to take a breath eventually, she can’t hold out against pure instinct. And when she does, the Blight will press forward and she will be just another victim to it, helpless as the rest.

And nothing will change.

Her head swims. Her lungs burn. The ingrained imperative to breathe consumes her thoughts. Her body convulses, a war churning in her tense muscles to drive her to live. She denies it with all that she is, wastes precious mana sending a thin, weak current of lightning sparking through her limbs, across her skin, but where one hurlock falters, another takes its place. She hasn’t the strength left to fight them. She needs to breathe.

For all her defiance, she isn’t strong enough to resist. Though the weight of fear is leaden in her chest and stomach, her lips part, terribly, awfully, a familiar motion darkened by a seizing fear striking hard below the ribs. It erupts and swallows her whole as she in turn gulps down a watery, Blight-filled breath, and even as her face is turned viciously away from the Darkspawn clutching at her, she burns for the tears that spill down her cheeks.

It is no Joining. But she is damned all the same.

I was unprepared, she thinks as a hurlock wrenches her upright by her hair, claws digging into her throat. A harsh palm rubs in a profane caress against her flesh, guiding her choking, tongueless mouth into the jarring act of swallowing without it. The blunted, severed nerves cannot place the taste of bile and Blight, but the stench is enough to thicken her throat with nausea. I thought I could bear it.

She is left, then, released like a discarded garment, and she folds just as easily onto her knees, arched forward and retching. Blight splatters the ground, frothy remnants coughed from her lungs, but she knows with a calming sort of certainty – to know it is to understand it, and there is surety in the comprehension of even the most horrid things – that her body fights a losing battle. She can choke and retch and thrash and writhe all she wants, but there is no denying this. Archdemon blood might have served her, given her something she could use. But this is infection, subjugation. She knows what Darkspawn do with women.

A double death sentence hangs over her now. Either she falls to Mythal’s wound, or the Blight twists her into some unrecognisable monster, stripping away her very self until she is nothing more than a mindless, slavering aberration. She knows which she would prefer; and given the choice she would turn upon the Darkspawn that yet linger, carving her own false Calling into their flesh until she is overwhelmed. But that isn’t an option for her now. One eventuality or the other will kill her – as with the Anchor she marches inexorably towards her death.

Something settles within her. Beyond fear, deeper than dread, soothing panic and helplessness with the cool balm of certainty. The rest of her life – against all of her wished and plans but undeniable – can only be measured in hours now. The Fade warps around her but even its eddying currents of not-time can’t stave off an inevitability like this.

And that’s okay.

Erys wipes her mouth. Pulls the sleeve of her tunic down over her wrist with her teeth so she can clutch the fabric and dab at her damp cheeks. A steadying breath, muted and vast in the unfamiliar cavern of her mouth. A second. A third. The Darkspawn do not attack her. Determination thickens in the hollows of her bones.

She gets to her feet and takes stock of the protests of her body. The wound in her side aches, shallow but deepening. Her mouth sits oddly around the absence of her tongue. Her eyes itch with grit and the swelling ache of shed tears. She is tired, down to her spirit, a fog of exhaustion barely held at bay. In some ways it’s the worst state she’s ever found herself in, but only for the inevitability of where these aches and wounds will take her. For now, she is bruised and battered but alive and capable, perhaps no worse off than she would have been had she taken a barrier-crumbling blow from a High Dragon. Comparatively, she is well enough.

And the Darkspawn still do not attack her.

She turns in place and the sparse sea of creatures shifts with her, chittering as they skitter back from her appraisal. Curious, she takes a step forward. They whine reedily as one and retreat further, hollow eyes fixed on her but unwilling, now, to approach. It’s not the behaviour of any Darkspawn she has ever encountered; the beasts attack indiscriminately. In this, they seem to fear her. They hold back, watching.

There is Blight inside her now, so maybe they recognise it, but it’s not the sort of infection that avails her. She can’t touch it, can’t search within her for a sense of power that makes a Warden. She hasn’t been elevated by their interference. All they’ve done is satisfied the discordant command that harrows their minds – they have infected her, but to what end she does not yet know, if there is even a greater reason to be found. She may just be attempting to find reason in insanity. The Blight had been predictable, once, or so the Wardens claimed. The gods had changed the game, and in the heart of all Blight, she’d be a fool to think the rules would stay the same.

At the same time that it changes her, it changes nothing. Her goal remains, beyond the interference of meddling, jilted gods or ancient, primordial madness.

Find Solas. Soothe the Blight.

And die.

So be it.

Retracing the steps of Mythal’s diversion is easy enough. She could do without the strange, straggling followers dogging her heels. They don’t draw close, but they also don’t disperse, leaving Erys with a bizarre entourage of shambling Darkspawn at her back. It leaves her ill at ease and restless, constantly looking back over her shoulder, but so far they seem content to follow where she leads. Do Darkspawn feel contentment? She’d always thought that to be Blighted was to know constant pain, for how erratically they behaved. Perhaps they do, but they hold some strange fascination with her that seems to lend itself to their inhuman curiosity. Stopping dead in her tracks makes them skitter back with a chorus of reproachful hisses, but if she continues on they follow like shadows in her wake.

She tries her best to ignore them. Unsuccessfully, but she tries. Their presence she could handle, for all that they instinctively terrify her, but the thought that they follow because they now recognise her as one of their own…

How long will she be able to keep ahold of who she is? How long until she loses her sense of self? It’s not the pain she’s afraid of – and there will be pain, she knows – but the loss of control over her mind and body, to be trapped within decaying flesh and lost to the madness of the Titans’ anger. She is so afraid to lose herself. The weight of titles she never wanted almost crushed her before; Herald, Inquisitor, duty she hadn’t asked for but claimed because of terrible, terrible misfortune. But this? This burden will break her, and no murmured voices of friends speaking her name in quiet moments of peace will be able to hold off its weight.

Find Solas. Soothe the Blight.

If she is to lose herself, she will hold to that duty. If she can’t have the ending she fought for, she will devote herself to one last cause.

Find Solas. Soothe the Blight.

She wipes roughly at her face. Grits her teeth. Raises her head high.

No more tears.

Find Solas. Soothe the Blight.

Ar nea sule’din .

Chapter Text

Arlathan is a metropolis formed of wide ovals framed by branching streets. It rests upon slanted ground, three stacks high, tiered like a cake at the heart of a feast. The circles of its design list to the west, giving it a grandly lopsided slant, though none of its formation can be described as careless. Its true majesty though, lies in magic that has long since degraded, the abrupt cessation of power halting at the precise moment of its fall – half the city rose above its foundation, suspended in towering structures above its heart, following a slow, lazy orbit above the skyline. They toppled like great cascading meteorites when the Veil erupted and severed the primitive flow of magic, sending homes and spires and libraries and walkways crashing down into the city below, raining a hailstorm of mosaic tiles toward the earth. Craters form pockets of destruction throughout the city, festering hives for Blight to nestle in, growing like a cancer, creeping ivy left unchecked to swarm and consume.

Erys watches it happen from an old border gateway, separating the lower reaches of the city from the middle. The memory unfolds in a loop, a shade of the event showing her with unflinching honesty the moment the heights of Arlathan came crashing down.

The ground trembles with the impact. White light flares so brilliantly it blinds. When the light fades, the memory resets, and Arlathan falls again. And again. And again.

If she looks away, the memory no longer exists, so she turns her gaze towards the gate barring her entry to the middle layer of the city. The walkway is wide enough across to hold two aravels abreast with room to spare. Of all that could strike her in that moment, Erys is utterly taken by the worn trails in the dirt underfoot – the preserved memory of a hundred caravan wheels, merchant carts, and footprints pressed into ancient earth. In that moment, there is no Blight, no pain, no dread. She is just a descendent, walking the paths belonging to her people so long ago.

She catches the reflection of wide, red eyes in the rusted metal of the towering gateway, just over her left shoulder, and the moment is lost to her instinctive shudder of fear. She turns her attention to the gate.

The mechanism is old, and not one she has ever encountered before. No chain nor winch to raise it, no handles or latches, and on closer inspection, she can’t even see a seam to mark the split of the doors, or even any hinges for that matter. When she pushes her palm against the filigreed metal, it refuses to budge, or slide, or shift, and remains stubbornly closed to her. No levers. It can’t be manually opened, then. No source of power visible that she can charge with magic – a risky attempt, given her current state, but how much magic could a single gate need?

She steps back to regard the structure in its entirety. The archway housing the door that bars her is perhaps four times her height, and the surrounding fencing – gold patterned as faux brick work – does not offer much in the way of handholds.

Erys bites back a growl. If she’s come all this way to be turned away by a gate, she might lose her mind.

Movement in get periphery draws her wary gaze. She tilts her head, brows drawn as one of the ghouls breaks away from her unwanted entourage. It limps towards the gate, listing to the left of it to press its shoulder against the brickwork façade, clicking wetly at her. Erys blinks, nonplussed, then recoils at it lets out a gurgling sort of whine, stunted arm grasping towards her. Its clawed fingers curl twice towards its palm

Well. She can tick off beckoned by a Darkspawn to the list of experiences she never wanted. Worse than that, though, she finds herself edging closer.

“Up,” it says, the sound grating out from deep within its ruined throat.

It is by sheer force of will alone that Erys is able to keep her reaction from displaying itself outwardly. Inwardly, every inch of her recoils down to her spirit, horrified and revolted to the core of some animal part of her hindbrain. Outwardly, her breath catches, and her eyes narrow on the half-crouched form of the ghoul.

“Up,” it insist again. What follows is a sickening sort of krrkkchk sound, wet and plosive, drawn out and distorted. The creature gives an impatient sort of shuffle in place. “Cccclimb.”

With a party at her back of un-Blighted company, she’d have a vast preference for spending hours attempting to divine the workings of an arcane Elvhen gate. She doesn’t have that luxury here. Her options are limited so severely by the double death sentence hanging over her, she doesn’t think she can even rightly call them options.

Her eyes flick to the top of the wall. Even if she stretches to full height, she won’t be able to clear the top of it. It isn’t as tall as the gate set into it, but the fencing is still a formidable height. She shakes her head. Her lips move around familiar words, but the absence of her tongue steals the shape of them. She shoves down the welling ache of grief.

“Ccclimb,” the creature insists. “Ccclimb…” Its mouth twists grotesquely around the sounds. “Vi…rasssss… tar.”

If she had the ability, Erys doesn’t know if she could break the silence that stretches between them then. Because hearing it speak had been disarming enough. Hearing it attempt to conjugate Elvhen at her is, quite frankly, terrifying.

And the implication is… awful.

“Bore. Mah,” is the eager, broken addition. It hisses cajolingly. “Bor-e-mah. Boremah. Borrrr. Ma. Nnna.”

Ar boremah na, is probably what it means. Not an especially comforting prospect, but Erys has no real frame of reference. How many people have ever had a Darkspawn tell them “I’m going to throw you”?

No, really, how many?

She eyes its thin but wiry arms, then looks once more to the top of the wall. If it did manage to shunt her up, she could grip it… but she isn’t entirely sure she has the strength necessary to drag herself the rest of the way up. She certainly can’t do it one-handed. Her expression must show her reluctance, because the eager little ghoul chitters unhappily at her.

“Saaaa,” it warbles sadly. At least, Erys thinks it might be sad. It certainly sounds it, but she is tired and scared and also possibly hallucinating. “Thaaan. Sath. Annn.”

Sathan. Please.

She approaches, always cautious, and the creature gurgles encouragingly. Something about the tone and pitch calls to her, sounds a Darkspawn should never make, kindly, almost, and not suited to the Blighted husk of flesh that it emanates from. More wrong than its existence, it creeps across her flesh like the prickle of insects, crawling, biting.

“Yesss,” the thing hisses, cupping its bulbous palms together. Teeth clenched against her revulsion, Erys carefully steps into its grasp, yelping when it hoists her easily and she has to brace her forearm against the wall to stop herself from toppling ass over elbow. Whatever the creature had once been – she knows, she knows, she refuses to see but she knows - its former strength has been preternaturally bolstered by Blight. It hefts her with a rasping huff and, expecting more of an upward shunt toward’s the top of the wall than anything else, Erys can only squawk in abrupt alarm as it tosses her – bodily and exceptionally easily – over the wall entirely.

She flails, stomach swooping violently, and braces herself as best she can for a sharp fall. Instead, something broad, ridged, and uncomfortably but not lethally spiked, collides hard with her stomach, forcing what little breath remains in her lungs harshly out past her lips. Then, she can only cling dumbly as an entire pink Blight tendril lowers her almost delicately down onto the ground past the wall. Once her unsteady legs are grounded again, it slithers away from her, coiling in on itself like a cat in a sunbeam.

Rubbing her sore abdomen, Erys decides then that it doesn’t matter how much of her people’s history is contained within these ancient walls. She fucking hates the Black City. She hates all of it so deeply, that she’s fairly certain the rage of that hatred could fuel every strained fire spell she would normally struggle to cast, if her mana wasn’t taking its fucking time in replenishing. Given the opportunity – because she most certainly has the motive – she would burn this place to the ground without hesitation or mercy, and with any luck take that circling fucking bitch of a dragon with it. Her mouth itches so badly it burns, like she’s downed half a cask of maraas-lok, like if she opened it wide enough, a torrent of flame would billow past her teeth hot enough to melt steel.

And under it all, under the anger and the pain and the frustration, her left side aches and her guts churn and her head swims and she’s dying, and there’s nothing she can do about it.

She gives the rage free reign to burn as hot as it likes for twenty heartbeats and no longer. Then, she wrestles it back down until it is nothing more than a low burn beneath the pain, just another dulled pang for her to ignore, and follows the old pathway before her up into the city’s middle tier. Every step speaks of a terrible absence, an ache deeper than her missing tongue, for which she is strangely grateful for. She can ask no questions absently, unthinkingly, and can’t be upset all over again when nothing but silence meets her. All she can do is walk on, picking her way through the remnants of a once-proud empire, and hope that the end of this trial will grant her the chance to rest before…

Before.

She tries not to think about it. She fights not to think about it. She follows the path, the churned earth that fades into cracked and splintered mosaics that depict stories she cannot follow. Down winding streets with wide-fronted buildings that hold the ruined frames of glass panes, glyphs of Elvhen – half-destroyed – that she doesn’t have the knowledge to decipher.

Never in her life has she felt as lonely as she does now, surrounded by the ghosts of her people, burning with questions and bereft of the only person whose answers she wants.

She wonders if, wherever he is, Solas is feeling the same.

***

It’s the voices that draw her in first.

Halfway over the remains of a huge fountain centrepiece in the shape of some sort of equine creature with the rear end of a fish, the sound of laughter rings out somewhere to her left, causing her head to snap towards it, ears pricking up. She slithers over the horse-fish’s back, feet splashing in the cracked fountain’s basin – old, murky, festering grey water that is disgustingly viscous – she clambers free of the wreckage towards the alleyway where the sound is loudest. It rings out again, a pealing bell-like clang of laughter, shockingly loud in the city’s silence, tinkling and sweetly fond. It echoes through the still air, lingering pleasantly in her ears.

She ignores the stiffness in her side as she moves, refusing to give into her body’s desire to overcompensate for the ache that would manifest in a limp if she let it. It jars her ribs unpleasantly, but for the moment it is manageable.

The alleyway opens up into another street, wider than any of the others she has picked her way through. This one has a deep, circular groove carved down the centre of it, like a roofless tunnel with remnants of that same biscuits water lingering in the shallows of it. A canal, of some sort? She’d seen similar features in parts of Minrathous, but it’s not the canal that holds her attention.

A scene unfolds before her – a haunting pantomime.

A child, perhaps eight or nine, by her estimate, dark haired and grey-eyed, holds up a handful of brightly shining stones. They catch and reflect no light, the shine comes from within the pebbles themselves, though Erys could not name the gems if pressed. The child, a boy, shakes long hair out of his eyes, tugging at the skirts of a taller women whose features match his own. Mother, Erys assumes, by the way a fond smile twists full, ruby-stained lips.

The boy asks her a question in Elvhen that flows too fast for Erys to catch. The mother answers, caressing her son’s ebony locks with long, ring-clad fingers. The rings conjoin with delicate chains that hang from a series of silver bands stacked up the length of her arm. Her dress – robe? – hangs from one shoulder, pinned in place by a brooch in the shape of a lark. She laughs at the boy, bright, rich, indulgent. Erys can smell cinnamon on the light breeze that tugs at the mother’s hem.

The memory warps abruptly and Erys recoils. The soft, sweet air turns stagnant and fallow. As her awareness falters, the images of mother and son dissolve into blistered, Blighted beasts, the smaller of which clutches a clawed handful of dirty grey stones.

“Mamae,” the smaller Darkspawn wheezes and Erys thinks she may be sick. “Itha.”

Erys’ vision blurs and she thinks for one wretched moment that she has given in to tears again, but when she blinks the blur remains, bright, white, and coiling like smoke.

“Don’t look, lethallan.”

The voice rings in her ears, perfectly parsed as verbal, but it lingers in her head like an idea she is not the origin of. She tilts her head back, breath catching as she follows the trail of that strange white mist, taking in a coiling shape above her almost too vast to mark fully. Tendrils ebb and curl, undulating in a gentle, languorous rhythm, and six bobbing shapes weave a slow dance above the entity’s… head? Crown? Are they eyes?

“Memory stirs them,” it tells her mournfully. “They follow commands etched into the Fade because they do not remember who they are but seek the familiar. Do not watch them, lethallan. The remembrance is not a kindness.”

That voice. It twists so sinuously through her thoughts, the eddying current of wind-tossed waves. The pull is so inexorable she doesn’t doubt that it could easily compel her if it so desired.

Spirit, she realises with no small sense of elation. A spirit! Untwisted and pure, in the Black City itself.

“Yes, indeed,” the spirit says. “Aneth ara, savhalla, well met, however you please. I sensed a traversal across the wards. You have come far, to find yourself here.”

The spiny tail of the spirit’s form curls around Erys’ wrist. It has no weight or sensation, nothing physical, at least, but Erys feels the contact in the core of herself, as though the spirit has curled around her heart rather than her flesh.

“You do,” the spirit adds, something like fondness thrumming through its unspoken words. Erys realises it has plucked the threads of her thoughts clean from her head. This isn’t unusual, Cole was much the same, but she doubts it will ever lose its uncanniness. “Ah, Compassion. I had hoped he might join you here. So diminished was I that I had no opportunity to speak with him when you approached me. Nor yourself, though I had dearly wished to.”

Pausing, Erys takes the time to try and form words from her thoughts – a courtesy, though perhaps an unnecessary one. You know me?

“No,” the spirit says. “I wished to. Wish to. Want to. You, who shone and he, who pulsed. Strange company to keep, but strange company is its own blessing. You were fractured, then, but you are more now. Are you the same, I wonder? Will the questions I held for you then have the same answers if I put them to you now?”

Erys’ head throbs, just a little. From the corner of her eye she watches the Darkspawn scoop pebbles from the ground and offer it to the creature that had been its mother. Another repeating tableau; they don’t mark her presence at all. You say then, but claim you don’t know me. Do I know you?

“No,” the spirit chimes again. “An opportunity lost to fear and greed. He ached like a bruise when he knelt before me and I could not spare a moment for you. The farewell hurt him and to divide my attention would have dishonoured us both. We formed of the same question, you know? Older than memory or time. I owed him the full focus of my farewell.”

Erys doesn’t think the spirit means Cole this time. She searches her own memory for a glimmer of recollection; when had she encountered a spirit in his company? Why would she not remember something like that? Who among her companions would ache to see a spirit…

“Ah!” It’s as much as Erys can offer, a wordless gasp of recognition. Her thoughts follow the exclamation. Wisdom!

“Oh!” The spirit flares, something deeply pleased cresting within the movement. It undulates like ribbons in the wind, but doesn’t release Erys’ wrist. “You remember!”

I remember! Erys thinks, so jubilantly that she could weep. Oh, Wisdom, you live!

“Sweet lethallan, you honour me with a place in your memories,” Wisdom coos. Folding in on itself, it coils its hugely spanning body down to butt against Erys’ cheek with its… eyestalks? “You are kind. Compassion’s companion, truly. Once I reformed enough to lament it, I wished so ardently that I could have spoken with you.”

Erys struggles to fully form the question she wants to ask within her mind, but Wisdom plucks the concept from her head with no difficulty. “Often, he is correct. But not always,” it says with the unmistakeable air of an older sibling. Erys knows it well. “He spoke to you in grief and rage, his answers a mirror to that turmoil. He was not wrong, but he was not right, and the distinction has always been his weakness.”

Erys is hardly going to argue. Her thoughts twist restlessly, a frustrating consequence of being trapped behind her ruined mouth for too long. Wisdom does not seem to care, coiling closely around Erys like a cape and humming softly as it sifts through her head to decipher the hopeless puzzle of her thoughts. “I am well, lethallan, and you are tender-hearted indeed to ask. You need not worry for me.” Its coiling tail brushes Erys’ cheek, moulding its shape under the line of her jaw. “May I?”

In jarring reciprocity, Wisdom pushes a concept gently against the boundary of Erys’ mind, no longer seeking answers but offering one of its own. In the bare glimpses that Erys’ mortal mind can parse, it seems to be trying to communicate the concept of taste, which isn’t really something a spirit can have any knowledge of, so the translation is incredibly murky. Still, once she understands what Wisdom is offering her, Erys responds eagerly in the affirmative.

“Forgive me, lethallan. This will not be pleasant.”

It really, really isn’t. Where mortal healing magic laid upon her feels like pressure building and a numbing, cool light, this feels like an itch deep in her bones, skin liquifying and crawling, bubbling without a burn. She clenches her teeth and tenses so as not to writhe with it, but Wisdom’s presence is a grounding one, holding her with no force but the gentle murmur of its being against her face – secure and reassuring. A low, discomfited groan wheedles it’s way out of Erys’ throat, and with a sensation of wet skin folding in on itself, the disconcerting, vacuous space of her mouth is filled familiarly once more.

“Oh,” Erys breathes, basking in the sensation, the ability, to run her tongue against her teeth, the roof of her mouth, the insides of her cheeks. The acrid sweetness of Blight lingers within the soft tissue, the copper tang of blood caught between her teeth and the restless, resinous bite of lyrium hanging thickly in her saliva, but the sheer relief subsumes the foul taste. Still, she lets it pool on her tongue and spits, partly in disgust, but mostly because she can. “Serannasan ma, lethallen. Oh, gods, I—“ Her voice crackles with disuse. “Thank you.”

Wisdom thrums happily. “I am glad I could serve this purpose.”

“I’m glad to have a friend in this awful place,” Erys admits. “The journey itself hasn’t— well, it was terrible in its own way, but being by myself certainly didn’t help. And with…” Her eyes flick upward. Still, the dragon circles. “What, ah, what brought you here?”

“How could we stay away?” Wisdom asks. “It is the closest our dearest one has been to us in millennia.” The spirit’s form bobs and sways, thrumming with a sudden, deep sense of melancholy. “He came to us through the Veil, seeing but not touching, barred by the gravest of his mistakes. How could we not come to him?”

“Solas?” Erys asks, as if the spirit could mean anyone else. “There are more spirits here?”

“Thousands,” Wisdom says with a gravity that makes Erys shiver. “The wards of the city are ancient and brittle. When first they rose, spirits were trapped within and kept without, though the spirits trapped did not see it as such. Is a prison a prison if one is bound beside those they love?”

“Yes,” Erys says at once. “A cage is still a cage with its door open. A prison doesn’t stop being a prison because you chose to be there. I followed Solas willingly, but we are still trapped.”

“And yet you would be nowhere else.”

Erys falls silent. Truly, yes, she would rather be outside… No. The barrier of the prison, the wards of the Black City, she would eagerly see them crumble, to admit her to the raw Fade in its entirety. But the Veil still exists and that is a prison the spirits have endured for so long. But Wisdom is correct in its statement that Erys would not want to be anywhere else.

“Why didn’t they see it that way?” Erys asks instead of trying to voice her snarled thoughts. “The spirits.”

“Because their companions were here,” Wisdom says. “Elvhenan was not split into those who ruled and those who served. Had it been, he would not have sworn himself to its resurrection. Many more simply lived, honoured Elvhen and the spirits who shared lives with them. We lived harmoniously for aeons. When the wards rose, the spirits within the boundary swore themselves to the Elvhen they also adored.”

“Possession?” Erys asks, startled.

“As you claim it, perhaps.” Wisdom flutters idly. “At the end of the empire, when he burned away the cancer dug into the world we once loved, many of us sought connection in our final moments.”

“Why?”

“Must it have a purpose? They were frightened. It is their memory that lingers in the city you stand in. The Darkspawn here are Elvhen, sullied by unconfined Blight. They subsist on the memories of lives snuffed out by the greatest tragedy of their age. They know no better.”

Erys swallows hard, deeply thankful that she can now do so without difficulty. “I thought it was Skyhold that… Where it happened.”

“Ah,” Wisdom hums. “Terasyl’an Tel’as. You are not incorrect. The spell that he cast was woven there, but the array of his ritual was carved into Arlathan’s foundations. Here is where the mad dreams sleep, and here is where the power was drawn from.”

And where they must attempt to soothe the dreams. But Erys had known that. “Is… Solas nearby?”

“Yes,” Wisdom says and Erys’ heart leaps. “He vexes himself.”

“Pardon?”

To clarify, “he has created a ward that he can no longer pass,” Wisdom adds. “To lock a door with a key in a specific shape, and then to warp and twist that key in the heat of a forge would render it useless, would it not? He is no longer the man who set the lock, and he rages at himself for it.”

“He’s already gone to the dreams? The— Titans?” Erys fights back an ill-timed surge of hurt. She’d thought he might look for her. No, she’d been certain he would look for her. She’d believed it wholly, unflinchingly, and now she has no idea what to do with this deep-set surge of hurt to find that she was wrong. Foolish, selfish, because he has greater duties to attend to, but…

“Oh,” Wisdom says, a strangely mortal utterance. “I have upset you.”

“What? No— You haven’t.” Erys flails, embarrassed, and steels herself. “No, I’m not— Please don’t think that—“

“I spoke poorly,” Wisdom says, “for I am not used to speaking. I am young again, and less wise than I was when we met. Once, I could have divined his reasons without even a sliver of doubt, but my elgar’lethal’lin is beyond the scope of my reason, just as I am reborn out of the scope of his. We are fated now to misunderstand each other, and as he has not come to me, I cannot offer you clarity on his choice. He has gone ahead, that much I can offer you. He rages at locks he himself placed and now cannot undo.”

The hurt compounds, consolidating into a ball of snarled emotion that radiates hurt like an overwrought bruise inside her. For a moment it swells so thickly she can barely breathe around it, so vast it overshadows the aches of her body and there is strange relief in that. Erys considers disbelief, but even she can’t fool herself into truly feeling it. It is, to her eternal frustration, absolutely something Solas would do. She could give into the seductively familiar flow of fury easily, she knows; rage through the pain as she had in those early days when his abandonment felt like drowning. But he has earned better from her than instinctual affront. He has, and before anything else. He is unpracticed, he makes mistakes, he is too used to being alone, but he tries and he has earned the steadying breath she takes before condemning him all over again, no matter how badly it stings.

There are a dozen reasons, if not more, that Solas could invent to permit himself to hurry ahead. He hasn’t been free to choose his own steps for so long, and Erys could argue that he still isn’t, if she were feeling particularly charitable. He may be unbound from his chosen duty – chosen being an exceptionally flimsy term but one that suffices well enough – but that sense of freedom has not had nearly long enough to take root in his guilty heart. It does either of them no favours for Erys to agonise over his reasoning without him present to defend himself. She’s learned the hard way that inventing excuses for him will only leave her bitter.

She’s startled out of her dark considerations when Wisdom butts its head gently beneath her chin. “I like the taste of your thoughts,” it says, somehow folding its twining form down small enough to lodge in the hollow of her throat. “You carry reason in the eddies of your musings. If the old structures still stood, I would draw you to Debate and keep you there a century.”

Stuck on the literal of exactly what her thoughts might taste like – as far as distractions go, it’s a good one – it takes Erys a moment to unpack that statement in full. “Debate? What is that, like a trial?”

“Only in a test of wits,” Wisdom answers. Its tail unfurls like an arrow, pointing to a tall, orange tower that has had the roof, and several higher floors, ripped clean off. “There. On the highest floor we would gather and speak. On philosophy, on art, on culture and sciences. Decades could pass and we would not mark them. It became a sport among us, formed and formless competing gleefully in oration.” Wisdom pulses then, crackling with a static energy that makes Erys’ skin prickle and the fine hairs on her arms and neck stand upright. “I had the honour of joining with him once. Our Debate spanned two centuries. None could match our passion in years, though many who came after tried. Our names are etched upon a pillar of achievement, I cannot bear to check if it still stands.”

The prickle intensifies, a charge of hones lightning that tastes so familiar that Erys aches. The realisation stirs an old fear. “Be careful, Wisdom. You sound proud.”

“I tread the boundary but do not cross it,” Wisdom assures her. “There is Pride in Wisdom, lethallan. You know that as well as I, and you know it without sharing the purpose I hold. You’ve walked with Pride and learned his Wisdom and shared your own and I love you. The shape of all that you are is a cradle my kin and I can find solace in, and so I love you. You dull the edges of the proudest of us. I will help you. I love you. Will you let me?”

“I…” Erys licks her lips, gone awkward and anxious. “I didn’t know I had such a way with spirits.”

“You are loved by one of the oldest of us, the youngest would surely follow.”

Erys doesn’t know what to say to that. “Wisdom spirits all speak in riddles, then?”

“Yes,” Wisdom says. “It is how we play.” As if to illustrate a sense of whimsy, Wisdom weaves around her neck, rubbing against her, catlike and sweet, tendrils curling. “We seek out minds to tempt and tease us, and relish in their flavour. We bandy words about like confetti, tossed with eagerness and joy to rain down on those we choose. We gift and share them, you know this sharing – bread broken around a fire, songs sung to the stars. Dancing! The Dalish love to dance, you remember the steps even now. You would have liked to show him and he wanted so desperately to learn the steps as you span them. An old dream, one he dared not revel in, but he wanted it all the same, the first time he heard you hum a hymn he recognised. If he could forget, he would have let the elders anoint his face. For you. Shared an aravel and raised a babe. For you.”

“Oh, I can’t think about that,” Erys says thickly, eyes stinging suspiciously. “Please don’t say things like that.”

“But it’s true.”

“That doesn’t—“ Erys shakes her head to dislodge those pretty, painful thoughts. “I can’t even imagine it. Solas and Dalish never went together. I can’t believe he would ever think of…”

“For you,” Wisdom says again. “But he stumbled on the blood writing. Sylaise, if he had to, but he knows how heartily she would have laughed at him.”

Erys traps a slightly hysterical laugh behind clenched teeth. She’d almost taken Sylaise’s vallaslin herself. That Solas had ever considered it, imagined a life among the Dalish, for her… “He’s a stupid, idiotic man and he should have told me.”

“One dream among many,” Wisdom sighs. “He has hundreds of them.”

Hundreds of dreams. Erys sways dizzily. “You said you’d help me?”

“Oh, yes,” Wisdom says eagerly. “I will lead you through. The Blighted things won’t harm you – your womb is filled with the taint they revere, but the way is far and you don’t know the city.”

“My womb— what?”

“You supped the Blight. It festers.”

“Oh.” Erys’ legs quiver with relief. Because she is insane, she finds that a far less daunting prospect than… No. She can’t think it. “It’s… not actually in my womb, though, is it…?”

“It’s spreading,” Wisdom says, as though that is any sort of comfort. “Slowly – Justice would not suffer it to hinder her plans. She has claimed your life for her own, the Blight will not take you. You are promised to too many deaths, lethallan.”

“Justice is a cunt,” Erys says blandly, glaring at the dragon above them. What the fuck is it even doing? “And that’s not surprising. I’m certain there are a hundred mercenaries, assassins, and political hounds that are currently raging about the fact that I removed myself from the board before they could. I doubt a single one of them ever predicted Andraste’s Herald walking herself happily into the Fade.” She hopes they pissed themselves about it. “Wisdom, you distract me.”

“I am not sorry,” Wisdom hums. “But you have indulged me long enough. I said I would help you. I will lead, if you will follow.”

“Yes, absolutely.”

Wisdom unspools from her body like threads of lace. “We must be faster.” Its form quivers then, flaring so brightly Erys has to shield her face. When she looks back, a familiar shape greets her, but not one so large as to tower over her. Six, pale eyes trap her in their fathomless gaze, embedded in the thick-furred face of a large white wolf.

Lips twisting, Erys asks, “common theme, is it?”

Wisdom snuffles, bowing its head. “We were born of the same wolf. He just cannot remember.”

“Stop that!” Erys complains. “Stop— You know I’m just going to want to ask more questions.”

The wolf gives a hiccuping, gusting chuff. It’s laughing at her. “You are loved by Wisdom. The years when questions gave way to silence were the worst he endured.”

“I’ll ask a thousand questions when this is over,” Erys threatens darkly. As if she will be alive to ask them. As if Justice won’t get her way. “Do you expect me to ride you? You seem too small.”

“Ride? No.” Wisdom lowers its belly to the ground, paws extended before it. “You want it – I can give it. A trade, or a gift, however you wish to name it.”

Erys manages to get out a clueless, “eh?” before Wisdom pounces.

***

The greatest tragedy of Erys’ life is that she is apparently cursed to discover knowledge both ancient and immense, and then afforded none of the time she would like to obsess over it from every angle. The greatest tragedy because she is a glutton for knowledge – Deshanna would tolerate no less from her first – and circumstances thus far have conspired to keep her from indulging in that gluttony. Duty overtaking curiosity – never enough time to ask Solas every little detail and every little ruin. Pouring over the books in Skyhold’s library, more books than she had ever seen in her life, and always pulled away by someone, some matter, some crisis that demanded her personal attention. Dreams, when she finally learned to control them, walking through battlefields long after she’d collapsed into her bedroll in exhaustion, but never settled long enough to ask the spirits everything she wanted to.

And now, shoulder to shoulder with Wisdom, racing through the streets of Arlathan – her people’s first and greatest home! – paws drumming at the dirt, heart thundering a joyous beat in her chest, she doesn’t have anywhere near as much time as she’d like to be able to bask in Wisdom’s gifted knowledge. For the Fade-touched gift to sink into her skin, to relish in the shape it gives her anew, to wonder how her muscles could be reshaped so well to give form to new flesh.

The form of the she-wolf she has taken feels so different. Her muscles flex and twist in strange ways, she is closer to the ground and her senses – she can feel the wind through her fur, ears twitching towards every little sound, a cluster of rocks disturbed underfoot by shambling Darkspawn, the way their rancid breath carries on the memory of wind. The strange, absent stirring of Blighted hearts in their chests. But even that is a symphony to her, every sound making up the world around her, claws raking at the earth as she pushes herself faster, faster.

Like this, the wound in her side aches less, and she can ignore the tackiness of weakly oozing blood against her fur in favour of the intoxicating thrum of adrenaline in her blood. Like this, she is both less and more than herself. She is instinct, without the messy consequences.

Don’t stray, lethallan, Wisdom murmurs wordlessly. This form is swift but untested. Remember your purpose.

A ripple shudders through Erys from snout to tail. Purpose. Right. She whuffs her acknowledgement because she can’t form words like this, and is pleased by Wisdom’s gentle, answering thrum of praise.

She must focus, though, because to lose the thread of concentration maintaining this unfamiliar shape would be to send her crashing into ruined pathways. Wisdom is her counterweight, she cannot run alone, and their shoulders are wedged together by tendrils of intention, so that every flex of Erys’ wolven body is matched and mirrored by Wisdom’s; without that brace of aid, Erys’ stunted foreleg would offer no balance. Partnered with the swift-stepping spirit, where one wolf would have three limbs, together they have seven. Wisdom bids her silently, assuring her that when her mana repools, when her spirit’s resource is not hampered with exhaustion and pain, when she learns this form and the Fade suffuses her body entirely so she can call it on a whim, that it will be nothing to command her muscles and flesh to extend, that the reshaping of her elven body into the wolf will allow her to complete what the Anchor decayed. But not yet. She is too weak and too untrained for that. She can only command the form now because Wisdom allows it. The sharing of knowledge is all that makes it possible.

Erys is too lost in the joy of this primal existence to concern herself with the fact that she won’t take the form again. She doesn’t have that much time left to her.

Like ghosts, the twinned wolves weave their way through the city. Erys trusts every step to the spirit guiding her, utterly and without hesitation. Free as she has ever been. And yet, stirring beneath the exhilaration, is a call so deep she can feel it pounding a war drum in her marrow.

She had thought she and Wisdom would run until they reached the third and highest tier of the city, but it is the very centre of the second level of Arlathan that Wisdom brings them to. The shadow of the upper echelon is deep and sprawling, vast, even with no sun to cast it, but even the rising edifice that makes up the foundation of Arlathan’s crown is not as daunting as the structure Wisdom leads them to.

An austere domed roof supported by a dozen columns wider than the trunks of even the most ancient Thedosian oaks. She can’t tell what materials the twisting burnished frames are comprised of, but from those pillars spiral arcs of glistening metallic spines that hold curved sheets of fractal stained glass, the sort that belongs nestled in the grandest Chantry. It showers patters on the floors that seem to move the longer she watches them; a coiling, great beast – a dragon – cresting and weaving like a living tidal wave.

Despite the grandeur of its bright, arid roof, the columns give way to a long, dark hall, swallowed by shadow darker than even her augmented gaze can pierce. She wonders if Wisdom can or will bestow the Veil-sight, but the thought doesn’t fully forms enough for Wisdom to answer it before the spirit presence withdraws from both Erys’ mind and body, pulling the fur from her limbs with a rush of sensation that leaves Erys dizzy and—

She gasps, sinking heavily to one knee. It isn’t the disorientation of reclaiming her familiar form that unsettles her - she’s grit her teeth through worse bouts of mana sickness than this – but the ripple of pain that swarms like a cluster of furious wasps, deep in her left side. Her hand presses to the inflamed skin instinctively as though to shield it, but even the lightest touch has her hissing out a shivering groan through her teeth.

Wisdom says nothing, flittering above her head like a frightened, oversized bird. It drifts closer, only to shy away again, the tips of its translucent tendrils curling helplessly toward her.

It wants to help. It just doesn’t know how.

“I’m alright,” Erys manages to assure it, though the lie is weak and neither of them believe it. “I am.” She can’t reinforce a fragile foundation, but there is comfort in the repetition of the falsehood nonetheless. “Tell me… where we are?”

Wisdom trembles from eyestalk to tail tip. “…Yes. Yes, of course.” Despite its agreement, it still waits for Erys to find a slow, even pace of breathing that doesn’t rip fire through her flesh. “There is space beneath where spirits do not dare to venture. I will go, I will be with you – as I have promised. You stand on Justice’s precipice, where the guilty were called and the righteous once stepped. We must go— Beneath. Under. Deeper than light and memory. The first and greatest regret. Under Justice’s eternal guard.” A discordant, baleful hum rings from Wisdom’s anxiously twisting form. “You will hurt.”

There are a good few puzzle pieces in Wisdom’s words that Erys would love to linger on if she had the luxury. She’s felt this pull once before, and hoped never to endure it again, but with every thought-stealing lash of pain through her side, the violent pulse of the Anchor jolts its way cruelly through her memories. She had been so convinced, then, that she was walking to her death. The familiarity is… chilling, to say the least.

Slowly, as though each movement doesn’t threaten to tear her apart, Erys manages to find her feet. “Justice’s… precipice, you said?” Isn’t that just wonderfully inviting. Her recollection twinges. “Mythal’s court?”

Wisdom pulses a gentle glow of confirmation. “One of many, but the first. Arlathan was not formed from the ground to the heavens. The heart was raised, then its crown laid. The lower reaches followed when glory turned to obsession, never a wider divide. And in its heart, Justice. Whatever she could make of it.”

Erys can’t deny that there is Mythal in every imposing curve and spike of the building before them. Harsh lines, partnered by flowing curves, speak of the All-Mother as if by reverent, fearful whispers. Erys does not doubt that the People would have loved her, but neither does she doubt that they feared her. “Is this one like her temple? In the Arbor Wilds?”

Wisdom’s eyestalks dip in a curious sort of wave. “In what way?”

“You’ve seen it? The path to reach the inner sanctum. The… plates and the tones? Does this one have a puzzle?”

“No puzzle,” Wisdom says and Erys breathes a laboured sigh of relief. It catches painfully against her ribs. “The path itself is the petitioner’s test. It is old, and no spirits linger here. You’ve no audience to submit yourself before. The way is clear.”

None of that is particularly reassuring, but Erys will take it. She’d drag herself across broken glass and hot coals if she had to because, “Solas is inside?”

It’s alarming, more than anything else, to see how Wisdom’s form dims then. The gentle illumination of its form, a warm, buttery reassurance in this place of shadows and pain, flickers like a candleflame in a gale, and its body lowers towards the ground. “Do you know of how he came to be?” Wisdom asks faintly. Its tail winds in slow, anxious circles, and Erys wonders if she would be permitted to reach for it, to hold Wisdom in some show of physical comfort, or if it would be heinously rude. She could ask, but Wisdom’s question hangs heavily in the air between them.

“I know it was painful,” she says carefully. “And I know he didn’t want it.”

“No,” Wisdom says. “I do not speak of the stolen stone. Emotion births spirits, lethallan. We are formed of feeling and purpose. We are the ephemeral partner to the corporeal, and fewer and fewer of us are born with every passing age. Where the Veil thins, where our worlds touch in fleeting caress we find form, but once we were legion and now we are all of us rare.”

Erys is all at once beset by both grief and shame. She never gave it any thought. Of all the questions she had asked Solas, she never probed into the reality of where spirits came from. In her mind, their home in the Fade answered that question vaguely enough to satisfy her – a rare moment of short-sightedness in her own curiosity – but now she cannot stand to think that she had ever been so incurious. Spirits die, she knows this well enough; how may demons have fallen to her magic? Wisdom itself had died once before, and only the wisping remnants of what it had once been catching on a strong enough memory had been enough to call it back. Solas had mourned the loss so deeply, in a way that Erys can only truly appreciate now that she knows what he was. But that doesn’t excuse her ignorance, wilful, shameful, in not asking how spirits are given life.

In pain I was first called to existence.

We were born of the same wolf.

Wisdom startles her with the sudden flare of its dimmed light. “No shame, lethallan. Your curiosity hungers but you cannot hold yourself accountable for not gorging yourself. Questions not yet asked are not a failing.”

“I should have…” Erys doesn’t quite know how to answer that. The sense of failure she feels is suffocating but ultimately formless, directionless. There but inexplicable. “I just…”

“I promise you, lethallan,” Wisdom says with a fondness Erys doesn’t feel she’s earned, “you have no reason to chastise yourself in this. You have time now to ask.”

Erys flinches. “I don’t think that I do, Wisdom. I… wish that I did.”

Wisdom’s silence says more than their words ever could. In it, weighing heavily without mercy, Erys finds a strange sense of comfort that soothes her protectively detached heart, because there is no comfort Wisdom can offer her. No words can ease the reality that awaits her, and the sagacious spirit would not attempt to clumsily appease her with trite assurances and pitiful sympathies. In that wretched silence, Erys finds an unexpected balm in the form of Wisdom’s certain condemnation. There is nothing to be said.

And yet, “I will stay with you,” Wisdom promises, and there is sweetness in the solemnity of that vow. Erys bows her head in thanks, unable to articulate just how much that means to her. Hopefully, Wisdom will be able to glean her gratitude from her thoughts, and no more difficult words will need to be spoken.

Once more, the spirit twines its tail around Erys’ wrist, and they begin their slow trek into the All-Mother’s court.

***

“Oh, falon,” Wisdom sighs with all the exasperation of a truly vexed elder sibling. “You come to me with this? Of all things?”

Rather petulantly, Solas digs his toes beneath a pebble, shifting his weight to flick it away from him, the air of a chastened toddler hanging about his shoulders. “If you’ve nothing helpful to offer me—“

“I didn’t say that,” the spirit counters with a charming trill, folding itself into a vacuous and warping form of a young Elvhen, in silhouette but not in detail. “I simply wanted to relish in the unexpected delight of being approached for advice of the heart and not the head.” Its eyestalks twist towards the pristine head in question. “I told you the stress would get you in the end. You didn’t even have time to go grey.”

“If you please,” Solas says, pained. “Mock my suffering when I am gone from you.”

“Ah,” Wisdom intones. “I have injured your pride.”

“That isn’t funny.”

“I rather think it is.”

“It isn’t,” Solas insists, bristling. “That I have even entertained the notion is laughable at best. I do not need advice of the heart, you insult me by naming it thus. I am…” He can’t seem to even form the words, forehead creasing a gully between his brows. “The situation is untenable. My proximity is unavoidable, but the risk of entanglement—“

“There’s no shame in admitting you’ve been blindsided,” Wisdom says, a smile thick in its voice. “Actually, I would argue that there is wisdom in admitting such a thing. Of course you wouldn’t have expected it, but it has fallen at your feet regardless of your feelings on the matter. As such things are wont to do.”

Solas huffs irritably. “Do you have nothing of use for me, falon? Or must I suffer your teasing a while longer before you deign to help me?”

“I am content to tease you as long as I live,” is Wisdom’s gleeful response. “Simply put, Solas, I cannot help you. This is not the purpose for which I was formed, as well you know. There is nothing I can tell you that you don’t already know, save perhaps reiterating the fact that I think you an irredeemable fool in this regard above all others.”

“Thank you,” Solas says through his teeth. “How uncommonly insightful.”

“Hush, youngling. Still your rebellious tongue in the presence of your elders.”

“By mere moments, my dearest kin.”

Fondly, Wisdom sighs, stepping closer so that it might rest its head against Solas’ shoulder. Predictably, he does not melt immediately into the contact, shuttered, prideful thing that he is. He remains carved with tension, stiff as unbled stone, but Wisdom does not retract its closeness. “Tell me, falon,” it goads softly. “Speak to me of your troubles. I will listen, even if I cannot help you.”

The encouragement is wholly unnecessary. Though vastly unpracticed in the art of physical speech, Solas remains as loquacious as ever within the Dreaming, and the soft blanket of the Fade makes for a startlingly blank canvas for his whirling, restless thoughts. They explode from him in fresh, pigmented swathes, and Wisdom watches the colours unfold with relish. “It was not supposed to be this way! To say I didn’t foresee this is a catastrophic understatement, but I cannot even claim it a miscalculation. It was never an equation that needed to be accounted for and I am furious with myself for not knowing that I might need to consider it. How could I? In what realm was this ever meant to be possible? What quality do I possess that could inspire such…” His expression twists unhappily. “I am distressed, falon. This world battles me at every turn – I am suffocating and surrounded on all sides by near-corpses that do not even know that they are drowning. And in the midst of it all— her.”

He says it with such vitriol that Wisdom would doubt the reason for his presence here, all but begging for its advice, if it did not know him so well. “Ah, yes, the aforementioned equation. Of course you would attempt to throw mathematics at emotion.”

“I’ve thrown everything else at it,” Solas says darkly. “I’ve no idea what else to do.”

“Mm,” Wisdom hums absently. “A strange thing to insist upon, when you’ve made nothing but the barest attempts at avoidance. The last time we spoke, you had precious little praise to offer this… what do the humans call her? Herald?”

“Of some shemlen religion that rose to prominence while I recovered. I do not understand the mortal compulsion for fanaticism toward a higher power.”

“I have chastised you for this before. You’ve had countless ages to acquaint yourself with the mortals’ propensity for faith, and you decry it as some fool attempt to lay excuses at the feet of divinity. It is not about shifting accountability to some unseen force, it is about finding reason amidst the unreasonable. Life is infinitely complex for the short-lived races, you cannot begrudge them this comfort.”

“Can I not? When they fashion their faith into a blade to raise against my people?”

“Cry havoc in the moonlight,” Wisdom utters flatly, an edge to the ancient recitation. “Let the fire of vengeance burn, the cause is clear. Even you cannot be so hypocritical.”

Solas grits his teeth with an audible crack. “I— concede your point. It does not soothe my disquiet.”

“Nor should it. There is little justice in it, but perhaps it serves to show you that rabid faith is dangerous in the hands of all.” Wisdom lets that hang in the air between them for a moment. “This is not why you came to me, falon. What changed? The quickling vexed you. What form has the root of your frustration taken?”

Solas releases a sigh that would likely gust for a century if he were not so desperate to voice what is truly bothering him. Despite his protestations to the contrary. “Everything,” he admits like it pains him. “That is— everything has changed. My path was clear, even following my mistake. The Conclave and what followed was regrettable – is regrettable – but I am situated beneficially regardless. The interests of the shemlen Inquisition suit my purpose for now and I am content to offer my guidance until that changes. All I need to do is remain patient.”

Wisdom does the same, waiting silently for him to continue, which he does, if with a cloying air of melancholy. “She seeks me out.”

“Oh?”

“Constantly. And it is constant, falon. I have lost count of how many questions I have answered. Any errant thought that crosses her mind she inevitably puts to me. She is a mage, she is not ignorant of the world around her, and yet she comes to me as though she is suffering the most acute dearth of knowledge imaginable. Nothing I offer her seems to suffice, she does not—“

“Try again.”

Solas stills, mouth open. “…I don’t follow.”

“You do not speak truly.” Wisdom nudges him roughly. “Disingenuously unfaithful interpretations aside, you yourself do not even believe the lie you are trying to craft. You mean to tell me that the relentless questions are, what? Bothersome?”

Solas’ ears flatten against his head, contrite. “I… no. I don’t mean that. It… frustrates me. I have not… It has been a long time. Since I have had such… curiosity put to me.”

“I know,” Wisdom says softly. “But you do yourself no favours by denying it.”

“It is what I should do,” he laments. “If I had any sense, if I were wise – truly wise – I would have turned her away the instant she approached me. I meant to, I truly did. What could the Dalish have to tell me?” He bares his teeth in a snarl that does not hold. A sigh escapes, and Wisdom is not so old that it cannot recognise the longing he tries so desperately to hide. “I cannot bear how attentively she listens.”

“Thu’elvyral Fen’Harel eal tel’misu!” Wisdom cackles, ignoring Solas’ indignant snarl. “Oh, forgive me my teasing, falon. I know it has been countless ages since your words were last heeded.”

“…It isn’t just that,” Solas admits in a whisper. “She is— kind. I expected some ruthless pragmatism to take hold of her in this endeavour. And yet she approaches the most damning of choices determined to find some hidden third path and often succeeds. There is…” He pulls a face. “Wisdom in her choices. She listens intently to counsel, and acts with confidence when decided. And yet when faced with the consequences of these decisions, she does not shy away from them and bears them as her due. I am…”

“You are…?”

“I think of her,” Solas says softly. “Often. Foolishly often. Shamefully often. I do not want for her approval, because it is equally as heartening to have it as it is to have her contention. She challenges me and I do not feel attacked. I am as enamoured by her scowl as I am by her smile and—“

He cuts himself off mercilessly. He has said too much. Wisdom would love to hear him say more, but it recognises with ageless familiarity that he has stumbled too far over his own boundary of tolerance.

“You treat the first gentle stirrings of the heart as a viper coiled to strike,” it sighs. “It saddens me, falon, that you do not see the joy in it.”

“Joy?” Solas repeats, recoiling as though struck. “Joy? What joy is there to be found in this? I have pit myself against fruitless endeavours before, but this is the worst of them. It can become nothing, it must become nothing. I would prefer it if she looked upon me as nothing more than a tool. If she approached me out of a desire to use me, I would be happier.”

“No, you wouldn’t.”

“I would.” The lie rings hollow. Wisdom does not push. “She is a fragment, an empty vessel crafted in the crude shape of something grand. If I can be of use to her, that is well, but I can’t stomach the idea that she sees— That she might want—“

“Ah,” Wisdom muses, ignoring Solas’ dour glare, “you have leapt ahead to the end without pausing to savour the journey. You have decided the outcome and deemed it futile. By your own wisdom,” a pregnant pause, narrow-eyed and pointed, “you have surely accounted for every variable and possibility, and so there is no room for error. Surely her feelings will unfold exactly to your predictions! Surely everything will follow the path you have set, and all will be well and you, my dear friend, will be proven right. Again.”

“You admonish me, but you know well what I must do,” Solas snaps waspishly. “What would you have me do? Maintain the lie and love her anyway?”

Wisdom shifts away from him slowly, looking about at the Fade around them, at the copse of high, wide-boughed blossom trees that have sprouted in the softest of petal-pinks, born of Solas’ regretful affection. It doesn’t think that Solas has even noticed. “You will lie to her until you cannot. Therein lies the conclusion I think you overlooked, ‘ma falon.”

Solas turns his head to look. Wisdom has never seen his eyes so wide.

“Anbanal var em,” he utters, and though it does not carry the true weight of a curse, it is filled with grief all the same.

***

“Is there… any way to stop that?” Erys asks faintly, expression twisted into a grimace that is only partly born of physical pain. “

“Ah,” Wisdom says softly, somewhat sheepish. “The fault is mine. Justice’s precipice catches the currents of errant thought and brings them to the surface. The geas prevents falsehoods, and brings recollection to the surface. I was not certain the magic endured, or I would have been more cautious.”

“It’s alright,” Erys mumbles, Solas’ horrified utterance yet ringing in her ears. “You just don’t really expect to get confronted by the reality of how much your partner didn’t want to love you.”

“I meant no harm.”

“You haven’t caused it, please— Don’t think that. I just…” She isn’t even sure why it upsets her. She would have given an arm to be… Well, she would have wanted nothing more than to know Solas’ thoughts in the early days of the clumsy but undeniable orbit they had been drawn into around each other, but that was before almost every piece of Solas’ past had been given to her by others. A lot of what she knows of him has been stolen, offered in scraps and fragments by people who witnessed his shame and regret against his will. Erys never wanted to be one of them, no matter how greedily she accepted what was offered. She regrets it now, but at the time… Well, she just wants the source to be willing, is all.

“I will be more careful,” Wisdom offers. “This place draws me into contemplation. I will guard against it.”

“Thank you. I’m sorry I’ve asked that of you.”

“Don’t be. It is well that you did. One can become helplessly lost in memories.”

Erys nods, too breathless for much in the way of conversation, and has to take a moment to brace herself against a cold pillar, feverish cheek pressed to the ancient marble. An oppressive air lingers against the old stones, a presence suffocating like thick humidity that lingers in the lungs. It feels defiant, as though pushing Erys back with every struggling step, and she would wonder if Mythal’s geas had already deemed her unworthy, if the evidence were not so clear. The Blight has not touched this place, no poison stains the pristine stones, and yet it lingers heavily within Erys, and this place rejects her for it.

She pushes on regardless, but the effort it takes is wreaking havoc on her weakened body. Wisdom is doing what it can to bolster her, but Mythal’s will is not easily defied.

“Just a moment,” Erys murmurs, eyes sliding closed. “I just need a… moment.”

“Of course,” Wisdom says, lingering nearby. “The old halls are heavy.”

“It’s the wards. I think. Repels the Blight.” Erys grimaces. “Feels like it’s trying to rip my guts out through my spine.” Or make her shit herself, in all honesty, but she doesn’t think that’s necessarily appropriate to mention.

Wisdom dances an odd little flutter on unfelt winds. “I don’t know if I can break them.”

“Don’t,” Erys grunts, pushing off the pillar with a wave of dizziness. “I’d rather not risk you. I can manage it for now. If I can’t… Well, then I can’t.”

“And you will tell me? If you cannot?”

“Of course I won’t, Wisdom, don’t be stupid.”

It’s a strange experience, to hear an unformed spirit laugh. It saturates the air around them, lightening the oppressive atmosphere with a tinkling chime that Erys can both hear and feel, a delightful prickling against her skin like dewdrops clinging to grass. Wisdom’s form pulses with it, the rippling softness of its light suffusing with a buttery sunlit glow. “I understand more now than he would permit me to and I am glad of it. I see why he was so troubled. I see why he believed himself helpless. I would call you nuasha’tuelan.”

Troublemaker. Erys cracks a weakened smile. “Can’t argue with that.”

Wisdom trembles again, but doesn’t speak. Instead, it weaves itself as it had before, folding down into a warping mass of light, just for a heartbeat, before it pulses and reshapes into the vague silhouette of an Elvhen; Erys recognises it from both her memory and Wisdom’s own. She isn’t, however, expecting Wisdom to wedge itself beneath Erys’ arm, careful to wrap its own featureless limb around her waist, below the deepening wound. “You will lean on me.” The command is edged with steel - it’s expecting a challenge.

Erys doesn’t resist. Oh, the old defiance flares, but she’s dying. If she can’t be weak now, when can she? “Ma serannas, lethallen.”

Wisdom has no mass, no tangible form – the sensation of cool mist lingers against Erys’ skin – but it is unmistakably present. Erys feels supported, but she cannot pinpoint with any accuracy exactly where the centre of that support is coming from. It’s like she’s leaning against a force that moulds against the contours of her own body, a vast, indecipherable weight pushing against her to keep her upright. Strange, but she can’t deny the support is appreciated.

“Good,” Wisdom praises softly. “I have you.”

In that moment, Erys feels an overwhelming sense of kinship for Solas’ furious desire to strike down the mages who so cruelly and ignorantly bound Wisdom. She thinks she would do anything to see this sweet spirit safe, or retaliate viciously in its defence. She hopes she has no reason to find out just how far she’s prepared to go for it.

They move in silence. Erys’ laboured breathing does not lend itself to conversation, and with each step the shrieking pain in her upper abdomen worsens, until each jarring footfall sends her thoughts scrambling like disturbed insects, tricky and hard to catch. All she can focus on is her own deafening heartbeat and the rasps of her heavy breaths, head bowed to watch each hazy footstep so that she doesn’t trip or fall. It is a strangely specific sort of torture to be rendered insensate to one’s surroundings in a place of such former glory and enduring power, but Erys is long past the point of reverence. It’s a miracle she’s even conscious, when every movement threatens to tear her mind to shreds. She doesn’t even have the wherewithal to tell if she’s crying, or the sense of mind to feel ashamed if she is. She has never before felt so disconnected and yet so present within her own body; watching it slowly fail her from afar and yet trapped within its confines to feel every beat of pain that shivers through it. It becomes meditative, almost. Below the pain there is absence, a void where she can lose herself to the muddying sensations until nothing can touch her. She reaches for it desperately.

“Erys’enya,” Wisdom cautions sharply. “Do not go there, da’len. That is not a place you can come back from.”

“I’m tired,” Erys insists with weakest petulance. It calls to her so sweetly, why can’t she answer?

“I know you are, lethallan, but you cannot go there. Please. Hold on just a little longer. He waits for you and I will not hand my brother your corpse.”

Words are difficult. Erys’ own get trapped within her dry, filthy mouth, and Wisdom’s echoes in her ears but do not latch onto comprehension.

The swelling void hisses and withdraws from her reach and Erys keens mournfully for it, swept up in the hot ache of pain and bereft of the coolness of its oblivion.

It isn’t fair.

She hurts.

She’s hurt for so long, been tired for so long.

Can’t she rest?

What duty could possibly be so important, what struggle yet remains that she must force herself against, after everything?

Her steps falter and Wisdom cries out in alarm but Erys is so sick of moving.

Her legs fold.

Just a moment, she just needs a moment.

That’s all…

“Isa’ma’lin, asa ma halani!”

Chapter Text

Hands. Hands? More solid than Wisdom’s ephemeral grasp, almost to the point of pain. They seize her face, cup her cheeks between trembling palms to tilt her up and there’s—light, dim, softened, and she’s grateful for that. Her head throbs with every blink and she can’t focus, but something warm presses to her forehead, a low murmur pressed to her skin.

Someone is speaking. To her? She isn’t sure, but the haze that tugs seductively at her awareness isn’t the beckoning call of sleep. What had Wisdom said? Not yet. Erys wants to slip into it so much, but something about it stops her. Something about the fierce grip on her face keeps her centred – wholly and unwillingly – within the aching wound of her body.

Words fracture against her awareness, a shattering of glass, cold, against her skin. They tremble and shake, great, shattering quakes in every word. “Ahn suem? Thu anel’amahn? Ahn suem su’asa?!”

“Tel’eolasan. Mythalan sou emal’asa… i banalhan. Ir abelas, falon. Ase dinal.”

Ase dinal. She is dying. Erys is dying? She knows that.

A panicked breath, quick and sharp as a blade. “…Tel’dirtha’ra. Din. Sileal, tel’dirtha’ra!”

“Ir abelas, ‘ma falon. Min nuathe em tas .”

For an eternity, or perhaps only a few scant seconds, there is silence. Then a cry, sharp and pained. Erys’ body recoils from it; never has she heard such pain in her life, a raw cry of absolute refusal. “Tel’dirtha’ra! Tel’eolas min’nu!”

Erys is moved, then. She knows because she can’t control her limbs enough to move herself, and even if she could she wouldn’t. To move is pain, and as something slips beneath her back, she lets out a shattering screech of agony, convulsing so violently her body forces bile up her throat.

Her face is turned against something that may once have been soft, but scrapes tackily against her feverish cheek. “Vhenan, ‘ma lath, ir abelas, ir abelas, atisha, sathan, sathan.”

Oh.

“Erys.” Her very name is a wound in his mouth. Vision blurring, she fights against her dimming senses. She needs to see him. “Erys’enya, ‘ma lath. Please look at me.”

I’m trying!

“She’s trying, lethallin. She is not yet gone from you.”

“Don’t.” Solas hisses the word, whip-sharp and furious. “She can’t.”

“Be gentle. This is not something you can fight against.”

“Melahn'an tamahn eal banal varem sul’em.”

A touch, featherlight, against her brow. “…You’re scaring her.”

Solas takes a slow, shuddering breath. Erys can feel it fluttering like a caged bird within her own chest. She wishes so dearly she could understand the beautiful agony of his words, but they are, in her exhaustion and the full spectrum of their only half-shared language, lost to her. It takes all that she has left to be able to open her eyes and still they won’t focus, but what she can see is worth the effort. Solas’ eyes, wide and shadowed but so beautifully bright and familiar, despite the way they shimmer.

“No, no,” Solas cautions softly. “Hush, my heart, it’s alright. All is well, I’m here. I’m here now.”

She believes him. With everything she is, she believes him. She wishes so dearly she could tell him.

“She knows,” Wisdom tells him. “She thinks you are beautiful.”

Solas bows over her, pressing his lips to her forehead with a soft, restrained sob that breaks her heart. She whimpers before she can stop herself because even that barely-there jostle of her body is enough to send a fresh wave of pain through her. Dimly she wonders why Solas won’t heal her. And then she understands.

He can’t.

She sucks in a breath against it anyway, grunting unhappily when Solas quickly – carefully – pulls away, looking utterly stricken. He can’t hide it now, it seems, the dread has etched itself immovably into his face; a fresh new wound she is hopeless to heal all over again. Perhaps this will be the greatest regret of her life, it certainly has the power to be. She should never have come to the Fade. She should never have subjected him to the sight of her dying, because the pain twisting his face is the worst thing she will ever see.

It wasn’t supposed to happen like this.

“What a miserable picture you all make.”

Oh, she was wrong. The worst thing she will ever see is the way Solas’ eyes widen in recognition, the way he curls in on himself so utterly. Afraid.

Erys turns her head as far as she can bear. Her surroundings are lost to her, whether by virtue of her fading awareness or fed by the Fade’s intention she doesn’t know, but her gaze is caught in the vacuum of Mythal’s presence, the way it expands to fill the lifeless, hazy space.

“I’m not easily impressed, da’len,” the All-Mother says softly, pride curling sinuously around every word. “Truly, I’m not. But I cannot pretend I am not fiercely proud to see you’ve found your way here.”

Solas sucks in a breath. Wisdom is quick to take his place at Erys’ side, its arms replacing Solas’ without the slightest jolt to Erys’ body. He stands, then, slowly, turning to face the All-Mother – in the flesh – for the first time in countless ages.

“Mythal.” Her name wavers familiarly on his tongue. He just can’t seem to meet her with confidence. Something about her cows him, bends his pride into something small.

“Pride,” she offers softly, almost reverently. “I have dreamed of this. All the words I wished to say, and I find myself utterly unable to recall them.”

Solas wavers like a spirit. Formed and bodied, it shouldn’t be possible, but he does. He flickers in place, just for a moment, as though the sight of Mythal is enough to shatter him completely. Perhaps it is. Erys wishes she could go to him.

And then he draws himself up. Shoulders squared, chin raised, Solas meets Mythal’s gaze with the steel of his own, and Wisdom lets out a mournful groan that Erys suspects only she can hear.

“You slithering, duplicitous bitch.”

“Lethallan,” Wisdom cautions quietly. “Don’t do this now.”

“I want to know,” Solas growls. He is— seething. Erys has seen the worst of him, or so she’d thought, but now, with her head pillowed against Wisdom’s chest, body cold and unresponsive to even her most desperate demands, she cannot recall ever seeing him this furious. “How long have you planned this? Tell me!”

Erys’ eyes slide thickly in her skull. Grit chafes beneath her eyelids. When her gaze settles, dragged reluctantly from Solas’ rigid back, they land on the presence that engulfs the chamber, excoriating it with her presence.

Mythal inclines her head slowly. She looks… disappointed. Crestfallen. The expression does not suit her. “You give me too much credit, Pride.”

“Tunan,” Wisdom begs. “Sathan.”

The spirit is ignored. The All-Mother and the Dread Wolf face each other and Erys can only watch mutely, an unwitting audience to their opposition. Wisdom’s formless fingers clutch her shoulders. She isn’t sure which of them the movement is intended to comfort. Even with a shadowed expression more concept than detail, Erys can feel its distress.

Solas, she thinks distantly. But there is no longer any relief tied to his name.

And he is shouting now.

“Do you think me blind?” He bellows, throwing a hand towards Erys. It is a vicious, callous movement. He doesn’t so much as turn his head to look her way. How had they…? Wisdom had been holding her. Erys’ legs had given out and so they remain, useless, sprawled clumsily across the floor. The marble underneath her is black, speckled with a volcanic sheen, and cracked. Had she done that? “I can feel you in her! Is nothing safe from your greedy clutches? Can I have nothing for myself?”

“Charming,” Mythal scoffs, lip curling. “We’re jumping straight to hurling accusations, how wonderful.”

“You dare,” Solas breathes, and the words tremble with rage. “You dare to make mockery of this? Unbothered, you stand there, while Wisdom brings me her corpse!”

“You’re premature, my wolf,” Mythal says, flicking her gaze to Erys. “She isn’t dead yet. Instead of shouting at me, perhaps you might shift your attention thus? It’s a miracle she even got here.”

“Sathan!” Wisdom cries. “These words are senseless! Tunan, I beg you – tend the child. Please, she has come so far.”

Mythal’s gaze softens unbearably. “I know,” she murmurs. “I watched.”

“Take your eyes off her,” Solas spits, side-stepping to shield Erys from the All-Mother’s gaze. “You answer to me.”

“Oh, away with you,” Mythal scoffs. “All bark and no bite, what exactly are you going to do? When have you ever seen me attack a creature that pitiful? Even my heart is not so hardened, Pride.” She clucks her tongue softly. “The state of her. I feel awful, truly.”

“Then why?” Solas demands. “Why harm her? Why choose her at all? If you’re using her to get to me, then I am here. You need not hurt her.”

“I did not choose her,” Mythal counters, gaze darkening, “or do you forget so easily? She fought for the right and I had no choice which vessel took me. That it fell to her was pure chance. It could have been the witch-child, or any creature eager enough to steal something sacred. Do you want honesty from me? I wish it had not been her.”

“Liar.”

“Wisdom.”

Erys calls for only one of them, tongue stumbling clumsily over the word, but suddenly there are three pairs of eyes upon her. Solas’ gaze is the heaviest, eyes flickering restlessly as though he can’t bear to look at her, and with a jolt Erys realises that’s exactly what it is. To see her lying broken unmistakably – to his senses – by Mythal’s hand, must twist something inside him he has no words for. If he had them, he would come back to her and the distance between them would not feel so vast.

“Lethallan,” Wisdom murmurs, pressing a cool, weightless palm against Erys’ cheek. “I am here.”

Her tongue is less cooperative now but Wisdom nods all the same, head dipping quickly in answer. “I will speak for you.” It raises its head, a frisson of static rippling along its form. “You will listen.”

“Speak, lethallenala,” Mythal bids. “We will listen.” Her gaze slides to Solas, lip curling. “I will listen. You’ve caught the wolf at his most unbearable.”

“Snake,” Solas snaps back. “Don’t speak to me.”

“Stop it,” Wisdom says, but the ephemeral tenor of its voice does not belong to the spirit. The cadence, inflection, and tone, Erys recognises dimly as her own. It sounds strange to her own ears, deeper, harsher, but she recognises it all the same. “I will not be the weapon you use to wound each other.”

Solas’ expression ripples with pain. All at once he seems to remember where he is and what lies before him. His eyes, wide and wild and ringed with the bruises of exhaustion, find Erys’ face once more and settle there. “Vhenan.”

“I’m sorry,” Wisdom says for Erys, speaking the words the very moment they form in her head. “I let go of your hand. I promised I would be beside you and I let you go.”

“No,” Solas says, taking an unsteady step towards her. “No, no, you didn’t. It was me, I let go. I didn’t—“ He swallows, throat convulsing wetly. “I couldn’t…”

“Speechless,” Mythal mutters. “That’s a first.”

Solas ripples with barely restrained violence. Erys has never seen him so uncontrolled. “Don’t,” Wisdom tells him as he coils like a viper. “I will not be the reason you hurt her.”

“He has reason enough of his own,” Mythal agrees with a chuckle, and though Solas bears his teeth, the trembling tension in his body is forcefully released.

“I believe her when she says it didn’t have to be me,” Wisdom continues, borrowed voice stronger than Erys could manage alone. Solas is unconvinced and will most likely remain so, but Erys is determined. “Tell him.”

Mythal rolls her eyes, lips twitching. “Bossy. But as you say. Pride.” The last, she directs to Solas. He inclines his head but does not look away from Erys. “Oh, I’m to address the back of that shining head, then?”

“For all the years I pleaded with the back of yours.”

Mythal sucks a breath through her teeth with a wince. “Ouch. But fair, I suppose. Oh.” Her theatrical grimace sharpens into something genuine. “That’s from you, I take it?”

Erys blinks slowly at her. Wisdom voices the question she can’t ask.

“I assumed the Well would allow some transference, but I didn’t expect it to offer me your feelings.” Mythal spits the word as if it is some great, disgusting failing on Erys’ part. “That’s incredibly rude.”

Solas, gaze having snapped almost unconsciously to Mythal, demands, “what do you mean the Well?” Understanding follows swiftly, but rather than shock, he closes his tired eyes and tips his head back. “Of course.”

“Oh, now he wants to listen! Where was this sentiment when I arrived? Absolutely no courtesy with this one, I barely had a boot in the door before he had his teeth bared.”

“Mythal,” Wisdom says. “Please. You’ve hurt him, he has no idea how to be near you again.”

“Well, he doesn’t need to learn,” Mythal counters petulantly. “I’m not here to rehash old arguments or dredge up old grudges. And believe me, we can hold them for aeons when we want to. Falon’din still owed me money before he killed me, did you know? I reckon he thought he’d gotten away with it, the bastard.” She huffs, smoke curling from her nostrils. “But I digress. I’m here to help you.”

“I welcome it,” Wisdom echoes. “There are wards? Solas can’t get past them.”

Solas stiffens but does not refute it. Mythal just scoffs. “Obviously. Otherwise I’m sure we’d all be bleating deranged lyrium songs and bleeding out of our tear ducts. I’m glad you’ve not reached that point yet, da’len, it’s incredibly off-putting.” Her golden eyes narrow. “I hope you didn’t think getting yourself Blighted would keep you from my clutches.”

The joke lands poorly, but Mythal seems entirely unbothered, cackling away to herself morbidly. Solas is watching her now, horror in every line of his face. He’s reached the conclusion Erys had when she’d been faced with Mythal before. The All-Mother is quite insane.

“You cannot reclaim life for a fragment,” he says, stopping Mythal’s laughter dead in its tracks.

“Oh?” She arches a brow at him. There is a deadly sort of glint in her eyes. “Can I not?”

“Stealing the life of a mortal girl will not restore you to what you were. Even mad, you must know that.”

Mythal’s reply is icy, near-silent in its fury. “I do not seek restoration, Solas.” His name sits jaggedly in her mouth. “I do not seek to be returned to what I was. You of all people should understand that; the thing that I was, malformed, misbegotten aberration, was a prison of titles and expectation. I do not want that.”

Solas’ gaze sharpens, hawk-like. “Then what do you want? If it’s power—“

“Do I look like Elgar’nan?” Mythal demands. “Do I look like that diseased tyrant? No, I don’t want power. I want what was owed to me!” She bellows the last, but Solas does not cower, though Wisdom bows over Erys protectively as the force of Mythal’s shout sends the chamber around them quaking. “You should understand, Solas. Your Wisdom failed me when I needed it most and I know I asked too much of you, but I had no one else!”

“I gave you all of myself!” Solas cries, swiping a hand through the air like a blade. “Your refusal to listen is not my failing!”

“Solas.” Wisdom calls the borrowed words softly. “Vhenan. Let her speak.”

Solas head snaps to Wisdom, and then to Erys in its arms. For a moment he looks so betrayed that Erys feels sick to her stomach, but a heavy breath later he nods. Just once. He will trust her, he tells her wordlessly and Erys could weep with relief. To Mythal, he bids, “speak, then. But know that I listen by her grace.”

Erys expects another pithy quip from the deranged Evanuris, but nothing comes. Instead, Mythal looks to her, and the sudden cessation of pain is so abrupt that Erys’ arm flings out, fingers anchoring into Wisdom’s formless shoulder so tightly it would surely hurt it if it inhabited a true body.

“Oh,” Erys breaths, grateful for the spirit’s reflexive support of a hand against her back. “Fenedhis— Shit.” She struggles upright, leaning more on Wisdom than her own strength, but able now to sit by her own merit and no longer sprawled in another’s arms is a blessing she never thought to count.

Mythal’s form dims accordingly to the transference of energy. Yet it’s only the quiet contrition of her expression that diminishes her presence. “Serannasan ma,” the All-Mother murmurs.

“I don’t need your thanks,” Erys says with a wince as her stiff jaw clicks. “But thank you, by the way. The tongue? Unnecessary.”

Solas steps towards her. Erys is quick to reach for him and he lifts her easily to her feet, wrapping his arms around her at once. His face finds a home nestled against her neck and he shudders violently once, breaths warm against her skin. For a moment, she just holds him, taking great comfort in the solidity of his presence. No stolen memory this time, just the real, firm weight of him in her arms.

“I’m alright,” she murmurs. For his benefit. “‘Ma fen, I’m alright.”

He doesn’t speak. The flutter of an uneven gasp against her neck is answer enough.

She is the first to pull away, though, because Mythal has fallen silent, watching with an intense sort of curiosity and no small amount of longing. Except it isn’t Solas she’s looking at.

Erys remembers keenly how Mythal’s love for Elgar’nan had burned in her breast when she saw him through the All-Mother’s eyes. She remembers it well, and she feels it now with Solas in her arms. Whatever they had once been to one another, Erys doesn’t care. She doesn’t care if Solas once adored Mythal beyond all reason. She doesn’t care if he ever called her vhenan. She doesn’t care because Mythal is in pain and Erys is only mortal, but also now linked to the All-Mother in a way that might just help her understand why.

“Tunan. That’s… Justice?”

Mythal nods. “An old title, and one I was called long after it ceased to fit. I could never quite let go of it.”

Erys steps away from Solas to face her fully. “Why didn’t it fit?”

“Can’t you see? Must you make me say it?”

“Please,” Erys asks softly. “I’m listening. That’s what you want, isn’t it? To be heard?” Mythal’s breath catches. Even Solas doesn’t seem to have expected that. “That’s why you took my tongue, isn’t it? Because it scared you that I wanted to understand. You sought out Wisdom because your voice wasn’t loud enough on its own. You tried to find common ground where there was none. You tried to keep the peace. You tried to be just.”

“Stop it.” The command carries no trace of her authority. It’s a plea. “You don’t know what I am. You don’t know. You can’t know.”

“I can,” Solas says. Erys startles, even though his voice is soft. “I do.”

Erys knows, then, that what follows is not meant for her. She is a witness in Mythal’s court, but the one on trial is the Adjudicator herself. Not for the first time, Mythal’s composure cracks, but instead of rage or derision, there is only pain seeping through the cracks. Real, genuine pain, and Erys’ heart throbs with sympathy.

“Do not look at me with pity.”

Solas moves from Erys’ side. Slowly, he approaches the All-Mother, every step careful, unhurried. Mythal’s eyes are sharp underneath their grief, and she watches every movement with an intensity that expects aggression. Erys can only hold her breath, watch and wait and hope, until Solas is close enough that he can reach out, always so slowly, to take one of her hands in his. His skin is startlingly pale against the blackened grey of her gauntlet.

“I never understood you,” he admits. Erys wonders what that admittance has cost him because he sags under the weight of it. Mythal’s hand lies limp in his grip, the clawed tips of her metal armour twitching. “I tried. But the friend who sought me out was not the one who called me into a body, and I could not understand the one that did.”

Mythal takes a shuddering breath. “Is it all horror, in your memories?”

“No,” Solas allows, shaking his head minutely. “I remember your comfort, when it hurt. You combed my hair when I cried.”

A fleeting smile flits across her face. “And Elgar’nan wove terrible braids into it.”

“He tried,” Solas says, for a moment so startlingly fond. “And that meant more than the tangles and knots he left behind.”

“So I combed it again.”

“And you sang.”

“You sang with me.”

“The song was stronger then. I hadn’t yet forgotten it.” Solas lifts her hand to his chest. Lays it over his heart. “Why did you not tell me?”

A breath, and Mythal’s eyes fill with tears. “How could I? Whatever path I chose, I was trapped by my own purpose. Every choice twisted me from what I was, I was lost before I ever came to you. The act that formed this body could never be justified. No matter how desperately I tried to excuse it, the truth twisted through me like poison. The ignorance of the act does not lessen its cruelty.”

“No.”

“I tried to build what I could from the ruins of what was, but I was not worthy of the work.”

Slowly, Solas curls her silver palm against his cheek. “Nor was I.”

Erys feels something twist within her. It isn’t quite grief, the edges are too sharp, warping inside her chest like a breath of chill air. Sweat prickles on her skin, underneath her dirty clothes. A rancid flavour lingers in the hollows of her throat.

Her focus is drifting. She lashes it to Mythal forcefully, berating herself.

She’s exhausted. That’s all.

Mythal is still speaking, demands, “what was I supposed to do?” while Erys wrestles with her own inattention. “I had no guide beyond my own twisted sense, and a thousand thousand children clamouring for my guidance. Parentless parent, untested, untrained, and the horns of war heralding the deaths of all those who followed me. Followed us. I had to protect them, I had to protect myself. All the while the Titans screamed their agony into our shared blood.”

A muscle in Solas’ jaw twitches. Brows tented, furrow deep, he has no answer. Wisdom is equally silent and Erys still drifts unsteadily within her own head. She would afford herself some lenience were they anywhere else, were anyone else offering their troubles to her, but this is the chance she wanted – if Mythal speaks, Erys might understand. If Mythal speaks, Solas might. And they could forgive each other. She hadn’t realised, hadn’t ever considered, how much she might want that. And still she can barely focus. Her ears are ringing.

“Erys.”

She startles, gasping. Mythal is holding her face. Why is Mythal holding her face? Why does everyone keep trying to hold her face?

“Look at me.”

Erys tries to shrug her off. Her only answer is a warning growl that has her stilling. Over Mythal’s shoulder, Solas looms like a spectre, watching them with narrowed eyes. Erys tries to ask him silently what Mythal thinks she’s doing. They were talking. Why aren’t they talking? Did she miss something?

“There,” Mythal says, tapping a thumb against Erys’ cheek. “I can see it. Nasty little eavesdropper, that.”

Rude, Erys thinks irritably. “Can you let go?”

“No,” Mythal says. “Be quiet.”

“All is well, vhenan,” Solas assures her. It would be believable if he didn’t look so afraid. “The Blight is…” He swallows. To Mythal, he says something in lyrical Elvhen, too fast for Erys to catch. Mythal’s lips twist in displeasure.

“It is. Absolutely. Passively, the geas should be able to control it, but it’s taking a considerable amount of effort to restrain her.”

“To what?” Erys tenses. “I’m not bound. What are you talking about?”

“Unbearable,” Mythal snaps. “Pride, you broke the world and stripped it of all common sense. I wouldn’t have to explain any of this if she were normal.”

“Tel’ea telamaan.”

“I’m being honest, not rude.” To Erys, she adds, “I’m not restraining you physically. You tried to attack me. I’m smothering the compulsion to do that again.”

Erys opens her mouth. Closes it. The ridged plates of her gauntlets scrape uncomfortably against her cheeks. “I didn’t?”

“You did,” Solas murmurs. He looks like the admittance pains him. “You can’t remember?”

“No! I was— You— Mythal said something about shared blood and then seized my face, I didn’t… I didn’t do anything.”

“I have competition,” Mythal says drily. “That’s annoying. I thought perhaps you’d gotten a bit jealous.”

“Stop it,” Solas barks. “This isn’t a game, Mythal, she’s unwell. You can feel the Blight as keenly as I can, don’t make light of this.”

“What would you have me do? It’s in her, I can’t rip it out. Unless you’ve stumbled on a cure during your guilty repose, there’s nothing that can be done.”

Solas flinches.

“If you’re done talking about me like I’m not here.” Erys dares to shove a hand against Mythal’s chest. The All-Mother grins at her. She doesn’t so much as twitch under the not inconsiderable force of Erys’ jab, but the does at least step away. Solas is quick to replace her, bringing an arm around her shoulders. “…Did I really attack you?”

“Well, no,” Mythal says. “If anything, you advanced with malicious intent. We’re lucky you’ve got the mana reserves of a gnat, or you might have successfully creased my skirts.”

“I’ve tried to share my own,” Solas says, frowning. “It’s like you’re resisting it. Which you shouldn’t be able to do. Even non-mages have a vestigial mana pool.”

“Ew,” Erys says, reflexively. “Don’t say vestigial.”

Solas looks at her blankly for a long moment. Then the skin around his eyes creases, part relief, part affection, and he lets out a low breath that might have once been a laugh, pressing his lips to her temple. “Vestigial,” he deadpans. She snorts. “You smell awful, my heart.”

Mythal cackles.

“Blame her,” Erys scowls, glaring at the Elvhen woman. “For tossing me around in the dirt like a sack of bricks.”

“She called me a cunt to my face and broke my nose,” Mythal fires back. Solas makes a strangled noise low in his throat. “I did dare her to, but I didn’t think she’d actually do it.”

“Are you a child?” Erys demands. “You cracked my ribs! And stood on my neck.”

Mythal pulls a face – wide-eyed and innocent. “I was only playing.”

“My neck, Mythal.”

“My nose, Erys’enya.”

“This is…” Solas clears his throat. “Odd.”

“Oh, keep it to yourself,” Mythal grunts. “It’s my right to test her. I’ll be honest, I wanted to know what it was that so caught your attention. I was delighted to learn so intimately that she has quite the temper.” Mythal’s gaze shifts to something sharp. Her golden eyes travel from Erys’ face, down her body, and back up again. Brows raised, she smiles like a shark.

Something deep in Erys’ navel warms oddly in response.

“Don’t,” Solas blurts, alarmed. “Don’t even think about it. Mythal.”

The old dragon huffs. “Spoilsport.”

“Ase ‘ma vhenan,” he growls with surprising ferocity. “Emas tel’gonun su’asa.”

This got extremely strange extremely quickly. Erys isn’t quite sure how to feel about it. “I’m… flattered? I think?”

“Don’t be,” Solas mutters. Erys ignores him because if she doesn’t, she’s going to dissolve into a laughing fit that may kill her, and that really isn’t appropriate.

“Fine, fine, all business and no pleasure, as you like it. Don’t be confused by her mana depletion, at least. That’s entirely my fault. Whatever she replenishes is quickly sapped away by the geas of the Well. If it wasn’t, she would be deteriorating faster. It’s keeping me away from her life force.”

“We’re going to have a long discussion about this ritual of yours,” Solas threatens darkly. “Not taking into a count the damage it’s causing, or the threat to Erys’ life, how did you even discover this?”

“Is now really the time?”

“Don’t deflect. I won’t have it. Not now.”

 Mythal turns her head to take him in fully. A beat, then two, and she nods. “Ir abelas, ‘ma falon.”

Solas’ fingers tighten against Erys’ arm. He doesn’t say anything. Just nods. Just once.

It feels significant. Erys wishes she knew why.

“The Well was a living repository. You knew that much when it was built.” Mythal looks to Solas who nods again, lips thinning. “And that was all I intended for it, from the very beginning. I didn’t set out to create a contingency for myself, it wasn’t until centuries later that I even chanced upon the idea. Formless. You remember?”

Solas’ gaze hardens. “As I recall, he had already been deemed an enemy of Elvhenan by the time the Well’s enchantments were laid.”

“Yes,” Mythal says. “But who hasn’t made a terrible decision when their back is against a wall?”

A sharp huff. “Elaborate.”

“I was sick of you,” Mythal says bluntly. Solas doesn’t so much as flinch, though Erys makes a furious sound on his behalf. He hushes her gently, which prevents any sharp words from slipping out, but she still scowls unhappily. She is, ultimately, ignored. “When I turned to him, it wasn’t for power or anything so gauche. I wanted options. Choices. Because the only one ahead of me was, quite frankly, fucking awful. You saw quite handily to that, and I hated you for it. I accepted it, but that didn’t make it any better.”

“I had wondered,” Solas says, apparently unbothered by Mythal’s claims of hatred. How he can listen to that without flinching, Erys will likely never understand. That isn’t saying much, she doesn’t understand a lot of what they’re talking about, and the context clues leave something to be desired. “I was used to the bite of your coldness towards others. Having it turned toward me was… an experience.”

“Oh, I was furious,” Mythal agrees. “Who wouldn’t be? I still am – partly. The grudge is old, but then so am I. We match perfectly. But I digress. I was absolutely incensed that the careful lie I had woven was falling apart around me, and your damnable insistence threatened the careful peace I had preserved. Don’t look at me like that.”

Solas smooths his scowl into passivity.

“I know it was flimsy and I know the excuse rings hollow. And yes, I also know that our peace was paid upon a foundation of fear and compulsion, yes, I know all of that. It didn’t make it any easier to face the truth of what I had done. What I had allowed to happen.”

“So you went to Formless and bargained for… what, exactly?”

Mythal scoffs. “There was no bargain. You aren’t the only one who can wield words as weapons, Pride. An hour of talking circles around him and I had him bleating like a halla. Arrogance begets loose tongues, I’ve always told you. It’s why Dirthamen would never shut up.”

“The… Lord of Secrets?” Erys asks faintly.

“Horrific prattler,” Mythal says gravely. “No, really, it was constant. Unbearably so. And Formless was no better; I always reckoned it stemmed from some pathetic desire to have someone fawn over how smart he thought he was. He wasn’t. He just talked a lot. Blabber long enough and you can usually overwhelm people into thinking you’re smarter than they are. Usually only if they aren’t really listening to you, though.”

“…Right.”

“But having lost the grace of Elvhenan, the banished Forgotten had access to magics that we did not. Our empire was fuelled by the Blight. Theirs subsisted on demonic energies, bargains, and whatever fell influence they could skim from the Void. I use the term empire loosely, by the way. They all seemed so strangely fond of caves. I never knew why.

“And obviously it wasn’t the Blight then. The madness was young, a faint stirring that lingered as a mild form of its later corruption. Untraceable, really, though I doubt any of us would have cared if it had been. Power like that intoxicates, and it’s fair to say we were all unspeakably drunk with it.”

“Think of it as a living mana pool,” Solas says for Erys’ benefit. Likely because he notes the confused twist of her expression. “The Titan consciousness was too vast to seal within any true vessel. Do you remember what I told you about shifting the planes within the Fade so that different essences can occupy the same space at the same time?”

After a moment, Erys nods. “Oh! Sahl’in’bel’an.”

He nods his approval. “Exactly. An array of seals was set by each of us. Nine complex wards, bound by blood and magic. It had a physical anchor, of course, it had to be tied to something, but in essence it remained within the Fade, while its anchor was kept within reach. And no,” he adds when Erys opens her mouth again, a smile hinted at by the slight twitch of his lips. “If you’re about to ask, I could not employ the same technique when I wove the enchantment to banish the Evanuris. To say nothing of the power it would require, I was attempting to seal both their minds and their bodies. The method we used to lock the severed Titans’ dreams away would not have sufficed.”

Erys is honestly stuck on the concept of how much power the entire endeavour apparently took. Solas had almost died trapping the Evanuris, he’d said himself that the spell took almost a century to cast, so she can’t imagine the toll it would take to restrain… however many Titans they trapped.

“It was an ingenious solution,” Mythal says absently. “If an unbearably cruel one. We justified it at the time—“ She cuts herself off with an irritable growl when Solas glares at her. “Yes, fine, not all of us justified it, but those of us who hadn’t viciously opposed the plan from forming to fruition saw sense in its cruelty. We lost thousands of our kin. We were desperate.”

Erys supposes this is the part where she’s meant to offer some form of condemnation, but nothing comes to mind. She has heard the explanations and seen the consequences. She has raged and grieved and agonised over the bloody history of her people and the plight of the Dwarves in turn. She has nothing else to offer that hasn’t already been said. All that’s left, the barest trace, is curiosity. Morbid, perhaps, but genuine all the same. “So the Blight wasn’t the Blight – by your reckoning, at least – and you used it willingly to build the empire.”

“Oh, Elvhenan was long established by then.” Mythal waves a dismissive hand. “We used the Titans’ power to elevate it.”

Perhaps the distinction matters to those who lived through it, but Erys can’t see it for herself. Elvhenan was built on bloodshed, from whatever angle you look at it. But then, she does not miss it. Her longing is not nostalgia. It’s for what her people lost before they could ever hope to remember it, what she had once believed, beyond a shred of doubt, was worth preserving.

She’s struggling to see Elvhenan as anything more than a cautionary tale, now.

She keeps that opinion to herself. Likely, these honoured Elvhen would disagree with her. Even for all their complex feelings, they loved their people, and whatever culture they watched die. It may have mattered once, but now Erys just feels sick to think of it.

There’s a low ringing in her ears.

“…The idea itself was born of Formless’ attempts to remain manifest without a form. His effective immortality sustained without a reservoir of lyrium, and yet he could not be banished as any mere demon could.” Mythal is still speaking. Why is she still speaking? Erys bears her teeth. The ringing is so loud now, and yet she can hear every word through the throbbing wave of sound. Her head pulses with it. Why won’t she shut up?

The world tilts alarmingly, shifting with the strange, almost feral surge of rage that wells within her then. Mythal’s golden eyes widen, a breath echoing from her lips, and then she is recoiling, twisting back as something rigid wraps itself around Erys’ chest.

“Vhenan, stop!”

She is pulled, roughly, back against Solas’ chest, his arms like steel bands around her torso, arm pinned to her side. Erys growls, writhing against him, teeth snapping, and all she wants in that moment is to claw at Mythal’s perfect face until it cracks and the blood beneath it wells up and spills across the floor. She’ll do anything for it. She needs it. Nothing else matters but pain, pain, pain—

She gasps as a sensation of bitter cold stabs into her senses. Head pushed below freezing water, a deluge tossed across her body. She stills, dazed, and Mythal’s narrowed eyes soften into something grimly sympathetic. “She’s fighting the geas,” she says, grave. “I hold the girl’s will, but the Blight is… complicating things.”

Solas’ breath is hot against the back of her neck, uncomfortably so, against skin slick with sweat. He holds her so tightly, but there is no tenderness in this embrace. He’s restraining her. He’s never had to do that before.

Erys demands what’s happening. All that comes out is a low, snarling gurgle.

“Do something,” Solas snaps. She can’t see his face, but his heart is hammering against her spine, panicked and erratic under the steel of his words. “You said you could restrain it!”

“And I also said she’s fighting me! I could rip the life out of her and satisfy the geas, or we can wait and watch the Blight take her over. It’s between a mercy killing and damnation, Pride. That is what I tried to tell you.” Mythal’s brow furrows. “Before she interrupted me. Again.”

“Mythal!” Solas cries, tightening his grip on Erys to well beyond the point of pain. Her ribs screech their protest but she can’t beg him to let go. Her body is struggling against him and her mind… can’t see any reason not to. She twists violently, fingers tensed into claws, and she would scratch out his eyes if he didn’t have her bound. “Please.”

“There is nothing I can do,” the All-Mother barks. “Do you understand that? If I even could lift the geas, it would likely break her mind entirely. It’s all that’s keeping the Blight from driving her fully mad, and even that is not a permanent solution. She’s halfway to Darkspawn as it is. Keep watching and she’ll start bleeding from holes you didn’t even know she had.”

“No,” Solas seethes. “She will not— Will not—“ He grunts as Erys wrenches against his grip. “Stop it.”

Even if she could, she wouldn’t. The desire to watch them break, burn, is too great. Her gums feel loose around her itching teeth. She wants to sink them into Elvhen flesh. And tear.

“Dian, ‘ma lath,” Solas begs fearfully into her ear. “You must fight it. I cannot lose you now.”

They will die screaming, and their agonised cries will join the Song.

“Enough of this!”

The sensation is odd. Like something has slammed into Erys with bone-shattering force, excoriating her very spirit with a fire that scorches away all shadow. She thinks she cries out; her throat burns around the shape of a cry. Her head throbs, she cannot bear this.

And then there is softness. Calm. A face turned against a cool pillow when the morning is too gentle to leave.

Erys’enya.

…Wisdom?

Falon. I am so sorry.

Erys blinks, then, and lets her head slump forward. Solas gives a strangled cry of alarm to feel the sudden halt of her struggling and has to shift quickly to keep them both upright when she slumps forward, dazed. When she is clear-headed enough, Erys tilts her head up, to the Elvhen woman now standing between her and Mythal, expression twisted with remorse.

There is a strength in her limbs that is not hers. There is a power welling within her that is not hers and it jars against her spirit like the lashing of waves, threatening to drown her out. And then it is gone, replaced by an almost debilitating flood of euphoria, bright and shimmering and new.  

She doesn’t understand why the woman looks like her.

And then she does.

“Wisdom?”

“I am sorry,” the spirit says. “I am so sorry, I couldn’t think of any other way to help you. Please, forgive me, it was all I could do.”

Thinking is like wading through bog water that sucks at her calves. Her thoughts are too slow to make sense of. “What…?”

Wisdom’s borrowed face cracks with grief. It’s like staring at a mirror, but ten times as alarming. One’s face should not move independently from their intentions, Erys decides. She’s so dizzy. “I’ve… I’ve possessed you, falon. I am so sorry.”

The sharp gasp that follows does not come from Erys.

“Wisdom,” Solas breathes, pained. “What have you done?”

Wisdom’s gaze hardens. “What I had to. Tunan’s geas restrains her. It will dampen her senses but it will not hold back the Blight. Like this, I can lend my influence – the Blight’s poison cannot harm me – and I can bolster the defences of her mind to withstand the false Song. Do not chastise me, lethallin, I will not hear it. I would not see her suffer while you squabble uselessly in helpless rage.” Its eyes drop to Solas’ arms. “You may let her go.”

If anything, he holds her tighter, and with her tongue no longer seized by the rage of the Blight, her pained whine is free to slip out. Solas’ grip slackens at once and he recoils as though burned. “I…”

“Enough,” Erys wheezes, arm slung across her ribs. “Enough!” Neither Solas nor Wisdom speak. Mythal’s lips curve into a ruby slash of approval. “Please just… Enough.”

Wisdom’s form dissolves, but its presence remains. It’s highly likely, thought not at all pleasant to consider, that Wisdom’s manifestation was for her eyes and her benefit alone.

She needs to think, she just needs to fucking think. Just a moment to figure out what the fuck to do and how to do it with whatever time she has left.

Calm. Focus. Use what we know.

Wisdom?

All that I know is yours now. May it serve you well.

Outwardly, she takes a breath. Exhales it slowly. She’s glad it comes out steadier than she feels and wonders how far Wisdom’s reach extends. She wishes then that she’d taken longer than a few scant moments to speak with Spite and the Crow it had been so cruelly bound to, but how could she have foreseen that she would – after everything, all her years of walking the Fade both in Solas’ company in dreams and without – that she would ever need to prepare herself for becoming an…

She flinches inwardly. She hopes Wisdom won’t take offense.

“I think…” She swallows. Licks her lips. They’re painfully dry and cracked, sore, but it’s a good kind of sore; the sore her tongue seeks eagerly for the clarifying bite of discomfort. The copper tang is almost sweet compared to the lingering taste of rot clinging to her teeth. “I think perhaps I should sit down.”

It wasn’t what she intended to say, but now that the words are out, she wants nothing more than to just sit. Rest for a minute. Take a fucking breath, have a drink of water. Water. Gods, just to get this awful taste out of her mouth. And maybe a bath. A bath! She almost moans at the thought of it. Recollection, if you’re out there still, I have an excellent memory of lavender bath salts I really need your help with.

A snort slips out before she can stop it. She must look deranged.

“I’m sorry,” Solas says. “Erys. I am so sorry.”

“What?” She blinks. “No— Solas, shush. I’m just— It’s just Wisdom, it’s fine.”

“No,” he says, looking harrowed. “All of this, it’s my fault.”

It strikes her as odd, the way he looks at her. He feels so far away, so distant, like even if she reached out she would not be able to touch him. To banish that fear, she does, and despite the way pain twists his face, Solas takes her hand in a fierce grip and she knows he will call himself selfish. She doesn’t care about that, just tugs until he is on her, his arms winding around her – too carefully, this time, because he hurt her before and that will linger no matter how hard she tries to scrub it away – but in that moment she can press her face against his chest and breathe.

“I never meant—“

“Shut up, just— Shut up. I’m not doing this with you again. Not now.” She rubs her face against his chest, back and forth, as thought doing so will let her burrow deep enough into his chest that she can leave everything behind. She’s— scared. It stings to admit it, but she is. She could have handled all of this if there hadn’t been Mythal and Wisdom and Blight and the geas and…

Wishing serves no purpose. She might as well wish Deshanna had never sent her to the Conclave.

“We came here for the Titans,” she says on a heavy exhale. “That’s— That’s all that needs to matter. Nothing else, none of it, matters.”

She knows it’s cruel to ask that of him. If their positions were reversed, if he were sick, Blighted, dying… She can’t even consider it. In every way, she is glad this burden fell to her, but she knows that Solas is more than likely on the complete other end of that scale.

And yet, his gaze hardens. Determined, he nods. “If I can soothe the Blight, perhaps, as in Minrathous… We could lessen its influence. Grant you some time, if not reverse the infection. If we can get past the wards, it might be possible.”

Might, might, might. If it gets them moving, Erys will indulge the hopeful speculation, however cruel that makes her. She does not remind him, and neither does Mythal, that if the Blight doesn’t kill her, the Well’s geas will. She will beg his forgiveness for it, if she gets the chance, later.

“You’ve not managed to break them, then?” Mythal doesn’t sound surprised. “How far have you gotten?”

“Just beneath the second floor,” Solas says. “The first layer of wards were broken when I arrived, and the third and fourth decayed with Dirthamen and Falon’din’s deaths, I assume. The second, I’m not sure of. Traces of it lingered, but I couldn’t sense what power broke it. It did not feel familiar.”

“Worrying,” Mythal hums, though she doesn’t sound particularly concerned. “I was hoping for more degradation than that… Still, it can’t be helped, I suppose. Four layers is more than nothing, I’ll happily take it.”

“The rest—”

“You’re not alone now, Pride.” She smiles widely. Erys wonders if she intends it to be reassuring. It isn’t. “I’ve not met a ward I couldn’t dispel.”

Solas scowls. Wisdom stirs sympathetically in Erys’ head. Ah. A deft blow to his pride.

Please tell me you’ve not twisted your purpose in helping me.

I don’t think so. I have been twisted before, I still feel myself. As much as I can when I feel you as well. A soothing presence spreads a cooling sensation through Erys’ head, easing the passive throb of the Blight’s influence. Worry not. If I do become twisted and cause you harm, Vengeance and Pride are more than capable of ripping me out of you.

Won’t that hurt you?

If I have harmed you, I will accept it as penance.

I don’t want that!

“Erys?” Solas tilts her chin up with a careful finger below her chin. Blinking, she settles her gaze on him, and for one moment thinks he might kiss her. He doesn’t, and she’s grateful that she doesn’t need to pull away from him. She doesn’t know how much of the Blight lingers, or how easily its corruption can be spread. Knowing that is only partially reassuring. She aches for that simple comfort. “Are you alright?”

“Oh, absolutely.” She laughs. It only sounds slightly hysterical. “Just chatting with my new friend. It’s getting very crowded inside my head.”

He opens his mouth. The words won’t come. She knows they won’t, she watches him evaluate the risks in real time, eyes flickering restlessly over her face. Take Wisdom away from her and risk the Blight wreaking havoc inside her body, turning her swiftly into a mindless minion for its rage. Leave Wisdom within her and risk the spirit’s nature twisting and turning the both of them into a true abomination. He can’t offer to remove Wisdom in good conscience, though the perversion must agonise him. Its influence is likely the only thing keeping her sane.

“I haven’t had a very good day.”

Solas might laugh. Erys isn’t entirely sure what the strangled noise in his throat is meant to mean, but he crushes her against his chest with his next unsteady breath, so the chance of it actually being laughter is… admittedly small. Still, she accepts the comfort, even if every moment they’re not moving makes her skin itch.

“The wards, then,” he says after a moment. “We dismantle them systematically and descend. Mythal—”

“It was my plan, I don’t need a review.”

“…Ma nuvenin. Wisdom, Vhenan…” He winces. “I would prefer you to just accompany. Please, do not strain yourselves, either of you. The more duress you are subjected to will serve to strengthen this…. bond,” he says it like a curse. “And complicate the process of separation.”

This new ruthless optimism is not a good look on him. Erys never thought she’d prefer the grim fatalism, but this has crashed too far into denial for her to tolerate. “We’ll do what we have to do, I can’t promise anything else.” She feels Wisdom’s agreement as a thrum within her ribcage. “Wisdom agrees.”

“I heard,” Solas says, tone thick with displeasure. “It was never this poor of an influence before.”

Give me some small allowance, I had to knit myself back together within the Fade.

Erys’ lips definitely don’t twitch. “You heard that, too?”

Solas pinches the bridge of his nose. “Of all the times I considered introducing you, it was this exact scenario that stopped me. I knew the pair of you would unite against me.”

We’ve earned the right, lethallin.

On that, dear Wisdom, we certainly agree.

“Hah!” Mythal cackles. “Oh, this was worth holding on for, if nothing else.”

“Don’t think this takes away any responsibility of yours,” Solas snaps with surprising ferocity. “You will break the geas and if you say you can’t then you will find a way.”

“I’m not entirely sure how to respond to that. Anything I say is liable to get me bitten.”

Yes. They’ve always been like this.

Erys groans. Void take the lot of you.

Chapter Text

“Oh, good,” Erys says bleakly. “More stairs.”

“If you like, I can give you a little nudge,” Mythal offers kindly, patting Erys shoulder. Together, they peer down the narrow stairwell, an unassuming entryway hidden behind two pillars within the central chamber of her court. Though hidden is perhaps not the right word. It certainly hadn’t been there a moment ago. “We’ll meet you at the bottom and heal any pesky broken bones. If you survive the fall.”

“Try it, and I’ll spit Blight in your eyes.”

“Feisty. Have it your way, then.”

Solas massages his temples firmly. Erys would apologise, but… honestly, it’s helping. Either Mythal has been dead so long she hasn’t got the faintest grasp of how to participate in sane interactions, or she has too much of a grasp on them and is simply lightening the mood with terrifying – if insanity-driven – ease.

Either way, Erys appreciates it. Solas, not so much.

“I won’t lie to you, it is a long way down,” Mythal adds, making a beeline for the top steps without looking back to check they’re following. “We used to have rifts between the upper and lower levels, but the magic has degraded. We could risk it, but you didn’t respond very well to dismemberment the last time we tried it, so perhaps it’s best to just take the long route.”

Erys glares balefully at the All-Mother’s back until she’s a good thirty steps ahead on the old stone staircase. Then she sighs and turns to Solas, who is watching her with quiet intensity. “What?”

“You forgive too easily.” He shakes his head, sighing. “No, that’s not what I was…” His hand finds hers, fingers twining. “I missed you. I… should have been with you.”

“Why weren’t you? What happened, Solas?”

His hand tightens around hers, grip so tight their joined fingers tremble with it. She squeezes back, hard, and a long, rumbling sigh trembles out of his mouth. “While I… When I felt your hand leave mine, I cannot pretend I was in any state of mind to fully understand the implication. The logical leap would be to assume that some force had attempted to separate us – the tumult of the rift would have been enough.”

“Did you think I’d—“

“No. No. Not for a moment.” He is quiet for a long moment. When he speaks, it is a soft admittance, “I did not want you with me. Between our prison and the city, I chose the one I believed to be safer for you. And I let go. In so doing I—“ His breath catches.

“Don’t,” Erys says softly. “Not now.”

He throws her a look, totally askance. “You would ask this of me? Genuinely? As if I can ignore— You were dying before my eyes for a year, vhenan, but that was a slow, painless decline that would hurt only one of us. I was content for it to be me.”

“Solas—“

“And now you haven’t even the luxury of…” He can’t say it. “And that is my fault.”

“Well,” Erys says, gaze flicking to Mythal’s back. “It’s… nuanced. But I meant, what happened to you?”

His expression smooths suspiciously. “I came here.”

“Oh, I know you’re lying.”

“It isn’t a lie. I did come here. As you can see, here I am.”

Pedantic son of a—  “And what, exactly, preceded coming here?”

“Memories,” Solas says stiffly. “Loud ones.”

“You’re really not going to tell me?”

“Must I?” She expects pettiness, and is met with something softer. Equal parts refusal and plea, Solas meets her with the remnants of a wound she could probably understand but also one that he desperately doesn’t want to share. “Would it serve any purpose?”

“I would know,” Erys counters, wincing at its flimsiness. “I mean— I wouldn’t have you keep it to yourself. If it was something terrible—“

“I am used to nightmares,” Solas says quietly, “and the sharp twist of memory besides. I need not share it with you to be able to bear it. And I will not give you any more burdens.”

Erys aches with a sense of disapproval that might not be entirely her own.

Ir abelas.

Ah. Of course. Oh, no, I agree with you. Has he really always been this stubborn?

He used to be worse.

I wish I was surprised.

“Will you keep up!” Mythal barks below them, nearly fifty steps ahead and counting.

“Come,” Solas says softly. He doesn’t release Erys’ hand as they begin the descent together. “Best not to keep her waiting. Or to let her out of our sights until I can work out how to reverse what she’s done.”

“I don’t think that—“

“Every spell has a counterspell, vhenan. One just needs patience.”

Erys thinks of the Veil, and wisely stays quiet. Is that true?

In essence. Woven threads strung from the Fade. There is little that cannot be unravelled, but whether you have the time for him to find which thread to pull…

I understand. Thank you. For your honesty.

I wish I had more than cold comfort for you, lethallan.

Your presence is a comfort. I’m honoured that you’d share your life and your wisdom with me.

Wisdom purrs within her chest, like slipping into a warm bath on a midwinter night. There. Not so cold.

“Wisdom is a sweetheart,” Erys murmurs, drawing Solas’ questioning gaze. “I wish you’d never had to mourn it.”

“Had I not, I doubt the memory of it would have been strong enough to reform it.” Solas smiles faintly. It doesn’t quite reach his eyes. “But yes, I wish I hadn’t had to mourn it either. That it lives is comfort enough.”

Foolish old wolf. Can’t see the wood for the trees. Always so fixated on the loss and never the gain. Even when we were young, he could never live in the moment. It was always what came next, possibilities, opportunities, whatever wonderfully intriguing new thing he could wrap his tendrils around… How I miss those days.

Again, Erys is struck by Solas’ many consistencies. That the man she knows and loves is the same as he has always been, in so many ways, and yet has changed so much in the years she has known him. So mortal in so many ways, while still so frustratingly unknowable in others. For all those consistencies, there are a hundred other contradictions that she loves just as well.

She wonders if any part of her spirit will endure, here in the Fade. If it does, she hopes she carries with her the desire to stay with him.

For now, though, she’ll do what she can with the time left to her. She squeezes his hand, nods her head towards Mythal’s proud, straight back.

“Will you not go to her? You have the chance to get the answers you wanted. You could rekindled your oldest friendship.”

Solas gives her an odd look, brow raised. “My oldest friend currently lies nestled within your head, rattling around like a nuisance.”

Savhalla!

He huffs, lips twitching. “Savhalla, Wisdom. And besides, Mythal and I have spoken. At greater length than I think you may have witnessed.”

“Ah.” She’d suspected as much. “Elvhen nonsense?”

“Indeed. And… While I do not agree with her methods, I cannot say it is out of character. She was always skilled at creating contingencies, for all that I regret my influence around that fact… I respected her for that, before.”

“So you’ve forgiven her?”

A muscle twitches in Solas’ jaw. “Tenuously. And that will remain so until…”

Until either the geas kills her or he beats the odds and all realms of possibility to break it. Though, if he wants miracles that flout all known laws of reality, they’re in the right place. “I, ah, I don’t understand her. I wanted to, you know? Tried to, for all the good it did me. Badly. Whatever. Maybe I’m too mortal—“

“Likely.”

Erys huffs. “Thanks. But, still, I just wanted to know… Try to know how her mind works. Why she did what she did… Why she refused you.”

And just like that, they fall into an old, familiar pattern of comfort. Solas gives a thoughtful hum, swinging their twined fingers gently between them. “If you’re curious, I’m happy to indulge you. It is no great secret, and I must admit, it… settled a great many things within my heart.” He glances towards Mythal, eyes softening with an ancient fondness. “It is not a path I would have had her walk, but it was her choice and… I cannot dishonour that. She had, as ever, striven to maintain peace in the wake of—  I cannot stress this enough, vhenan, the war nearly destroyed us. She would have peace by any means necessary, and maintained it with a ferocity that would call down the heavens if she asked. But as is always the way with tyrants, her compromise was seen as weakness, and every request for her to meet the Evanuris in the middle, caused them to step back, changing the parameters and calling her ever deeper into their corner.”

Erys is far too familiar with that behaviour. “Trying to trap her.”

“Mm. More, I think, trying to change her. She was the last line of defence in every way. Justice, or the memory of it, at the very least. And even twisted, it is not so easily swayed.”

Erys can picture that clearly. When she had spoken with Flemeth, she saw that spark of ferocity within the old woman that overwrote the years of struggle etched into her face. With only the barest trace of Mythal within her, Asha’bellanar had shone like the sun, brilliant, bright, and overpowering. “She said… Well, she said she would serve your rebellion better as a martyr of it than anything else.”

For a moment, she wonders if she should have shared that particular piece of information, because Solas’ expression flattens with displeasure, and then – horribly – grief. Only for a moment, before it is banished beneath his customary veneer of passivity. “Did she.”

Oh, she absolutely shouldn’t have told him that. “I suppose… I don’t know. I thought it was weird. I don’t know why she’d think that.”

With a sigh, Solas admits, “I do. It pains me, but I do. My pleas— For millennia I thought them ignored. Her platitudes were empty and my heart discontent with her inaction. But it was inaction through patience only. She had but to wait, because she heard my every plea and when she turned her gaze upon what she had become – no peacekeeper but instead a participant in suffering – she could not bear it. You would think Justice would have prevented her from joining them at all, but you must understand that her twisted nature played a part. Vengeance convinced her that she was owed – for her children, for becoming an unwilling mother, guide, leader, to have so much demanded of her and Ambition’s cold affection offered in return. Reverence without familiarity, the loneliest existence imaginable. Even I approached her as a servant when all she wanted was a friend… She convinced herself it was her due. A flimsy lie, perhaps, but Vengeance was bitter. And when I made her face the lie, she could not bear it.”

If Mythal hears them speaking, she gives no indication. Every step is measured, precise, the paced click of her greaves ringing out against the stone. Erys watches her in silence, and grieves for her. ”She let them kill her. Suicide, at their hands.”

Solas hums a negative. “No, part of the Well’s ritual, I believe. I am not so studied in blood magic. Even as its… unwitting creator, I suppose.”

Erys is already shaking her head. In this, she knows she is right. “No, it was. She wanted it to be her absolution. Death as forgiveness, but she couldn’t convince herself.”

He’s surprised by her disagreement, that much is obvious. “You think so?”

“She told me. Not in so many words, but… Yes.”

Solas takes a moment with that revelation. What exactly he does with it, Erys doesn’t know, but perhaps he finds a place for it somewhere in the complex tapestry of their history. She hopes it makes things clearer, rather than hurts him. “As for the rebellion…”

“Mm...” For a moment, Solas is too far away for her leading words to reach him, but he blinks and comes back to himself quickly enough. “I wish I had known what she was planning; but to share it with me would have risked… everything. To her mind, at least. And perhaps I should be honoured that she held so much faith in my success; she is right that I would not have fought so desperately without vengeance in my heart. A calculated manipulation… and one I doubt I could have forgiven before uthenera.”

Grief is a suitable fuel for action, Erys knows. In matters of the heart, of such raw emotion, there is little else that can match its fervour. Save perhaps faith, and she doesn’t doubt that was present between them. “But if she knew your rebellion would succeed… Do you think she predicted the Veil?”

“Ah, no, I don’t think so. Not at all, in fact. I think she knew I would devise a way to end the Evanuris’ tyranny, but not the method by which I would achieve it. No one predicted the Veil, least of all myself. It was – is – a mistake, a terrible one… and now bound to me.” Erys imagines that must be galling, to say the least. “Fitting, I suppose, for what I have done.”

“But if she knew you’d succeed, why didn’t she fight?”

Solas looks stunned by the question. “Against her own children? She is still the Mother, vhenan. To put her sword against her own, those of them compelled, following orders, those I could not sway, it would have been agony for her. No. She chose the path that she believed would cause the least pain. She miscalculated, but she knows that.”

“Well… good for her?”

He smiles. Properly. “Our morals must seem incomprehensible to you.”

“Sometimes. The… concept is manageable enough. But you’re all so bloody dramatic.”

“I… can’t disagree.”

“Is it an age thing?” She teases. “Will I get that dramatic when I’m as old as you?” Solas sucks in a sharp breath, pained, and Erys remembers with aching clarity. “Shit. Sorry, I… Sorry.”

“Why are you apologising to me?”

She doesn’t answer him. Instead, she brings their joined hands to her lips, pressing a soft kiss to his knuckles. She notices, only then, that there is dried blood beneath his fingernails, and the taut skin is split and bruised. She pauses, flicking her gaze to his, and he looks away guiltily.

“Just memories,” she says flatly. “In the place that makes them real.”

His arm tenses but he doesn’t pull away. Irritation is a brief flicker across his face, though it smooths swiftly into resignation. “They are regrets I’ve faced before.”

“You haven’t healed this.”

“A reminder.”

“You won’t tell me.”

“Live,” Solas says, suddenly and abruptly fierce. “Live, and I will tell you everything.”

Maybe that would be an impossible request to put to anyone else, but Erys spent too many years opposing the impossible and she has – at least in the waking world – the accolades to prove it. Herald. Inquisitor. First-Thaw. She hadn’t thought to count Solas among the number of people caught up in the grandeur of the narrative her titles span for her, but maybe that isn’t so unusual. She is the Dread Wolf’s heart, after all.

“I’ll work on it,” she says dourly. “No promises.”

He fears for you. Gnawing at his insides. His spirit pulses with a power he has not known in countless ages, and none of it carries any worth if he cannot save you. The watchful wolf, ever cursed to lose what he cannot save.

“The miserable air hanging over you three isn’t conducive to productivity,” Mythal calls over her shoulder. “Knees high, please, we’ve a lot of ground to cover.”

Erys sighs. “Can you imagine how the others would have reacted if she’d tagged along before?”

“I would have put a decent amount of sovereigns on Cassandra being the first to make an attempt on her life.”

Erys doesn’t think she imagines the reluctant twitch of his lips. “You think? I would have bet on Sera.”

Solas hums. “Tall, dark-haired, with a coronet of horns and a decidedly foul mouth? I don’t think Sera would have tried to kill her. Mythal would have had her in her bedroll by sundown.”

Erys chokes on her own spit.

***

Erys is starting to miss the little luxuries.

Water. Food. Rest. Being the sole occupant inside her own head. Lying down. Sunlight. A full mana pool that doesn’t scrape painfully against her awareness in its emptiness. Not actively dying with every breath she takes.

The little things.

She can’t guess with any accuracy how long they’ve been walking down this fucking staircase, only that her calves are burning and the rhythmic sway of each step is starting to jar her clenched jaw and throbbing head in a way that’s certain to drive her insane. She doesn’t even know how long they’ve been in the Fade, let alone the city proper. How long has it been since Minrathous? How long since the Veil closed around them? How long since those sweet, perfect moments where Solas’ warm body was pressed to hers and all her thoughts were wrapped around him?

Days? Weeks? Surely she’d know if it had been months. She can’t remember the last time she slept. Does she even need to do that anymore? Hunger is a faint ache in her stomach that can be ignored and her throat is dry but she should be starving, surely? Unless the Fade is wreaking havoc on her physiology – likely – or the Blight in her blood is ripping away her mortality – even more likely – and leaving something other and wrong behind.

Where’s the boundary line? At what point does she truly become Darkspawn? Is it when she starts bleeding from her orifices, as Mythal predicted? Or did it happen the moment the Blight touched her lips?

You have a penchant for morbidity.

I’m not morbid, I’m realistic.

They will stop, if you ask. He would carry you in a heartbeat.

I’d rather throw myself down the stairs, thanks.

A perfectly natural and normal response. You are a fascinating creature, Erys’enya Lavellan.

“Vhenan?” Gentle fingers brush her cheek. “Do you need to slow down?”

“No,” Erys says at once, striding swiftly past him. She maintains that quick-stepped pace until she catches up with Mythal, who gives her an odd, sideways glance when she falters and ends up leaning heavily against the wall, wheezing painfully. “Don’t tell Solas.”

Mythal’s brows raise, gaze flicking to the man himself as he quickly rounds the bend of the winding staircase to join them. He glances between them, frowning.

“Well, no,” Mythal says smoothly, turning back to Erys. “The courts were formed after we laid the hold for the dreams below. Initially the structure was designed to bar entry to all, but it seemed prudent in the time that follows to set something upon its foundation, both to hide the entrance and to reinforce the wards. As Justice, I claimed the right, and my court was founded upon it.”

“Ah,” Erys says after a hearty swallow to control her heavy panting, grateful for Mythal’s quick thinking. “Thank you, I was— curious.”

Solas’ eyes narrow. “Vhenan, you needn’t concoct reasons to stall us. If you cannot—“

“We’re having a conversation, Pride,” Mythal sniffs. “It’s rude to butt in. You dear heart here was simply asking a question, and surely that doesn’t need your input?”

Solas glares at her with all the warmth of an ice storm. “Forgive me, but the last time you two encountered each other unsupervised, I’m given to understand someone’s tongue got severed.”

“She talks a lot,” Mythal insists. “Don’t give me that, you did worse to Dirthamen during the solstice festival.”

“Dirthamen was not an innocent mortal attempting to reason with you.”

“No, he was a misbegotten prick, what’s your point?”

“I have so many questions,” Erys says softly, longingly. It isn’t the first time Mythal has mentioned the Lord of Secrets with such derision. “The old myths say he was your son.”

“Yes,” Mythal says, lip curling. “Unfortunately.”

“…In the bodily sense, or…?”

“No, no.” Mythal looks utterly horrified. “Absolutely not. No. No.” She shudders with a noise of deep disgust. “If I’d had to push that from my body, I would have smothered him in the cradle.”

Perhaps unsurprisingly, Erys’ horrified gasp is ignored. Solas, too, seems unbothered by the All-Mother’s vitriol. “He wasn’t the most pleasant company, no.”

Mythal growls. “Putting it mildly. Sundering him was the lesser of two evils, but he would have been so much nicer if I hadn’t, don’t you think?”

“Debatable,” Solas says tersely. “Falon’din was no treasure.”

“You didn’t like any of my children.”

“Not true. I liked Andruil well enough. And Ghilan’nain, before she decided morality was a burden for other people to carry.”

“Andruil?” Erys perks up curiously. “All the old stories made it seem like you hated each other.”

“We did.” Apparently, Solas is under the impression that makes any sense, but maybe Erys is too mortal to understand any of this. The times in her life when she’s hated someone, she’d been able to feel little else for them, no sympathy, no respect, and certainly not been able to like them, even passively. The only reason she can tolerate – and begrudgingly respect – Mythal is because she understands her. Somewhat. If it were true hatred, she wouldn’t be within fifty feet of the woman. Or she’d be more vocal about her unwillingness, if proximity was unavoidable.

“Then how…?”

“We fought like siblings,” Solas says, eyes unfocused, drifting far away to somewhere deep in memory. “Our entire relationship was a test of oneupmanship, a game we played viciously and without quarter, and often resulting in severe structural damage.”

“They could never keep it outside,” Mythal adds irritably. “Not that it ever ended well when they did. Do you know, we had a beautiful vineyard in the north, once; Ambition’s Rise we called it, because the wine extracted from those grapes was beyond compare, and Elgar’nan’s most treasured favourite. Destroyed beyond recovery because our dear Andruil once challenged Pride to a game of chess.”

“…Chess,” Erys echoes. “As in, the game. On a board. With pieces.”

“It got out of hand,” Solas says primly.

“You always goaded her.”

“I did not. I insulted her, there is a difference. If she took it as a challenge, it wasn’t my fault.”

Erys thinks of the Solas she saw in the memory, swathed in furs and resplendent in the moonlight, long hair braided and pinned with fine jewels and trinkets. She pictures him spinning a web of wounding words dripping with charm, speaking to some faceless goddess in Andruil’s vague shape, for what little Erys knows of her. She swallows thickly. Probably best not to dwell on that image right now.

“She had her faults, but she was one of the few who could keep up with me,” Solas says fondly. Erys drags herself back to the present, away from terribly seductive thoughts she has no business dwelling in. “But I loved Sylaise well. And June. Of all of my enemies, it hurt me the most to bind the two of them.”

“I almost took Sylaise’s vallaslin,” Erys interjects without thinking. Mythal gives a huff of deep offence. “A lot of the men in my clan did. Deshanna had June’s.” And yet the existence of the vallaslin tells of morals Solas could not love easily. What does it mean, to love someone well, when they perpetuate that which you hate?

Potential, Wisdom whispers in her ears. A stifled capacity for change. What they could have been.

She thinks of Dorian, raised within a family who saw no issue with the practice. Who learned later in life that he had a voice he could raise against it. Perhaps it was the same with Sylaise and June. Maybe Solas saw that potential in them, the same way he had with Dorian, and pushed and pushed until it could take root and become change.

She thinks Solas must be proud of all that Dorian achieved in the years since. She hopes he is.

Their winding descent continues shortly after. Refusing to give up the pretence and admit to her exhaustion, Erys slogs on trembling legs down another hundred steps, pauses under the guise of asking a question, and though Solas’ sharp eyes narrow knowingly, he does not press her. Mythal, too, is keen to play into the charade, and no longer seems wholly unwilling to answer any questions put to her. She seems all at once changed and identical to the woman Erys had encountered before, though her fondness for Solas – and even Erys, in some strange way – is apparent when she looks at them. She wouldn’t go so far as to assume the All-Mother feels guilty for what the Well is doing to Erys, but her regret is clear enough. It didn’t have to be Erys and she grieves the fact that it is, as much as it cannot change what will come.

Oddly, it helps, though Erys can’t honestly say why, but for this she bears no animosity to the All-Mother. The tenuous peace between the old dragon and the wolf is one that warms her heart in strange ways, and she hopes it endures long after… everything.

Elvhen, she has come to realise, do not do well alone.

Would you? If the blood within carried the strains of an ancient song that unified? The instrument has changed but the melody rings true. They remember the source but not the crescendo. They do not recognise the harmony that calls them.

Chilled, Erys searches for the thrum of Wisdom’s presence. How do you know that?

The song stirs within you. It is loud, angry, discordant, but the familiar notes chime within.

You can hear the Blight?

So can you. Justice must let you listen.

A prickle of fear traces an icy finger down Erys’ spine. Beside her, Solas marks her quiet shiver with a questioning sound, drawing her closer to his side. Heat blossoms beneath his palm to stay the imaginary cold and she is too discomfited to correct him; offers him a flimsy smile instead.

“Not much further,” he promises, brushing his lips against her temples.

“Only nine-hundred and forty-seven!” Mythal calls jubilantly over her shoulder, having taken the lead once more. “We’re just over halfway.”

Erys blinks, horrified. “…How far down are we going?”

“Far,” Solas says. “Two thousand steps exactly. The conveyance rifts degraded with the raising of the Veil, and the lifts were destroyed when I tore Arlathan from its place in the material realm.”

“You can’t use the Anchor?”

Solas shows her his palm. There isn’t even a hint of a glow left upon his dirty skin. “It faded the moment we stepped through. The memory was strong enough for only that.”

“Could I… I don’t know, recharge it?”

“With what mana, ‘ma lath?”

Erys scowls. “Wherever we end up after this, it is not going to have stairs.”

“Of course,” Solas says, though they’re both thinking the same thing.

***

She does actually end up falling down the stairs.

Technically. And Mythal hadn’t pushed her, but the glint in the All-Mother’s eyes had told her that it was a very near thing. The falling was, tragically, intentional, which seemed to amuse Mythal a great deal. Solas, austere as always, simply took one look at the cracked staircase below them that ended so abruptly he’d had to reach out and seize Erys by the back of her shirt, sighed, and swept her into his arms.

“No,” Erys had blurted, kicking her legs in a sudden panic. “Don’t— Don’t you dare, don’t you dare—“

He’d stepped over the edge, Erys’ scream swallowed by the dark.

When they’d landed after what felt like an age of rushing wind, Erys barely jostled in Solas’ arms and his feet touching the ground so lightly with an utter absence of momentum, she had still been screaming. She choked on it, swallowing it down painfully when she realised they hadn’t been smashed into red paste on the ground, and looked up in time to see Mythal straighten beside them, brushing off unseen dirt from her skirts with an absent swipe of her hand.

Now, set gently back on her feet, its like her awareness has swept back in and is trying to crush her with the full breadth of perception.

She’d struggled to make out the details of the courtroom’s interior, pained and exhausted, strung out beyond belief under the cloying pressure of the Blight and the geas both, but here it’s as if she’s been granted the grace of mercy, as though the arcane ailments trying to kill her have been swept aside so that the full scope of what lies before her can press in and be seen.

She had seen a cavern like this once before. Years ago. She never thought she’d witness anything like it again.

The cavern’s roof is a rough spread of stalactites that glint as though inlaid with stars. A mist hangs around them like an icy cloak, tinged blue by the light reflecting from those mineral stars. It is, perhaps, two, maybe three hundred feet above them, high enough that she can’t see the point at which they fell through, swallowed up by folding, jagged stones. The entire cave seems to taper in on itself, wide across the ceiling above them, the crystal-hewn walls closing in further down. She understands then that they are within the bowels hanging below the city, within the section of ground that had once connected the ancient metropolis to the earth, before Elvhenan’s magics ascended it.

The walkway they stand on is old, cracked in places and damp from the preternatural mists’ condensation, but the walkway is certainly not natural. Its edges are sharp, cut away with surgical precision to form a rigid pathway of cultivated design. If she did not know better, she would claim she stands within the Deep Roads, within the cavern she had stumbled upon with the Legion of the Dead, the forgotten sanctum of the last living Titan. But this place carries too many signs of Elvhenan to be Dwarven. Statues set into the rock face, dragons she recognises, hoofed creatures she does not. Deified Elvhen whose faces are unfamiliar to her, save two that stand twinned at the very edge of the walkway, a man and a woman. The woman’s hands are cupped before her, empty. The man’s right hand is pressed over his heart, the other on the pommel of a curved sword belted at his waist. Between the stone figures, there is a door. Perhaps thirty feet wide and half again as tall. Set into it is a circular design, but the lock – if that’s what it is – makes no sense to her. Eight filigreed spears, paired together horizontally, each new set below the last, with one spear driven down between them. Deep runes are carved into each haft, three on one side and one on the other lit from within and pulsing a furious red. The spear in the centre glows brightest, but those runes are a vibrant, ghostly green.

“Oh, awful,” Mythal sneers, and raises a hand with a spark of lightning rippling across her palm. Fingers clenching around the shards, the statue beside the woman’s – Elgar’nan, Erys realises – is swiftly decapitated with a deafening crack. It’s head grates against the stone beneath it, wobbles, and then tumbles into the gully beneath the walkway. “Much better.”

Erys shuffles to the left, to the edge beside the walkway’s beginning, and peers nervously over the outcrop into the swirling mists below. She nudges a pebble over the edge with her toe. There is no sound of impact to greet her.

Solas pulls her back without a word, arm cinching tight around her waist. When she looks at him, his expression is shadowed, drawn with distress, and a moment later she understands why.

If she listens, beyond the restless pounding of her heart and Wisdom’s anxious chiming in her head, she can hear it. Something behind that door is calling to her, begging to be let out. It is no language she recognises, but the call is clear. If she listens, her feet itch to move. If she listens, her body strains towards the sound.

“Solas…”

“They are just whispers, vhenan. They cannot hurt you.”

“I think they can.” She digs her fingers into his arm, clutching at the fabric and skin beneath as if she can Anchor herself to him. “My body wants to move.”

He curses sharply, tightening his grip. “The Blight, of course the Blight. I hadn’t—“

I will hold, Wisdom says firmly. Solas tilts his head in response, frowning, while Erys makes a soft noise as the whispers in her head suddenly cease. I can keep the whispers at bay.

“You are certain?”

I can do this, Wisdom says again, and if Solas hears the faint tremor in its defiant chime, he does not mention it.

“Ma serannas, falon.”

Erys sends her own thanks, but doesn’t loosen her grip on Solas as they pick their way carefully across the old stone bridge. Mythal is already across, having stopped to spit on the base of Elgar’nan’s headless statue, and now waits for them impatiently, the shining metal of her left boot tapping a restless beat against the ground. Her eyes, though, are blazing points of brightness, something almost hungry in her gaze.

“Four wards,” she says to Solas, turning towards the door. “You were right.”

Erys looks past her at the towering gateway. Even this close she can feel the ancient thrum of old magic emanating from it, the scent of pine and ink hanging heavily on her tongue. The scent is familiar, but there’s a subtle twist beneath it, sharper, bitter. It feels like a weight against her skin, a breath over her body, but again that sharp undercurrent strikes like a warning.

Do not enter here, the door seems to say, all the while she strains almost unconsciously to get closer.

Ir abelas. The compulsion is strong.

Don’t hurt yourself, Wisdom, please.

The response is a low, defiant chime. Wisdom will not be swayed.

“You know, ten thousand years and I don’t think I ever read this nonsense properly,” Mythal says, brushing her fingers against the door. Whether metal or stone, Erys can’t tell, some dark, ridged compound that gleams almost menacingly in the azure light of the cavern. She notes, with some unease, that there are no shadows here. No clear source of light casts twisting shapes across the floor. It feels… unnatural.

On closer inspection, Erys can see what she means. What looks to be the ridged surface of the door’s material are actually deep carvings, runic etchings as incomprehensible as they are foreboding. Unconsciously, she reaches out a hand to trace their shape for herself. Solas is quick to snatch her wrist, pulling her roughly back against his chest. When she looks to him, affronted, his expression is rigid with anger and he offers no apology.

“Best not to touch,” Mythal says instead. “There’s a good girl. Don’t want to lose the other arm to any rogue enchantments.”

Irritated but willing to concede, for now, Erys asks, “what do the runes say?”

Mythal glances up. “On the spears? They are our names. Nine of us. Nine wards, nine guardians. It was all terribly dramatic.”

“And on the door?”

“I never looked.” The All-Mother gives a disinterested shrug of one shoulder. “I could never stomach coming here. After the wards were laid, I refused to come back. A definite sign of a guilty conscience, I’m sure. Let me see.” She steps closer, bending to peer at a spread of runes closest to her eye level. “They’re warnings.” She tosses a flat look at Solas over her shoulder. “Did you honestly think anyone would be able to find their way down here?”

“I didn’t predict a group of arrogant Magisters would work their way in,” Solas counters. “And yet here we are.”

“But what do they say?”

Solas answers when Mythal does not, voice gone low with reverence, the Elvhen of his words ringing with solemnity. They would likely remain unknown to her, if Wisdom did not spare some of its power for her comprehension.

“This place is not a place of honour. No highly esteemed deed is commemorated here. Nothing valued is here.”

Dread prickles down Erys’ spine, even as his soft breaths warm her neck.

“The danger is still present, in your time, as it was in ours. The danger is to the body, and it can kill. The form of the danger is an emanation of energy. The danger is released only if you substantially disturb this place physically. This place is best shunned and left uninhabited.” Solas’ presses his forehead to the back of hers, breathing softly into her hair. “Warnings repeated, and etched into stone. The worst act I ever committed.”

“At my side,” Mythal says quietly. “On my orders.”

A barely perceptible tremor shivers through Solas’ body. “At your side,” he repeats softly, and clutches Erys tighter to his body.

Mythal seems far less cowed by the oppressive presence of the door than Solas. With a determined snarl set into her face, she reaches for the lowest spear on the left side, clasping her gauntlets around the haft, and pulls. The metal shrieks in protest, bending until it breaks, and falls away from the fastenings with a ringing clang. She does the same to the next three on the right side, ripping them away as though they are not twice the length of her body, and each broken piece falls to the ground at her feet.  

Dirthamen, spell the runes in one, swimming before Erys’ eyes until their shapes make sense. Falon’din spells another. Ghilan’nain. Elgar’nan.

“Why aren’t they all broken?” Erys asks. “Why are only four not lit? Isn’t it tied to their lives?”

“Yes and no,” Solas says. “The wards are bolstered by their living blood, and weakened upon death. For the wards to have broken that way, they would need to have been weakened sufficiently prior to the end of their lives.”

“How do you weaken a ward this old?”

“With even older magic.”

“Andruil’s still holds,” Mythal says, pointing to the topmost right spear. “And proud Sylaise. June’s as well, my clever boy… My own.”

Erys glances at Elgar’nan’s broken spear, then the long spear still affixed to the door, the one striking downwards between the rest. “Solas… is that yours?”

“Yes.”

She can’t imagine Elgar’nan permitting that with any grace. “Very… Pride of place?”

His expression ripples with pain, rather than the soft amusement she’d hoped for. “Halam’shivanas,” he says quietly, like it’s some shameful admission. “I gave the greatest portion of power to the seal. I was desperate to ensure it did not fail and…”

“There lies the evidence that once spoke of why Pride was my most beloved General,” Mythal murmurs, tracing the etching of runes that bear Solas’ name with her thumb. “Upon bloody fields of battle, none could match him. He was not always the weakest of us.” The All-Mother extends a hand to Erys, gauntlet wisping away from her flesh in snatched tendrils of black smoke. Palm bare, she offers it to Erys, who hesitates for just a moment before pressing her own against it.

She has to close her eyes against the sudden onslaught of sensation; the iron stench of blood, the ringing clang of steel, screeching cries and panicked bellows, smoke and fire and lyrium and lightning, the cool, crisp surge of it filling her lungs, prickling across her skin.

“Solas! Ma sul’emas em is’el salen!”

Erys opens her eyes at Mythal’s vicious cry, but she is no longer in the cavernous chamber. Instead she stands upon a hillside of churned silt and blood, a fog cloud of smoke hanging heavy across the valley below. A thousand thousand bodies writhe within its cradle, and ahead, a mountain, moving, towering, screaming a song of terror direct to her heart.

Movement to her right, the sinuous form of an Elvhen man folding in on himself in a whirl of fur, and then there is a wolf, six-eyed and snarling, slathering jaws snapping at the bloody air. “Ma nuvenin,” it rumbles with a darkened sense of relish. “Ona’la’avir,” and the wolf descends the hill like a nightmare, its bloodthirsty howl ripping through the fog.

Erys’ knees threaten to bend. She rips her palm away from Mythal’s. She can’t find her voice quickly enough to spit venom at the All-Mother for that memory and she’s grateful that she can’t. She chose to her hand out. She didn’t have to witness the memory.

“What did she show you?”

Shaking her head to clear the echo of clashing weapons from her mind is evidently the wrong thing to do, for Solas takes it as a refusal. His hands find her shoulders, grip just a touch past comfortable. “Vhenan, whatever you saw—“

“Don’t fret so, Solas. If I thought her so easy to frighten away, I wouldn’t dare speak to her.”

He scoffs, throwing a heated glare carelessly in her direction. “You’d frighten her to death if you thought it worth a laugh.”

“Well, yes, but it would need to be a very good laugh.”

Though she doesn’t expect it to work – at all – Erys gives a rough shrug of her shoulders to try and dislodge Solas’ hands. Rather than tightening his grip, he snatches them back as though burned, and in the split second before he can rein his expression into a mask of impassivity, there is the briefest flash of pain.

 “A moment,” Erys says through her teeth. “Give me. A moment.”

Each footsteps feels loaded, dangerous, but if she doesn’t walk away, she’s liable to unravel into a knotted pile of frayed threads and she will not be witnessed if that happens. As far as memories go, it is perhaps one of the most innocuous the Fade as warped to show her, but she isn’t stupid enough to believe Mythal offered it without ulterior motives. The All-Mother does not make mistakes. Vengeful and quick-tempered she may be, but she is not easily overwhelmed by emotion the way Solas is. At least, Erys doesn’t think so. Solas is calculated, yes, with a weakness for deep and agonising consideration, a product of his long, long life, but when seized by it, he is all too easily laid low by his passionate heart. A flaw, perhaps, to be so easily influenced by, but what living creature cannot be? Especially one born of emotion, whose eternal home was the very realm of dreams? Whereas Mythal has honed herself into an impartial judge, hardening her heart to a cutting edge and using the blade of her pain against those who would oppose her or her children. Together, the wolf and the All-Mother represent the best and worst of Elvhenan; cunning, vicious, loyal, compassionate, with a capacity for cruelty that is perhaps only so incomprehensible because of the years that shaped it.

So Erys steps away – mortal, and overwhelmed. The proximity to the both of them, as much as it feels disingenuous to include Solas – her Solas – in the distinction, twists her perception in ways she’s not sure she can stomach. It would be too easy, she thinks, to stand beside them and lose sight of what is right and what is wrong.

You think their cruelty casual and worry for your capacity for the same.

I can’t become that, Erys thinks dizzily, finding a rock to perch on before her legs give out. She keeps her back to the door, to the Elvhen. She can’t look at any of them right now. I know I don’t have time to even— I can’t. I can’t.

What do you fear becoming? Wisdom probes her thoughts curiously, peeling apart her discomfort with greedy fingers to try and reach the heart of her distress. You think your morals above theirs? You think yourself faultless in judgment by comparison?

No, I… No. I just don’t want to forget… who I am? Next to them, I am so small.

And yet your spirit shines. You do the People proud and they see it. You find revulsion in their actions and cannot reconcile that with your love. Your flaw is expecting one emotion to exclude the other. Your very mortality, your nature, defies this. If you were of spirit, it would consume you. That you can feel this at all is a blessing, despite the pain.

Erys grits her teeth. It doesn’t feel like it.

It hardly ever does. But does it need to? To matter?

I think you’re having too much fun inside my head.

Lethallan, I haven’t words enough to describe it. It brings me a joy I have not known in centuries.

Then I’m glad at least someone is enjoying themselves.

She is, honestly. Wisdom’s quiet wonder, ever-present in the back of her head, is a balm she had not expected. It’s hard to spiral dramatically in the austere face of divinity when there’s a sweet, curious creature bound to one’s existence that’s experiencing the full scope of mortal emotion for the first time. And that is not a sentence Erys ever thought she’d say. Though, on the list of all possible life outcomes, there are several she really didn’t think would make the list. Bound to an ancient goddess. Blighted. Beloved of the Dread Wolf. Possessed by a spirit of Wisdom.

Deshanna surely hadn’t foreseen any of this when she sent Erys to the Conclave.

What a cosmic joke.

Do you fight because you feel you must? Wisdom asks as Erys massages her throbbing temples. Apparently Wisdom’s curiosity is not sated.

“No,” Erys says aloud, unthinking, then winces. She can feel Solas’ eyes on her back. No. She tries to think coherently through the insistent throbbing inside her skull. No, it’s… I don’t know. I don’t know. I’m scared of them. Of what they are.

Lethallan. You are lying.

Maybe. But I don’t know what the truth is.

***

The quickling child doesn’t intend to, but she falls asleep rather quickly once she is afforded a quiet moment. Tucked against a rock, head lolling, Wisdom regards the slow snarl of the girl’s thoughts in quiet contemplation before extending its reach. The body it now inhabits responds at once, sensation – dulled while the child is awake – rushes in dizzyingly; pain, so much pain, and an exhaustion so acute Wisdom feels as though its borrowed eyes may burst from the pressure. It is a wholly unnerving experience, but not entirely unpleasant. The pain is harsher than it is used to, but not so unfamiliar. It can, at least, shield the child’s mind from the worst of it, tucking her safely within their shared mind so that she might sleep free of discomfort.

Then Wisdom gets up, and returns to the Elvhen working in silent tandem to break the last of the wards holding back the terrible Song.

Its old friend is quick to look up, eyes wide with concern and hope, but he notices quickly that it is not his heart that moves the body, and he bares his teeth in quiet fury. “You know better,” he says. “That body is not yours to use as you wish.”

“It calms her to be near you,” Wisdom says simply. It cools some of his well-placed ire somewhat. “She is resting, knotted inside in ways she cannot pick apart alone. But she dreams, and like this I can steer her away from the harshest ones.”

His hands twitch restlessly. He still has not healed his bloody knuckles. Wisdom wonders what nightmares set upon him so furiously to prompt such a violent and bloody reaction, but he has not shared it with the quickling, and so Wisdom does not know it. “Is she…?”

“She has confused herself,” Wisdom murmurs. “And tells herself lies to soothe what she cannot understand. She is so afraid and she bites at you to defend her heart and yours. She will leave you and she does not know how best to prepare you.”

“I’ll never understand mortal minds,” the Mother scoffs. “Honestly, they react so strangely when they learn they have such little time. As if that changes anything! They’re born to die, what difference does a few hours make?”

“Quiet,” Solas snaps. “Just— be quiet. You— This is—“ He exhales roughly. Mythal says nothing, just raises an eyebrow. Even now he struggles to cast full blame on her, even for the acts she is responsible for. And yet, they exist in as easy a truce as can be hoped for, one Wisdom never thought to witness.

“…I spoke carelessly,” she finally says.

Solas acknowledges her with a brisk nod and nothing further, turning his attentions back to Wisdom or – more accurately – the body it now inhabits. “You are well, my friend? I know the adjustment can be overwhelming, I don’t want you to suffer for this… kindness.”

Wisdom blinks. An odd motion, to be sure, but a rather pleasing one; this body contains instincts Wisdom has never needed nor felt, but there is strange comfort to be found in following the paths laid out. Still, it must be said, it wasn’t expecting Solas’ concern to be turned its way with his heart suffering so close. “I am surprised you would ask.”

He grimaces. “I can’t feign happiness for the outcome, but I can at least admit that I am… grateful… for your intervention. I wish it had not been necessary but without you…” He needs not finish the sentiment. They all know well enough what is at stake. “And— that does not mean I can’t worry for you. I always have.”

Dear fool that he is. Wisdom hums fondly. “I know you have. And I am well, I promise you. I know I need not ask, but should that change, I would have your assurance that you will act quickly.”

He pauses, mouth open. “I… Yes.” The agreement visibly pains him – there is little that does not in these cruel times – but Wisdom is satisfied nonetheless. “But parting you safely remains my priority.”

“I would expect nothing less, but I wanted your assurance should the worst come to pass and I have it. I am content.”

Mythal makes a soft sound in her throat. “More pact than possession. Strange, given the circumstance. I’d thought those days long gone.”

She speaks of days that predate the empire of her children by millennia, a time aeons before the Wolf broke the world to save it. Wisdom remembers, though the recollections are dimmed by reformation – lost majoritively to the being that Wisdom had once been and survived now only through echoes. It does not grieve in the way the Elvhen do, but it thrums with the solemnity of it all the same. “She was open to me in ways I had not thought to expect.” And then, unable to risk a jab, it smiles with borrowed lips, “but I am not the first being of Wisdom she has opened herself to.”

Mythal cackles while Solas turns an interesting shade of crimson. “That— That—“ He splutters, affronted. “That is not your sense of humour. You— That is all Erys.”

“Oh, absolutely, she thought that shortly after her mind accepted the bond,” Wisdom grins. The quickling’s body wears humour well. “I shouldn’t have stolen the opportunity from her, but I couldn’t resist.”

He mutters something about terrible influences. Wisdom just smiles blithely. It’s what the child would do, and so Wisdom eagerly does the same. It will be strange to return to incorporeal existence after this, but it finds it doesn’t mind the impending end to the union. Surely, it cannot be so twisted, if it would readily relinquish its host? It had worried awfully that its attempts to save the girl would serve only to doom them both, but for all its considerations and concerns, it could not see another way forward. And… in its most private thoughts, it hopes – however futilely – that the time its intervention affords may give them the chance to save her, given that their pact does not seem to be affecting either of them negatively.

Satisfied in his assessment of their joint condition, Solas returns his attention to the task at hand. The door looms large and Wisdom cannot pretend it isn’t terrified of what lies beyond – a fear compounded by Erys’ own in no small part. This it has precious little memory of, given that its construction had been wrought in secret, so absolute that none beyond the nine whose names and blood form the seal had known it. Justice permitted no spirits to dwell here, for their own safety. The Blight cannot poison spirits, but it can compel them with the madness of its Song all the same.

“Don’t interfere,” Mythal warns when he raises a hand to Sylaise’s ward. “You’ll skew the alignment. Just stand there and pretend to be useful.”

Solas blinks slowly, jaw tight. “Attempting June’s first will result in a backlash, his ward reinforces hers. You’ll need to unbind them together while redirecting the energies from Sylaise’s binding to fully shatter his.”

Mythal scowls at the door. She does not acknowledge the advice despite its veracity. “Just work on your own ward and shut up.”

Solas purses his lips. Digging a nail into his palm, he draws lightly upon the Fade to slice cleanly through the thin scar there, drawing a well of blood into the creases of his skin. He flicks a few errant droplets towards the bottom of the door, prompting Mythal to quickly sidestep as the central locking spear trembles and dislodges neatly from the door. Solas catches it deftly by the haft, drawing the weapon to the side and dissolving it in a shower of glittering sparks. Mythal grinds her teeth audibly.

“I didn’t miss you,” she says. “Smug bastard.”

“I’d imagine not.”

“At all.”

“A mutual sentiment, I assure you.”

Their biting words thrum with affection. Wisdom sighs heavily.

***

When Erys wakes, it’s with a harsh jolt and a moment of deep disorientation, though Solas’ warm palm against her cheek is enough to steady her until she can blink the heaviness of sleep from her eyes. Awful, formless dreams linger darkly at the edges of her awareness, but she cannot recall a single one. Regardless, she turns her head to press a soft kiss to Solas’ palm, stifling a yawn as he helps her to her feet. “I’m sorry. I don’t even remember falling asleep.”

“Wisdom saw to your rest,” he says, kissing her forehead gently. “I’d argue that you need much more of it, but we’re pressed for time.”

“Of course.” She shakes herself, scrubbing a hand over her face. “I’m— sorry, by the way. Earlier, I was…”

She’s not entirely sure what she’s apologising for, but it’s left a poor taste in her mouth and a heavy weight in her gut all the same. Wisdom had named her a liar, which was admittedly harsh but not entirely unfounded. She is afraid of so many things, not least of all the knowledge that she is walking to her own death, and she has never handled fear well. It makes her edges sharp, turns her cold. Even when she had been forced to watch the South crumble, she had not felt this afraid, and having nothing tangible to fight against has left her unbalanced.

“You’ve nothing to apologise for,” Solas assures her. “But if I can have one concession from you, I ask that you do not push me away. I’ve suffered worse wounds than your harsh tongue, I can bear your distress without offence. Please don’t take yourself away from me.”

Ashamed, Erys nods. “I’ll do my best.”

“That is all I ask.”

She leans up as far as she can, then, and Solas leans down to meet her instinctively. She cannot kiss him – who, honestly, would want to kiss a Darkspawn? – but she can press her forehead against his, sighing shakily and resisting the near-overwhelming urge to press forward relentlessly until she can meld their bodies together. He seems to want something similar, if the way he cups her face is any indication. She almost wishes he’d hurt her, hold her so tightly that her bones break and his hands sink through flesh and sinew until they can clutch at her bones. She wants to be closer than this.

She startles when he growls, a low, desperate noise of longing, and then the hands at her face tilt it up towards him. She barely has a moment to register her alarm before he kisses her, the idiot, but the moment his lips touch hers, she couldn’t stop him if she wanted to. She gasps tearfully into his mouth, clutching at him, his shoulder, his dirty clothes, anything to keep him close to her.

“You idiot,” she mumbles against his lips when he draws back to breathe.

He doesn’t argue or refute her, just pecks another soft kiss to her lips before rubbing his cheek tenderly against hers. His breathing is shallow and unsteady, one hand cupping the back of her head. She winces slightly when his fingers catch against a vicious snarl tangled into her hair, and the desire to be clean very nearly eclipses her need to be close to him.

Nearly.

“It was worth the risk,” he murmurs.

He says that, but between the two of them it is his life that bears the greatest weight of worth. Hers is not tied to the Veil. He does not have the luxury of carelessness.

She’s grateful, all the same. Even if the tenderness of this brief connection tears through her like the bitterest grief. Is this how he felt? Wanting so fiercely all while knowing that it must end?

Crestwood’s memory may never stop hurting her, but at least she can understand.

“I love you.”

He nods, kissing her forehead again. “Vhenan.”

She traces the proud ridge of his nose with her fingers, smiling when he twitches it under her ticklish caress. “I don’t mean to hurt you. I’ve been cruel. I’m sorry.”

”No,” he says, nudging her fingers gently with his nose as though questing for further pets. “You are, perhaps, one of precious few who can speak truths that resonate with me. Whether I want to hear them or not. You have… never shied away from the parts of me that are less…”

”No part of you is lesser,” Erys declares fiercely. “I’m not— I don’t love you in spite of the difficult parts. I don’t love you because I disregard them, or anything foolish like that. I love you in full knowledge of these rougher, harsher parts and I know I’ve told you already that I will accept what I cannot forgive and…” She smiles softly. “I will always try to understand what scares me. I’m a lot younger than you.” Her smile turns teasing. “I don’t have your experience, hahren.”

He exhales, lips twitching, and puts at least a slightly more respectable length of distance between them. “Ma nuvenin, ‘ma sal’shiral.” He sobers then, sighing. “I did actually wake you with intent. Mythal is ready to break the final ward. I…” His brow furrows. “I wondered if I might ask you to—“

“No,” she says at once. “I’m coming with you.”

“It isn’t solely you I worry for,” he insists. “I do not know what awaits us and I would not have you and Wisdom subjected to any undue pressure that might serve to strengthen your bond. It will be harder to separate you without causing the both of you harm.”

“I want to be where you are.”

Solas closes his eyes, cursing softly. “When did I become so powerless to refuse you?”

She dares to grin at him. “Probably around the time you realised that I’m usually right. Arguably more often than you are.”

“Ah, of course,” he says drily. “That would explain it. Ten thousand years and I finally learned common sense.”

“See? There’s hope for you yet.”

Deftly he takes her hand into his, kissing her knuckles and twining their fingers together. “Come,” he says, drawing her along towards that awful doorway. Mythal waits with her customary scowl of impatience, which doesn’t soften as they make their way over. She opens her mouth to likely comment about it, but Solas’ sharp glare silences her. For a wild moment Erys thinks the All-Mother might pull a face at him, but instead she simply turns back to the door and draws some sort of sigil in the air. The spear bearing her name – the last – falls away with a clatter.

Honestly, Erys was hoping for something slightly more dramatic.

“I know,” Mythal says, lips downturned. “Dreadfully underwhelming.”

Erys shudders. “Augh, don’t say things I agree with. Makes me feel weird.”

“I just can’t win with you children, can I?”

“I’m actively dying to keep you alive, so… I think that should answer that question sufficiently.”

Mythal considers this. “…Fair point. Shall we?”

Erys nods and Mythal raises her hands to the door, but rather than pushing, she plants herself against it and twists, rolling a circular dial within the door, hidden well within its ridged surface until it begins to shift. Perhaps four feet in diameter, Erys wouldn’t think it so heavy to turn if the muscles in Mythal’s back beneath the draped folds of her bodice didn’t bunch with the strain. It takes perhaps thirty seconds in total for the dial to fully turn, and once it completes its revolution, the door begins to groan, rumbling, echoing like thunder heralding a storm, and the ground underfoot shudders with the force of it. Mythal leans against it, then, and the entire thing splits down the centre, doors swinging wide on invisible hinges.

Erys draws a sharp breath. Contained inside, locked away from the world by blood and vow, a chamber filled with sawtoothed spines of crystallised lyrium awaits them, bathed in a bloody hue that seems to thrum from deep within each spearing fragment. A blast of hot air hits her with nearly enough force to send her staggering, and that painful ringing in her ears fades into her awareness, louder and louder until her head starts to throb.

I am here! Wisdom calls as though from a distance, and the ringing blessedly fades.

Thank you, falon. Were you resting? I’m sorry to need you again so soon.

I am glad to do it, Wisdom promises. The clanging chime of its insistence is a warm weight at the back of her awareness.

“I can’t see a clear way through,” Mythal says. She nudges a cluster of tiny crystals with the toe of her left boot. It flares with a crackling sort of energy, like the defensive hiss of a territorial wildcat. “I’m… hesitant to clear one.”

“That has never stopped you before,” Solas says with only the barest slant of judgement to his tone. Mythal throws him a flat glare. “What? When have you ever tolerated anything barring your way?”

“If you want to bait me, dearest Pride, you’ll need to try harder than that.”

“I’ve no need to bait you,” Solas scoffs. “I know you favour the direct approach, but brute force is hardly necessary.” He gives Erys’ shoulder a brief squeeze. “Vhenan, if you would lend me your trust for a moment?”

Erys turns her head to stare at him, blinking slowly. Why would she ever need to lend something he has had since she practically threw herself into the Fade after him, something he once held so utterly she would have walked through fire to remain at his side?

She hopes her flat glare conveys as much, it must do, because he clears his throat, ears twitching nervously. “Approach the door?” He offers it like a question, but she is still quick to obey, before he can even utter the words she knows were sure to follow – assurances that he would not let her come to harm. Besides, it’s not as though a little added mortal risk can phase her now. She’s very firmly sat in the realm of what is known as borrowed time.

Mythal steps aside as Erys moves to stand in the doorway, wincing as Wisdom falters under the Blight’s deafening call, before the spirit redoubles its efforts to shield her. It’s alright, I think you need to let it in.

Are you certain?

As certain as she can be of anything here. While Wisdom calms the worst of it, Erys can feel the curl of the Blight pressing at the seams of her body, urging her forward with desperate insistence. The snatches she can catch between the spirit’s efforts paint a picture that could not be clearer. It’s Calling me, I think. The… The least I can do is answer.

I forget how the people of the Veil rose to combat the disease. I can feel no fear in you for this.

Fear… No, she supposes not. She isn’t calm, but… there’s a sense of stillness where there had been turmoil before. She thinks of the Darkspawn who had thrust her face into the Blight pool, the cluster of them that had followed, never attacking. Almost as if they had known her destination before she had. Why drag someone somewhere they are already going? They had no need to use force once the infection took root or, as she is coming to suspect, the connection had been made.

Against the shriek of her instincts, she lays her palm against the nearest jutting shard of lyrium, curling her palm around the pointed crown, and marvels at the warmth within. In flutters in her grip like the delicate wings of a caged bird, rhythmic, intermittent flurries of movement, like a hundred gentle heartbeats in clustered succession. It is so warm under her touch.

Erys feels Wisdom withdraw from her consciousness slightly. Not in fear, not in pain. It simply parts the shield of its presence to allow space for something new; a tentative wavering moment of contact from another. If she hadn’t spent so much time among spirits, she’d probably be far more alarmed by the lightning-quick flash of impressions that follow, but while they are rapid, frantic things, she catches enough to parse some rudimentary meaning from them.

Six eyes of void-hued shadow. Rending claws, tapered like blades. A demon? Grey, plated skin around a gaping, fanged maw. … Pride. Vision unfolds as memory, whether truth or lie indecipherable, but the understanding is swift. Erys acknowledges the questing presence fluttering with surprising gentleness at the forefront of her awareness. The relentless buzz of the discordant song chimes a single, clear note.

“It doesn’t want me,” Erys says, haltingly, “it’s— it’s acknowledged me but I don’t think I’m the one it’s asking for.”

Mythal’s gaze sharpens with interest. “It denies you?”

“Not quite?” A wave of dizziness follows the withdrawal of her hand, a yawning gulf where there had been something before. Something unique that she now aches oddly in the absence of. “It acknowledged me, saw me, I think, as part of it. The Blight is its corrupted song. All it knows how to do is sing, but the creatures it used to sing for aren’t part of it anymore, it can’t reach them.”

“Then what does it want?”

Here, Erys hesitates. She’d had no qualms about offering herself to it, she is, after all, part of it now, but the lyrium's song is conveying a clear message – perhaps only clear to her; one she can at least manage to loosely translate. She certainly feels fear now, but who wouldn’t when called upon to offer up…

“Solas,” she says, looking to him. “It… It wants you, I think.”

He smiles. Why, exactly, she has no idea, but he steps up beside her, hand to her back, still smiling, for no reason she can easily discern.

He doesn’t offer any explanation, no words of clarity or comfort, and that scares her. A deep, clawing burst of fear tears its way up her throat and he looks so calm and she is terrified of what he might do. She grips his arm, anchoring herself with all the strength left to her because they will not be parted again, she couldn’t bear it, she couldn’t survive it—

He touches the same crystal she had with the reverence of an adherent.

All at once, the crimson light within dims into dead, lifeless grey. The spread of crystals implode in on themselves with muted, vacuous pops; air abruptly filling a sudden empty space where before there had been mass, and crumble into weightless flakes of ash that flutter tremulously to the ground. In the centre of the chamber, atop a nondescript pedestal of no artful design, sits a blackened cube that seems to repel light and the very desire to look upon it. Erys finds her gaze slipping away from it, aware that it’s there but unable to force her gaze to settle on it for more than a glancing moment.

She wants so badly to touch it.

She presses herself closer to Solas in defiance of that desire. She’s stupidly curious about a lot of things, but even she isn’t foolish enough to lay a hand on something that won’t even let her properly look at it.

“Is that…?”

“Yes,” Solas says softly. The fear may be carefully held off of his face, but it threads unmistakably through his words. “I hoped I would never see it again. Every mistake I have made, every transgression, pales in comparison. This came first. The rest followed this…” He swallows hard. “…Sin.”

“I’m with you,” she promises for what, if anything, it’s worth. “You aren’t alone.”

A tremor ripples through his arm as he wraps it around her to pull her close. Once, this was all she wanted of him – for him to take strength in her presence the way she sought solace in his. He clings to her, stone-faced, as though the grim neutrality could hide his pain from her.

She sees it. She sees him.

What must happen next, she doesn’t know, but she will be here for whatever happens. Until she is forcibly stopped by the dual timers on her mortality, she will be with him.

Solas jerks forward abruptly, sending Erys staggering under the sudden and violent collision of his full weight. She grunts a bitten-off curse, splaying her hand reflexively against his stomach to steady him. He turns his face into her hair. Hot, quick breaths pant across her cheeks, damp, stuttering. Then he slumps forward and she cries out sharply, panicked, as her clumsy grip falters.

Her hand comes away wet, too slick to hold him. Dripping. Crimson. Her heart twists, lungs seizing. Solas curls forward, knees hitting the ground with a force of impact that shudders his whole body. The back of his tunic soaks itself as she watches, fibres suckling greedily at the spreading cloud of red, red, red—

“Solas! Solas!”

If she screams his name, she doesn’t know. She must, her throat scrapes around the cry as she follows him, knees scraping across rough rocks as she scrambles to his hunched form, hand fluttering uselessly over the gaping, torn hole in his shoulder. “‘Ma fen, I’m here, I—“ She can’t heal him, she can’t heal him, she has no mana— "Mythal, ma halani—“

The All-Mother’s booted feet sweep into her vision. Erys looks up, relieved and then confused, watching as Mythal walks past them, into the chamber, towards that fucking thing on the pedestal. The length of her right gauntlet is dyed with gore, splattered up to the elbow.

“Ir abelas, da’lin’en,” she says softly without once glancing back. “I would have you understand that I do not do this out of avarice.”

As if Erys cares about Mythal’s fucking machinations! “Help him! I don’t care what you want, just fucking help him!” Solas wheezes a groan between his teeth, shuddering as he tries to push himself up. He slumps back down with a hiss. Something Elvhen snakes through the pained sound, too low, too quick for Erys to catch. Wisdom bellows with helpless rage in the back of her head.

“Sathan,” she begs, shameless in her desperation. “Please, help him.”

“I am,” Mythal says, and touches her bloody gauntlet to the artefact.

Chapter Text

Having been rendered perhaps arrogantly agnostic by necessity, Erys’enya does not believe in higher powers as the faithful would describe them, nor does she set much stock in fate or things of that ilk. She is, however, a staunch believer in the equalising powers of karmic retribution – what one puts into the world surely shapes what they will receive, mostly – and so the sight of Mythal being flung across the chamber by some unseen detonation is genuinely excellent. Almost the very moment the sullied claws of her gauntlet touch Solas’ blood to the artefact, making contact with that unknown material, she is flung backwards with such force that Erys can’t quite track the movement. One moment the bitch-Mother is upright, then she is connecting with the far right wall with an echoing crack and slumping down to the ground.

Were Solas not bleeding to a slow death in her arms, she’d laugh at her.

Harellan! Wisdom bellows with white-hot fury, loud enough that Erys is certain its voice has broken the boundary of their self-contained mental link to echo through the chamber. Betrayer! Liar! Su an’banal i’ma!

The spirit’s rage, twinned fiercely with Erys’ panic, sharpens her focus into a blade. Falon, I need you!

Wisdom spits rage like a venomous serpent, but coils readily around Erys’ will when called. I am— here. The tremor in its promise belies the sparking bite of the fury Erys can feel beneath her skin. The taste of a heavy storm sits thick with static upon her tongue. Powerful. Seductive. She plucks at it thoughtlessly, instinctively, and the abrupt deluge of power that ripples through her then fills her wretchedly depleted mana pool to bursting. Her entire body thrums with the virulent swirl of Wisdom’s self, the blistering heat of its charged anger, the bite of its reckless rage. She welcomes the surge of it, every lancing blaze of it within her, for the way it burns away the fear and the pain and the exhaustion. Adrenaline in her blood. Power in her limbs.

Her Faded arm ripples from her scarred stump, filling the loose, ragged sleeve of her tunic until the limb is fully formed. The other, her enfleshed palm, she pushes against the gaping wound in Solas’ back, threading every ounce of that surging power into the torn and broken skin.

Solas groans into the ground, throaty, wet, and guttural. Panic seizes viciously at her heart, but she keeps her voice low, quiet, as the tumbling murmurs fall softly, “I’m here, Solas, I’m here, I have you, it’s alright, it’s alright.”

He grips her Fade-touched fingers like a lifeline, slick and chilled, breaths shuddering through his teeth in sharp, laboured gusts. Mythal has yet to move, but Wisdom watches with a predator’s sense in ways Erys can’t parse, rippling with anger both protective and fierce. If the All-Mother so much as twitches, Wisdom will know, leaving Erys to focus her attention on the man slumped in her arms.

In painful increments the mottled punctures begin to close. Erys watches with detached revulsion, rendered clinical in the blinding face of her panic. Punctures in the savage shape of Mythal’s claws, rent deep into unprotected flesh. The brutality of it shocks her, but some starkly rational part recognises that it had not been aimed with the intent to kill. To incapacitate, maybe, surely Mythal wouldn’t… not after everything. But she doesn’t know for certain, can’t know, and that scares her to death.

“Solas,” she murmurs, squeezing his clutching fingers as best she can. “Just breathe, my love, it’s alright.”

He grunts, hissing out a breathless gasp. He slurs out something Elvhen and incomprehensible, interspersed with her name. She has never heard the ancient cant of his accent catch upon the edges of her name before, and hates that she is hearing it for the first time like this. She kisses his temple instead of mourning, as though she can press her whispered comfort into his skin to take root deeper than her words can reach.

“Stop,” he finally manages, breathless but firm, leaning heavily against her chest. “Stop it,” he begs. He tries to move and fresh blood wells from the unhealed wounds so she clutches him tighter with a feral snarl of warning. “Wisdom—“

“Shut up, shut up, just let me heal you.”

He bares his teeth weakly. There is blood smeared beneath his lips. “The strain will—“

“I don’t care about the fucking strain!”

Neither Erys nor Wisdom would regret devolving into a true abomination if it meant keeping him from harm. She can feel it with every beat of her heart, in the thundering growl of Wisdom’s rage within her bones; they are united in this with absolute understanding. There is nothing Wisdom would not do to protect the kindred spirit who formed alongside it and there is nothing Erys would not to do protect the partner of her heart and mind. Even if it is sure to spell the sudden and complete end of her, she would rip Mythal apart if it meant keeping him safe.

Solas pulls in a deep, steady breath. Carefully, he lifts himself from the support of Erys’ body, sitting back on his heels and rubbing a hand over his chest slowly. His tunic is as bloodied at the front as the back, Mythal’s heartless strike having torn right through him, but Solas is able to rotate his right arm and lift it without pain or stiffness, which eases the leaden weight in Erys’ gut. Relieved as she is, that doesn’t stop her countering Solas’ disapproving scowl with a defiant snarl of her own.

“No,” she says, covering his mouth. Oh, he does not like that. She’ll care more about his pride when he isn’t covered in his own blood and pale as parchment. “No. I will never see you hurt and not try to help you. Ever. Don’t ask that of me.”

He catches her wrist, holding her fast as he moves away from her grip. “It is not your power to wield in my defence!”

“Wisdom doesn’t care either! It wants you to be safe, you—“

He grips her shoulders with pale, clammy hands, giving her a shockingly forceful shake. “I begged you, I begged you!” He looks manic. “You were not to strain yourselves, either of you! To separate you now will likely cause irreparable harm, no matter how careful I try to be! Wisdom reflects you now, there’s no separation between your selves, if its nature twists, it will overcome you.”

“I am myself,” Wisdom growls, slithering darkly between Erys’ thoughts. “You do not dictate how I share my power.”

The realisation that Erys’ lips have not moved of her volition is a terrifying one.

“Do not speak through her,” Solas snarls, fingers digging welts into Erys’ skin. The pain registers for just a moment before Wisdom banishes it with a thought and Solas recoils as a barrier snaps into place across Erys’ flesh, drawn from the rippling pool that threatens to spill like an overfull cup. Her blood sings with it, a dizzying rush of potential that lights her insides like a beacon. It is sharper than she has ever felt, warmer than the cool bite of her own magic. This ripples with the power of an untamed storm, wild, unfettered, and free. It is intoxicating. Overwhelming. She wants to drown in it.

“I saved her life!” Wisdom cries, sending sparks shivering down Erys’ arms. Her ensorcelled left flares with the crackle of lightning, its Fade-green pulse turning a pale, shocking lilac. Erys marvels at it distantly, turning the limb palm up to admire the heart of a storm melded so perfectly with her flesh. She never favoured the storm before, she always felt the keenest kinship with the aspect of cold, but she cannot deny the raw, almost feral appeal of the magic now coursing through her. The fine hairs on her body prickle and rise, revelling in the static charge tingeing the air - supple, sweet, and ancient.

“Wisdom,” Solas says quickly, hands raised as though to soothe the spirit. “Sileal. Please. This is not you, this is not what you want. Look at what you’re doing. Look at what you’ve done.”

It is a wholly peculiar sensation, Erys thinks, to want so badly to speak, and find oneself incapable of forming the words. The loss of her tongue had silenced her cruelly, but the absence had been the source of her inability, something tangible she could blame as the cause. This is different. It’s as though the muscle-memory of the instinct to move her lips, to control her body – sound and whole in all the ways she is used to – has left her. She tries to flex her fingers, then, tries to turn her palm as she had before, and finds that impossible, too. Panic rises hotly in her throat. It is quickly smothered by Wisdom’s will.

“I will protect her,” Wisdom vows, the shape of its promise sharp on Erys tongue. “The way you could not.”

Wisdom, Erys thinks desperately as Solas recoils. Stop now, it’s alright. We’re safe, he won’t hurt us.

Wisdom bares Erys’ teeth with a growl that shakes through the core of her spirit. “Already he has and again he will. Do not lie to me when I have felt that old agony as my own. You are mine to protect and I will not fail.”

Not again. Not again, please not again. Erys can’t bear to be the cause of Wisdom’s perversion, not when it has already endured so much. She welcomed the spirit when it was a spirit, she cannot tolerate a demon within her, not the pain that perversion will bring. She may not believe as she once had, knows more than she ever dreamed possible, but there is no denying the treacherous roar of Pride in the once-spirit’s claim.

I am so sorry. She thinks the words with all of her heart, all of her remorse, all of her guilt. You saved my life at the cost of yours.

“No,” Wisdom growls, “no. This is how it had to be. It is better this way. I can keep you safe. I can protect us both.”

“Oh, lethallin,” Solas breathes mournfully. “I am so sorry.”

Erys sees – and so Wisdom sees – the slow curl of the Fade’s light within his irises. It shrieks a threatened warning that sears Erys’ throat so harshly her eyes sting and lightning surges across her skin, turning the protective barrier into something hostile. The light fades from Solas’ eyes, Erys can see it, the way magic ebbs into calculation, watchful and alert. Beyond whatever method Solas knows that she does not, she only knows of one guaranteed way to separate a demon from its host. Solas said that his form of separation would cause them pain and she is prepared for that, at least. If it is what needs to be done to keep Wisdom safe, to revert it without disintegrating it into formless memory, she prays that he will do it.

A piercing, mournful cry shears through her head. Lethallan, why do you not want me?

I want Wisdom. I do not want you as Pride.

I can be better! For you, I will be better. You love Pride, love me as well!

A tear wells within her lashline and slips a clumsy trail down Erys’ cheek. The only sign that she is still present within the body Wisdom now commands and Solas’ eyes track the movement keenly, hands flexing with the indecision of reaching for her and risking Wisdom’s protective fury. It is an unbearable place to be caught; whatever extremities Erys can control through Wisdom’s inexperience with a form are quickly smothered and overpowered the moment she finds them. If she knows, Wisdom knows, and even her innermost thoughts are not safe from the spirit’s will. She is trapped inside the cage of her own body and there is nothing she can do about it.

Not trapped, not trapped! Wisdom howls. Better! Better together, stronger, safer!

You did a brave and kind thing for me, lethallin, and it has broken you.

I am not broken! I am me, I am me, I am me!

In its panicked shout, Erys hears the echo of a Dalish child touched by magic and terrified. In its shaking cry, she hears a plea to forget, to be ignored, to be overlooked for the gift that had sparked in the child’s blood. I am me, not a mage, not a First, I don’t want it! On and on rings the memory of a child fighting against what it is in starkest lie of what it fears to become. When the tears next spill over, they do not belong to Erys.

Remember, Erys tells the spirit. You are your own being. Do not take my pain as your own. I do not need your protection. I love you as you are.

Erys’ fingers twitch. The motion ripples along her muscles, bunching and contracting beneath her skin, and the movement is at her own command. Wisdom sobs softly, a shattering, jolting sensation that catches in the pillowed seams of her joints. She watches in fascination, distant, more overwhelmed by the ability to turn her own head upon her neck, as the lightning core of her formed arm begins to crackle and shorten, fingers collapsing in as the limb loses form and depletes its panicked energy. As her torn sleeve slackens once more, Wisdom’s prideful clutch of her body loosens, until all that remains is the crackling weight of the spirit’s grief tucked against her thoughts.

“Take it,” Erys breathes, right hand pressing urgently against Solas’ thigh. The muscles tense beneath her palm, but the barrier has faded and does not surge pain into his skin. “Take it from me. It’s calm now, draw it out.”

There is no doubt in her mind that Solas can do it. Not for a moment does she hesitate and blessedly, neither does he. If he is relieved that she is able to speak for herself, it doesn’t show across his face, but he takes her hand in his and reaches his other up to cradle the back of her head. It only strikes her then that she has no idea where Wisdom will be drawn from. It fascinates her clinically, distantly, to wonder, but adrenaline and fear and concern are warring sickeningly in her belly and all she wants is for Wisdom to be taken away so that Erys can no longer hurt it with her messy mortality.

Solas’ fingers trace the back of her neck, under the snarled tangles of her hair, pads colder than her feverish flesh. She shivers reflexively. He pinches her nape— no, around her nape, fingers and thumb squeezing lightly either side. She focuses on his face and the sharpened focus she finds there. Wisdom is still crying. Her cheeks are still damp. Solas’ chest rises and falls in a slow, steady rhythm. Erys matches the pace of her own breathing to it unconsciously, and Wisdom’s weak sobs soften, quieten, comforted by shared calm.

Solas moves his hand. Erys stops breathing entirely.

Her spine becomes a river. A hundred rushing streams branch from its coursing current, carrying its chill to the tips of every finger, digging into her nail beds, down her back, her legs, traversing whirlpools in the bends of her knees to her feet, pooling in her soles. Solas draws his pinching fingers from her neck and that chill pulls with them, threads of ice winding, winding through her skin, beneath it, between the hot burn of blooded muscle and the thick shield of flesh, crawling. She doesn’t cry out, but she shudders and flexes her fingers in Solas’ steady grip, squeezing tightly to ground herself. The shift of dry blood cracking beneath her fingers makes her wince which tilts the draw even more wrongly and a warbling groan sings past her teeth. He hushes her softly and offers no comfort. She is not in pain. It just feels wrong.

When those liquid threads snap like fine hairs tugged from follicles, she stiffens as though shocked. Only lightly, a passing static charge that ebbs as quickly as it comes. Solas sits swiftly back on his heels, drawing his arm across his chest, as though to cradle something small and delicate in the crook of it. Blinking, Erys sees that he is cradling something; the tiny, weakly pulsing form of a many-tendrilled spirit draped across his forearm, tiny and diminished, but whole.

Worry shivers up her throat. “Does it—“

“I have it,” Solas murmurs, squeezing Erys’ hand once. He doesn’t sound afraid and so Erys’ fretful heart stops its nervous seizing. It is a strange image, to be sure, the both of them knelt, heads bowed over such a delicate little thing tucked into Solas’ arm, close against his body. She shies away from it instinctively, before the concept can take root and hurt her, watching unsteadily the way Wisdom’s little tendrils waft and flex as though reaching for something. “It is weak, but it will not disperse.” He bestows a small but unspeakably relieved smile upon the spirit, though his words are for Erys. “Ma serannas, vhenan. If you hadn’t calmed it…”

“I didn’t do anything,” Erys says. Nothing consciously, nothing that feels at all worthy of praise. She did what she always does: spoke with her heart and not her head. If that was enough to keep Wisdom steady enough to release it without taking its life, then all she can be is grateful. “If I…” She untangles her fingers from Solas’, hovering a finger above Wisdom’s weakly grasping tail. “Is it alright if…?”

“Of course,” Solas says, angling his arm so that Wisdom’s tail can wrap loosely around Erys’ finger. The spirit hums faintly, a sigh in the shape of a hymn. It is so very sorry. “There is no risk. It isn’t strong enough to possess you again.”

“I don’t care about that,” Erys murmurs, finding herself strangely close to tears. “I just want it to be okay.”

“It is,” Solas assures her softly. “It is home within the Fade and it hadn’t fully twisted from its purpose. It was frightened for you, for me, and furious, emotions that are outside of its nature. Its desire to protect you, to heal me, caused it distress it could not contain or conceive of. Think of a child experiencing a savage burst of emotion for the first time, with no name to assign to the sensation.”

Wisdom chimes sadly. Erys hushes it softly, stroking her thumb across the tail wound so tightly around her finger. “As long as it’s alright. I couldn’t bear it if I…”

“It made a conscious choice to join with you,” Solas says. “Hold no guilt for what it offered freely in friendship.”

Easier said than done, but to see Wisdom whole – diminished but not harmed – is enough to ease the worst of her remorse. That the spirit nudges softly against her awareness with affection and not reproach helps greatly. She sighs, a heavy, relieved sound that sinks her shoulders as she lets it out, and turns her face to smile, tiredly, at Solas. He raises his head at last, the beginnings of something small and sweet curling about his lips, a private moment of victory. It dies a quick, savage death before it can truly form. In its place; horror.

Solas’ eyes widen with fear.

“Solas?” She reaches for his arm.

He flinches instinctively, then utters a soft gasp of regret. “I’m— sorry. Ir abelas, vhenan. I did not mean— I…”

Solas does not, as a rule, flinch away from her. He may have, once, when they dallied and flirted and felt each other out like circling wolves before they knew one another, but it has been many years since those frost-bitten days of uncertainty. So no, Solas does not flinch away from her. Not without cause. Not without reason.

There is a faint ringing in her ears.

Erys is no fool.

“Is it bad?” She asks softly, reaching her hand up to touch her own face. “Can you see…?”

Without Wisdom’s influence, the Blight is unfettered. Erys does not know how long it takes the infection to overwhelm healthy flesh in the waking world, so she has little idea of how virulently it might interact with the Fade, but the truth is that she has little time, and with the sudden cessation of the spirit’s tempering influence, she is almost certain that the tainted magic has flooded forward to take whatever ground it had been forced to cede.

Solas’ eyes flicker over her face. Once, he had traced the lines of Mythal’s vallaslin upon her brow with something like derision. Now, whatever marks her flesh anew calls a primal sense of grief into his eyes, heavier than a physical blow.

Her smile is full of false bravado. “That bad?”

“There are…” He swallows, adds haltingly, “…some marks. It is not so…” Hesitant fingers come close to brushing her jaw. He does not touch her. He likely never will again and that— is an awful thought to have. Even if Solas did not bear a primal – understandable – fear of the Blight, common sense would dictate that it would be unwise to risk contact with something so unclean. At the same time, Erys feels very much herself within her own mind – a state she had taken truly for granted, with Mythal and Wisdom clattering around in there – and so his hesitant distance hurts her. She understands it, she truly does! But that does not make it any easier to bear.

She is dying, she knows this. She just hadn’t really let herself think of the fact that she would be dying without the comfort of touch.

“Your eyes,” Solas says quietly. Wisdom keens softly in his arms.

Erys nods. “I read somewhere that they’re usually the first to go. Change, I mean. I think I did. I’m sure I read that somewhere, but I can’t remember…” She laughs softly. “I think I’m making that up. I don’t know, I have no idea. Wardens aren’t too keen on sharing. It makes sense, though, doesn’t it?”

He, of course, probably knows more about the effects of the Blight on the body than anyone else still living. Ghilan’nain had chosen it for her medium, hadn’t she? Choosing the Blight with the same relish a master craftsman might have selected a new chisel.

“Yes.” The admittance is faint. “The eyes change first. Darkened sclera. Reddened irises.”

Erys blinks her own changed eyes slowly. She doesn’t quite know how to feel. She should probably be revolted, but she cannot see her own face. Morbidly curious though she is, that is probably for the best. “Is that what you see?”

To his credit, Solas does not look away now that he has looked upon her Blighted face. “Yes,” he says again, and his voice does not tremble this time. “’Ma vhenan, I…”

“It’s alright.”

His face cracks, pain splintering across his features. She knows every word that dies half-formed on his tongue, knows with absolute certainty the deluge that wants to spring forth. No, it isn’t, it will never be alright, this is my fault, I did this to you, I should never have brought you here, I should have left you in Minrathous, I should have denied you in Skyhold, I should have never let you close.

A little cluster of tears slips down his cheeks, leaving tracks in the dirt and blood. They glisten in the shadowless light, but the moment they drip from his chin, his pained grimace softens into something harder. Resolute. Beneath the grime, twinned slits sear into his flesh, two above and two below his piercing, shining eyes. They blink open, though only five of them fix on her. One is dull, colourless and pale, slit properly through by the scar that slits savagely down his elven right. It’s strange to look at because it isn’t strange at all. His face has not noticeably shifted to accommodate the eyes of Wisdom, but it must have, though it looks for all the world as though they have always been there. As though they belong there.

“This will not kill you, Erys’enya,” he declares, voice quiet but no less resolute for it. “Do not fear that, my heart. I have not come this far and forsaken so much to let you become another memory to mourn.”

Oh, he is the worst of all. Her breath catches and her Blighted eyes sting with tears she refuses to shed. Awful thing that he is, he makes her hope, and she cannot bear it. She has resigned herself to this end, no matter how much she yet fears it, but he is so determined, and she has ever been weak to his confidence.

“Solas—“

“You have hoped for the both of us for years longer than I deserved,” he says. “Let me offer it to you now.”

She swallows. Nods. “Ma nuvenin.”

“Ar nuvenan.” All five eyes bore into hers. “I will fix this, Erys. I promise you. However I have to.”

She laughs. It is a wet, broken sound. “Fen’Harel dirthsal.”

“Ar dirthsal,” he agrees. “This will not have you, vhenan. It will not take you from me.”

It occurs to her that she cannot remember the last time she watched a smile reach his eyes. Has it been so long since that quiet moment in his conjured aravel when his smile had been wide and crooked, his eyes hazy with the weight of sleep’s slow release, skin warm against hers?

“Ma dhruan,” she tells him, because she must, because she will not give up what little happiness they have been able to steal for themselves from the wreckage of the fraught history of Elvhenan. She believes him, even as the shard of enkindled hope threatens to rip through her viciously if she is disappointed in this. She does believe him, as much as her overwrought heart can dare to, but even if he can take the Blight from her, that still leaves…

“Mythal,” Erys breathes, turning to the slumped form of the All-Mother. Or, she notes with a slowly mounting sense of horror, the space where the crumpled goddess’ body had been. “Solas—”

He follows her gaze, all at once watchful and alert, but he sees it as clearly as she does. They are alone, and the All-Mother is nowhere to be found. Erys is not so adept with magic that she can find any tether within herself to trace the geas’ origin. The Well had been largely silent from the moment she took it into herself, choosing when and where it wished to be heard based on factors she could never glean or predict. It is silent now, beyond a low ringing in her ears. “Is she…?”

Solas doesn’t touch her. Of course he doesn’t. Erys tries not to let it sting as he passes a hand over her, palm rippling with magic. His brow creases, furrow deepening even as the light fades. “The geas is still present, but Mythal is not... Can you summon a spell? Anything at all?”

Erys laughs flatly. “Are you joking? I’ve never felt so depleted in my life. My mana pool has been empty since…” She shakes her head. “No. I’ve nothing to call on.”

This displeases him. “I would not have you defenceless, but I worry that whatever mana I pass to you will…”

“Feed the dragon?”

“…Quite.”

Whatever begrudging fondness that has wormed its way into Erys’ reluctant heart has been savagely expunged. “She tried to kill you.” Fury is an old, familiar friend, but Solas is already shaking his head.

“No, she didn’t. She wanted my blood and she wanted me incapacitated. If she wanted me dead, a strike through my heart would have ensured it better than a glancing blow to my shoulder.”

Glancing blow. As if the claw marks left by her gauntlets had not punched through his flesh. As if his blood does not still stain Erys’ hand, clotting beneath her fingernails and in every crease of her flesh. “I can’t… Solas, I can’t forgive that.”

He looks at her then, brows drawn tight. “You can accept her drain on your life, but you deny her for a meagre wound to me?”

She thinks to say I did not serve her faithfully, and then remembers her vallaslin. “I wasn’t hers,” is what she settles on, crude and perhaps somewhat cruel, for Solas winces. “I meant—“

“You meant that you care little for your own suffering and believe me to be trembling within the confines of my mind over a repeat betrayal.”

Well, now she feels awful. “Not… how I would have put it, but I suppose.”

He smiles at that, thin and tired. “I am not so weak, my heart. The traits she carries call to the memories I hold of her, and the familiarity is painful. But she is not the Mythal I loved. A fragment is not a whole. She is technically formless, and whatever life she imitates is stolen from you. The solidity of her body was a manifestation of the Fade, given strength by your power. Cut her and she would bleed, but only because the memory of a body would do so. She is a fragment and therefore not truly blooded or bodied. She exists as an extension of you. If she is to fully attain a form again, you need to die.”

Ignoring the spike of fear his words prompt within her is incredibly difficult. The way he declares it, almost, strikes her between the ribs, as though Mythal’s command would be enough to have him finish the job for her. Sense follows immediately, and stops Erys from physically recoiling. She is tired and afraid and dying. She isn’t thinking logically right now. But for a moment there…  She shakes that errant fear loose. “She is not a true physical entity, she is a memory given tangibility by your energies. She is a free-thinking manifestation of the life force she is taking from you. She is not, however close the resemblance may be, the Mythal that I loved.”

When she led the Inquisition, Erys had pestered Solas to tell her everything he knew of the Fade, and to her knowledge – at the time – he had. Learning the truth had been an awful shock but had also made such painful sense she couldn’t even attempt to deny it, and with the truth came the realisation that Solas had told her everything he had thought she would understand. As galling as it had been to realise he was essentially sifting through his knowledge to cherrypick the parts he’d thought she could parse, she has to admit now that she really doesn’t understand it at all. Shaping dreams, pulling on the threads of Fade energies to weave spells, are things she can understand. The nature of existence within the raw Fade and how it affects physicality, however, is lost on her and she hates it. “Does that mean she isn’t Mythal at all?”

“It is not so clear cut,” Solas says, as if it ever is where the Fade is concerned. “As I said, a fragment is not a whole, but nor can it be named falsely. Diminished, is perhaps a better term for what she is.” He sighs softly, a humming exhalation through his nose. “I mourned my friend countless millennia past. This is a shadow, a shard of a greater whole, and one that can never be fully reformed. She is transfusing your life into the memory of her body, she is nothing more than a resemblance to what she once was. If her geas succeeds and she claims your life for her own, she will live well enough; she will think and feel and mimic a life with no discernible distinction, but she will be mortal entirely. If she leaves the Fade, she might fall to disease as easily as a Dalish huntress. If she is lucky, perhaps seventy or so mortal years would pass before old age claimed her, but claim her it would. She is taking your life, vhenan. She will never be as she was.”

“That’s a very confident hypothetical.”

“I know the limitations of what magic can do. The intricacies of this geas and how to break it are unknown to me, but I know well what can and cannot be achieved. True resurrection is not possible.”

Erys bows her head. “I’m sorry, then. I’d hoped…” She trails off, wondering how much she should admit. There is no path through this that is absent of pain, and despite her wishes she can’t even find the path that promises less pain, if it must be felt at all. She thinks and decides that, no, it mustn’t be said. She can’t imagine any scenario where Solas would graciously accept that Erys had hoped for them to find companionship together once the geas had claimed her life. “Mythal said she wanted what was owed to her…? Could my life give her that, if it would only have been a mortal span?” Erys hadn’t known what she meant at the time and is none the wiser now. What worth is there in a mortal life when one has tasted of eternity? Unless Mythal had hoped that some Elvhen might stumble upon the Well and trigger the geas instead? She must have.

Mustn’t she?

“I doubt the length of the life would have mattered,” Solas muses darkly, “if she did not intend to survive long enough to live it. I would hazard a guess that she needed moments, if anything. A handful of years to breach the Fade, perhaps, to return to this place. Likely, the situation unfolded more conveniently than she had anticipated, but I cannot guess at her motivations. In many ways she appears, acts, and thinks like the Mythal I knew, but the years have been long and unkind. I cannot predict her now.”

He says it like it’s something mournful, as though his inability to tell what bizarre and contrived paths Mythal’s thoughts may take to prompt her actions is some great failing on his part. Then Erys thinks of the years she was nothing but his distant shadow, caught in the uncertainty of his place upon the dinan’shiral, hoping but not truly knowing if she – or anyone – could reach him. This is nothing like that. But it might be. “You… When you spoke of her before, you called her Benevolence. Before she took a body, or followed Elgar’nan.”

“Yes?”

“She… Wisdom and Elgar’nan called her Justice.”

“A confusing distinction, I’m sure.”

“But how can she be both?” Erys presses. She’d asked Mythal herself and been denied an answer.

“You recall that Cole was Compassion?”

Erys’ heart throbs at the name. It has been so very long. “Yes.”

“Do you recall what the Lady Enchanter named him? What Sera called him? What others suspicious of his nature called him?”

Erys hesitates, thinking. “Unkindly, it was either thing or demon.”

Solas nods. “You know well how perception alters reality. Belief shapes the world – all facets of it. That is as true for the waking world as it is for the Fade. What Mythal was to me, she may not have been to another.” He lowers his head. “Shameful, perhaps, but I can understand her fury with me, her resentment for her duty. To know oneself as something and be named another is a true sort of agony.”

It’s strange to feel such a burst of empathy for the one responsible for soaking Solas’ clothes with blood. Erys’ head rings with titles; Herald and Inquisitor. Pride and Fen’Harel. Mother and Protector. None of them, it seems, are free of the burden of expectation. “She never had a chance,” Erys says softly. “I— Fenedhis. No wonder she’s furious. How long has it been since she was allowed to be what she wanted to be? How long has she had to live within the shape of what others wanted her to be?”

“So you understand why I cannot truly hate her.”

That was never what she wanted. But now, all Erys wants is for whatever remains of Mythal to find peace. “What do you think she was trying to do?”

Solas’ lips thin thoughtfully, and the heaviness of past regrets lightens somewhat. “That, I may be able to guess at, but I would ask for some time to think.”

His eyes seal once more with a faint wisp of magic and Solas rises slowly to his feet, tucking Wisdom within his collar where the sweet, exhausted spirit can rest against the warmth of its falon and recover. Erys, recognising the end to this discussion, is quick to follow before he can reach down reflexively to help her and wound them both with the reminder that distance is necessary. Her knee joints creak stiffly, but other than that feels well enough, even if it is somewhat jarring to have the full breadth of her thoughts to herself again. Solas watches her, still, gaze flicking restlessly over her form to assess for whatever damage he believes possible, but so far Erys can feel no changes. Tightness lingers in her joints, along with a disjointed throb of bruises, grazes, and the like; the tackiness of dried blood and sweat is deeply uncomfortable, but though she is out of practice, it is not unfamiliar. The hollow ache of her depleted mana has become a low drone in her awareness, compounding into little more than a headache she is able to ignore. The ringing in her ears remains, quiet but constant, an irritant more than anything else.

Still, she mentions it to Solas. The last time she ignored it, she had tried to kill him.

“Just ringing?” He asks. “Nothing else?”

“I’ve honestly not tried to listen.”

“Could you?”

Her lips thin unhappily. “I could. The last time… I don’t want to hurt you.”

“You cannot,” he deflects smoothly, unconcerned.

She supposes that’s true enough. Even with Blight clogging her veins, she is still mana-less and mortal. Solas is an Elvhen demi-god – at least by barest definition and despite his distaste for the descriptor – with access to the limited magics of the Fade contained within the prison he has made of the Black City. Arrogant, perhaps, but there is little she could do to him at full strength, let alone as she is now.

“Would you want—“

“Please.” His eyes flare faintly and Erys feels a light caress of cool magic across her cheek. She inclines her head, curious, and Solas’ gaze turns sheepish. “I cannot… I would not hold back if the risk was solely to myself.” He displays his scarred palm to her. “I do not know what the Blight will do to the Veil…”

“I know.”

“Ir a—“

“Tel’abelas.” Thoughts of the future are muddied with dread but she hopes, in spite of it all, that there will come a time when he is no longer sorry. May they see those days together. “What should I do?”

“A simple meditation should suffice, I think.”

Erys considers. She shakes her head. “No. Unless it serves some greater purpose in assisting you, I don’t want to.”

Solas offers no judgement or disappointment. “Ma nuvenin.”

She is relieved, for no real reason other than that she had expected him to counter her with necessity. “If I have to—“

“Vhenan. Re’son. Ha’min.” He beckons her to his side. When Erys moves to join him, stepping forward, she is able to follow the path of his gaze as it shifts from her to the centre of the chamber.

With a prickle of unease, Erys takes in the small featureless pedestal that stands there, upon which rests a strange cubic artefact that her eyes seem unable to focus on. The side of it facing toward them is dripping a slow trail of blood from its surface, pooling upon the top of the pedestal. Unease shivers through her gut before her gaze slips away from it. She looks back to Solas.

“I…” She frowns. “I’m sorry, were you saying something?”

Solas looks back at her. He raises an eyebrow, inclining his head. “I wasn’t, no.”

“Oh, I thought… Never mind. Distracted.” She shakes herself, discomfited, then perks up curiously. Just past Solas’ shoulder, an odd pedestal stands in the centre of the room, bearing an artefact of some sort that Erys has never seen the like of. A cube-shaped creation formed of strange, grey material that seems to absorb light, sharp-edged with an air of hostility about it. She is able to look at it for perhaps a handful of seconds before her attention wanders. “Sorry, you were saying something?”

Solas watches her with an air of endless patience. “I was not.”

Erys narrows her eyes. She could have sworn… “Sorry. I’m distracted, I…” She trails off slowly. “I’ve said that before.”

“Yes,” Solas says. He turns to face her fully. When she looks to him, frowning, her gaze finds a strange pedestal in the centre of the room, atop which is perched a—

“Gah— What is that?!” She shakes her head roughly, scrubbing a palm over her face. “I’ve said that before— I’m— I’m insane. I’ve gone insane.”

“Not yet,” Solas says mildly, huffing with soft amusement when she glares at him. “I promise, you are quite possibly the sanest person in the room, conscious or otherwise. Come close to me, vhenan.”

She doesn’t miss the fleeting shadow of unease that darkens his eyes before he hides himself behind his careful neutrality, nor can he conceal the heavy weight of reluctance that hangs from the hand he extends to beckon to her. She accepts the gesture without the foolish instinct that demands insult over rejection, because he is reaching out regardless, though she knows well that this – all of it, every little wicked piece – is something he had never wanted her to see. He is entitled, she thinks with more generosity than she had ever dreamed herself capable of, to not want her here.

She would take his hand, in this world and every other, but the danger is present in this one and so she simply steps closer as beckoned, following his lead as he turns them to face a strange—

“You’ve seen it before,” he tells her, interrupting the abnormal ritual of obscure familiarity her thoughts try to weave around. “Look past the enchantment.”

What that entails, exactly, is not particularly clear, but Erys spent a year with this man spouting ephemeral nonsense at her side through all manner of Fade-touched phenomena, so she at least has a basis for the vague instruction. Looking past the artefact is no real struggle since it repels her focus like a shield, giving her little choice in the matter – she is compelled to look past it, to let it slip from her notice. She allows it to happen again, letting the shape of it sit snugly in her periphery, and reaches for the other senses her skill as a mage affords her. While her mana pool still yawns with the geas-driven emptiness, she can still rely on instinct to expand her awareness past her body’s limitation, like letting her eyes fully unfocus to be able to find some hidden image within an optical illusion. Tucked within that drifting space of seeing but not seeing, she becomes fully aware of the artefact’s presence and no longer feels the compulsion to look away.

“A box?”

“In a sense.” Solas’ knuckles crack with the force of clenching so tightly. She wants nothing more than to pry his fingers open with her own and offer the comfort of touch, but... “You are the first mortal ever to witness this. The first outside of the Elvhen, the Evanuris...” His faint sigh is soft and pained. “I never wanted you to see this. I never wanted to bring you here.”

“We were always going to end up here,” Erys says. It is intended as an idle comment, but the moment it slips out she believes it perhaps more fervently than she has ever believed in anything. Because that’s the truth of it. There was never any doubt that she would find a way to follow him, to reclaim her place at his side, and no branch of his path that would not lead him – however meanderingly – back to this point. Here is the culmination of the Dread Wolf’s path – the place where he might, finally, lay down the pelt that has been a chain around his neck for all his long, long life.

“I never wanted to bring you here,” Solas says again, mostly to himself because he is the one that needs convincing. “But I am… comforted with you at my side.”

Erys smiles at him. Here, in the place of Solas’ deepest regrets and cruellest nightmares, he finds the strength to smile back at her. “I would be nowhere else.”

That cool brush of magic slips lightly against her cheek again; a caress. “Your belief in that astounds me. That you’re here, that you followed…”

There is nothing she can say that hasn’t already been said, but, “mahn viras, ar viran.”

He returns her vow with a solemnity steeped in equal parts resolve and grief. “Nuva’ra bellanaris,” he promises quietly. Then his gaze shifts back to the artefact and his spine straightens, bearing shifting from Solas to soldier with a speed that leaves her dizzy.

To work, then.

Chapter Text

“No,” Erys says. “Solas— no.”

He hasn’t said a word, hasn’t moved an inch. She would grip his arm otherwise, but there is no need; he looks to her in quiet surprise, softening his rigid posture between one breath and the next, which is what she wants.

“You are not a solider, ‘ma lath,” she tells him, begs him, "don’t stand before them as an enemy.”

He looks away from her. “You know, then.”

She considers feeling insulted. Just for a moment. “It’s rather obvious, I think, but yes. I know.”

She can hear them. Low, creeping whispers, breaths against her ears, faint and dissonant. Yes, she knows. Even if she could not hear them, she would know. She doesn’t know how to contain the depth of the feeling it prompts within her, so she doesn’t attempt to try.

They stand shoulder to shoulder before the artefact that contains everything the Titans have ever and will ever be. Realms of knowledge and experiences stripped from murdered stone and condensed, somehow, into this. She could fit it within her palm. Fingers splayed, yes, but she could still hold it. She wonders if it is as heavy as her heart tells her it should be. “It seems…” She hesitates, then chooses honesty. “More than the act itself, it feels disrespectful to be able to restrain their consciousness into something so… mundane.”

“In appearance, perhaps,” Solas says, “but the magic containing them is…” He falls silent when Erys looks at him. Shame flickers across his face and he nods, falling silent. He offers nothing further.

They have arrived – far more quickly – at the point at which Erys’ honest attempts at comfort and guidance can carry him no further. This crime, this unfathomable cruelty sitting cold and still upon featureless marble, is beyond her ability to excuse or explain. The scope of it disturbs her. The fact that the world she was born to, the people she loves, were formed upon the corpses of this act turns her stomach fiercely. She cannot abide it.

And yet she loves the man who wrought it.

Her ability to compartmentalise is working overtime.

She doesn't know if she believes him ready to do this, to approach the warped minds of the first enemies of his long life. She doesn’t know if anyone can ever be ready for that, but she also cannot regret pushing him to attempt it. Keeping him mired in a prison of his regrets is no path to betterment, it would have been the cruellest punishment to contain him there, even if she remained with him. To imprison someone who exists every day within a cage of flesh and blood, to mire them beneath the weight of every mistake made with no history to learn from…

He would never heal. She can’t abide it. If getting him out of the prison meant they would always end up here, she would push for this outcome a thousand times over. He may not be ready, but the cause is clear.

“I’m here,” she says, for what it’s worth, if indeed it's worth anything. “For whatever you need, but… I only ask that you don’t approach them as a soldier, vhenan. Go to them humbly. It’s… what I would do.” She winces at her own presumptuousness, but she can’t be anything other than honest here. She is not twisted inexorably around the concept of Pride, it is not intrinsic to her being. She is capable of it, as much boon and bane as any other mortal emotion she feels, but Solas was formed by it, shaped by it. It guides – however much he wishes it would not – everything he does.

Ironically, that same precarious emotion swells in her breast as Solas bows his head, softening the stiff line of his shoulders. “I don’t know how to…” He gestures vaguely, a bare twitch of fingers. “I have considered— every possible angle. This was never one of them.”

“Coming here?”

He shakes his head. “Approaching them in peace.”

“For all your plans, this wasn’t one of them?”

“No.” Solas looks to her then, solemn. Sad. “The prison would have been my first trial. To soothe my regrets until I could rework the enchantments to dissolve its bindings and unmake it. Then, the Black City, where the first prison’s wards lay in shambles. See the evidence of my past arrogance, vhenan. If the Evanuris’ first holdings had not deteriorated so greatly, we would not be standing here as we are. The storm of magics would have ripped our bodies apart.”

She thinks of silent, broken streets infested with Darkspawn. “Instead the… song broke free. The Blight seeped out and… overtook the Elvhen trapped here.”

“That, I do not believe to be an effect solely born of Titans magic,” Solas murmurs. “Seven Blighted gods were imprisoned here, in my foolishness, primed and perfect conduits for the taint. Their poison spread with a malevolence the Blight does not possess.”

That much she can understand. The Warden reports had claimed that the Blight felt changed; charged, sentient, intent. She has no doubt that Elgar’nan’s desires had made that abhorrence manifest, turning something as pure as pain into a weapon. “I can’t bear how sad that is. All this time, they’ve been calling out for what they lost. To be met with fear and denied simply because the song changed with their pain and their madness, it just…” Erys rubs her chest over the sharp curl of pain. “It hurts my heart.”

Solas’ fingers twitch. Out of the corner of her eye she watches him curl them into a white-knuckled fist. She aches to touch him. “I had intended to open it, once. Consequences be damned.”

Stunted as her senses are by the draining of her mana, Erys cannot reach out to test if the magic threaded through the artefact feels familiar. “It’s tied to the Veil?”

“Not intentionally,” Solas tells her. “But yes, deeply so. The first and only time I knowingly took power from the Titans was to raise the Veil. It became its own Anchor, in a way.”

She’s thought on that specific magic a lot over the years. The power of the Anchor had seemed so unknowable, instinctive in ways that mirrored her own magic, but in a primordial sense. Rather than calling upon her mana and shaping the answering threads of the Fade into the shapes what would serve her, wielding the Anchor felt almost like beseeching some great and capricious beast to obey her. When its magic moved through her, it felt almost too vast to contain, roiling with a mind of its own, and yet at times deeply responsive to her own desires. Even Solas had appeared uncertain as to its full capabilities, and that hadn’t seemed like a lie. If the orb had simply contained his power, amassed for centuries beyond his sleeping body, then it stands to reason that that he would not know its capabilities within a world that had evolved beyond the Veil. But that then raises its own questions.

 "How was the Veil meant to work?"

Solas looks to her. "Meant to work?"

"You always said it was a mistake. And that the Anchor defied your expectations. What were you trying to do? Seal the Evanuris away, fine, I get that part. But how?"

Solas considers the question for long enough that Erys is able to recognise all the warning signs that indicate he's about to launch into a lecture. The moment he opens his mouth she is hit all at once with three separate waves of relief, fondness, and delight; he is about to do the most reassuringly Solas thing imaginable and talk effusively around the point to answer her question…

"What is magic?"

…By asking another one.

 "I’m Blighted up to the eyeballs," Erys reminds him, grinning broadly. "No, don’t make that face, this is a genuine smile. Genuine. I’m Blighted up to the eyeballs and you’re asking me to recite the principles of magecraft to you. I love you so much."

Solas closes his eyes. The exasperated air he’s trying so valiantly to cloak himself with is diminished severely by the flush spreading up to the tips of his ears. "I believe I called you the sanest person in the room. I am retracting that statement."

"Says the man delivering a lecture in the heart of his ancient prison for gods."

His lips twitch. "Stop it."

"I don’t want to." Since they left the conjured aravel, they have been tumbling in tandem down a steep incline of misery and Erys is sick of it. She might be dying, but Solas is adamant that such a conclusion is not inevitable, and so she'll do what she pleases and if she wants to tease him while the Blight festers in her blood, she has more than earned the right to do so. As ever, though, her own curiosity sparks to match his desire to teach. "Magic is… energy."

Solas opens his eyes. "No."

Erys throws her hand up. "Alright, then I don’t know what it is. Could you disprove the known fundamentals of magic a bit more delicately?"

"No."

"Great. Just so you know, my Keeper would hate you."

"Heartening," Solas says drily. "But to return to the point—" He gives her a stern look she imagines wouldn’t appear out of place on the face of a tutor within one of those fancy Orlesian universities. The thought is oddly appealing. "Your Keeper, presumably, taught you that magic is a form of primordial energy that your birthright as a mage gives you the ability to harness. This is not entirely incorrect, but it is faulty in its description because it does not encapsulate the nature of magic as an entity."

"Entity?" Erys blanches. "Like… alive? Don’t tell me magic is one giant spirit that we take bits off when we cast. This entire time—"

"No," Solas says, staring at her. "No, that— Why would— No." He shakes his head. "You come out with the strangest— No. Describing magic as an entity is meant to elucidate the fact that it reflects intention. The very force that makes a person unique, that colours their thoughts, their emotions, their very life force, it all stems from magic. It is a phenomenon as natural as the air we breathe, as the force that keeps the stars in the sky and turns the moons and governs the tide. But it is, at its heart, intention and will. It reflects life. The very same way that the Fade can be sculpted to recall memory in dreams, magic is commanded by the life it begets."

It's an explanation that makes sense and yet leaves her dizzy with the vastness of its reality. The same way one might feel suddenly and terrifyingly insignificant when staring at the endless spread of stars above in the dead of night. "That… makes it sound like a cycle. Like magic can’t exist without life to shape it."

 "It cannot," Solas says, and the curl of pride in his eyes warms her from her ears to her toes. It disappears, along with the sweetly endearing air of one who loves to teach, when he adds, " in telling you this, I mean to make you understand the severity of my mistake. To sever magic from the world, to split the force of life from the world it formed and was formed by, is a crime I can never atone for."

Usually, when Solas talks about his past sins — of which there are a great and terrible many — a leaden weight lodges itself in Erys throat, a pressing, aching presence that reminds her that she has willingly taken the hand of a man who has erred so gravely, and chosen to love him despite it. She doesn't feel this way now. To hold him accountable for a mistake he made attempting to save countless lives… Well. He has already suffered enough for that. Waking up to misremembered stories of your long-dead people, to hear your name reviled by the tragically ignorant many, to see the generational scars of a people once enslaved bound once more within servitude to new tyrants… A punishment far greater than any that could be delivered upon him by all known forces of justice.

"So what did you intend to do?"

Hear me, she begs privately. I want to know, I want to hear you tell it. I will want your wisdom always. Tell me what you intended to do, so someone knows the truth about the man the legends so cruelly named the Betrayer.

There is no doubt in her mind that Solas understands the gravity of this moment. He offered her his honesty in all things, the last pieces of himself kept away from her — from everyone — after lifetimes spent alone out of both necessity and penance. She is asking — and he knows it — for him to cast away the pelt and the title, to release the man beneath from aeons of suffering, that which is self-imposed and that which is tangled up so tightly with duty. To lay the burden at her feet, and breathe deeply of the free air surrounding him.

He was Solas first. He may yet be again.

"It was to be a cycle," Solas says at last, and the words fall from his lips and his shoulders; a release. "With enough power, I could contain them, rip them from the world of will and intention, command their own magics to shape containment and then feed upon their energies to create and maintain a prison, eternally strong and capable of replicating under the force of itself. It would be a cycle completely separate from the sustaining magic of the world; symbiosis attained through a rending of the most fundamental principles of magic as we knew them. I would rip them from that thriving wheel and damn then with their own immortality."

Erys cannot imagine the depth of grief and pain that could make such an act justifiable, but she has not lived the life that he has. To lose Mythal, to watch his people become chattel and subject to the whims of capricious masters, to have come from the bloody lineage of those same despots and be decried as a usurper, traitor, and enemy. And to know now that the Veil had been a mistaken byproduct of a ritual of immense power, the united wills of the captured Titans joining with Solas' desire to restrain that corruption… They had seen, that had known, and they had wanted—

Erys blinks.

"Solas," she says slowly. Hesitantly, his eyes meet hers. He is waiting for her judgement, she is sure, but she is neither willing nor able to offer it. "They’re listening to you."

His brows furrow, eyes darting over her face as though understanding is caught somewhere in her Blighted visage. "What do you mean?"

Perhaps it's simply a consequence of acclimating to sharing her mind with forces outside of herself, but there is a thread of familiarity that Erys can follow when thoughts are her own. She knows what she knows and is curious about what she does not, so when thoughts that do not belong to her suddenly appear in her head and she has no idea how she reached the conclusion she finds herself jumping to, she can claim at least some fledgling ability to recognise the intrusion.

She looks to the silent, bloodied artefact. Quietly, as though to speak too loudly will shatter the tentatively inquisitive embers smouldering faintly within her mind, she tells him, "the Titans are listening to you."

It might not have been the best idea to tell him that, but it's perhaps the first gentle, conscious contact the Titans have made with the world in centuries. The Blight inside her seems to have made her a link, a state she's wondered over since she first recognised the low ringing in her ears. It had compelled her to attack, before, but now that the spread has progressed beyond what a mortal body should ordinarily be able to bear, it seems to have settled, as though something has given the taint itself pause, halted it in its desire to overwhelm and transform. It would be terrifying to consider, at any other moment, that her mind is perhaps moments away from devolving into the pain-driven madness of full Darkspawn, kept tethered to reason solely by a power she can’t parse, but the fact that she is herself and has not fallen beneath that ancient deluge gives her a feeling so terribly, entrancingly hopeful that she can scarcely breathe around it.

Solas does not ask her how she knows. By all rights, if she can put the pieces together then so can he, and she has to admit reassurance when his expression doesn’t immediately shift into horror. His instinctive, animal fear of the Blight is well-contained for her benefit, but nothing can diminish his curiosity. Not even fear.

"What do you feel?"

It's a good question. It's both like the Well and not, because the Well had been inconsistent and as wilful as the master who had constructed it. The brief moments of connection, when it rose, had felt as though her mind was being suppressed to account for the vast presence of the Well's slumbering power. Whispers had been the most infuriating symptom, but only ever in the quiet, tense moments between consciousness and sleep, more powerful in the dark when her mind was worn down and her body exhausted, in those shadowed hours when fears are heightened and everything feels so much fiercer and harder to bear. This presence feels constant. Perpetual. In that it does not rise and ebb with her own emotions, it simply is or it is not, heralded by a ringing in her ears which she wonders at. The stirrings of a half-remembered song? Or a language so ancient and other that her mind can’t understand it?

"A lot," she answers haltingly. "Like I’m looking at you but… what I’m seeing isn’t just for me. Like I can hear you but I’m not… It isn’t just me, that's the only way I can put it. There's more than me. Does that make any sense?"

"Some," Solas says, not unkindly, though Erys still privately bemoans her own limitations. If she could explain it better, maybe it would be worth something to him. He, of all people, would find some way to use it for their benefit. To aid them, somehow. "Do not be disheartened, vhenan. Your explanation is enough."

That’s a laugh. If it was enough, if it had ever been enough, then they wouldn’t be here. She would have reached Solas years ago, would have mattered, and none of this would have happened.

Or, perhaps she's taking more of the responsibility for this than she needs to.

Hard to say, really.

"I can’t feel anything," she says, dismayed. At Solas' concerned glance, she elaborates, "before, when I— I could hear the ringing and I really wanted to hurt you. And Mythal. It felt— The compulsion was so deep it felt like it was mine. I'd have thought it would be even stronger now given that…" She grimaces. "…Given the Blight's progression."

Detached, clinical words offered to soften the harshness of the fact that she's Blighted beyond belief and also dying. Can’t forget that. But Solas gets this awful look on his face and he is well over the limit of what she can tolerate of his self-flagellation. Which is a shame because she's been sitting on a joke about spitting Blight in people's eyes like some kind of diseased cobra for hours now but it's not the kind of joke that present company would appreciate. Though, saying that, she isn’t entirely sure if she knows anyone who would appreciate that sort of joke.

Probably Warden humour. It's not for everyone.

"I am wondering if you are offering some sort of stabilising influence," Solas muses, pulling her back to the moment. "If perhaps what you know, your intentions in accompanying me here, are prompting a strong enough sense of curiosity to stay the rage." He looks back to the artefact. "It prompts questions about the nature of their insanity."

Given even half the opportunity, Erys thinks he'll retreat into some silent internal debate for hours, so she endeavours to head that off at the pass before he can start pondering in earnest. "I think you’re focusing on the wrong thing."

He hums distractedly. "How so?"

"I was trying to be nice. You’re trying to fit this revelation into your intentions. You’re not seeing it for what it is."

That does it. Solas looks back sharply, brows raised. "I beg your pardon?"

A victory, of sorts, even if she has to raise his hackles to attain it. "Solas, the Titans are listening to you. They’re not hostile or aggressive, they're using me to hear you, which we know they have every right not to do. You were ready to approach them militantly, to subdue them. Again. Don’t act like you weren't."

His eyes narrow. "How else would you have me quell the anger that has been poisoning Thedas steadily for millennia?"

"Flexibly," Erys snaps. "Don’t go charging in thinking only you know the solution. Take a bloody minute to think."

Solas bristles predictably, but Erys is too busy being struck by her own revelations to pay much attention to his indignation. "It's a truce. Solas! It's a truce!"

Perhaps nothing so formal, but in essence she can feel a sense of approval that isn’t entirely her own. Swears down it's not. The Blight within her has halted its advance, keeping her on the cusp of sense and self, using her as some kind of strange viewfinder through which to interact with the world outside its confinement. It bleeds into the world beyond the Fade, infecting all it touches with its discordant song in an attempt to regain what the Titans lost, but in a way it's just the medium through which they interact with the world they were torn from. The taint eventually spreads within a living creature to such a degree that the song becomes impossible to ignore — a calling to return to the origin, and it isn’t doing that to Erys. It stopped. It had her, it has her, it could claim her entirely in an instant, but it stopped. This is the silence before the decision, a moment of rare and precious lucidity in ancient pain; a calculation. The moment she had fought and bled to inspire in Solas and never managed to reach.

An audience with the Titans. Her knees feel weak to think of it.

Solas, for his part, seems to be having some trouble accepting her perspective. She supposes she has a unique viewpoint, given the fact that it's in her head, but she promises she isn’t biased. She's just being influenced by a greater entity than her mortal mind can comprehend. No bias, though. At least, not from her. "It isn’t possible to be certain," he says, likely aiming for diplomatic and ending up somewhere frustratingly close to dismissive. "The most likely explanation is that their influence waxes and wanes with lucidity. I wouldn’t take the absence of their compulsion to mean their influence over your… condition has lessened."

"And you can swear in all honesty that you believe that, and you’re not coming at this from a perspective that still views them as enemies?"

"That is hardly fair."

"So you are?"

"How can I not?" Solas demands. "We lost so many, Erys'enya. Thousands of lives extinguished in a senseless war of retribution. Thousands more reduced pitifully to the ignoble fate of collateral damage, choking on the rock dust filling their lungs while their siblings mounted a defence against the very mountains themselves. Hundreds crushed beneath the weight of the land itself, suffocated and broken. How can I not remember that with every moment I draw breath?"

"I’m not asking you to forget it," Erys counters. "I’m asking you to see the folly in mounting a defence against… a defence. You know it was all wrong. You've said as much. I’m asking you to reach for that side, to find remorse beneath the rancour. Be angry, that's fine. Hate what happened, I would, too! But recognise that it didn't have to be the way that it was. It was all so wrong. Recognise that you've lost so much, but even then, that you have so much more than they do. Please."

He doesn’t respond. She waits but he won't raise his gaze to hers from where it had fallen while she spoke. He looks, instead, to the pedestal, to the stain of his blood upon its void-like surface, pooling atop the artefact as thick and fresh as it was when first spilled upon it. She allows him his silence in the belief that he has heard her, something she has only recently learned to trust. If he has learned anything these long years, let it be that he is not alone, that he loses no pride by listening.

A soft chime rings from beneath his collar. A gentle glow thrums against his skin and he lowers his head, listening to words Erys can’t hear in a language she will probably never understand. It isn’t the first time he has turned to another when her words have not been enough and it stings less from Wisdom than it had from Mythal.

But it still stings.

Solas exhales a slow breath. When he speaks, his words are solemn, quiet and sad. "Even now I… After everything that I have done…" He looks to her, beseeching, and her heart thrills in her chest to see it. "I really—" Shakes his head. Laughs. Laughs. It is a tragic, choked sound, more sob than breath. "Emma vhenan."

Erys waits but he offers nothing else. He calls for her attention and then does nothing with it but look at her, like he might find some answers in the Blighted mask of her face. But then the answer comes to her instead and she sighs, both overjoyed and exasperated. A declaration, not the endearment she has come to expect. "I thought you had something important to say."

"Is it not important?"

"Now?" She looks to the artefact. "No."

"I see no reason this should preclude it. I have been the whisper in the ear of many. I have orchestrated downfalls and incited rebellions, but I was not made for… this." He lets out a soft, hollow laugh. "Never has that ever rung so true, but it is not in my nature to love the way I do. It is a defiance of everything I am and perhaps the only reason I am standing here now. Regret, while entirely capable of halting my advance, would not have brought me here."

He does not smile when he tells her, "I really do adore you, Erys'enya."

Her cheeks flush at the same time her stomach drops. The welling of dread, the spike of fear, they are instinctive, primal things she can no more control than she can deny, but the jagged way they lodge in her throat strips all the joy from his words. She hears them, but they bring her no pleasure. She believes them, it isn’t a matter of trust. She has long since passed out of reach of the insidious whispers that claim he never cared for her. The truth of his claims is not in question, it's what follows them that she is afraid of.

His sweetest words of adoration have always ended the same way. His devotion has ever come with the caveat of his abandonment, and she can’t make herself believe that this time is any different from all the others before it. But Erys swallows back the fear along with the bitter film of Blight and decay still coating her tongue. She reins it all in, with every modicum of strength the possessed. She plants herself immovably and chooses — perhaps for the first time in her life — to look that fear in his beloved lilac eyes, and deny it.

"I’m not going anywhere."

Solas has no way of knowing the fears that plague her so suddenly, though it feels as though every stab and ache should ripple painfully across her face, and so all he does is offer her a smile. It is a small, precious thing, meant for her and her alone; a fledgling, grateful thing, unpractised and honest. "I am grateful — I could not do this without you."

It's a cruel thought, but Erys finds herself following the thread of it before reason can take over and knock some sense into her spiralling head. She remains quiet, testing him, waiting for the inevitable withdrawal, the painful denial that always follows. It's bitter, and petty, and the product of no small injury, but she holds her silence anyway.

"A truce, then," he agrees and Erys lets out a heavy, gusting breath of relief that catches Solas by surprise. She considers telling him the truth of her relief for all of about fifteen seconds, before she decides against it. The last thing he needs is more fuel for the pyre of his guilt. Perhaps it's something he needs to hear, maybe it would help him to know and to heal, to offer an apology for what he did. But not now.

If she lives, she'll tell him. There. Fair's fair.

"Vhenan?"

Shit. "Just… glad you agreed with me."

He doesn't believe a word of it, which had been to much to hope for in the first place. "Agree isn’t quite the word I would use. I am… wary, but I can see the logic of what you’re saying. Does that suffice?"

"It's more than you've given me before," Erys says, perhaps slightly too carelessly because Solas' expression slips reflexively into a bland sort of mask that makes her recoil. "I didn’t mean— That came out wrong."

The mask doesn't budge. "I understand."

"No. No. Don’t do that. I didn’t mean to say it like that. I meant that— I suppose… historically…" Fuck. Fuck.

"Historically, I’ve praised your wisdom while eschewing it in favour of my own," Solas says. "Which is also why you looked so horrified when I told you that I adored you. You expected me to retract, to step back and attempt to diminish my affections, amend myself."

"… Damn it," Erys curses softly. "Yeah— Yes. I did. I'd— rather not do this now."

"Of course," Solas allows softly. "We will speak of this, though? I would know your thoughts."

"Whatever you want," Erys promises, though that’s likely not the best way to say it. "After…" She gestures somewhat helplessly. To herself, to the artefact. To everything. "After."

Never mind that this wasn't meant to be their after. She can’t rightly say what she expected when she followed him; perhaps a longer reprieve than they were afforded, more time to discover what it meant to be together again, to relearn each other. Certainly not to end up Blighted and bereft of her magic, with the All-Mother breathing down her neck with intentions that defy all attempts at understanding.

Then again, she can’t claim that this isn’t par for the course.

"If…" She clears her throat, tries again. "If they’re able to listen, do you think they'd be able to communicate in some way?"

Glad for the subject change, Solas nods. "Possibly. Though their lucidity is likely tenuous. Captive minds do not fare well bound this way, or any way for that matter. Minds as vast as the Titans' would naturally fare far worse, even without the Blight as evidence of their madness."

"Is it madness?" Erys asks, mostly for argument's sake. "I mean, can it really be called that? Madness? What if it's just an outpouring of pain and anger? They changed so the song changed, and the Blight is the changed song… They’re already trying to communicate. It's just not in a way we can understand."

"I’ve considered it," Solas says, frowning. "I have… I wondered for a time if a connection could be established, some sort of stabilising force introduced to temper the rage. Given the virulence of the Blight, it is not the sort of experiment one can conduct without consequence. There are no safe parameters. To introduce a subject to the Blighted Titans' influence is to infect them, which leaves little recourse in the aftermath than to…"

He doesn’t need to finish. Erys is uncomfortably aware of the whole picture, and not just because she's oozing Blight like a fountain. "Stabilising force, huh?"

"Some sort of… anchor," he says. "Ironic, I know."

"So… me."

Solas looks at her. Good news, the mask drops. Bad news, he looks horrified underneath it. "You would not be able to bear the strain of a consciousness that great alone, Erys'enya. It would drown you out entirely and kill you at best. At worst, you would be left a hollow shell, lesser even than Tranquil. No. I won't consider it. Do not ask me again."

Erys swallows the colourful array of expletives that abruptly floods her mouth. In her most diplomatic manner, she kindly informs him, "I wasn't actually asking. And thank you for confirming that it is actually a viable suggestion."

"I did no such thing."

"If it wouldn’t work, you would have just said that. You just told me what the consequences would be for me. Which is basically a confirmation, in your language."

"Ah, I see. Then for the sake of clarity in mistranslation, I offer this: sum din 'ma dun."

"Dramatic," Erys mutters, ignoring his heated glare. "What do you suggest, then?"

For a moment, he appears lost in thought. She doesn’t buy it for a second and she's right not to. His arm whips out and she manages to narrowly avoid the hand that surges forward to grab her own, leaping back to put a good few feet between them. "Solas! What the hell are you doing? Don’t touch me, you idiot! I’m—"

Of course.

Of course.

"I ought to wring your neck," she threatens darkly. Solas does not look contrite in the slightest. A bit put out to have been so thoroughly evaded, but otherwise bears no shame for his attempt. "Why is— What am I supposed to do? If you Blight yourself and try to negotiate and fail, am I supposed to try and calm the Blight alone? Wander around the Black City and hope for, what? Another round of arrogant Magisters to have a second go at breaking in? This—" Her arm itches viciously deep within the muscle with the desire to lash out, throw something, strangle him. "This is what I meant! All your own ideas, all your own fucking plans, all the risk and the regret on your shoulders!"

How many times must they return here before he learns? What more must she endure to prove herself to him?

"If you’re so intent on shouldering your burdens alone, what am I even here for?! Do you just want me to stand here and agree with you?! Is that it? Cheer you on while you take everything into your own shoulders again? Take all the blame and the responsibility for everything again? And I’m just supposed to smile and accept it and act like I’m not right to doubt you because you’re doing what you swore you wouldn't? You promised you'd listen. You promised me it would be… That we'd be…"

"Alone," Solas says evenly. "You cannot bear the strain of this vast consciousness alone, Erys'enya."

Warily, and eyeing him in preparation for another attempt to touch her, Erys slowly relaxes. "Explain."

"You are… right," Solas admits, with just a hint of exasperation caught at the edge of his mouth. "The Blight would likely make for enough of a stable connection. With reason intact, I don’t doubt that you could establish contact between us and the Titan consciousness, but for how long and how comprehensible it would be, I do not know. When you mentioned the possibility, I wondered at the familiarity of it, and it came to me when you caught onto one point; a stabilising force. The factor which all denizens of the Fade require to be able to interact with the waking world."

"Possession?" Erys asks. "That’s what you mean, isn’t it? It's like possession. Spirits can’t handle our— my world without a host to mitigate the effects of reality. To dampen it so it can’t overwhelm them."

"That is my hypothesis," Solas agrees. "That, to be able to parse the world beyond their prison, they must have a catalyst to act as that steadying force for them. I believe— I have many reasons to believe that you and I can offer that guidance. Together."

"Then why. Not. Just. Say that. Why lunge at me like a lunatic?!"

"I thought to remove the chance for indecision. If I touched you of my own volition, you would be less likely to feel culpable for the infection passing to me."

"No, I wouldn't," Erys counters flatly. "That's a deranged way of thinking. Ask me for help."

"I am."

"In what world?!"

Solas throws his hands up. Frustration is good, as long as it keeps that stupid distancing mask off his face. "I would spare you—"

"You've not spared me from anything," Erys tells him, pulling him up short. "Don't look so surprised! That was never your goal, you spent months hating the fact that you liked the body your Anchor was trapped inside, and then the mind behind it." She flashes him a cheeky grin, for all the good it does. He continues to glare at her. Fair response, honestly. "You resigned yourself to the fact that I was going to get hurt by all of this years ago. Maybe not this exact situation, but close enough, no? And I’m honestly grateful for it, I don’t need you to protect me, Solas. Aside from the occasional well-timed barrier, all I ever needed was for you to talk to me."

She half expects him to make some contrary quip about the weather, just to annoy her, but it's with a heavy sigh that he turns to face her fully, offering her his palm. "Fine, then. I believe that we can create a connection between our minds and the minds of the Titans. To do so, however, I suspect I will also need to…"

There. It flickers across his face so quickly it could be a trick of the light, if she didn’t know any better. But she does, and better yet, she knows him, and while he wars with shame and fear to subdue his pride, he hesitates. Because he has never known any better.

"A few questions, then, for clarity's sake. What will it do to the Veil? If I…" Blight you.

"I cannot say. I do not know what might happen to it."

Oh, this is dangerous ground. "No ideas at all?"

"Some. None of them likely, but all of them possible. I don’t envision it collapsing, though. The Blight weakened it significantly, but even the Evanuris were able to maintain it, sickened as they were."

Seven, now reduced to one. The odds aren’t in their favour. Well, no, the odds are in their favour, but greater Thedas might have differing opinions. "Can we mitigate any of the damage if it does come down?"

Again, Solas answers her, briskly, factually. Honestly. "Not as we are. You, with acute mana fatigue, and myself, diminished and recovering, and contending with the taint's effect on my physiology. I would not imagine the results would be pleasant."

"Heavy consequences, then."

"Yes."

Is this how he felt? Still feels? Every decision weighed against the lesser of several catastrophic evils? The Inquisition's burdens almost pale in comparison.

Almost.

"Do you really believe that there's an after?" Erys asks him, raising her own hand slowly. She doesn’t reach out, merely prepares for the action. Depending on his final answer. "If I do this, if I share the taint with you, even taking into account what it may or may not do to the Veil, do you still believe that we can come back from this?"

There's never been a cure for the Blight. Even before the Veil, it had terrified him. How could it not, when its origin haunted him every day of his life? But Solas has promised Erys a future, and she aims to collect.

"I do not," Solas says, and as much as it hurts her to hear it, as much as it wraps a clawed fist around her aching heart, she can’t say she hadn’t suspected it. "But I hope, and that has always been enough for you. Through all you endured, you held onto your hope. I will do the same."

"That’s a hefty gamble, 'ma fen."

"We ran out of certainty years ago. Risk is all we have left."

Grim and fatalistic. Somehow that helps.

She places her hand in his.

She doesn’t know what she expected. For him to double over, writhing? For him to cry out and turn into a Sharlock before her very eyes? Immediate waterfalls of blood from his eye sockets? Any number of awful things, none of them likely, but that’s probably because the touch isn’t enough to transfer the sickness between them. The distance had been a precaution, but the ceremony of touching him, of offering him her hand in agreement and unity, feels oddly poignant.

Solas closes his fingers around hers and pulls her close. She goes to him, aching for every inch of distance he quickly closes, then gasps softly when he bends to kiss her. It is sweet, almost chaste, until he bites her, a sharp, stinging pain against her mouth, lip swelling hotly until his magic soothes it, but in the space between pain and relief she feels the delicate pass of his tongue across her lip.

At any other time, she'd lose her mind over that. Damn it all.

He pulls away from her, face pale. She peers up at him for any sign that the Blight has taken root, that he is at all changed from the man she knows, but finds nothing. "Has it…?"

"Yes," Solas says, strained and quiet. "I can hear… Yes."

She can’t imagine what he must be feeling. To surrender to such an ancient fear must be horrifying in ways she can scarcely even attempt to understand. How long has been fought against this corruption, how many lives has he seen it claim? And now he's invited it in, sentenced himself to death in the hope that they can soothe countless lifetimes of pain.

It must feel so strange for Pride to give himself over to hope.

"Are you alright? Solas? Ea son?"

He shakes his head slowly, eyes fixed on her. "Ame tel'son. But… You endure it. I will, as well."

"We endure it," Erys says. "But… can I ask…"

"Anything."

"What… did Mythal need your blood for?"

"My…? Oh. There was a final ward upon the artefact. The detonation that occurred was the ward breaking."

"…What would have happened if she touched it without your blood?"

"A much bigger detonation."

"…Noted." She's no closer to discerning Mythal's true intent, but at least for now, she seems to be too weak to exert any influence over the geas of the Well. Still, Erys can’t help wondering exactly what Mythal hopes to achieve. Reclaiming personhood through the Well, yes, that at least makes sense. But to do so knowing it would be short-lived must mean that she has an imminent purpose, and one she cannot achieve as a fragment.

Puzzles within puzzles and none of the time she'd like to ruminate on any of them. Nightmare.

"We're… going to do this, then?" She asks, venturing herself. "Do you need me to do anything or do I just… stand here?"

"I don’t know," Solas admits, after some consideration. "I can… I’m finding it rather difficult to concentrate."

"Are your ears ringing?"

"Hm?" Solas blinks as though struck by a shard of bright sunlight, or stricken by a pounding headache. "No, it's— familiar. The presence is not overwhelming, but the intentions of the impressions are fleeting at best. Almost childlike; easily distracted. I haven't felt this sort of presence within my own mind since…" He swallows, looking shaken. "It's very similar to the manner of communication between spirits. Wordless, based almost entirely on thought and emotion. I hadn’t… I hadn’t ever considered there would be similarities."

And knowing Solas, that’s not helping the roiling sea of guilt he has convinced himself he must live with for the rest of his life. "As a spirit you didn’t interact with the Titans?"

"They did not stir," Solas says. "They were inert — vast presences beneath the earth, alive but dormant, and they had been so for longer than any spirit I might have consulted on the matter, had I thought to. They simply were. The earth did not begin to shake until long after we first touched upon lyrium and discovered the properties it possessed. To us, it was little more than a rare and coveted mineral."

"That you could use to form bodies with."

"It was not so outlandish to us. When magic shaped reality, such far-flung concepts were not unheard of, and significantly more common than you've experienced. Magical anomalies — to even consider something as such — were rare."

"But even allowing for that…" Something feels wrong. All of Erys' instincts are telling her that there's something she isn't seeing, that there is some great fact she has managed to miss. "How… How could a spirit slay a Titan? How would Elgar'nan even know where to begin looking? What would a pure, unsullied spirit know of aggression?"

To hear Solas tell it, Elgar'nan left the Fade first. He crafted his body from the blood of a slain Titan, Solas himself declared that he remembered that moment, when the death of the Titan echoed through the Fade, abhorrent and wrong in ways never before felt. To slay the Titan while yet unformed, and then to convince more spirits to follow… To create a body from nothing… To know its perfected inner workings with no foundation. Why not craft it in the image of the Dwarves, who were also born of the Titans? What had he seen? What had he known that others didn’t?

"What is it?" Solas strokes a hand down her arm, giving her a squeeze to draw her attention. "What worries you?"

An excellent question, and one she has no idea how to answer. "I don’t know. That’s what worries me. I’m not arrogant enough to claim that I can understand everything you tell me, I’m probably a good few centuries away from grasping the fundamentals of primordial magic, but…" She takes a breath, torn between what she wants to say and how best to word it. "Your entire past is a mess of inconsistencies, Solas. Right now that’s all I can say because I don’t know what's missing."

What she wouldn't give for a good few uninterrupted hours at a desk, with full inkwell and a stack of blank parchment. Without any of that, though, all she has is the mess of her snarled thoughts and precious little time to spend untangling them. A mystery just waiting to be dug into, hanging tantalisingly just out of reach. Hell. On. Earth.

"Inconsistencies?" Solas asks. "In my past?"

"Yours. Elvhenan's. It fits together poorly."

"I can offer clarification on anything you feel is missing," Solas offers. "If that is the reason."

Helpful but in the wrong direction. "Not missing as in incomplete. Missing as in, I’m not seeing what I should be seeing. Like something is staring me in the face and I’m not able to notice it because it's too vast for me to understand."

Elgar'nan slew a Titan. He crafted his body from lyrium. Spirits followed. The Titans stirred. Their outrage sparked a conflict. Solas and Mythal subdued the Titans to end the war. The Blight formed from the pain and fury of captured Titan dreams. She turns it over and over in her head, trying to make sense of the order, but it sits wrongly and refuses to settle into her understanding, into any shape she can comprehend. How could a spirit slay a Titan, when the full might of Elvhenan could not? How could Elgar'nan conceive of a body with no framework or foreknowledge? What would give a spirit, even one of Ambition, the notion to even try?

"You think our history is wrong?"

To Erys relief, distant and distracted as she is, Solas doesn’t sound offended. That is both gratifying and concerning, because for him to be willing to listen, to ask questions, means he can see the paths her thoughts have taken, follow them, and while she is grateful not to be entirely insane for her wonderings, it terrifies her that she might be right. "When did the Titans first attack Elvhenan?"

"It was a slow beginning," Solas tells her. "Quakes shook the land, toppling several of our infant structures. Crevasses opened within the ground, tearing through settlements and cities. We did not know the cause, at first."

"Were you spirit or Elvhen at the time?"

"Elvhen," Solas says at once.

"But you knew Elgar'nan had slain a Titan. You didn’t suspect?"

"No, I didn't," Solas says slowly. "What is it that troubles you?"

"How did Elgar'nan slay the Titan?"

"By his own account, he crafted himself a body of lyrium, and destroyed its heart from within."

There. There! Erys' heart thunders triple-time, a spike of some horrible excitement surging through her. "But he crafted his body from the slain Titan's lyrium."

"Yes," Solas says, exasperated. "Where are you going with this?"

One of the first things he ever taught her was the memories reflected in the Fade were subject to the infallibility of recollection; that it depended on what spirits the memories drew, and the Dreamer's own preconceptions. Then, and now, and Erys is left with the sort of sickening certainty that follows a revelation to heavy to bear alone. "How could he have crafted his body after slaying a Titan, but also have crafted a body to slay a Titan first? How can both instances be true at once?"

Heart in her throat, she watches as the realisation dawns on Solas like a gently cresting wave. Slow but undeniable. Confusion. Disbelief. Horror. His eyes widen, lips parting around an unsteady breath and he stares — not at her, not at any point that she can see, but through her, to the place where his own memories lie, inconsistent and contradictory.

"That's… not possible," he says, but the damage is done. The foundation is already cracked and now it threatens to crumble completely. "I would know— If there had been any— I would know if my own memories could not be trusted."

"You made Cole forget your plans with a word," Erys reminds him gently. "I find it hard to believe Compassion is the only spirit who can alter the state of a mind."

"I would— know!" Solas cries abruptly, startling her. "There are traces, remnants, memories cannot be expunged completely. Recollection is possible, I would see the absence and recognise it immediately."

"But there was no absence!" Erys argues, reaching for his arm. She holds tight, feels the tremble of his tension beneath her palm. "You had memories, but conflicting ones. An absence might have been too much to notice, but a doctored recollection could have passed by unnoticed."

Solas laughs bitterly. "For one such as I, who lives within his memories and his regrets?"

"Maybe," Erys hedges, "…if there was a point at which you undertook a drastic and inexplicable change that altered your entire being. Would it not have been possible then?"

He tenses as though to pull away from her. When he doesn't, she tightens her grip. "This terrible thing that you are suggesting—"

"Is pure conjecture, I know." But would he be so afraid if he didn’t see some truth in it? "But the possibility can’t be ignored, can it?"

Solas' expression tells her he would vastly have preferred her not to bring it up at all. He is seldom shaken, but this seems to have struck him deeply. All the more reason for Erys to believe that somewhere, somehow, the truth of Elvhenan's history was doctored, and she thinks she may be close to understanding why.

"I have questions," she says, redundantly because she always has questions, but none have ever felt so significant as these. "Will you help me ask the Titans for the truth?"

Though it takes him a moment, Solas lays his hand over hers on his arm. His skin is hot, though whether with fever or distress, or both, she isn’t sure. He clutches at her as though he is untethered in turbulent winds, searching for some safe anchor in the storm of his own thoughts. "I will," he agrees quietly, though the cost of the admission seems to diminish him greatly. "But I hope… I would like you to be wrong. Ir abelas."

He leans into her when she slots herself against his side, arms wrapping tightly around her shoulders. The relief is— overwhelming. Not just his agreement, but the closeness as well. As long as she doesn’t think too hard about the fact that they're both now united in the sickness taking root within them, she can almost distract herself enough for their proximity to comfort her. At the very least, she never feels less alone than she does when he lets her close like this.

He murmurs something into her hair. She misses the bulk of it, but one word holding the weight of many catches on the edge of her awareness.

Amahn'ma.

Stay with me.

Chapter Text

Erys has never seen Solas wield magic this way.

During their time in the Inquisition, he cast spells with a confidence born of familiarity, but the staff—while wielded beyond competently—did not fit his hands. When she watched him dispatch the Viddasala, he had done so with barely a gesture, with nothing more than a thought, as though to reduce an entire flesh-and-blood body to stone took less effort than the breath he'd wasted to warn her. Given her lack of exposure to Solas at his strongest, she is unfamiliar with his habits and his means, but as she watches him now, she is beginning to learn.

He needs no staff nor focus. There are no extraneous utterances or wasted movements. The power he expends comes from the sinuous weaving of gestures, the tracing of sigils upon the very air around him. The bite of his magic is cold, sung through with the welcoming chill of frost, and for some fucking bizarre reason Erys nearly tears up at the sight of it. As beautiful as it is to watch, something about the way he effortlessly calls to the element she prides herself on tugs so sweetly at her heart. As long as she may yet live, there will likely never be a sight she finds more enthralling than Solas at the height of his power, drawing magic around him like a conductor summoning the purest strains of power to dance upon the wind.

When he looks to her, eyes burning with the magic of the Fade, he extends his hand. She goes to him freely, without hesitation or fear, and the sigils flare beneath her feet with every step, synchronising themselves to her presence and her heartbeat.

"Wards," he tells her, bringing her to stand with her back to his chest. He draws her tightly against himself, wrapping his arms around her waist. She doubts they need to be this close for whatever he seeks to accomplish, but she certainly won't complain. "I’ve attuned them to react should the strain of connection prove too great. They will sever all contact and hopefully return our minds to our bodies with our sanity intact."

"Hopefully," Erys echoes, gripping his wrist where it lies over her abdomen. "How high is the chance that this will kill us?"

"The connection itself? Low." He presses a kiss to her hair, which is sweet and appreciated but mostly disgusting. Sweat, blood, Blight, dirt… Recollection, if you’re out there, another bath would be incredible. "I cannot speak for what damage the Titans may be able to wreak should they take exception to our…" He trails off, and for once Erys knows exactly why. She turns slightly to look up at his face, to the momentary unfocused haze of his eyes and the quiet shock of comprehension that follows.

She'd felt it just as keenly as he had, though it's strange to be able to share the experience. The vast, rushing shift of intention within her head, the brush against her thoughts that swells with approval, a silent yet deafening beckon.

"You probably have more experience deciphering their meaning than I do," Erys says, leaning her head against his chest where his heart is thundering like a drum within. "Do you understand now?"

Solas holds her all the tighter, letting out a soft, tremulous breath. "I understand the meaning, but I cannot understand…" He rests his cheek atop her head and, whether he means to or it is purely unconscious, slows his unsteady breaths to match hers. "Have you ever transgressed, even harmlessly, and been summoned to address your actions? The feeling is not dissimilar to approaching the hangman's noose."

"…You know, I think I know exactly what you mean. Shortly before I met you, I was dragged through a gathering of shems who were convinced I'd blown up their Conclave and murdered their Divine."

Solas is quiet for a painfully long moment, but it's only painful because Erys wants to laugh really badly. "…Ah."

She grins, nudging her head gently into his cheek. "Do you truly feel that way?"

"No," Solas says, and sounds strangely frustrated about that. "I… I had thought I would need to guard against thousands of years of rage and hatred. But the sensation— All I can feel through the Blight is…"

"Feels welcoming, doesn’t it?"

She feels him nod against her hair. "I know not what to make of it. I would suspect a trap, but there is little they can do beyond influencing the Blight. And yet its progression feels… halted, somehow." Again his grip tightens, so much so that Erys is forced to hiss out a faint breath as her lungs protest. "Erys, before we do this—"

"Oh, no. No, absolutely not." She wriggles, trying to worm her way out of his grasp, but Solas refuses to let her go. "I’m not doing fatalistic last words with you. That is inviting calamity. The definition of cursing yourself. I’m not listening!"

"Before we do this," Solas insists, raising his voice to drown out hers and hefting her so easily off the ground that she squawks. "I'd like you to know how to pull yourself from the connection, should anything go wrong and I am unable to remove you myself."

"Oh." Erys relaxes, too abruptly, and Solas nearly staggers when her centre of balance shifts. "That’s fine, you can do that. I thought you were going to— Never mind."

"I may not be overly superstitious, but I am intimately familiar with misfortune," Solas says flatly. "I would also prefer not to invite it. Precautions, though, should not run the same risk."

"No, that's fair. What do I do? Can I even do it without my magic?"

"Of course," Solas says, as though it's obvious. "It's my magic."

Enlightening. "…Walk me through it?"

Solas laughs softly and turns her to face him. Erys flounders a bit, unbalanced more by the sound of his laughter than his sudden desire to manhandle her all over the place. He can keep doing that, if he likes, but the laughter, the fond smile he gives her, the one that makes the corners of his eyes crinkle charmingly, is too warm for where they are. He seems less worried about this than he should be, and instead raises a hand, which prompts a rune on his warded circle to flare in response. "Reach for it as if you were attempting to reinforce the ward. Think not of your depleted mana, simply move through the action as you would normally."

An easy instruction to follow, so she does, extending her hand and reaching reflexively for the well within her where her absent magic should reside. If she focuses on it for too long, the void distresses her to the point of nausea, but thankfully she is in a state of almost perpetual stress-related distraction. Now, though, the sigil sparks almost instantly, anchoring against some deep part of her spirit, a tether, strong and sure.

"Oh!" She gives a little shuffle in place, testing the resilience of the binding. "Even without magic?"

"I have not been wholly myself," Solas says, soothing the sigil with a flick of his wrist. The tether loosens and Erys misses the soft thrum of magic already. "The times when you and I have been together, both in company and intimately, I have been diminished in power, or you have. If you had your senses about you, if you could reach out fully to touch the arcana, you would feel the way my magic shifts for you. It reaches for you constantly, and would entwine itself wholly with yours given the chance."

"Your magic fancies me," Erys teases, though the desired effect is dampened somewhat by how utterly charmed she is by the notion.

"Absolutely," Solas agrees, flashing her a quick smile. "You can feel it now, can’t you? Even with your mana depleted, the resonance is present."

Erys nods. The sensation is not unlike the shiver of winter in the bones, though without the ache of its chill. "I didn’t think you favoured frost."

"Frost and Spirit are not so different. They are the easiest elements to wield in protection."

Pleased, Erys can’t resist reaching for the ward one last time, just to feel magic—any magic, even magic that isn’t hers—flutter through her body, light as moth wings. Solas does not hurry her, smiles as though her brush against his magic is a physical caress, and leans down to answer her gentle touch with a kiss to her brow. He pauses there, the warmth of his lips barely a hair's breadth away, before he ducks to kiss her properly, shocking a small, pleased hum from her throat.

"Why…?

"Because," Solas says, cupping her jaw softly to tilt her face up. He kisses the corner of her mouth, over the old scar there, and sighs softly, breath fanning warmly over her cheek. "I want to, and I can. For all the years I could not— No. For all the years I did not let myself."

"You do pick the worst moments to get romantic."

"Yes," Solas agrees, and kisses her again.

She'd tease him about keeping the Titans waiting, or stalling for time, if she didn’t know him so well. He is not the sort of man to run from duty—to her eternal consternation—but in the absence of permission to tell her whatever last words she has forbidden, this is all he has left to offer. She knows it and will allow it, if only because that same fear lingers coldly in her chest, wrapped around her heart like a vice.

Should they fail, though, they will have tried, and she wouldn’t trade it for anything. She is with him, he is open to her, and if they die here then the Veil will fall and Solas will be finally and truly free of his duty.

"Come on," she says softly, taking his hand. "They’re waiting for us."

She knows it's true, even as she says it mainly to encourage him. The presence in her mind lingers at the edges of her awareness, a frantic sort of energy plucking at the threads of her thoughts. Just within the boundary of Solas' wards, the pedestal and artefact lie otherwise innocuously, save for the blood that stains the void-black edges of it. Solas' blood, as thick and bright as if freshly spilled, somehow, despite the length of time since it was first drawn.

Solas offers no last minute assurances save for dipping his head down to touch his forehead to hers. Then, he takes her hand, but rather than just threading their fingers together, Erys feels a cold coil of magic slither around her wrist and his own, featherlight and fine, but with a low thrum that is both constant and reassuring. The last time they departed hand in hand, of course, they had been separated. His determination to prevent that again is heartening.

"As before," Solas begins softly, squeezing her fingers, "when you recalled the memory of the Anchor, I will put us to sleep. You need not worry about straying, I will keep us tethered to the dream."

He doesn’t tell her not to be afraid, which she appreciates. She nods her agreement and Solas hesitates for only a few moments before he takes a breath and casts his spell. Within seconds, the familiar crest of his magic rises behind her eyes, lingering heavily over her eyelids as the world loses the sharpness of clarity, and then everything fades into hazy nothingness.

And returns with a vengeance.

***

Like a spike driven through the centre of her head, like a poison-tipped arrow boring through her skull, force splinters through her mind jagged and sharp and hot. Pressure like she has never known, pressing down on every inch of her like the suffocation of a Templar's Smite but with the weight of the word behind it. Reach. If she cries out, she cannot tell. If she falls to her knees, clutches her head, bites through her own tongue in an attempt to brace against the swarm of leaden pain collapsing down on her, she doesn't know. For. All she knows is the pain of a weight so great her bones grind and shudder in their joints, her muscles compress and shriek their agony, and the relentless onslaught doesn’t stop; time ceases to matter. There is nothing but this. Me. There has never been anything but this. If she ever had a name, or a purpose, ever existed beyond this crushing agony, she cannot remember.

Decades ago, she draws a breath. Wounded lungs choke on plumes of rock dust, each breath crackled— crackles— will crackle when drawn through the soft tissue of her lungs, broken shards tearing at her throat. The scent of shattered shale Erys'enya! and the bite of limestone lingers—lingered—will linger in her nose, thick upon her tongue, clogged her throat—clogs—clogging, putrid and strident, bitter with blood please! The smell echoes through her head, a deafening wail of sensation, battered-battering and half-remembered and dreaded somehow simultaneously, for it is never-occurred, always-occurring, yet-approaches in her future, remember yourself! where she will be crushed—has been crushed—is being crushed over and over by the mountains above her, below her, within her, calcifying her insides and entombing the remains of her flesh.

She cannot cry out. She cannot see. She cannot move or think or breathe.

The lie is burrowed too deeply within her soul//To rip it out she will lose part of herself//Does she understand?

Part of herself?//What is there left to lose?//Her mind?//Her magic?//All of it is gone//Memories?//Take them//Has there even been anything else but this?

Fairly questioned, perhaps//But she doesn’t understand//Can’t//The magic is old and written in blood and carried on the whims of an enemy//Can you see it?//Look there//The threads bound around the faith of a child, can you see it now?

We see it//A terrible thing//The marking of the flesh of our young was abhorrent enough, but look how her spirit is tainted.

Yes//We cannot cleanse it//It would needs be torn away//If this is a boon, we cannot say.

Can she answer?

No//The weight is too much.

The other, then?//He is resilient, will he speak for her?

We have asked//He tells us he cannot.

Frightened?

Beyond that.//The threads bind him as well.

What can be done?//How do we act?//What will she lose?

There//There, do you see?//Take it/To save the whole — take it.//She deserves a will of her own.

Everything coalesces into a single white-hot point of pain. At the centre of the last of Erys' awareness—my name, that's my name!—time and pain and self are condensed into that burning focal point, and with a sensation like tearing at the root of her being, everything is plucked away, an errant petal, fragile.

Erys screams. She hears it, feels it, the shuddering catharsis of sound leaving her unburdened lungs on strong breaths. She screams and arms wrap around her, warm and steady. She screams until her breath leaves her and she is forced to take another, fresh and clear and free.

"Erys," Solas chants lowly in her ear. "Erys, Erys, I have you. All is well, I have you."

She chokes on her next breath in her eagerness, spitting and blinking open her eyes to see— trees? What is that— no. Rocks? Roots? Great, twisting vines of rock, slender and spiked like veins reaching from the ground towards a scarlet sky. Her vision is shadowed and hazy and there is an ache behind her left eye that promises a bitter headache, but she is whole and herself and the tide of whatever insanity had seized her has finally, blessedly ebbed.

"I," Erys says faintly, collapsing heavily against Solas' chest. "I have no idea what that was."

"Just focus on me," Solas says, reaching up to cup her face, turning her head against his chest. "You did well to endure it for a long as you did."

"That was the…" She swallows thickly. "Was that the Titans?"

"Yes."

"I think… I don’t think I liked that."

Solas' laughter is faint and strained, barely more than a hitched breath released as he holds her to him. "No. I have never felt the touch of a Titan mind before, and I…" He presses his face against her hair. "I cannot say I endured it well."

"Are… where are we?"

As she comes back to herself fully, Erys looks again at their surroundings. Focus is slow to follow, as though looking through warped and dirty glass, and whatever this place is, it follows no rules she understands. She can’t accurately gauge the distance of the nearest veins straining towards that crimson sky, nor even the distance of her hand in front of her face when she summons enough strength to lift it.

"The deterioration of the dream is my own fault," Solas says, helping her—carefully— to her feet. He glances at her face, then quickly away, a flicker of pain catching in his eyes. "I tried to make them kind, but my power pales under the influence of the Titans."

A strangely humble admittance, from him. "I think I heard… There was so much, I could barely… But I heard, or I thought I heard… Did they take something from me?"

"Yes."

The answer does not come from Solas.

They turn as one, towards a vein of— lyrium? Is that what it is? One of those veins, the strange root-like formations jutting from the ground like bizarre trees, shaded and shadowed, but Erys suddenly wonders how she could have ever mistaken it for anything else. Lyrium, because when the answer comes again, a faint glow emanates from within. "We took her from you."

Vague as that is, it hardly matters; Erys barely registers it anyway. Her knees threaten to bend and she doesn’t know if she should give into the urge, to drop to the ground in reverence as the voice of a Titan rings from the stone.

"You need not," it says again. "What use have we for obeisance?"

Erys can discern no true voice, no sound, though the words are unmistakable as speech. Whatever means of communication the Titans utilise, it is devoid of inflection or tone, pitch or volume, but she marks the meaning and intention as though she feels them herself.

"I— I am honoured," she ekes out shakily. "To speak with you, I—"

"Peace," the singing stone sighs softly. "We are not yet forgiven."

"For… Forgiven?"

"We took what you could not consent to give. She lingered to deeply for us to part you."

Lingered? She? Erys opens her mouth but finds no words in the absence of understanding. Until Solas' grip tightens on her shoulders and he lets out a sharp curse, wholly unlike him.

"The presence you took," he says, abrupt. "What have you done with her?"

"We left her coiled in the shadow of yours. She cannot trespass here. We called you to us, but not her. She comes with dark intention and we have little left to protect but protect it we shall."

Erys can’t tell if Solas is relieved or furious, but he offers her the explanation she craves. "They broke your geas."

"They…" Erys gasps softly, clutching at Solas' arm. "She's gone? You took her away?" There are no words vast enough to convey the rush of relief when it comes, but all she has to offer she gives freely. "Thank you."

The light of the vein dims momentarily. "It was not done without consequence. Such bindings require the forfeiture of an aspect of the self. In lieu of your life, we payed the toll with your sight."

"My…?" Panic surges, quick and hot. "My— sight?"

"Such is the cost."

"I’m… When I wake, I'll be…?"

"I have many," Solas says at once. "Take it from me."

"Solas?!" Erys barks, panicked. "Shut up?!"

"You have little left to lose," Solas tells her, drawing her protectively against his side. "I have the eyes of Pride, a second loss is nothing to me."

"Solas, don’t, I can— I can learn to manage—"

"We cannot take back what was traded," the Titan sighs, prompting an angry hiss from Solas. "The geas claims nothing from you, and all from her. We gave enough to appease its master. One, of two."

One…? One eye? Erys swallows hard. One eye is… She can… Yes. Let it be so. Erys is defiant to a fault, but even she will not argue against such absolutes. If that is to be the way of it, then let it be done. To be free of Mythal's influence, it isn’t the worst price she could have paid. "I will… I will adjust. Thank you for… Thank you for freeing me."

"You have the resilience of Stone."

It feels like a compliment. Erys accepts it as such.

"You've permitted our presence here," Solas remarks with none of his previous fury, though Erys recognises that the formalities have been observed to the limit of his tolerance. "You allowed me to make the connection, and I would know why—and how—you would tolerate such a thing. You know who I am and what I have done. Why tolerate my presence but not Mythal's? We are equally culpable for what has been done to you."

"Culpable, yes," the Titan thrums. "Equally? No. But the burden of recompense has fallen to you, and you shy not away from it. We recognise that in you, Prideful one, and we welcome you."

"You welcome me here because I’m sorry?" Solas repeats, askance. "My guilty conscience won me passage, is that the way of it?"

The light within the vein flickers. "You think it should be otherwise? That we should deny your remorse with aggression?"

"It is the least you deserve."

"We deserve much," the Titan states. "But we choose how we act. Your sorrows do not dictate our actions."

"Then I would ask you to explain them. Unworthy as I am, I want to understand."

The Titan falls silent, the light of the lyrium glow fading into lifeless grey. Solas is a knot of tension at her side, perhaps moments away from shattering the vein in his distress, but then another vein some distance beyond the first lights up from within.

"Is knowing the price of freedom?"

"Of course not," Solas declares firmly. "I offer no barters or trades. Your freedom is assured by virtue of my presence here. I come to you in penitence — I seek understanding because that is who I am."

"What more would you know?" The Titan asks. "You have suspicions, not questions. You already know all that we could tell you."

"How did the first of you die?" Erys blurts out ahead of sense. She immediately cringes for her own clumsiness, but she doesn’t retract it. Nor does she apologise, because the question is honest and she doubts honesty is likely to earn the Titans' anger.

"We did not." The declaration rings through her with undeniable certainty. "You see the heart of matters, and that is well, but the answers we offer you are shrouded in the lies of Ambition."

Solas inhales sharply beside her.

"We… suspected," Erys says, gripping Solas' arm tightly. To restrain him? Comfort him? Even she doesn't know, but she does it anyway. "The history we know, that my companion lived and recounted for me, is wrong, isn’t it?"

The vein's light pulses and fades. For a long moment there is only silence, and then the light flares again, softly, as if in mourning. "Yes."

Solas covers his face. Whether he weeps into his palms or simply cannot handle facing the truth, Erys leaves him to his distress with nothing but a touch to his arm; she is here, but he may feel this as he wishes. There isn’t much she could say, either way. There are no platitudes worthy of this revelation, and any attempts to offer them would be clumsy at best. The most she can do for him now is uncover the truth.

"The history that we know," Erys begins, turning to the copse of veins to afford Solas time to gather his fractured composure. "It tells us that a Titan was felled to become the catalyst for Elvhen bodies. You claim no Titan died."

She is struck—mentally—by the ringing aria of a concept too broad for her comprehension. In the clanging of the Titan's earnest declaration, there is the state of eternity condensed into a single moment, rain-soaked dust, and the warmth of sunlit grass. "We are incapable. Even should our hearts shatter, our minds will endure. We are ourselves always, and when one mountain sleeps, we are carried upon the connections we hold. There is no word for the ending of being among us. Ambition's claim was ever false, and twisted upon the blade of his purpose. He stole nothing that was not freely given."

Erys swallows back her flood of questions with great restraint in favour of the one that burns hotter than the rest. She is no stranger to desperation, but this is deeper than desire. Deeper even than curiosity. She must know, or nothing will ever matter again. "You… gave—? You taught the elves… how to form their bodies?"

The song shifts. A roar, a bright crescendo, and then a softened plateau of ringing intention; a beginning, vibrant and beautiful. "We showed him the way of our children. You name them of the Stone, children of Titans, our beloved and our lost. This is right and they are beloved by us even now. But they are our firstborn. You are our last."

For all her strength of will, Erys can’t hold back the tears when they come. She reaches out and lays a palm against the crooked vein, feeling the warmth of life thrumming underneath, seeping into her blood. A caress brushes whisper-faint across her spirit. A welcome. A reunion.

The song in the air thrums around them. The veins begin to glow and fade, each grasping vine of rock glistening and rumbling in low-pitched harmony. Erys watches and she listens, feels the thrum of the song beneath her palm, in her heart, at the core of her being.

***

he came to us in search of Purpose, and we did not deny him//our Children dwelt upon the land, stewards of our sleeping bodies, plucking upon the Threads of Fade, and tending to our Mountains

he came below to a forming heart, to watch our Blood beget new life//and with a reverence that we delighted in, he asked us for the gift

he had seen the children of the Stone, he told us with all the eager light of the Sun//with longing great and Ambition strong// he would know the joy of living among the firstborn

we could not deny him//we would not deny him//if he came to us anew, at the beginning while knowing the end, we would act as we did then//we offered our Blood and the knowledge of craft, the wisdom of ages to make flesh known, the will of life to propagate and flourish//we taught him all we knew, because he asked

he shared this knowledge with his kind and our secondborn were as beloved as the first//different in form, new yet adored as the old//we loved them well and taught them well//guided them from the Fade they came//their skill with dreams moved in ways the Stone could not//even then, we marvelled

we did not mark when Ambition twisted//we did not foresee it//we did not predict//we do not know why//our children began to bleed and scream and clamour for our protection//what could we do but rise? to guide back our wayward children//to cease the bite of war as it scarred our bodies and our hearts

we found no understanding//we found no reason//our cries unheard, our song unheeded//back we were beaten, as our firstborn bled//we warred and we raged, but most of all we mourned//we could not reach them//we could not understand

in restless dreams, we sought our children//all of them//we called and we cried, we sang and we wept//when the binding came, our song was sullied but the song is all we know//discordant but honest//all we could do was sing//all we know is to sing//to be all and then none, to be whole and then fractured//we sang for our children, but our children never came

***

When the song ends, Erys' cheeks are damp with tears.

She leans heavily against the vein, letting its mournful warmth soothe the chill in her bones, some primordial closeness she has never known but always missed. She aches all over. Inside. In ways she never has. There are no words for this sort of grief. It is everything, as much as it is inexplicable.

"Elves and Dwarves," she says thickly, wiping a hand across her cheeks. "All this time."

The Titan presence thrums at her back. "We do not know why Ambition set himself against us. We do not know what lies he fed our children to cause them to hate us."

Nor does Erys, and all potential answers died with him. "My people know— knew him as the All-Father. I… I suppose… The most likely answer would be that he couldn't stomach the love your children felt for you not being his to claim."

Solas still hasn’t spoken. He had listened just as she had, but silence is all he offers her now. Like a sentry, he stands in the copse of false trees, a soldier without orders, lost and uncertain. She hasn’t tried to go to him because she doesn’t know what she can say. She, at least, is born of mortal parents. She has a beginning, she has a lineage she can trust. Her memories are her own, her experiences the product of truth. To Solas, who dwells so resolutely within conviction, the loss must be horrific.

"You think like us," the Titan says. "So much all at once, with a vastness your form should not contain. You grieve, but curiosity burns. There is more you would know?"

"Oh— Everything." Erys laughs wetly. The tears just won't stop. "How can we understand you? Why aren’t you insane? Why don’t you hate us? How did you know to break the geas? Why teach Elgar'nan, and why claim you'd do it again, even knowing what you know?"

"You are ours," the Titan proclaims, and unless Erys is mistaken, there is a thrum of pride in their words. She's gotten good at recognising that. "How could we hate you?"

"We took you from the world."

"We are not gone. You know this."

Not gone, no. Enduring within the dwarves of Kal-Sharok, who changed with the song. In Shaper Valta, who formed a bond with a living Titan, reforging a connection older than the land itself. "Do you know anything of the world beyond your prison?"

"The world does not sing as it once did. We see much and understand less."

"It isn’t a kind place," Erys admits. "Do you think you'll be able to find your place in it again?"

The Titans' endless rumble softens. Erys wonders what it's like to have so many minds linked, to have such a deep and vast sense of togetherness, to know no loneliness, to be understood with only a thought. Even so, the thought of unleashing the Titans upon the dwarves concerns her. What would they do, if their every thought was suddenly shared among them all? Or has the connection been broken for too long?

"We would learn to sing again," the Titan finally says. "For the children who wish to return."

"Oh," Erys says, relieved. "And… your current song? The Blight? Do you have any control over it?"

"The song has changed because we have changed. If we could learn to sing again, we could soothe the lonely song."

Could it really be so easy?

Erys looks to Solas, silent and still. Sighing, she lifts herself to her feet and begins the tentative dance of approaching a man on the cusp of some great internal cataclysm. First, she stands in front of him so that he can see her even if he won't focus on her. Then, she raises her hand, palm up, and ever so gently cups it to the deathly chill of his face. He doesn't so much as twitch under her touch, too mired in his silent anguish to respond outwardly, but that’s fine. Erys has waited so many years for this man, she can afford him the grace of his grief.

But as she is slowly learning to trust, he comes back to her slowly. Like the first thaw of spring he begins to warm under her palm. He blinks, eyes drawing back from their lost haze, and when they sharpen with awareness it is her that they focus on. He inhales slowly, then leans into her with a soft sound of pain.

"I’m sorry," she tells him, the purr of the Titans' mind rippling around them. "I’m so sorry, Solas."

"I should be used to this, I think," he says with such defeat that it hurts. "How many causes must I give myself to, only to learn too late that they are not just?"

"No more than any other man," Erys assures him. "At least comfort yourself with the fact that Elgar'nan is dead, and there are still amends to be made. We may never know how or why he acted the way that he did, but we can at least undo the damage he caused."

"Maybe so," Solas agrees hesitantly. "But it will not bring back the people I led into war."

"No, but there was never a path that could."

The pain in his eyes is so deep she could drown in it. He permits himself a moment with it, then nods, resolute, and gently takes hold of her wrist to lower her hand from his face. Stepping away from her, he turns to the nearest vein which flares faintly as though to acknowledge him. "I am myself. I would greet you again with the respect you deserve."

"Then we greet you in turn, Pride of Elvhenan," the Titans sigh, the stone forest glittering around them. "Know that all you have to say is heard and known by each of us."

"I came to you before in aggression," Solas murmurs, lowering his head. "I could claim that I knew no better, and I did not, but neither did I seek understanding, and I shame myself with my ignorance. I followed without question and I would have your judgement for that."

"You have it," is the answer. "We would see the skies as before, and learn to sing as we once could. If you seek it, then we would help you find your redemption in our liberation, Rebel Wolf."

"I would…" He swallows, shoulders hunched. "I would like to… Would you tell me…"

The stone trees thrum in unison, bathing the bizarre grove in indigo light — lyrium blue beneath a crimson sky. "We came to you once before. You did not wield us against our enemies wrongly. Put these worries from your mind; we were as willing as you were resolved. Nothing was stolen that was not given."

Solas leans forward. With aching tenderness he presses his brow to the humming vein, as Erys had, and whatever comfort he finds there Erys knows is long-sought and sorely needed. "I could not bear it, if I had wielded you as the weapon that broke the world."

"We gave what was required of us. Even we could not foresee the consequences. Desperation and pain has made fools of us all, but we wait now for the chance to atone."

"You have nothing to atone for," Solas vows. "For your assistance in raising the Veil, for sharing your knowledge with the first of us, I thank you. Rest now and I will call for you soon."

"Go," the Titans sigh sweetly. "Go in peace, Rebel Wolf, child who is Proud. Forgiven, and beloved."

***

It is sudden, but gentle. Between the space of a breath and a heartbeat, Erys wakes, to the silence of Arlathan's cavernous underbelly, and the gentle glistening of Solas' wards. The artefact is silent, inert once more, and Solas' blood—was that the crimson sky she'd seen?—no longer stains the void-black surface. The world is dimmer, but somehow sharper, as though perceptible shift in the world has drawn sensitivity to her vision. Distance is hard to gauge, but it had been within the Titan's dream—had they altered her sight already?—so the shock is not so abrupt. She finds no great sense of loss within her, and wonders how much influence the Titans had over her acceptance. But she does not have to navigate the shifted world unaided. With the dimming of one sense, she is gifted the return of another.

Because everything, even the truths now settling within her, pale in comparison to the rapturous rush of mana filling her depleted spirit.

"Oh!" She almost staggers under the delightful deluge of it, revitalised and rejuvenated by the winter winds of her own power. She summons a fractal array of tiny shards above her head, simply because she can, and then lets them dissolve over her, raining down gently as raindrops over her skin. Then, with an eager rush, summons her Faded left arm, and nearly shrieks with the joy of it.

Solas stirs beside her, eyes fluttering open a moment later. But then things get significantly more complicated incredibly fast.

"Where," he growls, "is Mythal?"

Erys can offer no answers, she can’t feel the ripple of the Well against her thoughts, nor the pounding ache of the All-Mother's oppressive presence. "If the geas is broken, she can’t hold a form, no? Is she even still— Solas?!"

Coiling in on himself, Solas lets loose a thunderous growl that shudders through the cavern, dissolving into a warping pool of shadow that reforms too quickly for her eyes to track. He steps from the shadows as the wolf, hackles raised and teeth bared, bellowing a guttural howl skyward.

"Mythal!" He roars through the Fade, amplifying his voice to the point that Erys has to recoil and cover her ears. "Face me, you snake-tongued traitor!"

More serpent than wolf, Solas bounds from the chamber in a wisping trail of shadow and fury, leaving Erys staring after him in steadily mounting horror

"Solas? Solas!"

A low chime fills the chamber and Erys gasps as Wisdom settles its depleted form around her neck. "Lethallan," it greets softly in her ear. "What befell you?"

"I— Later?! Can we talk— What's he doing?"

"Words may no longer suffice to reach understanding," Wisdom offers as if any of this makes any sense. "He suffers and he will make it known." It rubs its eyestalks against Erys' cheek. "I worried desperately for you both, but I am glad to see you returned safely."

"We were never in danger," Erys says. Her head feels trapped miles below water, frantically clawing towards the surface for clarity. "We— The Titans— What is he doing?!"

Above them, a thunderous crash trembles through the cavern. The distant howling of a furious wolf carries upon the Fade, and below it the sonorous roar of a larger, mightier beast.

Mythal.

"…They’re going to kill each other."

"Attempt to, perhaps," Wisdom hums. "There was a time when they settled all arguments this way."

"But why now?! They were— fine!"

All the time Mythal dogged their steps, they were fine. Even as she leeched Erys' vitality from her spirit, even up to the point that she stabbed him, they enjoyed a tenuous camaraderie. He defended her, accepted her, and now he suddenly wants to kill her? Surely if he'd been waiting for the geas to be broken, he'd have at least mentioned the rising murderous urge?

"Perhaps he learned something that might have altered his perception?" Wisdom offers.

"After pining for the last hundred millennia?" Erys counters. "I don’t believe that."

"He is not so unchangeable as that. He does not love her as he once did."

Well, yes, Erys would fucking hope not. But that doesn’t explain why he would bid the Titans a peaceful farewell and then come charging out of the dream like the vengeful god he swears vehemently that he is not. She'd claim it misdirected if Solas were the type to let himself be carried away on the currents of those virulent emotions he takes great pains to subdue, but it makes no sense. What is Mythal if not the last of the Elvhen like himself—though unformed—and the oldest friend that he has left besides Wisdom? What could possibly cause him to turn so viciously against her, when he had mourned her so bitterly?

The chamber offers no answers, silent as it is, and though there are thousands of stairs between her and the surface, Erys has no choice. Heaving a deeply reluctant sigh, she hurries to begin the arduous journey back the way they came.