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Chapter Text

Varric Tethras sits by the door of his tent and waits for Haven to fall quiet for the night. Above his head, the Breach bleeds its sickly green glow over the evening sky, and tints the clouds with vertiginous colour. It gives him a headache just looking at it, but lots of things have been giving him a headache recently.

Getting kidnapped by the Seeker had been one of them. Being hauled into questioning, just so she could drag Hawke into some god-awful holy quest had been another. The explosion at the Conclave hadn’t helped, of course. What with all of the demons and death that had followed.

But out of all of the things that had made his head pound, seeing Chuckles bending over the body of the survivor, without Athera standing beside him - that had been worse than everything else put together.

“Where is she?” He’d demanded, ready to kick his scrawny ass for breaking her heart.

But the way he’d paled at such a simple question. How suddenly the blood had fled from his face and his hands had shook over the mark on the stranger’s hand. The black void of grief Varric had seen in his eyes was enough to steal the words from his tongue. That had been two weeks ago, and since then, Athera’s weird-ass apostate had taken every opportunity to avoid him.

Varric had let him. But he’d seen the way the Nightingale had looked at him as well. Not with the kind of suspicion that the Divine’s spymaster should have looked at an elven apostate, but with pity. Before the first week was out he’d had the story from her instead.

Then, he’d yelled at her.

[Not a smart move, he knew].

He’d told her that she didn’t know Athera. That she’d come through worse than this. That just because Orlesians thought elves were worthless that didn’t mean a damn thing.

But she’d simply smiled at him, sad and sympathetic, and said that Solas had argued much the same thing when they’d fought together at the Spire.

Only then did Varric truly believe that his friend was dead.

His stupid, brave friend.

His stupid, brave, reckless friend.

His stupid, brave, reckless, kind friend.

His stupid, brave, reckless, impossibly kind friend, who’d come through so much and had deserved so much better than the things this world had done to her.

Beneath the Breach, the quill in Varric’s hand snaps, and he looks down at it in irritation and sets it down in the snow.

Yes, there are a lot of things giving him a headache right now, but Solas’ avoidance behaviour is currently at the top of the list. They’re heading to the Hinterlands tomorrow, and if they don’t get this shit out of the way soon, then one of them is going to lose their temper on the journey. And he suspects it might be him.

So, Varric waits. And after the Seeker has turned in for the night, and even Leliana has left her scary bird perch for sleep, he walks through Haven’s silent streets and climbs the steps in the direction of the apothecary. For a long moment, he stands in the green-hued dark, summoning up both courage and patience until he’s sure that he can stay calm. Then, he raises his fist, and knocks three sharp raps against Solas’ door.

The wind is cold against his back, and Varric stamps his feet and blows on his hands while he waits. After a few minutes, he realises that he’s being ignored. He’d expected it, but it still brings a wry smile to his lips. Subtle, the weird-ass apostate is not. He bangs on the door again.

“Listen here, Chuckles,” he calls through the wood. “I know you’re in there, and I know that you know I’m out here. Now, I’ve given you space for as long as I can, but it seems we’re going to be travelling together over the next few weeks. And look, I’m happy to do this on horseback. In a tent. Even in the middle of a refugee camp, if you like. But I think you’d prefer it if we did it here, where no-one was going to hear us.”

He steps back from the door, his arms folded and his chest hair ruffling in the breeze.

“Am I right?”

He strains his ears, hearing nothing from inside. But just when he’s about to give up and walk away, the click of the mechanism in the wood makes him plant his feet more firmly, and the door opens a crack to reveal Solas on the other side.

“Good of you to acknowledge my existence, Chuckles,” he drawls. “Now, are you going to invite me in or are we going to do this on the doorstep?”

A moment’s hesitation. A sigh. And then the door opens more widely and Solas steps aside to let him in. He stamps the snow from his boots while the door closes behind him, taking in the sparse room with a glance. A glowing magelight lights the space, revealing a rumpled bed strewn with furs and blankets. There are two wooden chairs set around a small table, and the desk across the room holds pots of herbs and crumpled sheets of paper scattered across it.

Solas’ staff is propped up in the corner – different to the one he’d used in Kirkwall – and his pack is tipped on its side against the wall, spilling out worn clothes and field rations over the floor. To anyone who hadn’t met Solas before, such small disorders would seem like nothing. But Varric knows how meticulous he is, and even these little glimpses of mess tell him more than he wants to know.

He looks up when Solas crosses the space, shadows deep in the hollows of his eyes, and pulls out the two chairs before taking one for himself. Varric stays standing, watching the way he clenches his hands together in his lap, and lowers his eyes towards them.

“Well, Master Tethras,” he says softly. “Here I am. Ask your questions.”

Varric hesitates. He has known Solas to be haughty and proud. Closed off, yes, but never so deferential. The man in front of him is thinner than he was before, hunched in his seat, with his fingers wrapped tightly together as though to stop them from shaking. Varric sighs and runs a hand over his face before taking the seat opposite. This is going to be a lot harder than he’d thought.

“You look like shit, Chuckles.”

Solas’ lips twitch, just slightly, and in the dim light he finally raises his head and looks Varric in the eye.

“Is that how you would introduce me, were I a character in one of your books? I’m curious. If you were writing me into being, what words would you choose?”

Varric drums his fingers on the table and hums thoughtfully.

“I’d say you were difficult,” he decides. “Difficult to describe. Difficult to make sense of. Difficult to get alone in a room when you’re set on not being found.”

He quirks his eyebrow significantly, and Solas concedes the point with a dip of his head.

“And I’d say you were grieving,” he adds, more gently than he’d intended. “Actually, I’d say you were drowning in it.”

Solas looks away, and his throat ripples when he swallows.

“I would say that is an accurate assessment,” he whispers at last.

Varric shifts uncomfortably in his chair. He’s getting too old for this shit.

“What happened, Chuckles?” He asks him plainly. “How did we get from the Hanged Man to here?”

Solas hesitates. The sound of the gusting wind whips around the little shack, and the magelight casts deep shadows in the corners of the room. Then, with a shake of his head, so small that Varric almost misses it, Athera’s apostate begins to speak. At first, in halting sentences riddled with uncertain pauses, and then in a desperate torrent, as though the words are being pulled from his mouth by some unseen force against his will.

He speaks of the safe house and of Loranil’s sudden arrival. He recounts Athera’s return to the revas’shiral in tones of such dazzling pride, that it makes Varric want to cry – or hit him. He talks of the rescue mission that had freed over fifty slaves. He stands up and begins to pace when he recalls, with sharp and desperate fury, the moment they’d almost lost her in the caves.

He describes how Fenris had gone to Kirkwall in search of Hawke. How Athera had decided that they could take the elves to Val Royeaux themselves. He tells Varric of how Isabela had helped them, and with a bitter and humourless laugh that sets his teeth on edge, he details the threat she’d given him if he ever hurt her friend.

When they get as far as Val Royeaux, to the moment they’d decided to leave the party and chase through the quiet streets, Solas raises a fist to his forehead and closes his eyes as if in physical pain. The words come out through clenched teeth, while he rocks backwards and forwards on the balls of his feet, one hand braced against the wall.

Varric sits there and listens in silence, growing angrier and angrier the more he speaks about the city and the Spire, and the series of almighty screw ups that had led them there. Finally, when the tale is done, Solas turns back to face him, a feverish sort of look in his exhausted eyes.

“So you see, Master Tethras,” he says. “It was my fault. I was not cautious enough. I did not protect her. And because of my foolishness-”

His mouth works around the name, his throat clenching, and then he closes his eyes and reaches out a hand to the bedpost to steady himself.

“Because of my foolishness, she is… Gone.”

In the moments that follow, Varric stares at him in silence. The wind howls around the cabin, and Athera’s apostate waits with his eyes shut tight for the judgement to fall. Varric wants to be kind. It’s clear to him that Solas is broken. That he had loved her, deeply and truly, and now he’s tearing himself to shreds on the sharp edges of her memory.

But a wild sort of anger is building in his heart. A frustration that buzzes in his stomach and crawls up his throat the longer he thinks about what had happened. He stands quickly, scraping the chair across the floor and starting to pace, trying to rid himself of the excess energy in his blood. Eventually, it isn’t enough. He turns to look at Solas, and something about the way he’s standing, weak and wounded and undeniably right about the part he’d played in her death, snaps something inside him.

“Andraste’s flaming tits, Chuckles,” he bites out. “You were in Val Royeaux!”

He twists his hands into his hair and tugs, trying to use the sudden pain to bring himself back to some kind of calm.

It doesn’t work.

“Does that mean anything to you?” He finds himself yelling. “The seat of the Chantry’s power! The home of the Templar Order! And you… You…”

He shakes his head in disbelief, scrubbing at his face in frustration.

“You two ran through there like a couple of kids, with flashing magic signs saying: hey, look at us! We’re apostates! Why don’t you come and lock us up?”

He rounds on him, his teeth grinding together, while Solas looks back with a blank and distant expression that makes him all the more angry.

“Damn it, Chuckles,” he shouts. “You were meant to keep her safe!”

He regrets the words as soon as they’re out of his mouth. Solas reels back as though he’s been struck, his blank mask splitting down the middle until his expression is one of ardent anguish. He stumbles, the back of his knees hitting the edge of the bed while his face contorts in misery. Then he sinks down onto the edge of the mattress and doubles over as though winded.

“I was meant to keep her safe,” he echoes, his voice hollow. “I failed. And now, every day I… Every day…”

But something strange is happening to him. Something Varric has only seen before when Hawke has been at her most vulnerable, but recognises the instant it begins.

“Woah, easy there Chuckles. Take a breath, ok?”

He knows, as he says it, that they’re already past that point. Solas heaves for air, his eyes wide and frightened, and then he doubles over and descends suddenly into panic.

“Oh, shit.”

Solas gasps, one hand reaching for his chest as he struggles for breath, while his body shakes as though caught in the wind beyond their walls. Varric doesn’t hesitate. He marches to his side and lays his palm, flat and gentle, on the middle of his back.

“It’s alright,” he says, keeping his voice calm and even. “You’re alright. You’re safe. Just try and take a deep breath, ok?”

To demonstrate, he slows and exaggerates his own breathing, and his eyes widen in shock when Solas twists to push his face into his shoulder, and clings onto the corner of his shirt for dear life.

Well, shit.

Awkwardly, Varric raises his free hand to his shoulder, feeling a cold sweat break out through the thin tunic while Solas tries to catch his breath.

“Easy, Chuckles,” he says again, in the most soothing voice he can manage. “This’ll pass. You’re going to be ok.”

They stay that way for long minutes. Solas chokes and trembles against him, and Varric thanks his lucky stars that at least he hasn’t started to cry. He isn’t sure he can cope with a crying Chuckles, no matter how sympathetic he might be.

When his breaths start to come more easily, Solas lets go of his shirt and scoots further down the bed. His hands come up to wrap around his waist, and he stares at the floor while a shamed blush rises to the tips of his ears.

“Ir abelas,” he murmurs. “Forgive me.”

He draws in a shuddering breath and closes his eyes again.

“You are right, of course. I should have protected her, and instead-”

“No, I wasn’t right,” Varric interrupts him. “I was angry and I was being cruel.”

“But you weren’t wrong.”

His voice comes out as a whisper, and his eyes are blank and unseeing when they fix on a point across the room. With a sigh, Varric pulls his chair over to sit in front of him, and chucks him beneath the chin with his knuckles to get him to look up, momentarily startling him out of his misery.

“Ok Chuckles, I’m going to say this once and only once, so you’d better listen to it, alright?”

After a moment’s pause, Solas nods hesitantly, his face still pale and drawn.

“I am angry at you, but no more angry than I am at her,” he says. “And it definitely doesn’t compare to how angry I am at the Templars, and the Chantry, and this whole fucking mess of a world that’s dragged all of us into the chaos and left us here to try and survive it.”

Solas opens his mouth as though to argue, and Varric holds up his hand to silence him.

“I stand by what I said, ok? You were meant to keep her safe, but not because it was some sort of duty, or because she couldn’t take care of herself, or even because I wanted it that way.”

He sighs heavily, and shakes his head at Solas’ bewildered expression.

“When I said that you were meant to keep her safe, I meant that when you all left together, for the first time since I’d known her, I felt like she’d finally left with someone who would look after her just as much as she always looked after everyone else.”

He looks up at the ceiling when he sees Solas’ expression start to splinter again, and folds his hands over his stomach.

“Athera was special. Bright and reckless and always the first person to come to someone’s defence,” he sighs. “But the way she was with people left her open to being hurt. I told her, you know, when you two were in Kirkwall.”

He looks back at Solas, meeting a yearning expression as though he were starving for the merest breath of her.

“I told her, that when she cared about someone she gave all of herself away, and I warned her that she needed to tell the other person – to tell you – what she was feeling, if she wanted to give you the chance to reciprocate. Because other people weren’t like her. Because most of us can’t just tell what someone needs without getting it spelled out for us first.”

He sighs again, and runs a hand across his forehead wearily.

“But the thing is, Chuckles, I knew you were different even then. Know why?”

Solas shakes his head, his expression more vulnerable than Varric has ever known it.

“Because I saw from the very first moment you walked into the tavern together, that you loved her. Knew it before you knew it yourselves, I’d say. And I also knew that no matter what happened after you left, there was no-one in the world who would protect her so fiercely.”

Solas closes his eyes, his jaw clenched tight while he shakes his head, as though he might shake his words away and deny the truth of them completely. Varric huffs a frustrated breath and chucks him under the chin again.

“So, I’m only going to say this once,” he continues firmly. “But you’re going to hear it. It wasn’t your fault, Solas. If you couldn’t have saved her from that place, then no-one else could have saved her either. Understand?”

Solas’ bottom lip trembles, and for a terrible second Varric thinks he might be about to start crying. But then he swallows hard and looks back down at his hands, and shakes his head again.

“You can’t know that for sure,” he whispers.

“Maybe not. But neither can you,” Varric replies. “So, do yourself a favour, and let the guilt go. Missing her’s going to be hard enough already without that on top of it as well.”

Solas takes another shuddering breath and doesn’t meet his eyes.

“I don’t know if I can do that.”

He sounds so small. So irreparably wounded. Varric thinks to himself that it was no wonder that Athera, with her abiding need to take care of people, had flown to him like a moth to a flame. Right now, he isn’t sure there’s anyone else in the world who needs looking after as much as the man in front of him.

“Yeah, well,” he says awkwardly. “Try. Because if I know disasters, then things are going to get a whole lot worse around here before they get better, and we’re going to need you and your weird Fade shit to help us plug up the giant hole in the sky.”

Solas huffs a soft breath, almost a laugh, and Varric takes that as his cue to leave before shit starts getting even weirder. He gets to his feet, resting his hand briefly on Solas’ shoulder before making his way to the door.

“Master Tethras?”

He stops with his hand on the wood.

“Thank you. I do not deserve such understanding from you, of all people. But I am grateful for it.”

Varric sighs and turns back to face him, finding him still hunched and small on the bed.

“I didn’t say I wasn’t still mad at you,” he says wryly. “Maker knows, so many of us cared about her. But only one of us in this room was in love with her, so I’d say that makes us about even, don’t you?”

Something in the way Solas flinches at the word makes him pause, and a sudden wave of understanding almost makes him start shouting again.

“Andraste’s tits, Chuckles. You told her you loved her, didn’t you?” He asks disbelievingly. “Chuckles, tell me you told her you loved her?”

But the pain in Solas’ face tells him perfectly well that the apostate had done no such thing. Varric swears under his breath and presses a hand to his head.

“You really are a special kind of idiot, do you know that?”

He glares at him from across the room, and Solas folds in on himself and rests his head in his hands. Varric watches him for a long moment in silence, and then sighs and opens the door.

“She’d have said it back, you know,” he tells him. “If you’d told her. She’d have said it back.”

Chapter Text

Solas is well-practiced in grief. He understands the ebb and flow of it. The times when drowning becomes gasping, followed by the sinking moments, when the whole of the world falls away and he is drifting and alone with nothing to grab onto. A wolf falling outside of space and time.

The Dalish tell stories of how, after locking the other gods away, Fen’Harel retreated to a far corner of the Fade and cackled madly in glee. But they are only half right. He had fled to the furthest reaches, and he had laughed and laughed and wrapped his arms around himself, until his tears had run rivers through the Dreaming and carved whole new borders in their wake. But it wasn’t in glee. It was because he’d destroyed everything he’d ever loved, and it still hadn’t been enough to set them free.

During those lonely, sleeping years, he thought he’d traversed the lowest depths his self could reach. Writhing in helpless agony while his world crumbled and his people faded, and his name became a curse on their lips. But this new grief shocks him in ways he can scarcely articulate. It comes at him from odd angles. Every time he thinks he’s reached the bottom of it, another floor falls away to reveal the abyss that lies beneath.

He’s so cold all the time. No matter how many furs he piles around his bed. No matter how close he sits to the fire. No matter how many heat spells he casts over his skin, he can’t seem to shake the bitter ice that has taken root in his chest and spread like fractals through his veins. It exhausts him, clinging deep in his bones like a millstone with nothing to relieve it.

He takes every opportunity to be alone, where his mask can crumble with no-one around to see. Today, the refugee camp is overcrowded and heaving with wounded people. Solas stands in a quiet corner, across the road from where Corporal Vale is drilling the ragged recruits who’ve gathered to help. It’s a brave and ultimately useless endeavour, he thinks. Between the Templars indulging in cruelty, the mages descending into barbarism, the demons spilling from the rifts, and the bandits that have arrived to take advantage of the chaos, these simple farmworkers stand no chance without aid.

His body aches. Sleep hasn’t come easily to him since the Spire. The Fade has always been his greatest comfort, but too often now, despair and terror demons stalk his steps. His grief makes him weak to their influence, and most nights he finds himself beset by nightmares, waking in the looming dark with a scream lodged in his throat and a weight in his chest.

He pinches his fingers between his eyes, sinking down onto a boulder half-hidden in the shadows while he tries to relax his shoulders. On the higher levels, he can see the Chantry sister they’ve travelled here to find standing next to the Herald. They are deep in conversation, and beneath the deadened feeling he’s carried with him since his meeting with Mythal, he seethes with impotent anger.

The anger is mostly directed at himself. At how terribly his plans have gone awry. At the brutality of this world and the infuriating, brilliant resilience of these people who are even now trying to hold back the tide. But it’s also directed at her. The woman who stole his power. The Herald of Andraste.

Ellana Lavellan.

He feels it like a flame beneath his ribs the longer he watches her. He hates her for her feeble stumbling into events that she knows nothing about. He hates her for not being a mage, when she’s the one in unknowing possession of his Ages of dreams. He hates that she’s so proudly Dalish that she calls him tor’vhen, as though she is the true elf and he merely an interloper.

But most of all he hates that she isn’t Athera.

He hates that so often, he catches sight of her out of the corner of his eye, and thinks that she might be.

She is taller than Athera, but only just. Her hair is long and red like Athera’s, but far paler and less changeable than his heart’s. She is slight for a warrior, and Athera’s years in the revas’shiral had given her more muscle tone than the average mage, so their body type isn’t that dissimilar. Her eyes are a very pale green, not the soft and molten gold he so misses, but in certain lights they lose their colour and reflect the sun, until he can almost convince himself they look the same.

Above all else, Ellana is Dalish, and that means they move through a space the same way. Cautious but proud. Graceful, with the frequent need for stealth. She holds her movements tightly to herself in public, and then in private will open up and gesticulate wildly, just like Athera had done.

He hates it. He hates her. He hates that every time he has to double-take at her, the wolf in his chest leaps so greatly for joy that the adrenaline makes him nauseous when it recedes. He hates that the grief that follows is so strong, it’s all he can do not to curl into himself and scream.

But most of all, he hates that none of it is her fault, and he only has himself to blame.

“Hey Chuckles, you over here?”

Solas shrinks further into the shadows, unwilling to be summoned by Varric just yet. But the dwarf’s keen eyes pick him out anyway, and after a moment’s consideration, he sighs and ambles over to join him. He doesn’t speak at first, standing next to Solas and following his gaze to the Chantry.

“She’s doing ok, don’t you think?”

Solas watches the two women speak, and feels a yawning hopelessness settle heavily about his shoulders. What is the point? He thinks. Why had he ever tried to make anything better? What does it matter that good people fight, when the world and its great powers are always stacked against them?

Varric sighs, and the rogue’s gaze moves over him searchingly.

“You don’t like her, do you?”

“I am ambivalent towards her.”

He sees Varric smile crookedly out of the corner of his eye.

“You’ve never been ambivalent about anything in your life. So, go on then. What’s wrong with her?”

He swallows, wanting Varric to leave him alone almost as much as he wants him to stay.

“She is arrogant,” he decides at last. “And manipulative. She is proudly Dalish, to the point that the Chantry is little more than a curse on her lips, and yet she will happily perform belief in Andraste’s guiding hand in front of the Seeker and any of the shemlen who question her.”

“Uh huh. And?”

“And, she is closed-minded and contradictory. She refuses to accept that the Dalish histories are little more than fairy tales, despite questioning me at length about my journeys in the Fade. She also seems to have an inbuilt prejudice against mages, even though the Dalish are one of the few peoples in this world to grant them a modicum of freedom.”

Solas huffs out an aggravated breath. The simplicity of his rising anger is almost a relief, after months of drowning in grief.

“She claims to have compassion for the weak, and yet her closest friendships are between the Seeker and Commander Cullen. She dismisses any suggestion that the mage rebellion had due cause, and when I questioned her about the Dalish treatment of the city elves, she seemed to think their oppression was their own fault for not being born of a clan. She is, she is…”

“The opposite of Athera.”

The name leaves Varric’s lips and crashes straight into Solas’ chest, closing up his throat. He falls still, the punch of adrenaline running like wildfire through his blood while he lets the weight of it smother him.

“The thing is, Chuckles,” Varric continues, oblivious to his distress. “Athera was unusual. She never talked much about her clan, but the impression I always got was that she didn’t fit in there, and as soon as she was able to she ran off to join the revas’shiral and didn’t look back.”

Solas listens to him in silence, pebbles of grief tumbling down his throat and settling heavily in his stomach. He’d never asked her about her clan, and he realises now that he’ll never get the chance to.

“Still, whenever she did talk about the Dalish, it was always with both sadness and pride. Pride that they’d managed to survive on their own against all odds. Pride in the few scraps of knowledge they’d been able to rescue even though the whole of the world tried to wipe them away. And sadness that they could be more, if only someone would give them the chance to be.”

Solas keeps his gaze trained on the Chantry, unable to meet Varric’s eyes.

“I know you think the Dalish are wrong-”

“I don’t think. I know.”

The dwarf huffs and bumps his shoulder, and he looks back at him with a scowl.

“Either way, the only reason you know that is because you have a gift that basically no-one else in the world does. Where would the Dalish have been able to get all this knowledge from if none of them can travel the Fade?”

“That is not the point,” Solas bites back. “I’m offering her the knowledge and she simply refuses it! Then she looks at me as though I’m less of an elf. She reaches out in one breath and then treats me as some shadow of her People in the other.”

Varric raises an eyebrow significantly, and Solas slams his mouth shut with an audible click.

“Uh huh. And isn’t that how you’re treating her as well? As though she’s less of an elf than you are?”

He looks away, shame and frustration bubbling in his veins. Because his first thought had been to shoot back that she was less of an elf than he was. No more Elvhen than a Qunari. But then he’d heard Athera’s words, shouted across an aravel then and echoing through his head now, that day when he’d told Clan Sabrae the same.

We are the descendants of those who lived through the fall. We are the ones who fought to survive.

If the Herald isn’t a real elf, then neither was his star. But he knows as surely as he knows anything, that Athera had been everything he’d ever wanted the People to be. He can’t deny her, not even in the privacy of his own thoughts, and it makes him burn.

“I’m just saying, Chuckles,” Varric continues. “If you were a Dalish elf away from your clan for the first time, and you’d woken up to see the sky split open and some weird magic shit burning in your hand, surrounded by humans who wanted to kill you, what would you have done? I think you’d probably have told those humans whatever they wanted to hear, whether or not you believed it.”

“She wouldn’t have,” he whispers softly. “She was incapable of that kind of lie. She might have indulged in subterfuge for the greater good from time to time, but she would never have denied her own beliefs simply to save her own skin.”

Varric sighs through his nose and folds his arms.

“No,” he agrees. “She wouldn’t. But maybe she’d have been safer if she had done just once in a while.”

Solas’ stomach gives a lurch as though he’s falling, and he clenches his hands into fists.

“You’re right in one way,” Varric says at last. “The Herald has got some kind of a problem with magic, and she is a little prickly with anyone she doesn’t think can help her. But she’s also all alone out here, and surrounded by people who think she’s the chosen one and are expecting her to perform miracles. So I reckon you should cut her some slack, don’t you?”

Solas doesn’t answer, and Varric shakes his head.

“Just think about it, ok? You’re going to have to work together, and it’ll be easier if you start to see her as her own person, and not as some lesser version of Athera.”

Solas lets the name wash over him again, aching in silence behind his eyes, and then Varric bumps him with his shoulder again and lifts Bianca into his hands.

“Anyway, I came over here for a reason.”

“You mean beyond tormenting me?”

He’s only half-joking, and only because he doesn’t want his mask to shatter completely. But Varric laughs anyway and gestures him to his feet.

“Sure. The Seeker sent me over to get you. Once Ellana’s done here we’ll be heading out into the hills.”

The dwarf grins at him.

“How are you at hunting?”

***

Later that evening, Solas sits by their campfire and sharpens a piece of charcoal in the orange glow of the flames. They’d spent the day hunting rams, and then most of the evening gutting and skinning their kills. He’d watched the blood run into the river in silence, irritated that Ellana’s skill with a knife was about as good as his own. The shem guard at the caves had greeted them with obvious relief, offering exuberant thanks now that the refugees could eat and the pelts could be made into blankets.

It was a good thing to have done. It was something Athera would have done. The problem, is that he can’t reconcile this behaviour with the cold and aloof way Ellana holds herself above him. Across the fire, she is sitting with the Seeker, the two women bent low together over a crudely-drawn map, while they mark out key areas for exploration over the coming days. Varric sits to his left, oiling Bianca’s mechanism and almost caressing the crossbow while he pretends he isn’t eavesdropping.

For once, Solas isn’t listening in as well. He trusts that Varric will tell him the important details later, and such trust in another person is as unfamiliar to him as his love for Athera had been. It shakes him, and even though he’s exhausted and aching, there is a small measure of comfort to be found in sitting by the fire while the night draws in, and listening to the gentle murmur of voices close by.

Once the charcoal has been sharpened to his satisfaction, he takes out his sketchbook and flips to the first clean page, ignoring the ones that came before. Drawing has always been soothing to him, in a different way to his frescos. When he works with plaster and paint, every action has to be carefully considered. Each angle has to be measured. He must hold the finished image clearly in his mind, from the earliest conception to the final brushstroke, never hesitating over what to place next.

In short, it requires intense mental focus and specific planning to accomplish. Sketching, on the other hand, offers him more freedom. With his sketchbook in his hands, he can relax into the flow of movement, allowing the charcoal to move where it may, his thoughts empty save for the image building on the page. Before the fall of Elvhenan, he’d often sat and sketched in this way, while he weighed up actions and reactions, plans and counter-plans, and it was always a surprise to see what emerged in the end.

Then, his thoughtless sketches had become wolves howling at a burning moon. Eluvians scattered and smashed. Halla bounding through fields of blue, or crystal spires, cracked and lilting. It was meditative and revealing, showing him where his subconscious mind was being pulled to, and creating order in the turbulence of his thoughts. Since the Spire, he’s filled more sketchbooks than he can count with images in this way, letting the paper and charcoal guide him without thinking about what they’ll produce.

Every single one has been of Athera.

Sometimes, he starts with a non-descript figure that somehow manages to morph into her. At other times, he draws a pair of eyes that become, undeniably, hers. And occasionally, he finds his hand drawing loops and whorls that he thinks might be the sea, until a careless sweep of his thumb reveals them to be her hair, tumbling like water down her back. However else he begins, he sees with a quiet pang that tonight will be the same.

He's started with her mouth this time, the subtle cupid’s bow, and the lush softness of her bottom lip caught against her teeth. Solas sighs, softly enough that even Varric doesn’t hear, and allows his hand to sweep across the page to shade in the angle of her chin. The sounds of the campfire fall away, his focus narrowing, until his hand is moving with increasing speed over the page, trying to bring her back to life.

The image arrives in his mind’s eye almost fully formed. A quiet scene he’d forgotten until now, but which bursts in technicolour behind his eyes while he draws. She sits in their small cabin on Isabela’s ship, legs crossed beneath her on the bed. The sun streams in through the little window, making the ends of her hair burn until they look like molten fire. She is knitting, needles click-clacking against dark green yarn, and her expression is relaxed and gentle; a soft peace about her that he had wanted to take inside of himself and gorge on forever.

It had surprised him at first to discover she had this hobby. That after they’d settled into the cottage, in the quiet moments when it was just the two of them, she’d suddenly started to knit.

“What are you making?” He’d asked her.

“A blanket.”

“Why?”

She had shrugged, her smile self-conscious and her cheeks tinged pink.

“There’s always someone who feels the cold. I like that I can make something that will keep them warm.”

She’d left the green-knit one on the ship for Isabela, but even more of her creations had travelled with the slaves. He thinks of them now, these little bundles of warmth that she’d made, scattered like petals across Thedas and wrapped around the shoulders of strangers. If there’s a better metaphor for his heart than these soft things she’d made to keep away the cold, then he isn’t able to imagine it.

When he finishes the sketch, he aches at the realisation that he’d never asked her to make one for him. That he owns nothing that was hers save for the star token that sits like a stone in his pocket. Even now, other people will be wrapped up in the last vestiges of her warmth, while he is still so cold. His throat aches, and he smooths his fingertips over the finished drawing and closes his eyes. She looks so real beneath his hands, but in the end, she is nothing more than lines on a page.

Cold and heartsick, he retires to the tent he shares with Varric before anyone else turns in for the night, tucking the sketchbook beneath his pillow and taking the star token out of his pocket. A few months on, it’s already grown smooth beneath his hand, the childish paint flaking away with every sweep of his thumb.

Take this. You can look after it for me until I find you again.

He holds it tightly in his hand, the points of the star digging into his skin while he tucks himself beneath the blankets and closes his eyes.

“You promised,” he whispers hopelessly into the dark. “You promised.”

It’s an accusation without an answer, and he feels the familiar weight in his chest, like something is expanding inside of him and trying to break clean through his ribs. He still hasn’t cried. Every time he thinks that he might, he simply ends up choking and gasping, desperate for the flood to fall but blocked by something he can’t identify.

He lies in the dark for a long time, the star growing warm in his hand and his chest tightening, while the image of Athera sitting in their cabin runs behind his eyes.

“Mi’nas’sal’in,” he murmurs into his pillow at last. “I miss you so much.”

When he finally manages to slip into the Fade, he isn’t surprised that the shades of the Nightmare find him before he can shore up his defences. He knows the creature is in league with Corypheus, but since the Conclave it has taken a particular interest in him. Even at a distance, its reach is powerful, and Solas’ shields aren’t what they used to be.

He has a single moment in which to feel his own frustration and wounded pride bubble up inside of him, before the Fade warps and twists, and he finds himself standing in the ruins of Tarasyl’an Te’las. The veil snaps into place, and the world breaks all over again.

Solas doesn’t fight, swept into the tumult of his grief while the screams of dying Elvhen echo in his ears. His hands run red with blood, and whispers in a terrible voice bleed into the scorched air.

You are a fool, Fen’Harel.

Where is your Pride now?

Andruil’s ancient bitterness feels like frost against his skin, and he sinks to his knees in the ruins of his home and lowers his head to his hands.

We called you brother.

What have you done?

The dual-tone of Falon’din and Dirthamen’s voice tolls like a death knell in his skull.

You cannot escape us.

We are already here.

Ghilan’nain’s soft sneer frightens him more than all of the others combined, and he struggles to rise to his feet and pushes back against this perversion of memory.

“You aren’t real,” he tells the spirits he can feel crowding around him. “I will not be tormented. Leave me, or you will see why they call me the Bringer of Nightmares.”

His voice is powerful, ringing with the fullness of both worlds, but grief and fear make him weaker than he has known himself in an Age. It is the beginning of his magebane nightmare, and he knows that if he allows it to take him now, there will be no-one to hold him when he wakes. No-one left who will come when he screams.

The Nightmare laughs, the very air vibrating with it, and then a Terror demon detaches itself from the pack and morphs into Andruil in front of him. She is a fearsome and terrible thing, with long golden hair like her mother’s, but with none of Mythal’s kindness. Her skin is cracked and bleeding, red lyrium burning through her veins, and her eyes blaze when she looks at him.

“You were a fool to oppose us, Dread Wolf.”

Her bare feet leave bloody footprints over the stone.

“Didn’t I warn you that I would find a way to make you submit?”

Her teeth, filed to sharpened points, flash in the light of the flames.

“How grand it must be, to have been my Mother’s favourite. But ask yourself, where has that favouritism brought you?”

Despite himself, Solas backs himself up against a wall, and as he feels the other Evanuris approach, he knows that Athera isn’t coming to save him.

“You aren’t real,” he manages weakly. “You are a figment of my imagination. A trick of the Fade.”

Andruil draws a wicked hunting knife from her belt, her laughter ringing in the air.

“And you would know all about those wouldn’t you, Trickster?”

“Harellan,” Falon’Din hisses.

“Betrayer,” Dirthamen echoes.

“Prey.”

The stone beneath his feet cracks, water spilling through the fissures while the bulk of one of Ghilan’nain’s sea creatures pushes its way into the air. Solas falls, flinging his hands up in a feeble attempt to protect himself, as the gaping maw opens to reveal row upon row of needle-sharp teeth, ready to swallow him whole.

“Athera!”

He can’t help himself. He screams for her, even though he knows she won’t come. Even though he knows that she’s lost to him. Andruil laughs again, and he twists out of the reach of a muscled tentacle and scrambles for safety, still shouting for his heart. Water floods into his nose and his mouth, salt-sharp and freezing, and something in the depths grabs at his feet. He kicks wildly, choking, knowing that at the bottom of the ocean there is only the void, and the endless dark place they will chain him inside.

Just as he feels the tug at his leg and knows himself to be lost, a great burst of power ripples through the Fade. His head breaches the surface again, and he hauls himself out onto dry land, squinting as rays of golden light force the demons away from him.

“Leave this place,” an eldritch voice commands. “This is not your domain.”

With a gust of warm air, the Evanuris are banished and the water is swept from his clothes. Solas breathes deeply, steadying himself with his hands on his knees, while a familiar figure stalks towards him and holds the Nightmare at bay.

“Ma serannas, Wisdom,” he says softly, when he has gathered his breath again. “I didn’t expect to see you again.”

Chapter Text

They work quietly together, rebuilding the protective borders of his dreamscape while the fear demon prowls at the edges. When they’re done, Wisdom surveys their work, her ethereal expression revealing nothing of what she feels.

“Your safe place has altered,” she says at last. “It didn’t look this way when we last spoke.”

Solas follows her gaze to the cottage. The roof still lilts to one side, but the garden is bursting with wildflowers and vegetables, and the walls are sturdy and strong. If he concentrates hard enough, he can almost convince himself that Athera is still inside, knitting by the fire or sending missives to Lori from beneath their bedroom window.

“Much has changed since then.”

“So it would seem.”

Wisdom observes him for a long moment, and he feels as though he’s being studied.

“Are you going to invite me in?”

Despite himself, a smile tugs at the corners of his lips, and the ragged thing in his chest settles beneath the calm of his old friend’s gaze.

“When have you ever needed an invitation to disturb me before?” He asks fondly, and the ancient spirit laughs.

“Your dreamscape hasn’t changed in many an Age, lethallin. It’s only courteous to make sure that your feelings for me haven’t as well.”

He reaches for her then, twining his fingers with her nebulous ones and shaking his head.

“How long have we known each other?” He murmurs. “You are as much a part of me as my own spirit. That will never change.”

Wisdom cups his cheek with her palm, and he allows her to draw him into a strange sort of hug. She feels peculiar against him, like an ocean held inside a cloud. Pinpricks of heat coast over his skin, while he rests his head on the unstable tides of her shoulder, and breathes.

When he opens his eyes some time later, they are inside the cottage, and he is sitting on the threadbare sofa while Wisdom stands by the fire and observes the room curiously.

“Why here?” She asks. “What is so special about this place?”

“It isn’t the place. It’s what it represented.”

The spirit closes her eyes, and Solas feels her drawing on the emotions in the air, assimilating them and coming to her own understanding.

“Home,” she says at last. “Peace and safety. A harbour in the fury of the storm.”

She frowns.

“But there is something missing. This place is incomplete.”

He swallows hard and draws on his power, building the facsimile of Athera from memory just as he’d done for his agents so many months ago. Now, as then, he doesn’t look at it. He knows by now that no matter how faithful the recreation, it will never be able to convince him of her truly, and the missing pieces of what made her real hurt so much more when they look back at him through her eyes.

He gazes into the fire while Wisdom makes a circuit of the recreation, stalking around the false Athera until he feels her nod, and he releases the image back into the Fade again.

“You ache for her,” Wisdom says. “Even here, your spirit is searching.”

Solas doesn’t answer. Instead, he allows the orange light of the flames to fill the field of his vision until everything is bright and warm, and wonders if he could hide in it.

“Is this why all of your plans have crumbled, dreamwalker? Did you not even think to consult me before giving your orb to that creature?”

He looks back at her, then. Her gaze is open. Curious, as is the nature of Wisdom. He thinks he would rather she condemned him.

“Mythal willed it,” he replies. “She was disappointed I had not done so sooner.”

To his surprise, Wisdom seems to scoff, her body glowing brighter for a single flash before it settles again.

“How often have I told you that Mythal has her own designs, Da’Fen? You will not always be in accord.”

“Mythal is my mother,” he bites back. “My creator. She’s languished for long enough in this half-life.”

“And is it your duty to fix it?”

“Yes.”

“Why?”

He rises to his feet, agitated and cold despite the warmth of the Fade’s flames.

“Justice must be done,” he says resolutely. “There must be payment for what was lost. The People-”

“-have made a life for themselves in this new world.”

Solas lets out a bark of humourless laughter, his feet carrying him in a circle around the room.

“And what a life it is!” He sneers. “Living out of aravels or toiling in squalor. Captured by slavers and worked to death, while those with magic end up bound and tormented in Circles.”

He shudders, memories of the Spire flashing behind his eyes.

“What wisdom is there in allowing such atrocities to continue? How can I sit idly by and watch my People suffer?”

“There is no wisdom in allowing suffering to continue,” the spirit answers calmly. “But neither is there wisdom in needless destruction. If you had come to me before now I would have told you this, Pride.”

Solas stops in front of the fire again, bracing himself on the mantlepiece with a shaking hand.

“Tell me now, then. Tell me what I ought to have done.”

“You ought to have kept your promise.”

Solas’ breath leaves his body in a rush, and he bends his head to the mantle and speaks through gritted teeth.

“What did you just say?”

“You promised her, did you not? This woman who was your safe harbour. You promised to find a way to mitigate the destruction of the veil. To preserve the lives that are already here as well as those still waiting to wake.”

“How did you-?”

“You forget my power, old friend. I hear the echoes of lost wisdom in your thoughts, even though you might try to hide them.”

Solas feels a headache behind his eyes, although such a thing is impossible here. He sinks back down onto the sofa and faces his friend across the room.

“Staying here. Being with-” he swallows. “-Her. That was not wise.”

He takes a deep breath, feeling like a betrayer twice over.

“I should not have allowed myself to feel that way. She was but one person in a world of millions. It was selfish of me to allow her to change our plans. To alter everything we’d worked towards for so long. I should not have encouraged it.”

The words feel like poison, and Wisdom shakes her head and looks at him sadly.

“So often you start to speak, and I hear Mythal’s words come out of your mouth. Do you deny your feelings even now?”

“I am not denying them!” He shouts, horrified. “I only say that they were not wise.”

Wisdom’s gaze drifts away. He senses her consideration; feels her arranging knowledge into truth, and seeking the threads of insight that are her very reason for existence.

“There is no wisdom in love,” she says at last. “It is an emotion that transcends knowledge. A wilful ignorance that seeks to overlook the worst in a person in order to appreciate them at their best.”

She looks up at him and smiles.

“And yet, without love, all of the wisdom in the world is worth nothing.”

Solas’ chest constricts painfully, and he presses his hand over his heart and closes his eyes.

“You are saying, that love is greater than wisdom?”

“I am saying, that wisdom is no less true when it comes from someone we love,” she corrects him. “She may have been only one person in a sea of many, and a mortal one at that, but that doesn’t mean she was wrong when she asked you to seek a better way.”

Solas feels as though he’s breaking. The lump in his throat burns and there is ice at his fingertips.

“She saw what you could not,” Wisdom continues. “Just as Felassan did. They both knew that this world was real, and neither of them wanted you to become the monster Mythal is making of you.”

“Mythal is not making me into a monster,” he argues, but his voice comes out weak and strained. “She seeks justice, both for herself and for the People. It isn’t Mythal’s fault that the path to freedom is a dark one.”

“And yet, it is you she’s sacrificing on this journey, not herself. You who bears the responsibility of the veil and the weight of its undoing. Your name that has become a curse on the lips of the People you saved, not hers.”

Solas shakes his head, his ears ringing and the constriction in his chest growing tighter by the second. If he can’t trust Mythal, then he is lost, and Wisdom’s words are like a blade against the fragile lifeline he clings to.

“She was nearly destroyed by her children. She hadn’t the strength to fight for the world as well. That was my task. My burden to bear.”

“And yet, might there not be another way? If not then, then perhaps now?”

Solas feels his spirit quaking, the fragile borders of himself splitting beneath the immensity of his task. He has borne it for so long, that the thought of finally being able to let it go is the only thing that’s kept him going. He wants it to be over. He wants to rest.

“If there is, then I haven’t found it,” he whispers.

“But does that mean that you can’t?”

He makes a wounded sound, low in his throat, and buries his head in his hands.

“I don’t know,” he moans brokenly. “I don’t know anything anymore. I can’t…”

He looks up at her, his expression pleading.

“I can’t do this anymore, Wisdom. I’ve come so far. To alter my path now would be to destroy it completely. If I stop, if I look back even for a moment, then everything will be lost. I-”

Before he can finish the sentence, he feels the pulse against his spirit that means his body is waking, and Wisdom drifts to his side and pulls him to his feet.

“You are needed in the Waking,” she says. “I do not know when we will be able to meet again.”

He reaches out to her, pushing his face into her shoulder while he feels himself being pulled towards consciousness.

“Ir abelas, lethallan,” he says. “I never meant to ignore you.”

“I forgave you already, Da’Fen. Remember, it is never too late to seek a different way. There is wisdom to be found in our mistakes, as long as we have the strength to face them truthfully.”

He has no time to answer her. Torn from the Fade, he opens his eyes to a rough hand on his shoulder, and a shard of green light piercing through the canvas walls of his tent.

“Chuckles, wake up! Firefly needs you.”

He sits up quickly, the drumbeat of his own out-of-control power prickling like sunlight on his skin.

“Fenedhis.”

The anchor is sparking, bursting past the wards he’s placed in her hand, and when he stumbles into the cold night air he hears the Herald’s muffled screams drifting through the open doors of her tent.

“Solas, we need you.”

Cassandra is outside and still wearing her nightclothes, her concern obvious in the hard line of her mouth and the tension in her shoulders. He ducks beneath the canvas she holds open for him, and finds the Herald curled into a ball on her bedroll, her face contorted in a rictus of pain while she clutches the burning hand to her chest.

Despite his enmity, a pang of guilt strikes him hard when he kneels at her side, and he is gentle when he draws the anchor towards him.

“Solas,” she chokes out. “Please.”

There are tears on her cheeks, and he looks away from the pain in her eyes and follows the lines of magic beneath her skin. With a breath of relief, he sees that the wards haven’t shattered, but they are warping against the flood of power and dragging it deeper into her veins.

If she were immortal, if she’d been raised in a world without the veil, the resonance of the mana already in her blood would have allowed her to bear it more easily. But she isn’t immortal, and the sheer strength of his magic is overloading her body’s capacity to metabolise it. While her muffled cries echo in his ears, Solas lets go of the fevered wrongness of feeling his power in another’s hand, and reaches out with his arcane sense.

Murmuring ancient words softly beneath his breath, he coaxes the magic back into the borders he’s raised for it, and disperses the rest through her palm. The rush of warmth as it leaves her body makes him shiver pleasantly, and he feels a small amount of satisfaction that at least some of it has been captured by his necklace. At first, he’d tried to siphon the whole of the anchor out of her like this, but the jawbone wasn’t built for such a tidal wave of magic, and without the focus as a conductor he couldn’t channel it into himself either.

Shaking away his frustration, he rebuilds the wards in her hand, absorbing and calming the excess magic until it settles quietly again. When he’s done, Ellana looks up at him through exhausted eyes and curls her fingers against his. He stiffens beneath her touch, but doesn’t pull away when she takes a shuddering breath in and smiles weakly.

“Ma serannas, hahren,” she breathes. “You’re making a habit out of saving me.”

The grip of her hand feels wrong, but he recognises her need for comfort and stays where he is.

“It is a rare magic you possess,” he tells her. “It’s only luck that my studies in the Fade have allowed me to lend some aid.”

With a sigh, she eases herself into a sitting position, a fine tremor running through her and her face drawn and pale. She doesn’t let go of his hand, and Solas struggles with a sense of revulsion that he knows isn’t warranted. It isn’t her fault that she isn’t Athera, and there’s no way for her to know that the touch of any other has become almost as abhorrent to him as a Templar’s smite since then.

“Will you sit with me a while?” She asks in a small voice. “That was… Difficult. I don’t want to be alone.”

It’s a sentiment he can sympathise with, and she looks so small and lost, so unlike the haughty creature he’s come to expect, that he finds himself unable to deny her.

“Very well,” he agrees. “But perhaps it would be best if we let Cassandra have the use of her tent. Do you feel well enough to get up?”

She nods, and when they make their way outside she mercifully lets go of his hand. Solas settles himself by the smouldering remains of the fire while Ellana reassures Cassandra and Varric that she’s well, and by the time the Seeker and the dwarf have retired to their tents, he’s arranged the final log in the embers and lit it with a rune.

Ellana sits opposite him without a word, and they linger in a vaguely comfortable silence while they stare into the flames. Wisdom’s words are still running through his head, and the guilt he feels is caustic. He has trusted Mythal above all others for the whole of his life. It was her pride in the People that had formed him. Her who had given him his body. He relies on her to be his moral guide, and if she’s wrong, then the atrocity he’s committed is unforgiveable. He can’t bear the thought that she’s led him astray.

Lost in his thoughts, he almost forgets that Ellana is there, until she clears her throat softly and he looks up to meet her eyes. She smiles at him, hesitant, and he tries to relax his expression so that she feels comfortable enough to speak.

“I always wanted magic when I was younger.”

He blinks, surprised, and picks up the stick by his side to jostle the log on the fire.

“Forgive me, but that seems like a strange wish, knowing what I do of you now.”

“You mean because I don’t like mages?”

He stiffens, both at the casual insult and the calm way she declares it.

“Yes. Because of that.”

She sighs, and he sneaks a glance at her over the flames. Her brow is furrowed, and she’s staring at the mark in her hand with an expression he can’t identify.

“My sister was a mage. She was a few years older than me, and when she came into her magic, she…” Ellana casts around for the right word, and then shakes her head with a soft huff. “Blossomed, I suppose.”

“And that made you angry?”

He frowns, trying to understand where this hostility comes from, but Ellana shakes her head and runs a tentative thumb over the scar on her palm.

“Not at first,” she says at last. “We were close, before. Our father was the clan’s hunter and our mother was the halla keeper. They were both busy a lot of the time, so she more or less raised me.”

She smiles then, a wistful thing, and Solas finds himself following the play of light over her face. It makes her softer, somehow. More herself than the shadow of his heart that he’s seen in her before.

“When her magic manifested, it was fun at first. She would conjure butterflies made of fire for me to chase, and we’d taunt the hahrens by freezing the water in their buckets. Silly things like that. Neither of our parents were mages, so it was a surprise that she became one. We knew she’d be First then, of course, but we thought that if I had magic too, then one day she might be Keeper and I would take her place.”

She scoffs and shakes her head, and Solas tries to imagine Ellana as a child, dreaming of running a clan.

“But I never grew to have magic, and by the time I was a few years older, she was forced to spend all of her time with the Keeper, learning about the clan and how to manage her power.”

“You resented her for her duties taking her away,” he surmises. “But surely, you must understand the need for a mage to practice their control?”

Her face changes in an instant, and Solas is shocked by the depth of hatred he sees in her eyes.

“Of course I understand that,” she sneers. “Everyone who isn’t a mage understands that. Do you?”

He looks away, needled by the condescension in her voice, and when he next speaks he doesn’t meet her gaze.

“All mages know the risks inherent in their power,” he says coldly. “This world is hardly likely to allow them to forget it. I assume you found fault in the way your sister handled hers?”

“I found fault with the way that everyone in the clan thought it perfectly fine that we had a potential abomination living alongside us, and sleeping in the same aravels we slept in every night!”

The statement is so callous, and spat across the flames with such certainty, that Solas almost reels back in shock.

“That is a cruel thing to say,” he replies, his voice hard. “Is that all your sister was to you? A potential threat? Did you not see her as a person at all?”

Something pained flickers behind her eyes, and she looks away from him and into the fire.

“Have you ever seen an abomination, Solas?” She asks instead. “Not in memories in the Fade, but in reality. Do you know what it’s like to try and subdue one when they attack the people around them?”

“Am I to take it that you do?”

She doesn’t answer at first. Instead, she looks down at her hands, and folds the one bearing the anchor into a fist on her knee.

“When I was eight years old, our clan met up with another that was roaming nearby,” she begins softly. “For a few weeks, we slept and worked together, swapping stories and knowledge, and sharing what our hunters managed to bring back to the camp.”

She draws in a deep breath and lets it out slowly, and Solas follows the movement with his eyes.

“There was a child in their clan, a young girl called Elodie. She had come into her magic at only six years old, and the Keeper and my sister worked with the clan to try and teach her control.”

Solas swallows and looks back into the flames, knowing where the story is going, and unable to bring himself to stop it.

“We didn’t stay long, but two Dalish clans camping together for more than a few days was bound to attract attention. The night after we parted ways, a Templar convoy set up on the other side of the hill, and everyone was nervous.”

“With good reason,” he interjects quietly. “Templars are not known for their restraint.”

She shoots him a dark glare over the fire, and he meets her gaze coolly and refuses to back down.

“Anyway,” she says, through gritted teeth. “In the middle of the night, I woke up to the sound of screaming outside the aravel. At first, I thought I was dreaming, but then I noticed the smoke curling under the doors and realised I could hardly breathe.”

Her gaze grows distant, and Solas clenches his jaw in an effort to hold back the words on his tongue.

“I shared the aravel with my parents and my sister at that age, but none of them were there with me. I was so frightened, I ran out into the dark without even changing out of my sleeping clothes.”

She trails off, focused on some distant point in time far beyond his reach.

“And what did you see?”

She blinks rapidly, as though she’d forgotten he was there, and then scowls at the flames.

“Everything was burning,” she says quietly. “The trees, the aravels, even the craft table and the halla pen. People were screaming. It was chaos.”

She lets out another long breath and steels herself.

“I found mamae and papae with the Keeper, at the edge of a circle of flame. Mamae was already dead, but no-one could get through the inferno. All around us there were bodies burning, and elves from both clans shouting through the dark.”

Her lip curls darkly.

“I was screaming, clinging to mamae, but my sister was deadly calm. Papae was talking to her, telling her to focus, and while I cried she used ice to make a path through the flames. A group of hunters passed through before it closed up again, and a minute or so later, the fire stopped coming. When it was finally put out we saw a hunter from the other clan standing in the centre of the circle.”

She looks up at him, and Solas meets the revulsion in her eyes with a pitying look of his own.

“He was cradling Elodie’s body in his arms, burnt beyond recognition and with an arrow sticking out of her chest,” she spits. “By the morning, twelve people had been counted dead or missing. Eight from their clan, and four from ours, including our mother. Over half of the aravels were unsalvageable, and a third of the halla had perished.”

“And you blamed your sister.”

“I blamed magic,” she argues, her voice rising. “No-one should have that power, and for it to grow in the bodies of children.”

She cuts herself off, her face twisted in loathing as she takes another deep breath. When she’s composed herself again, she looks back at him, a challenge in her eyes.

“So yes, I wanted magic once,” she says. “But then I saw what it could do. After that, I understood why the shemlen have Circles, and why the freedom of mages is dangerous to us all.”

Solas tightens his hands into fists and clenches his jaw, unable to look at her without his temper rising. He’s willing to concede that what happened was traumatic, but there’s also a nagging thought rising in the back of his mind, that something in the tale rings hollow.

“Tell me,” he says, when he thinks he can keep the frustration from his voice. “What was it that triggered Elodie’s possession?”

A flash of surprise lights in her eyes, before she thins her lips and looks away.

“What do you mean?”

But he’s seen it now; the tell of an obfuscation. The missing part of the story she’s trying to hide.

“Spirits are attracted to strong emotion,” he tells her calmly. “They wish to join this world, and a demon is a spirit’s wish gone wrong. A rage demon’s preferred form is one of fire, so it only follows that if Elodie found herself possessed by one, the child must have been experiencing profound anger at the time.”

Ellana doesn’t look up from the fire, and he feels a flash of triumph at her discomfort.

“I wonder, then,” he continues. “What event preceded the possession?”

When she doesn’t answer again, his lips turn up in a wolfish smile.

“Could it be, that the Templars on the other side of the hill were involved?” He guesses, his eyes flashing. “Did they attack the clan? Provoke them in some way?”

“So what if they did?” Her head snaps up, quick as a snake strike, and the anger in her expression startles him. “This world is full of dangers for people like us, but we don’t all turn into mass murderers. We don’t slaughter our family, or our friends, just because we’re afraid.”

Solas allows a derisive expression to settle over his face.

“Don’t we?” He asks softly. “Plenty do. And they do so with the full knowledge of their actions, knowing the harm it will cause.”

“But not like that,” she shoots back. “Not in a mindless rampage in the middle of the night, with power no-one else can control.”

She leans forward, her expression fierce.

“Tell me truthfully, Solas. Do you really think the risk of having a mage in the clan is worth it? Do you think people should be comfortable around you? Or glad when you wield a power that most of us have no access to?”

He stands to his full height, his back rigid and his eyes blazing.

“I think, that you should be glad there was a mage on hand to help you after the Conclave. Because if there hadn’t been, then you would surely be dead.”

Without waiting for a reply, he walks swiftly away. His muscles are tense, screaming to run, and he wrestles with the wolf’s need to transform and to flee. He isn’t paying attention to where he’s going. He only knows that he needs to get as far away from her as he can before he loses the tenuous grip he has on self-control.

The story was a terrible one, he’ll admit, but as he strides through the dark and replays the memory of the hatred in her eyes, he feels only a blistering fury. If she had meant to make him understand her resentment, then she certainly hasn’t succeeded. He feels sorry for the child, Elodie, who had been set upon by Templars when she was still so young.

He feels sorry for Ellana’s sister, who had loved her and then found herself rejected simply for who she was. He feels sorry for the hunter who’d been forced to put an arrow through the chest of an innocent child. He feels sorry for her mother, who’d lost her life. And he feels sorry for the mages that live in such fear that they invite possession without ever understanding why.

Yes, he feels sorry for a lot of people who were caught in the tumult of that story.

But he does not feel sorry for Ellana Lavellan.

Chapter Text

They spend another two weeks in the Hinterlands, closing rifts, claiming the Winterwatch Tower from Speaker Anais, and arriving at Master Dennett’s farm only to find there’s more work to be done. The days are long and draining, and when they finally reach Haven with the promise to build watchtowers in return for new mounts, all of them are worn and tired.

Two days after their arrival, Solas finds himself outside Haven’s walls, standing on a jetty overlooking the frozen lake, and soaking up the quiet. He’d once told Athera that the burdens of leadership were invisible, but no lesser because of it, and he’s felt the truth of his words deeply over the last few weeks. Not only has he had to maintain the mask of the humble apostate, shrinking himself and taking orders while they trek for miles across war torn farmland, but he’s also slipped back into Fen’Harel’s role once again.

His agents have started to infiltrate the Inquisition, knowing only that he’s a member of their cause, but never suspecting his true identity. A city elf called Hallen is working as one of Josie’s scribes, and one of his few Dalish agents, Midha, has found a position among the Nightingale’s lowly runners. With the scrutiny of both the shemlen powers and his own comrades focused on him, he’s finding it harder than ever to maintain a calm exterior.

In the Fade, with the Nightmare kept at bay by Wisdom’s wards, he meets with agents scattered across Thedas, all of them working towards the reclaiming of his orb. For now, it seems that Corypheus has retreated to the Vinmark mountains, but the reports of his control of the Blight make Solas nervous, and his trust in Mythal is waning. Standing in the midst of a soft afternoon snowfall, he feels lost.

It had seemed so simple before. He would wake, unlock the focus, and use its power to destroy the twisted remnants of Elvhenan while freeing those who had survived. As the veil fell, he would use the raw power of its sundering to obliterate the last vestiges of the Blight, and if the act destroyed him in the process, then at least he could be certain that whatever was left of the new world would be better. Safer.

Now, his plans fall over themselves, twisting in uncertain shadows with equally uncertain ends. He doesn’t know if he can rely on Mythal to be his guide, and without the certainty of his oldest friend to lead him, he feels abandoned. How can he destroy this world when the people are real? How can he let it continue when the veil is already weakening, and the Blight creeps ever closer with each Old God’s fall?

It’s an impossible situation, and he yearns for someone to share it with. He wants to turn around and feel Athera’s fingertips brushing over his cheeks, calming his racing thoughts and murmuring words of comfort into his ears. He wants to bask in the certainty she’d always seemed to hold, that he was good. That he would find a way. That the choices he faced were not so hopeless after all. Now, standing in the cold, he can’t be sure there’s any hope left, and if there is, then he doesn’t know how to find it.

Alone by the lake, he lets the snow drift around him, biting at his ears and blanketing his shoulders in a soft crush of white. The thin whine of the wind echoes back to him over the ice, and he listens to the clash of metal nearby while Cullen drills the new recruits. It isn’t peace he’s seeking, he realises, but oblivion. He wants to disappear. To drift away into the air and for it to be as though he’d never existed.

He lets a snowflake settle on the palm of his hand and sighs into the cold. Athera had made him believe that he could be Solas again, but he sees now that it was never an option. How can he be Solas when it’s the Dread Wolf the world still needs? It was a selfish dream he’d clung to, but it would serve him as a wish no longer. There are things he must do if anything in this world is to survive the coming storm.

Walking with a measured pace, he lets his feet carry him back to the walls where he’s certain Cassandra will seek him. Since the fight with Ellana, he’s isolated himself from his companions, but he knows he’ll need the Seeker’s good grace in the long months to come. It’s time he started to cultivate it.

“You look thoughtful, Solas,” she says as he approaches. “Is something wrong?”

“No more so than for anyone in times such as these.”

He casts an eye over the training dummies, at least three of them haggard by her attacks.

“You train hard, Seeker,” he notes. “But would it not be more useful to spar with a partner?”

She watches him with a challenging smirk, her dark eyes assessing.

“Was that an offer?”

His lips twitch.

“Perhaps.”

A few minutes later, he ducks a vicious blow from her sword and spins gracefully out of her reach. The air is cold in his lungs, his breath leaving him in bursts of water vapour, but his muscles are burning and his staff is solid in his hands. The Seeker is intent on him, eyes sparking and a sheen of sweat glistening on her cheekbones.

It feels good to fight.

He draws on the veil, pulling a static shock through his fingers and forcing her to step to the side. Her shield takes the glancing blow, and while she recovers he lays a series of frost runes around his position, knowing they’ll be as good as invisible in the snow. Cassandra charges, a powerful attack with her shield that forces him to parry with the blade of his staff, and hides the forward thrust of her sword behind it.

His barrier takes the force of the charge and he fadesteps away, reversing their positions with a flurry of powdered snow. She spins to keep him in her sight, and he sees the thrill of a well-matched battle light in her eyes, and knows the same expression is reflected in his. Their friendly sparring match has grown into something more - a true contest between equal allies, and the satisfaction of it fizzes in his veins.

“Good,” he praises, when she rallies quickly. “But remember to use your opponent’s strengths to your advantage.”

She brings her sword down and he meets it with the middle of his staff, the metal scraping against the enchanted wood and raising a sheen of sparks in the air.

“And what are your strengths, Solas?”

Around the perimeter of their contest, they’ve drawn a crowd, and he revels in the performance for an audience. Ordinarily, he wouldn’t draw attention to himself like this, but he’s been too absent from too many conversations to regret it now. He needs to work in the shadows, it’s true, but he can’t allow his fragile position in the inner circle to be overlooked completely.

“It’s not my magic you should fear,” he tells her. “It’s the speed at which I might escape.”

To demonstrate, the next time she swings her sword, he sweeps down into a crouch and fadesteps onto a raised incline behind her. She twists again to face him, eyes wide in surprise, and he retakes a fighting stance on the other side of his runes.

“Your power is in your strength, but an agile enemy can always turn that strength against you.”

Cassandra offers him a feral smile, both grateful and combative at once. Both of them are out of breath, the flush of blood in their cheeks, and Solas savours the burn in his muscles.

“And how would I turn your speed against you?”

They are circling each other now, two predators on opposite sides of an invisible line.

“You would struggle,” he replies truthfully. “Stumble, and lure me closer until I drop my guard. If I don’t believe there’s a need to run, then I’ll be less likely to plan for it.”

They trade a number of blows after that, inching closer to the hidden runes. Solas harries her with bursts of flame and she makes him dodge around their tightening circle to avoid the wide arc of her sword.

“And in this moment, when a feint would be expected?”

A knowing smile twists his lips.

“In a moment such as this, it will be cunning that wins the day.”

In a flash, he lunges forward, stabbing with the blade of his staff before leaping back out of her reach. Cassandra jumps to the side, caught off-balance, and then with a snarl pursues him over the snow. He grins, cocky and self-assured, and with a surge of power the runes light beneath her feet.

The ice wraps around her legs and freezes her where she stands, and Cassandra lets out a cry of surprise and struggles not to fall. The battle is undoubtedly won, but on instinct it seems, she plunges her sword into the ground. Before he can even think about moving, Solas feels the smite rush through the air and cut him to his knees.

He gasps at the sudden sucking sensation of the Fade being forced away from him, and his ears pop while his hands plunge into the snow beneath him. Nausea rises in his throat, and he blinks dark spots from his vision while Cassandra uses her shield to break herself out of the trap.

“Solas, are you alright?”

Her voice sounds distant, and when he closes his eyes he feels an echo of a Templar’s armour pressed against his back, and hears Athera shouting his name.

“Solas, forgive me. I didn’t mean for that to happen.”

The world comes back into focus, and he realises he’s still kneeling on the ground. Cassandra has freed herself and is standing by his side, her expression guilty and worried when she peers into his face.

“Don’t apologise.”

He’s relieved to hear that his voice sounds steady.

“Were this a true battle, such an instinct would have saved your life.”

Her grip is strong when she hauls him back to his feet, and he draws a steadying breath in and tenses his muscles to keep from shaking.

“Were this a true battle, you’d have run me through with a blade the moment the trap sprung.”

Her tone is wry and tinged with reluctant approval, and Solas swallows against the pounding of his heart and offers her a smirk in return.

“Perhaps, but had they not been camouflaged, I doubt you’d have walked into my runes.”

She concedes the point with a nod of her head, her hand still cupped at his elbow while she turns her scowl on the audience they’ve drawn around them.

“Haven’t you all got anything better to do than to stand around gawking?”

He’s grateful for her commanding presence when their spectators begin to disperse, and he reassures her he’s fine one last time before slipping away with the crowd, and back into the anonymity of Haven’s streets. His legs feel like dead weights and sweat is cooling on his skin, but he forces himself to walk, stately and calm, back to his shack by the apothecary.

When he passes Varric’s tent, the dwarf gives him an appraising look which he returns with a bow of his head, but he doesn’t think for a moment that he’s fooled him. Mercifully, he doesn’t press the issue, and Solas struggles up the slick stairway and stumbles gratefully into his rooms. As soon as the door closes behind him, his calm façade crumbles as though it had never been.

He lurches towards the bed, sinking to his knees with his palms braced against the mattress and his forehead pressed into the blankets. The Seeker’s smite is less potent than the Templar’s, and less dizzying than the magebane, but although he can already feel the Fade returning to him, its sudden loss lights bitter memories like a bonfire behind his eyes. He feels himself trembling and remembers his terror in the dark of the Spire, and his fingers tangle in the furs and twitch with the need to reach for support.

“Athera,” he murmurs brokenly.

It’s only the second time her name has passed his lips since he parted ways with Leliana at the Spire, and his next exhale comes out as a plaintive whine. That sensation again, of tears gathering behind his eyes and sobs crowding too tightly in his throat, makes him gasp, and he prays silently for the dam to break.

Let it be done. Let it be over. Let me grieve.

But whatever pain is still contained within him refuses to be released. He groans hopelessly into the bed, the Fade wrapping around his mana again but bringing him no relief. He’s so lost in his turbulent memories, that he barely manages to raise his head when the mattress dips beside him, and a familiar voice begins to speak.

“She echoes in the cracks she left behind. Vhenan, ma lath, my star. She didn’t want to leave, but the stones were too heavy to lift.”

Solas blinks. His mind falls silent for a single, blissful moment. And then he finds himself on his feet and tackling the spirit to the bed.

“Compassion.”

It comes out as a snarl, vicious and mocking, but Cole makes no move to push him away.

“Hurt like ice that breaks through the mountain. How can the cold burn?”

Solas lets out a cry, his hands closing around the spirit’s neck while his legs pin him to the bed.

“You were meant to keep her safe!”

The words are agonised, torn from his chest in a desperate howl. He had looked for Compassion everywhere in the days after the rebellion. Searched the Fade and the Waking for any sign of the friendly shadow that Athera had taken into the darkness with her. Now that he’s here without her, he wants to scream. He wants to make it hurt. He wants the answer to a single question that falls like a plea from his lips.

“Why?”

He knows the spirit can hear the full scope of that word in his thoughts.

Why did you leave her?

Why didn’t she survive?

Why didn’t you help her escape?

Why are you here when she is gone?

And the final question that even he doesn’t realise he’s asked.

Why am I alone again?

“I’m sorry,” Cole says miserably. “I sent her away but the stones were too fast. Sharp, falling, dark and bright. Ma fen, ir abelas. Then she was quiet.”

The sound that leaves him is one he’s never made before. A distraught, hopeless note that rises higher as he drops his hands from the spirit’s neck, and slides bonelessly back to the floor.

“My star,” he’s murmuring, over and over. “My star, my star, my star.”

He doesn’t know how long he sits there for, his back against the wooden bedframe and his head in his hands, but when he next looks up again Cole is sitting opposite him, his pale blue eyes watching him sadly from beneath the wide rim of his hat.

“I’m sorry. She misses you too.”

He cocks his head.

“Misses. Did miss. Will miss. Had missed. Is missing?”

Solas stares back at him dully.

“I’m sorry. It’s all jumbled. Too much hurt and not enough words to hold it.”

He swallows, his throat dry and the shard of ice in his heart spreading like a fog over his skin.

“Why are you here?”

“Your hurt is louder now,” Cole tells him. “Across the veil, tearing holes, the ice is spreading. Don’t leave him alone, Cole. He doesn’t want to be alone.”

The spirit ducks his head and rests his chin on his chest.

“She wanted me to help.”

Solas tightens his jaw against the warm wave of painful love that engulfs him. Of course she had wanted Cole to help. She had always wanted to help him. She’d just never realised that the only person he’d trusted in this world was her.

“You can’t help this, Cole,” he whispers. “I do not…”

He trails off into the silence, the words sticking in his throat.

I do not deserve your help.

Cole looks back at him, his eyes flashing beneath the shadow of his hat.

“Solas who wanders. The wolf that dreams. You think you can’t be him anymore.” Cole blinks at him guilelessly. “But you can. She told you so.”

Solas closes his eyes, exhaustion weighing like a mantle across his shoulders.

“She was wrong.”

Chapter Text

Compassion begins with the acknowledgement of pain. Hidden in its softness is the bitter sting of shadowed hurts as they’re lanced and drawn into the light. Because of this, Solas feels the scrape of his loneliness so much more keenly when Cole is near. It’s in the blankets he takes to leaving at the end of his bed. The gentle way he urges him into Varric’s path. The quiet company he offers at night when Solas wakes and reaches for someone who isn’t there.

Although Cole stays out of everyone else’s sight, he hears echoes of the spirit’s good deeds in snatches of conversation across Haven’t streets.

I swore my ring had been stolen, but I woke up this morning and there it was, right at the bottom of my tea cup!

That snowstorm should’ve destroyed the hay by the lake, but someone covered it over before it even began.

I woke up today and I had the strangest feeling that she would say yes, and do you know what? She did!

If only his hurt was so simple a thing to heal.

On the third day after Cole’s arrival, Leliana seeks him out in the apothecary. He’s grinding the elfroot for a new batch of healing potions, and the first he knows of her is a gust of cold air rushing through the open door. She doesn’t announce herself, merely stands in the entrance until he turns around.

“Sister Nightingale,” he says calmly. “How can I help?”

She watches him with an appraising eye while he cleans his hands on a rag and tidies the workstation, but he doesn’t give her the satisfaction of seeing him ruffled. In truth, he’s been expecting her to seek him out before now, and he can’t decide if it’s sympathy that’s kept her away, or suspicion.

“Cassandra tells me you’ve conducted yourself well.”

“Has my conduct been under scrutiny? If it has, then I’ve been unaware of it.”

“I find that hard to believe.”

She holds his gaze for a long moment, and then reaches behind herself to close the door. At once, the sound of the wind grows distant, and the space between them seems smaller. It is a power play, but not one he intends to reward with a reaction. He waits patiently beneath her attention, and in the end she is the first to break the uneasy silence.

“I wondered at first whether you’d come here as a spy for the revas’shiral,” she begins. “After all, one does not fall in love with the leader of a cause without supporting the cause itself.”

A muscle in his jaw ticks at the careless way she speaks of his heart, but he keeps his face carefully blank.

“When it became clear that you weren’t sending any reports, however, I was forced to conclude that they were unaware of your arrival here.”

She walks casually around the perimeter of the room, her fingertips trailing over the wood.

“Then, of course, Varric came to see me, and I realised that the two of you shared a common associate.”

She comes to a stop an arm’s length away from him, and he resists the urge to take a step back.

“While the dwarf claims to simply have been caught up in events, it’s been well-known for a while now that he runs his own network of spies, primarily operating out of Kirkwall and with links to the Merchant's Guild.”

This piece of information surprises Solas, and he lets the emotion show on his face.

“I was unaware that Master Tethras was so well connected.”

Leliana leans against the worktable, her gaze fixed upon him.

“And yet, he seemed intimately connected with the woman you lost at the Spire. Forgive me, Solas, but I need to know the true reason you were here at the Conclave, and why you claim to have wandered alone when it’s clear to me that you have at least one former friend here in the Inquisition.”

He holds her gaze for a long moment, and then lets out a breath and leans back against the table, arranging his collection of half-truths quickly. Hearing Athera spoken of so casually hurts as though someone is holding a flame to his chest, and the truth of the pain lends his next words a weight they wouldn’t otherwise have had. It is a bitter silver-lining.

“I didn’t meet…”

His throat constricts, and he takes another breath and stares fixedly at the wall.

“We met by chance in the Free Marches, some months before we crossed paths with you,” he begins. “At that time, she was no longer a member of the revas’shiral, and had been away from them for some years.”

“You met outside of the organisation.”

He nods in agreement, but doesn’t turn to look at her.

“I was injured at the time, and when I ran into trouble with a Dalish clan she spoke in my defence.”

He remembers magebane, and ginger water, and soft fingertips brushing through his fur while they’d slept side-by-side in the aravel.

“She had been trying to make it back to Kirkwall to re-join Varric and her friends. I was at something of a loss after my injury, and she allowed me to accompany her.”

He swallows, images of strange new friendships, and red hair spilling over his chest while he slept, swimming through his mind.

“After some time there, she was contacted by the revas’shiral. They wanted her to maintain a safe house near the Nevarran border. By then we were… We were…”

His hands grip tightly against the wood at his back, and he fights down a bitter laugh at the realisation that he has no need to act the part of grief, when it sears so beautifully up his throat.

“You had become close.”

He inclines his head and waits for the wave of ice to retreat.

“It was only a few of months later when she decided we would take the latest group of freed slaves to Val Royeaux ourselves,” he says softly. “I told you that I am something of a nomad. A wanderer. And that is, in essence, true. I was never truly a member of the revas’shiral. I simply followed where she led.”

He looks up and meets Leliana’s eyes, knowing by the subtle softening in them that she’s willing to believe in his story.

“Afterwards, I couldn’t bring myself to travel back alone and bring the news to her friends. You had already told me that there were ripples in the spy networks, so I knew word would reach them eventually.”

“And so, you wandered.”

“I left the city a few weeks later with no particular destination in mind. I admit, the fate of the revas’shiral was the furthest thing from my thoughts. But when I heard of the Conclave, I knew that as an apostate, its decision would matter to my life whether I wanted it to or not.”

Leliana’s forehead furrows, and she nods slowly once.

“You came here because you had no-where else to be.”

The words take him by surprise, because he realises that they’re true, and that the story he’s spun is also true, beyond the omission of his focus.

“And I stayed because, for better or worse, I seem to be able to do some good here. I do not…” He draws an unsteady breath in. “I did not want to be alone.”

The room is silent in the wake of his admission, and he looks away when Leliana sighs heavily, sympathy in the lines of her mouth.

“And that is why you avoided Varric during the first weeks you were here.”

She shakes her head, and he looks back at her in time to see a self-deprecating smile pulling at her lips.

“I’d convinced myself it was some kind of subterfuge,” she confesses. “That you were pretending not to know him because the two of you were working towards a common aim. But that wasn’t it at all, was it? You simply didn’t want to speak to him about the woman you’d both lost.”

At once, the atmosphere changes, and Leliana pushes herself off from the worktable and strides towards the door.

“I’m glad to have got this cleared up, Solas. You’ve been an asset to the Inquisition so far, and I believe that you and I share common sympathies.”

He frowns when she opens the door and looks back at him with a conspiratorial smile.

“There is a meeting in the war room that I could use your support in,” she says. “Mother Giselle believes the clerics in Val Royeaux will listen to reason, but I have intelligence that says the Templars currently hold sway in the city.”

“What has that to do with me?”

“Cullen is a good man, but he is still a Templar at heart. Similarly, Cassandra is a Seeker of Truth and maintains strong links to the Order. And I’m sure it hasn’t escaped your notice that the Herald isn’t fond of mages either. You see my predicament, I presume?”

He meets her gaze with renewed interest, surprised by the path the conversation has taken.

“You would like me to speak against the Order,” he realises slowly. “Surely, Sister Nightingale, you must realise that my status as an elven apostate here is already precarious? Such a discussion could lead to my expulsion, or worse.”

“You don’t strike me as a man without conviction, Solas,” she replies. “And I offer you my word that you won’t be harmed simply for raising an issue. The first Inquisition was formed to maintain order, but right now, it’s up to us to determine what form that order will take. I understand the fear of mages, but it should be clear to you by now that I don’t approve of their subjugation.”

He acknowledges her with a nod, his expression guarded.

“That much was clear at the Spire.”

“Indeed. I don’t imagine the Commander or the Herald will take kindly to being asked to consider the mage’s perspective, but I believe that it’s still important that such a perspective is brought to the table. Don’t you?”

He does, but even so, he finds himself hesitating. He has spent his life fighting for one cause or another. He has led armies, conducted spy rings, and held court in the finest empire ever to exist. He has also stood in the shadows of threadbare tents while a woman with hair like the sea made plans to protect slaves, shelter mages, and scrape some small justice from a world that had always denied her.

He never thought he would hesitate to do the same, but Athera’s loss is still raw, and the thought of standing in front of a former Templar, and a woman with such hatred in her heart, makes him feel a panic he doesn’t recognise.

“Solas?”

He draws a deep breath in and squares his shoulders.

“Sister Nightingale. Lead the way.”

***

Late in the afternoon, Solas finds himself standing by the war table, his hands clenched into fists against the wood while Cullen faces off against the spymaster. They have talked in circles for hours, and everyone’s nerves are stretched thin.

“The Order is not some juvenile band of sadistic delinquents!” Cullen is yelling. “If the Templars are in Val Royeaux they will welcome the Herald’s arrival.”

“The Chantry considers us heretics for raising a Herald in their place,” Leliana shoots back. “If the Templars are protecting the clerics, then there’s a good chance they won’t hesitate to turn on us. For all intents and purposes, the Herald is now an apostate, and it would be foolish of us to ignore that.”

The Commander and the spymaster are so caught up in their argument, that they don’t hear the sharp intake of breath that follows Leliana’s words. But Solas does. Across the table, Ellana’s face has paled, her mouth falling open while she stares down at the map in front of her in horror. Her hands clench into fists, and when she raises her eyes and finds him looking back at her, her face contorts in fury.

“I am not an apostate,” she hisses.

Leliana and Cullen don’t pause their argument, and she slams the flat of her palm against the table, startling them into silence.

“I am not an apostate! Don’t you ever say that again.”

Cassandra, Cullen, and Josie look shocked by the outburst, but Leliana returns her glare with a cold stare, and Solas realises with a sudden flash of insight, that it’s this moment she wants him to be present for.

“You are a Dalish elf in possession of unknown magic,” the spymaster says calmly. “You can manipulate the rifts, and close the veil between this world and the Fade. How, exactly, do you differ from any other mage?”

The blood drains from Ellana’s face, and Solas watches in fascination as her anger only rises.

“I’m not like any other mage because I wasn’t born with it,” she spits back. “And because of that, I can’t be possessed by a demon seeking entry.”

“Is that true, Solas?” Leliana turns to face him. “Do you believe the Herald is immune to possession?”

All eyes turn to him. Three curious stares, and one look of complete disdain that’s swiftly overtaken by fear.

“Truthfully? I am uncertain. As far as I can tell, the power the Herald possesses is of the Fade, but she is correct that it hasn’t gifted her with a supply of mana of her own.”

Ellana turns a triumphant gaze on Leliana, but Solas isn’t finished.

“However,” he says slowly. “It isn’t mana that spirits are attracted to, but the waking world as a whole. They merely give their attention to mages because our mana gives us a link to the Fade that they can exploit to cross over and join us.”

“And you believe the mark could attract them in the same way?”

“I should think it inarguable,” he replies honestly. “In the Fade, the Herald’s mark is a beacon, and any spirit would be attracted to its light.”

A weighted silence follows his words. Leliana’s calculating expression doesn’t change, but he sees a flash of approval in her eyes, and knows that this is what she’d wanted to accomplish. It’s a bold strategy, and one that he might have chosen if he’d thought of it first. Ellana’s prejudice against magic runs deeply through her childhood, but with her title as Herald she may yet make decisions that shape the path of the mage-Templar war. Forcing her to acknowledge that she, like every other mage, has come into possession of magic against her will, is a cruel but effective means of opening her mind.

Across the table, she has become a statue drained of blood. The only movement is the rapid rise and fall of her chest, while her eyes scan his face as though searching for the lie.

“I don’t believe you.”

Solas’ eyes darken and he folds his hands behind his back.

“Whether or not you believe me is immaterial,” he says coolly. “It does not change the fact that it’s true.”

Her expression wavers, something vulnerable and frightened piercing the rage in her eyes, and Cullen clears his throat awkwardly.

“While that does change things slightly, the Templars in Val Royeaux are honourable. They are there to defend the city, not to torment apostates just for the crime of existing.”

Solas has always considered himself to be a calm man. Driven and passionate about the things he sees as important, yes, but also measured and analytical. But at Cullen’s words, something bitter and furious sets his nerves alight, and he struggles to maintain his composure.

“Are you so sure of that, Commander?” He asks, dangerously softly. “I wonder, how intimately you’re truly connected with your former comrades in the city.”

Cullen looks back at him, a confused furrow between his brows.

“You believe them to be different?”

“I know them to be different.”

And now, no-one can mistake the venom that poisons his voice. Behind his back, his hands are shaking, and as he stares into the Commander’s guileless eyes, he has the sudden urge to leap across the table and rake his claws down the man’s neck.

“And how would you know that, Solas?” Cullen says. “It was my understanding that you’d never been in a Circle.”

“I have never been apprenticed to a Circle,” he corrects. “But I have been in the White Spire. I've been shackled in chains, beaten by the boots of the guards that detained me. I have spent days in the dark slowly dying, and seen how pleas for mercy fall on deaf ears.”

There is a tremor running through him, electricity and adrenaline, and he’s amazed he hasn’t burst into flames.

“If it weren’t for the Templars at the Spire, my…” Star, heart, beloved. He doesn’t know how to continue, and draws in a breath that shakes. “If it weren’t for the Templars at the Spire, I wouldn’t be alone.”

He looks down quickly, the four sets of eyes upon him making him feel vulnerable and exposed.

“You lost someone at the Spire?”

Cullen sounds bewildered, and Solas swallows down the urge to hurt him again.

“Were there not casualties in Kirkwall?” He asks sharply instead. “Is it so difficult to believe that the same might happen elsewhere?”

“But Val Royeaux is…”

“Just as corrupt as any other wealthy city,” Leliana interrupts. “There was a reason the next spark of the rebellion was lit at the Spire. Your trust in your former Order is commendable, Commander, but your naivety could get the Herald killed.”

Cullen subsides with a pensive scowl on his face, and Josie steps forward uncertainly.

“We must exercise caution, then,” the ambassador says. “How should we prepare?”

It’s only in this moment, when the anger in the room finally trickles away, that Solas realises something that makes his blood run cold.

The next step in their journey is irrefutable.

He’s going to have to return to Val Royeaux.

Chapter Text

Solas has long thought of his personality as something reflective. A spirit first, he formed as a reflection of Mythal’s pride, and thousands of years later, there’s still a part of him that sculpts himself to that ideal. Forever chasing a perfection of emotion that remains stubbornly out of his reach.

The cataclysm of becoming a body, with the capacity to change and grow, made him into something more complex but less certain. Inside the crucible of Elvhenan’s courts, he learnt what it was to feel, and how to turn those feelings into strengths. It was inevitable that he would become a Trickster, unable to act inside rigid lines once he’d broken the boundaries of his first and truest purpose.

Now, he finds that his reflections of himself are shattered. He sees himself in fractals of colour. A blurred outline of a person, standing in silhouette against the sun. Pride is not Solas; Solas is not Fen’Harel; Fen’Harel is not the Dread Wolf; the Dread Wolf is not his spirit. The young elf he’d once been at court, cocky and arrogant, bears no resemblance to the apostate that lies in his cabin on a ship from Jader, waiting to arrive in Val Royeaux.

He feels disconnected from the myth he’s become. A man so unlike the stories that bear his name, that it seems laughable he was ever such a creature. Instead, he pictures himself as a spirit long-fractured. The pieces of the Dread Wolf catch against the heart of Pride, and nothing left of him quite fits together the way it should.

He spends the voyage to Orlais’ capital meditating. For long days and nights, he sits on his lonely bunk and attempts to impose order on the chaos of his identity. It is a difficult thing, to be a whole person alone, and the fraying edges of his temper do him no favours in the world he’s found himself in. He need not heal himself, but he does need to find stability. His arguments with Ellana and Cullen were unwise. He has never before worn his heart on his sleeve, and to do so now when it’s become so damaged, will lead him only to ruin.

When the ship finally docks, five days after they’d first set sail, he emerges onto the deck as a new version of himself again. Solas the apostate is calm, measured, and views the city’s hateful skyline with placid indifference. He doesn’t think about the last time he was there. He doesn’t remember slipping into the port under cover of night, holding Athera’s damp clothes while she shimmied into dry leggings beneath a moonless sky.

When they pass through the marbled streets, he doesn’t remember a soft hand in his, or bright golden eyes flashing with laughter when they looked at him. When the Lord Seeker strikes the Chantry sister and sends her sprawling across the floor, he doesn’t burn with the memory of his heart falling to the ground at their feet.

Instead, he watches the Herald claim a divinity he knows she doesn’t possess. And when the day is done, and the invitation from Madame De Fer looms on Ellana’s horizon, he takes himself quietly to his rooms in the inn, and doesn’t think about the safe house in the alienage, or the vhenadahl tree that Athera never returned to. He thinks only about the orb, and Corypheus, and how best to ingratiate himself into the Inquisition until he can lay claim to what’s rightfully his.

He thinks that it’s better this way, and whatever fractured parts of him disagree, he locks firmly away behind stronger walls.

***

The night of Madame de Fer’s salon sees Solas and Varric sitting together in a bar at the inn. The place they’ve taken rooms in is in the High Quarter, and most of the human patrons give them a wide berth. Cassandra and Ellana left for the Ghislain Estate not long ago, and one of Leliana’s scouts has slipped into their booth to deliver a report for the Herald’s party.

“Sister Nightingale asked us to look out for anything unusual in the city, Sers.”

Solas’ agent, Midha, sits across the table, and he acknowledges her with a subtle nod that she returns only barely.

“And what have you found here since we arrived?”

Before she can reply, Varric shakes his head and pushes a flagon of ale across the table towards her.

“The poor kid’s been running around for the Nightingale since we got here. Let her catch her breath before you interrogate her at least.”

Dirthamen’s pale vallaslin almost disappears beneath her blush, and she tucks a strand of raven hair behind her ear and shakes her head.

“It’s alright, I don’t mind. This is what I’m here for.”

“Still, have a drink. It can’t be easy for a Dalish elf to slip around a place like this unnoticed.”

She winces slightly and accepts the ale with the ghost of a smile, taking a long sip before pushing a ledger over the table towards them.

“You already know about the Templars and the Chantry,” she begins. “So there’s not much more to say there. Our scouts watched the Lord Seeker and his retinue leave the city’s gates a few hours ago, and followed them as far as the camp.”

Solas sits back and lets Varric do most of the talking, noting approvingly that although Midha appears to be drinking, her mug stays mostly full.

“I saw that when we pulled into the port,” Varric is saying thoughtfully. “Beyond the city walls near that little scrap of forest. Did you see it, Solas?”

He tilts his head to observe him out of the corner of his eye.

“I did. The last time I was here, there was not a refugee camp in the shadow of Val Royeaux’ walls. Have there really been so many displaced by the rifts in Orlais?”

“That’s just it, Ser. They aren’t refugees. Or at least, not of the kind you might think.”

She takes another not-quite-sip out of the tankard, and Solas notices an excited energy about her that hadn’t been there before.

“It’s the elves, Ser,” she says at last. “They’ve left the alienage.”

Varric pauses with his own tankard raised halfway to his lips.

“What, all of them?”

“Every last one.”

She’s struggling to hide her smile now, and Solas’ attention sharpens at this proof of a rebellion in the midst of the Orlesian stronghold.

“Why would they risk such a thing?” He asks. “And why camp in full view of the city they’ve fled?”

“That’s just it, Ser. It doesn’t seem as though they’ve fled. There’s a rift on the other side of the encampment, hidden in the forest. From what we can see, it’s not just the city elves that have set up between it and the walls. They have guards posted around the perimeter, and we can’t get close enough to see for sure, but from the looks of it they’ve been defending against the demons.”

“But why would the elves defend the city?” Varric wonders. “Why not let the Templars and chevaliers deal with it?”

“We asked the same questions,” Midha replies.

“And what did you discover?”

She turns her gaze back to Solas and drums her fingers against the table – a nervous habit she’ll have to break herself of, he notes, if she wants to move further up the ranks.

“The alienage has been emptying for longer than the rift’s been there,” she says at last. “Over the last few months, more and more elves have left, and when the rift appeared it seems as though the last of them gave up the city for the new settlement.”

“Do you have proof of this?”

“The nobles have been talking about it. Without their elven workforce, Val Royeaux was in trouble long before the sky started splitting open.”

“And they managed to keep it quiet until the deaths at the Conclave made it impossible to hide,” Varric surmises. “Ten thousand elves just up and splitting in one of the richest cities in Orlais? That’s the kind of thing that starts revolutions if word gets out.”

The same thought has occurred to Solas, and behind his mild-mannered mask, his thoughts are spinning with possibilities.

“That doesn’t answer the question of why the elves decided to leave,” he says calmly. “There must have been some impetus for them to risk such an open display of disobedience. The Templars might have been distracted by the unrest at the Spire, but the chevaliers would still have posed a threat.”

He frowns and looks down at his hands, deep in thought.

“If there’s a rift there, then we’re going to need to get through,” Varric adds, the same concern creeping into his voice. “We need more information before we just walk on in. Ten thousand elves is a bit too much of a risk to face blind.”

Midha takes another small sip from her ale and nods.

“We haven’t been able to contact anyone in the elven camp directly, but we’ve been searching the alienage for clues, and there are signs of a disturbance inside the walls.”

“What kind of a disturbance?” Varric asks, and Solas narrows his eyes.

“Show us,” he orders sharply. “We need to understand what happened here.”

***

He had hoped never to see this place again, but his days of meditation serve him well when they slip inside the alienage’s boundary. Unlike the rest of the city, the slums are swathed in darkness, and their quiet footsteps echo eerily between the lilting walls. The tenements are packed tightly together, but where before they had rang with the sound of voices and an almost physical wall of noise, now they are deathly silent.

Midha leads them through a series of twisting lanes, where the smell of rotten food and old excrement chokes the air. Solas feels a pang of distant loss when they come upon the vhenadhal tree, no longer lit up with mocking lights, but bleak and blank in the thickening dark. There are scorch marks around its perimeter, and he sends a pocket of magelights to hover above them and illuminate the area.

“Andraste’s tits.”

Solas falls still, keen eyes assessing their surroundings with the knowledge of a seasoned general.

There has been violence here.

In the new light, it’s easy enough to pick out the barricades that circle the heart of the alienage. Thick pallets of wood have been stacked and lined with sheet metal, some topped with twists of barbed wire that sparkle wickedly in the gloom. There are patches of dried blood still visible on the cobblestones, and a cart is tipped on its side and partially burnt in the shadow of his safehouse.

Further in, the scorch marks grow thicker, and eventually they reach a wall of charred homes, collapsed and blackened into little more than skeletons of their former use.

“They were attacked,” Varric says wonderingly.

“And they fought back.”

Midha can’t quite hide the pride in her voice, but Solas’ gaze has been caught by a subtle mark out of place. He walks away from them, towards the smouldering ruins, and with his back to the vhenadhal tree, he reads the single word painted in red on one of the walls.

Revas.

All at once, he feels like he’s falling.

***

When they return to the inn an hour later, their clothes smell of burning, and the shemlen eye them nervously as they walk in. Ellana and Cassandra are already there, and by unspoken agreement, Midha entrusts the ledger to Solas and takes her leave, while the four of them make their way upstairs.

None of their rooms are grand, but Ellana’s is the largest, and they settle around a gnarled wooden table in the dining area to discuss the night’s events.

“So, how was the party?”

Varric leans back in his chair, the picture of ease, and Solas wards the door while Cassandra and the Herald take their seats.

“Useful, I think,” Ellana says. “But terrifying.”

“Madame de Fer is not a woman to be trifled with.”

“Too tough for you, Seeker?”

Cassandra makes a disgusted noise and shoots Varric a glare.

“Hardly, but she’s certainly a woman who knows her own mind, and what she wants to get out of an alliance.”

“And what does she want in return for supporting the Inquisition?” Solas asks.

“A return to stability.” Ellana peels off her outer jacket and hangs it on the back of her chair. “And to be visible as someone who’s working towards that stability.”

“She wants to ensure the strength of her social position in the world that comes after this one,” Varric realises.

“And to make sure there’s still a world worth having a social position in.”

Solas sits back and listens, his expression mild although some part of him is still back in the alienage, reading the call to freedom on the walls.

“I’m not surprised she’s taken action,” Cassandra replies. “Madame de Fer has worked hard to be elevated to Orlais’ courts as an Enchanter. For the mages to rebel just as she attains a comfortable position… It must be a disturbing turn of events.”

“You have recruited her, then?” Solas confirms.

Ellana nods and reaches for Midha’s ledger with a frown.

“I doubt you’ll get along, but she knows Orlais inside and out, and I have a feeling we’ll need her knowledge before this is over.”

Her frown deepens when she reads the first few lines.

“What is this?”

“That, Firefly, is a report from one of the Nightingale’s little birds.”

Cassandra leans over to get a better look.

“Is something the matter?”

Varric meets Solas’ eye, and then gestures for him to speak.

“The scouts report that the alienage is empty,” he says. “It seems the elves have moved into a camp outside the city and have taken it upon themselves to defend against a rift.”

Neither the Seeker or the Herald look surprised.

“We heard about this at the Ghislaine Estate,” Cassandra says. “It was quite the topic of conversation.”

Varric chuckles, his eyebrow quirked with interest.

“And what did the nobles have to say about their favourite workers turning tail? Nothing good, I’ll bet.”

Across the table, Ellana smiles, and despite herself seeks out Solas’ gaze. He allows a small twitch of humour to show on his face, and knows that in this moment, their status as elves is a bond that they share.

“Oh, you should have heard them,” she grins. “You wouldn’t believe the trouble I’ve had since our help left! Why, just this morning I had to steam-press my own dress, and by the time I was done I’d completely missed the delivery of patisserie. And you know how I ordered it months ago!”

Varric laughs at the faux-Orlesian accent, and even Cassandra and Solas manage a small smile.

“It does seem as though we’ll have to barter safe passage through them to reach the rift, however,” the Seeker says more seriously. “What other information do we have?”

They talk back and forth for a long while. Varric and Solas describe what they’d found at the alienage, although they leave out the messages in elven written across the walls. Solas listens with interest to their description of Madame de Fer’s entrance, and makes a mental note to have his agents investigate her more thoroughly when they return to Haven.

By the time they retire to bed, they’re all in an introspective mood, but Ellana seems buoyed by their success at the salon, and the rebellion of her distant kin. When they take their leave of her rooms, she walks them to the door, a playfulness about her that Solas hasn’t seen before.

“You’re looking pleased about something, Firefly,” Varric observes. “Don’t you know you’re not meant to have fun if you’re the chosen one?”

She grins and shakes her head, shoving him lightly out of the door.

“I’m sorry, I was just thinking about the elves and the nobles again. Madame de Fer hates the camp, almost more than she hates the rebel mages.”

“Indeed?” Solas enquires. “And why is that?”

“Why do you think? She thinks they’re getting airs above their station, and making the camp into something too grand. Although she’d never say it in so many words.”

The Herald grins.

“Can’t say I’m surprised by that, you know,” she hums thoughtfully. “Apparently, the elves have taken to calling it Starfire Keep.”

Chapter Text

“Chuckles, you don’t think…”

“Don’t.”

It comes out as little more than a breath of air forced between his lips, after a night spent struggling as though he can’t breathe. In the cold light of morning, he sits astride an Inquisition charger and keeps his gaze fixed firmly on the Herald’s horse ahead of him. Because he does think – he can’t help that he’s thinking – that she… That she…

“Starfire, Solas,” Varric growls from the smaller horse beside him. “Starfire.”

“Varric, please.”

His hands clench white on the horse’s reigns, and the churning in his stomach almost makes him bend over and retch. He hasn’t slept, tossing and turning in his cold bed while the inky darkness wrapped around him like a noose. As their horses trot calmly from the city and make for the elven camp, his head pounds and his skin feels as though it’s wrapped too tightly around him.

He’s lost himself inside the black ice of hopelessness since the Spire, and now, the shard of light seeking entry burns like a wayward sun in his heart. He feels as though he could vanish into ash beneath its heat, and no matter how much he tells himself that it can’t be, it can’t, the spark of hope inside him blazes like a star. He doesn’t know what will happen if he reaches the camp and finds that it’s been snuffed out again.

Varric falls silent, but the dwarf’s tension is palpable as they wind down the long road, and then break from the path and turn west towards the sloping hill. Whoever set up the camp had an eye for strategic location, and the first of the brown tents perch atop a gentle incline, and then tumble down the other side towards the shadow of the trees. Its height makes approach from the city difficult, and the bulk of the settlement is protected by sloping terrain lower down.

The air is sharp against his ears. A cold, bright day, with the sky a bewildering blue above them, and the wind biting at any exposed skin. They ride slowly, telegraphing their approach to the people watching inside. From a distance, Solas sees more barricades like the ones in the alienage set up at the perimeter, and elves standing guard atop hastily-constructed watchtowers at regular intervals.

He tries to breathe, focusing on Ellana and Cassandra’s horses ahead of him, and torn between wanting to gallop ahead and to finally know, and turning and fleeing from this place without a backwards glance. He does neither, maintaining their steady pace as they come into calling distance of the makeshift towers, and a gate of sheet metal and wood blocks their way.

“Halt!” A voice calls from above. “Our archers have you in their sights. State your business now, or leave.”

They draw the horses to a stop, and Solas’ eyes scan desperately over the haphazard walkways above them, his heart pounding a percussive beat in his ears. Ellana slips from her horse and holds the anchor palm-up towards the walls, her back straight and proud.

“We are from the Inquisition,” she calls. “We have no quarrel with the elves. We simply want to pass through to the rift in the forest. It seems you have need of our aid.”

Solas counts four archers with their bows drawn, and the guard that called out to them leans down to speak to someone out of sight. The atmosphere is tense, and he can feel sweat trickling down his temple and his heart pounding against his ribs. A moment later, a voice behind the walls rings out.

“Lower your weapons and open the gate! Let the Inquisition through.”

And his breath becomes solid in his lungs.

He knows that voice.

He knows it.

The gate draws open, and Solas’ feet hit the ground before he’s consciously decided to move. Every muscle is trembling, and he stumbles forward, one hand braced against the horse’s neck to keep himself upright while his eyes strain into the shadows. He takes another step forward, and is only distantly aware that Cassandra is shouting at him to move back while the archers have redrawn their bows, when the silhouette he’d know anywhere in the world walks out and into the open.

Athera sweeps back into his life like a comet, the brightest point in his sky. The world falls away, and soft golden eyes meet stricken silver for an endless moment, stretching outside of time. Her deep red hair tumbles around her shoulders in droplets of loose curls, and her dear, beloved face is wrought with new scars that make him want to howl with fury.

But she is here, and she is real, and she is alive.

“Hello, Solas.”

The sound of his name from her lips breaks something inside him. He crosses the distance between them in three long strides, and then his arms are around her, and every mask he’s ever possessed crumbles into dust at his feet. The Dread Wolf disintegrates. The fiction of the humble apostate is scattered to the wind. And Solas clutches her to his chest with an ardour he never knew he possessed.

Her arms wrap around his neck, and he buries his nose against her and sucks in a ragged breath. At once, his spirit realigns itself, her scent burning in his throat while memories spark like starlight behind his eyes.

He is in the cave and wounded, turning his nose into her and claiming: mine.

He is in an aravel, terrified and weeping, while she envelops him in her arms and the wolf howls: home.

He is in the cottage, waking in hazy morning sunlight to burrow more closely against her, and his spirit whispers: my heart.

The scent of her lights a thousand remembrances that rush through his mind in an instant, and he chokes on his next breath and makes his hands into fists at her back.

“Vhenan.”

It is the first word he says to her. Breathed into the curls of her hair. Pressed into the skin of her neck. Whimpered against the shell of her ear.

“Vhenan.”

He’s holding her so tightly she can barely move, but her fingertips brush gently over the back of his neck, and she turns her head into him and murmurs:

“Ma fen.”

A thin, whining sound breaches the dam of his lips, and his body vibrates like a bell against the warm strength of her body, pressed once more against his.

“I thought you were dead,” he whispers, the sound little more than air.

She nuzzles at the space beneath his ear, pressing a soft kiss to the skin there that almost sends him to his knees.

“I thought as much,” she says softly. “Ir abelas, ma lath.”

“Tel’abelas.”

The reply comes out thick and choked around the lump in his throat, and he releases her only to raise trembling hands to cradle each side of her face. There are tears in his eyes, but she’s looking back at him with such bittersweet love that he barely notices. They’re standing so close together that he can feel the warmth of her breath against his lips, and his fingertips shake when they trace the pink lines of scar tissue that sweep above her eye and trace across one of her cheeks.

Her expression wavers, and she catches his hand in hers and shakes her head minutely.

“Later,” she whispers.

He wants to argue. To demand that she tell him who hurt her so that he can find them, and tear them limb from limb for daring to lay a hand on his heart. Instead, he does the next best thing. He curls his fingers around her ears, and kisses her.

The first press of her lips against his feels like a rush of summer air after a winter spent suffocating in the cold. He gasps weakly into her mouth, the tender brush of skin warming him from his head to his toes, and sending shocks of pleasure blistering through his nerves. Her nails trail lightly over the back of his head, and when she kisses him back and runs her tongue against his lower lip, all pretence of gentleness flees from him.

He buries one hand in her hair, holding it tight in his fist while he crowds over her and bends her backwards in a desperate attempt to get closer. His tongue plunders the sweetness of her mouth, mapping it like a landscape while his teeth worry at her lip. He realises with a flash of horror that he had forgotten this. Forgotten the warm, honeyed taste of her. Forgotten the scent of lilac and ozone. Forgotten the way his body burned everywhere her skin touched his.

He chokes on a dry sob, one hand pressed against the small of her back to draw her even closer, as though he might pull her inside of himself and never let her go again. She makes a soft, breathy sound into his mouth, and he feels her smile against his lips, and tastes the salt sharpness of her tears on his tongue. With a shuddering sigh, he draws them both upright again, pulling back just enough to kiss the wetness from her cheeks.

She clings to him, one hand tangled in the front of his tunic and the other cupped against his jaw, while he brushes featherlight kisses over her cheeks, and draws his lips across her closed eyelids. They are both shaking, and when he finally gazes into her face again, the watery smile that greets him is the most perfect thing he’s ever seen.

“Ar lath ma, vhenan,” he whispers.

They are the truest words he’s ever said, and as he holds his palm against her cheek, the ice around his heart begins to thaw.

“Ar lath ma, ma fen.”

Despite everything, he’s still wholly unprepared for the shockwave that leaps through him at her reply. He has known it, of course. He has understood, on an intellectual level, that she loves him. But the difference between knowing it, and hearing it declared out-loud, is the difference between night and day.

He feels delirious. Lighter and freer and realer than he ever has in his interminably long life. He can’t help but kiss her again, pouring every ounce of love, and relief, and joy so overwhelming that it feels like high summer, into the fevered meeting of their lips. He could stay here forever, he thinks, as his thigh slips between her legs and she clings to the back of his neck. He would never need anything else.

In the end, it’s the loud clearing of a throat that finally breaks them apart, and Solas holds tightly to her hand as the world rushes back in, and he remembers they aren’t alone.

“You always have enjoyed giving me new grey hairs, Starfire,” Varric drawls. “But I think this time definitely takes the cake.”

Athera’s eyes widen in shock, and then her face breaks into a beaming smile and she drops to her knees to greet him.

“Varric! What are you doing here?”

He watches the dwarf embrace her, Varric’s usually-wry expression softening into something tender and relieved over her shoulder.

“I could ask you the same question,” he replies. “You’ve definitely got a lot of explaining to do. If you hadn’t just come back from the dead, I’d kill you, you know.”

Solas’ heart clenches, and when Athera stands up again he twines their fingers together and draws her close against his side.

“Ir abelas. I tried to get word to you, but the Orlesians have been intercepting our messages. Nothing we sent has got through.”

“Figures,” Varric nods. “But it seems as though you’ve been causing enough trouble here on your own.”

“Indeed.”

Solas tightens his grip on Athera’s hand at the sharp tone of Cassandra’s voice, and the Seeker’s gaze roves searchingly between the three of them. Unconsciously, he shifts closer, a primal part of him wanting to gather his heart into his arms and run away into the forest where no-one can find them. Now that she’s here again and standing so proudly at his side, he knows that there’s nothing in the world he wouldn’t do to keep her there. Nothing he wouldn’t sacrifice to protect her.

“It seems that introductions are in order,” Cassandra says at last. “Solas?”

He swallows, his gaze softening when it falls back on Athera, and she offers him an encouraging nod. He presses a lingering kiss to her temple, breathing her in a final time, before he schools his expression into one that looks less like a man whose entire world has been returned to him, and more like a functioning party member again.

“Forgive me, Seeker,” he replies, his throat rasping. “This is Athera, my…”

He hesitates, emotion making his throat grow tight, and Athera squeezes his hand in a show of silent support that he’s missed so much it hurts.

“I lost her in the rebellion at the Spire,” he says instead. “Until this moment, I had thought her to be dead.”

To his surprise, Cassandra’s expression softens at once, and for a brief second he could have sworn he saw tears in her eyes.

“Athera, this is the Seeker Cassandra Pentaghast, leader of the Inquisition. Varric, of course, needs no introduction. And this is-”

“Ellana.”

His next words die in his throat, and he looks on in silent confusion as Athera releases his hand, and takes a step closer to the Herald.

“Hello, Athera.”

All at once, the air seems to thicken. The cold stare the Herald levels at his heart makes him want to step between them, and he and Varric share a startled glance while their attention is focused elsewhere. Athera’s gaze seems drawn to the anchor, and an indefinable emotion flickers behind her eyes when Ellana hides it behind her back.

“Ir abelas,” she says softly. “That must be an uncomfortable burden to bear.”

To his ears, there is nothing but sympathy in her voice, but Ellana reacts as though she’d struck her.

“Don’t pretend that you aren’t overjoyed,” she sneers. “I’m sure you think this is some kind of divine punishment. That after everything, I’d end up with magic after all.”

“You always did believe in the worst of me,” Athera says sadly. “Did you really think I’d be pleased to see you suffer?”

The depth of hurt in her eyes pierces Solas’ heart like glass, and he takes her hand in his again and places his body between them. She grips him so tightly his fingers ache, and a violent protective instinct surges through his chest when she rests her forehead against his shoulder, and bows her back as though the weight of the world has fallen upon it.

If he hadn’t liked the Herald before now, then in this moment, it’s become personal.

“I don’t understand,” Cassandra says. “You know each other?”

Athera draws in a shaky breath against his shoulder and raises her head again.

“Yes, we know each other.”

Ellana looks away from them, and Solas cups Athera’s cheek and stares questioningly into her eyes. She smiles sadly at him and presses a kiss to his palm.

“Ir abelas, ma fen. You couldn’t have known,” she sighs. “Ellana is my sister.”

Chapter Text

Sisters.

He should have realised it sooner. He should have known that the similarities between them were more than simply shadows conjured by his grief. He watches them now as they walk together through the camp, each step a mirror image of the other’s. Athera is slightly smaller than Ellana, and the Herald is broader in the shoulders than his star, but they carry themselves the same way.

Now that he sees them side-by-side, he can see the likeness in their faces. Ellana’s jaw is stronger, and Athera’s lips fuller, but they share the same high cheekbones and the same tilting of their brow. While Athera’s hair is deep red and a riot of unruly curls, Ellana’s is light copper and a fly-away mess of waves. They both bear the same expression of discomfort - the same small line between their eyes – and Solas feels a sense of unreality take hold of him when they each reach back to tie their hair into braids while they walk.

“The rift appeared nearly two months ago,” Athera is saying. “We were already set up here by then, so we arranged a guard detail to watch the treeline and make sure the demons didn’t catch us unawares.”

There are so many questions crowding on his tongue. So many things he wants to know. But all he can do is watch her. Every moment he spends back in her presence feels dreamlike, and he half expects that with his next step he’ll be woken from the Fade, and discover that this whole day has been no more than a trick of the mind.

“And the Orlesians just left you alone here?” Ellana asks.

Now that they’re heading towards the rift, whatever animosity there is between them has been put on hold, and they present a united front while they stride between the rows of tents.

“Not at first. The chevaliers attacked the alienage a few weeks after the Spire fell, and a group of us set up an overflow shelter here to tend to the wounded.”

“And they just let you?”

Athera shrugs and shoots Varric a smile over her shoulder, her eyes drifting to Solas and making his breath catch in his throat.

“In the beginning, I don’t think any of them really cared that a few more elves had left the city,” she says. “The Templars and the chevaliers had their noses put out of joint by the mage rebellion, and they took it out on the elves. By the time they realised that over half of us had left and were living outside of their jurisdiction, the shems were struggling without their workforce and the Templars had retreated back to the Circle. They knew by then that we had a decent group of fighters out here, not to mention a defendable position. They didn’t want to risk an outright war on their hands, so they let us be.”

“It seems that Leliana was right,” Cassandra says sadly. “There was a reason the next spark of the rebellion happened here.”

“And where do you fit into all of this?” Solas asks. “Why didn’t you…”

He swallows, hard, and Athera’s face softens while she waits for him to continue.

“Why didn’t you leave?”

They both hear the question he leaves unspoken.

Why didn’t you try to find me?

“Ir abelas, ma fen,” she says softly. “It wasn’t as simple as I’ve made it sound. I was sick for a long time after the Spire. Delirious, really. By the time I came back to myself, the elves were being attacked every night and I had no idea where to look for you. I stepped in to help, and when things started to spiral…”

“You couldn’t leave them behind,” Varric finishes.

“Exactly.”

She turns to him and places a hand on his arm, and Solas looks into her face as though he’s staring at the sun. She is too bright. Too perfect. And it makes him ache.

“We’ll talk later, I promise. For now, if Ellana really can close the rift, it would go a long way to making sure the Inquisition is welcome here with us.” She huffs a soft breath and shakes her head. “I’m sure you can understand that everyone is nervous, given the capital city on our doorstep.”

“As the Herald said, the Inquisition has no quarrel with the elves,” Cassandra replies. “It would be foolish of us to provoke more bloodshed when the world is still so unstable.”

The conversation dwindles after that, and the Inquisition party follows Athera while she leads them through the dirt lanes. Solas struggles to take his eyes off her, scared that if he looks away for even a single moment, she’ll disappear. But the Elvhen leader in him can’t resist the pull of their new surroundings either, and he becomes more amazed by the settlement the farther inside they travel.

From Val Royeaux, he might have called it a village, but he sees now that the bulk of their dwellings are hidden from view by the far side of the hill. From within, it’s more like a city. Tents and strips of canvas sheets crowd through every available space, and smaller structures made of scrap-wood and sheet metal mark the boundaries of the myriad paths.

He sees an endless procession of elves manning craft tables, and stalls, and even a line of latrines dug away from the main thoroughfares, and he can’t help but swell with pride. A few months since he lost her at the Spire, and Athera has broken the city elves out of the prison of the alienage, and built them a functional stronghold beyond the reach of the shemlen’s power.

His bright star, staging a rebellion on the outskirts of the Orlesian capital.

If he could fall in love with her all over again, then in this moment, he would.

It takes them nearly twenty minutes to traverse the camp, and on the far side a second set of gates draws open at their approach. A wiry young woman with cropped dark hair drops down from the walkway and lands gracefully ahead of them, and only long years in Arlathan’s court stops Solas’ mouth from gaping open.

“She found you, then,” she grins at him. “I told her she would if we caused enough trouble. Told her you wouldn’t be able to resist.”

“Taralin.”

His throat feels dry, and he’s grateful when Athera’s hand slips back into his own to anchor him.

“Not just Taralin.”

He turns his head to the left, where Nellas and Dhaveira are walking hand-in-hand towards them, beaming smiles on both of their faces.

“It’s good to see you, Solas,” the former chef says warmly. “Maybe now our Rebel Duchess can stop moping around like the world has ended.”

Varric barks out a laugh somewhere behind him, and Athera groans and raises her free hand to her face.

“Rebel Duchess, eh?” The dwarf grins. “Now there’s a story I’ve got to hear.”

“You really, really don’t.”

Athera’s tone is wry, and Solas gazes in amazement between the four of them, while internally, he hangs himself for his stupidity. He had looked for Athera in the Fade, sent his agents into the field to search for her, and waited in the shadow of the vhenadahl tree for her to return. But it had never occurred to him to do the simplest thing, and seek out the friends they’d left behind in the city.

Standing with them now, he can’t help but think of how different everything might have been, if he’d gone to them instead of to Mythal. How long was it before they found her? How many months of choking grief would he have saved himself? How many people would still be alive, if he’d remembered the simple fact that he wasn’t alone?

“Duchess? Really?”

Ellana’s voice cuts through his thoughts, and Athera seems to physically wilt at his side.

“It’s just a silly joke,” she says in a small voice.

Nellas looks between the two women, an uncertain smile on his face.

“Because she built a city, see?” He explains. “And it’s not like the shems don’t hand out titles to each other for less. We figured, after the fight she put up when they came for us, that she deserved a name of her own.”

Ellana’s disgusted expression doesn’t change, and when Athera shrinks still further at his side, Solas fights back the urge to demand what the Herald’s problem is. Taralin, on the other hand, has no such restraint.

“Is this going to be an issue?” The rogue asks coldly.

Ellana turns to face her, her face showing her surprise at being confronted, although Solas can’t imagine why it would startle her. Athera and the Herald might have a history between them, but it should be clear to anyone that the people here adore her, whereas Ellana has ridden in at the head of a shemlen organisation and claimed divine intervention.

They have no reason to trust her.

Ellana seems to realise this at the same time the mood begins to change, and she casts a quick glance between Athera and the small crowd beginning to gather around them, and shakes her head.

“Good,” Taralin says. “Because I don’t know who you are, or what the shemlen want with you, but Athera saved us all when the chevaliers came for us. So they might call you Herald, but here, in this place, we get to decide our own leaders.”

“Taralin.”

Athera’s voice is tired, and for the first time Solas notices how fragile she looks beside him. He doesn’t know what happened here, or what part she had to play in it, but the shadows beneath her eyes tell him that whatever else has taken place since they parted, she’s taken the world on her shoulders again.

“The Inquisition are here to help,” she says resolutely. “We can’t keep fighting back the demons forever, and if we want the rift gone then we’re going to have to work with them.”

She looks Ellana in the eye, and for once the Herald seems satisfied with her words.

“Come on. You’ll need a few of us with you, I think.”

She lets go of his hand, and two elves Solas doesn’t recognise join Taralin and walk with them in procession out of the gates.

“We have done this before you know, Starfire,” Varric says. “Fighting demons and closing tears in reality is kind of what we do these days.”

Athera smiles at him and leads them into the trees.

“I’ll remind you that you said that when you see it,” she tells him. “You might just change your mind.”

***

When they do reach the site, about fifty feet beyond the treeline, Solas thinks that she should have been more insistent with her warning. The rift is like none they’ve encountered before, larger and more active than any they’ve come across in the field. It stretches a full twenty feet across a small clearing, its pulsing green edges disappearing into the trees. Reality seems to warp around it, and the thick boughs that buckle beneath its centre of gravity reflect green and silver in the muted light.

There are already three guards standing watch closer by, and their party comes to a stop behind a row of beech trees as a host of demons spill out into the Waking. Unlike the other rifts they’ve faced, this one hums a continuous melody, acting like a walkway between this world and the one that lies beyond.

“By the Dread Wolf.”

Ellana’s whispered invocation makes both he and Athera jolt, and he meets her gaze and blushes when she grins at him behind her sister’s back.

“What happened here?” Cassandra asks. “The rifts we’ve seen haven’t looked like this.”

“I think that’s our fault,” Athera replies, and Solas turns to her with a frown.

“What do you mean?”

A flurry of shades emerges from the tear, and the wiry body of a terror demons slips out behind them. The three guards ease back into defensive positions, but remain out of the demon’s sight at a subtle signal from Athera. After casting an assessing eye over the situation, she turns back to face them.

“Rifts expand the more demons manage to find a way through,” she tells them, her voice pitched low in the gloom. “Leave them alone, and the demons tend to stay nearby, and that stops others from trying to follow.”

The Inquisition members look to him for confirmation, and Solas nods slowly, thinking.

“It would make sense,” he allows. “Spirits rush through the gaps to seek the waking world, but the presence of demons on the other side might drive them away from the rift, and keep them wary enough to avoid being pulled through against their will.”

“So what did you mean, that this was your fault?” Cassandra asks suspiciously. “Have you been drawing them through?”

“Not intentionally. But with the rift being so close to the camp, whenever we left it alone we’d be caught unawares by a group of demons trying to attack the walls.”

“So you set up a watch to keep them away from the civilians,” Varric realises. “And that meant that the watch killed them before they’d cleared the forest.”

“Which meant that the area around the rift was free for more to come through,” Athera confirms. “It’s been growing ever since, but we can’t move the camp without risking ambush by the Orlesians, so we’ve been stuck watching it expand and defending as best we can.”

The rift pulses again, and another terror demon tumbles into the forest. Ellana’s gaze narrows, and she nods to herself and turns back to Athera.

“I think we can do it, but I’m going to need your guards to keep the demons off me.”

“We’ll follow your lead,” she confirms. “But I need to protect my people. If I call a retreat, then I have to know that you’ll follow.”

They stare at each other for a long moment in silence, matching expressions of determination on their faces. Eventually, Ellana concedes with a barely-there nod of her head, and the tension growing in Athera’s posture drains away.

“Come on. We don’t want to wait for more of them to come through.”

There isn’t even enough time for Solas to worry about his star jumping into the fight, before the piercing shriek of one of the terrors rips through the air, and the three guards ahead of them spring into action.

“With me!” Ellana shouts, and the battle is joined.

Solas drops a barrier over the fighters closest to him, keeping both Ellana and Athera well-protected beneath the blanket of his magic. As a shade vanishes into mist under the onslaught of his lightning attack, he’s momentarily distracted when he feels Athera’s shield fall over him in return. He turns in time to see her standing beside Varric, and raining starfire arrows down on the nearest terror demon while it screams.

“Flank them!” She calls to her fighters. “Keep them off the Herald!”

Ahead of him, Ellana races forward, palm raised up towards the rift. The smouldering heat of his stolen magic arches towards it in a prism of light, and the demons closest to them fall motionless, stunned. He moves back, picking off another couple of shades and unconsciously drifting closer to Athera, while Cassandra swings her sword at a terror and cleaves its head from its shoulders.

In the next second, a shockwave of hot air with a taste like o-zone blows through the trees, and Ellana is flung backwards by the sharp snap of the magic retracting.

“Da’mi!”

Athera rushes towards her as the rift re-engages, spitting out another host of shades and two burning rage demons. She puts herself between them and her fallen sister, nocking and firing so quickly that Solas can barely see the arrows leaving her bow.

“Vhenan, don’t!”

White hot fear crackles down his spine, and he fadesteps across the distance between them and slams the blade of his staff into the closest demon, his only thought to keep it as far away from Athera as possible. The enchanted wood hisses and bubbles, spitting sparks into the air as the pulsing body tries to suck his weapon from his hands. He growls and plants his feet more firmly, bearing backwards with all of his strength and sending a plume of frost through the conductor.

The demon screams and releases him, and he loses his footing when his staff falls free. A second later, two flaming arrows pierce the creature’s body, and a strong arm hooks him beneath his shoulder and pulls him back to his feet.

“Fenedhis, Solas!” Athera yells. “I had it!”

He sends another bolt of ice into the demon’s chest, and it explodes in a rain of smouldering ichor.

“You stepped right into its path!” He yells back, rounding on her while Ellana rushes by and holds her hand back up to the rift.

“It was intentional.”

Her golden eyes are sparking, a flush of blood in her cheeks, and her churning red hair is silhouetted against the roiling green magic of the Fade. He’s never been so in love, or so heart-stoppingly angry with anyone, in the whole of his absurdly long life.

“Intentionality does not make the decision to get yourself killed any better!”

She fires an arrow at a shade behind his shoulder and he flings a fireball at one approaching on her left. He wants to crush her lips against his, bury his hands in her hair, and pull it until it hurts.

“I wasn’t going to get myself killed, I had it under control!”

Before he can reply, the rift explodes again, flinging Ellana away and blanketing them all in a wave of heat. This time, the Herald keeps her feet, and as one they drop into defensive stances when a hulking Pride demon hauls itself out of the Fade.

“Not that I don’t love the drama,” Varric calls from behind them. “But could you two save the sexual tension for after we’ve dealt with the giant hole in reality?”

Solas feels his ears burn, and Athera flings a rude gesture over her shoulder before dancing lightly out of the reach of the demon’s whip, and releasing another arrow.

“One more go should do it,” Ellana pants. “Just keep that thing off me for a few more minutes.”

Without waiting for a reply, she ducks beneath the demon’s legs and runs for the rift, and before he can catch hold of her wrist, Athera follows. Solas’ heart leaps into his mouth, and behind the bulk of corrupted Pride he hears the tell-tale crackle of the Herald trying to close the tear. The creature’s whip lashes the ground, and it roars and sends a wall of electricity rushing through the air towards them.

Solas falls back with the rest of the group, harrying their enemy with wide arcs of ice while terror rises in his throat. The demon turns its back on them, facing towards the rift where Athera and Ellana are fighting alone. A moment later, it cracks its whip beyond his line of sight, and a familiar cry cuts through the air.

Solas’ mind goes completely blank, save for a surging dread that makes his whole body pulse hot then cold. Without thinking, he lets out a vicious snarl, and summons the energy of the Fade to him like a lightning strike. With a burst of raw power, he sends a potent mind-blast into the demon’s back, and it buckles forward onto its knees with a roar.

“Now, while it’s down!”

Cassandra’s cry rallies their fighters, and while the warrior hacks viciously at its scales, Varric sends a seemingly endless stream of bolts into its legs, and Taralin leaps onto its back, her twin daggers flashing. Over the demon’s head, Solas can see the steady stream of the anchor’s magic fighting the rift for control, and with his heart still pounding a drumbeat in the back of his throat, he flings sharp spikes of ice into the fray.

With a last choked roar, the demon collapses, and a final wave of heat blasts through the trees when the rift snaps closed. A victorious cry goes up from the gathered fighters, and Solas blinks dust and dirt out of his eyes and staggers forward, searching for Athera. There are people yelling congratulations to each other, and Taralin is wooping like a child, and then he sees them - standing beneath the dying green wisps of Fade energy, in the place where the tear had been.

Ellana and Athera are side-by-side, hair flying loose from their braids, both of them beaming with joy. There’s a thick line of blood running down Athera’s arm, and Ellana is shaking with fatigue, but as he watches, the treeline behind them explodes in a cacophony of noise.

He blinks, dazed, and looks blankly around while a crowd from the elven settlement emerges into the forest. They’ve formed a ring around the clearing. Hanging from branches and peering from behind tree-trunks, every elf is cheering, while Athera and Ellana stand proudly in the centre of the din, formidable and glorious in their victory.

Solas leans heavily on his staff while his heart finally sees fit to drop back into his chest where it belongs. As he watches the scene unfold around him, a single thought runs through his mind, and he lets out an exhausted breath and feels his shoulders sag.

This woman will be the death of me.

Chapter Text

After the camp’s celebration has finally been spent, Athera leads him to a ramshackle shack made of sheet metal and wood, while the rest of the Inquisition members return to the inn for the night. There are no windows inside the small space, and Solas stands by the closed door while she lights paraffin lamps around the edges of the room, and sinks down onto the bed.

In the darkness, her hair catches the light like a banked flame, and the paleness of her skin stands out in stark contrast to the new lines of scar tissue that mar her face. He has never felt such deep exhaustion in his entire life, the sudden shock of her reappearance overwhelming his frayed emotions, and making him almost wilt where he stands.

“I don’t know where to begin.”

Her voice is soft, and when she raises her eyes to his he feels his whole body start to tremble.

“How?” He whispers into the silence. “How are you alive?”

And with those words, a floodgate opens.

“I looked for you,” he says, his voice rising, ragged. “I searched the Fade and the Waking. I sent out agents. I waited-”

His voice cracks, and he draws in a laboured breath and makes his hands into fists.

“I waited in the alienage and you never came. Where were you? I grieved for you!”

He hadn’t wanted to shout at her. He hadn’t realised that he was going to. In fact, out of all of the things he ever thought he might do if he saw her again, shouting at her wouldn’t even have made the list. But he is aching, bone-deep, in all of the most fragile places in his spirit, and his churning emotions beat out a hurricane and fight him for release.

“I thought you were gone,” he chokes. “I thought you were never coming back. I thought I was alone. You promised me I wouldn’t be alone again!”

He stumbles forward, his legs barely supporting him, and sinks to his knees in front of her. His head falls into her lap, hiding his face, and he clutches the edges of her tunic.

“Ir abelas, ma fen,” she murmurs, while her fingers stroke gently along the back of his neck.

It isn’t enough. It will never be enough. There will never be enough time in the world for him to tell her just how helplessly he’d mourned. How deeply her loss had wounded him. How hopeless the world had seemed without her.

He tightens his grip on her, burying his face and trying to control his breathing while her hands trace gently over his back.

“How?” He asks again, voice muffled and strained. “How did you survive?”

She doesn’t answer at first, smoothing her hands over him until his breathing slows and settles, and he all but collapses over her knees. After long minutes, he turns his face so his cheek rests against her, and she urges him up to sit on the bed at her side.

“How much do you already know?”

In the dim light, the shadows beneath her eyes are more pronounced, and for the first time since they reunited, he notices how much thinner she is than before. He takes her hand gently in his and stares intently into her face, still half-disbelieving that she’s really here.

“I went to the Spire and searched for memories in the Fade,” he begins quietly. “I saw you and Cole go down into the dark, and then the tunnel out of the dungeons collapse.”

She’s still looking away from him, down at their joined hands, and for some reason he desperately wants her to look up. To see him as he sees her.

“I assumed you were caught beneath it. And then later, Cole came to me saying-” he swallows, his throat tight. “Saying that the stones were too heavy for you to lift.”

She sighs, her hand tightening on his, and finally looks up at him with a sad smile.

“I was caught beneath it,” she replies. “And because the cuffs were still around my wrists, and so much magic from the battle was still in the air, no-one could find me. I should have died.” She hesitates, her voice dropping to a whisper. “I almost did.”

Solas flinches violently and reaches out with his other hand to hold tight to her leg, and she draws him closer until they’re pressed against each other’s sides.

“There was only one reason I didn’t,” she continues softly. “And that was because of this.”

She slips her free hand beneath her tunic, and the breath leaves Solas’ body in a rush when she pulls the peach stone out from beneath it.

“The enchantments,” he murmurs, his voice sounding distant to his own ears. “They were designed to create an emergent barrier when the wearer was in mortal danger.”

“And they worked,” she replies quietly. “The barrier left me with just enough space to breathe, but it didn’t stop the rocks from crushing me.”

Her gaze grows distant, and he feels a fine tremor run through her hand where it rests comfortably in his.

“I was pressed into a gap in the rocks. The edges cut me everywhere, and with the fighting raging inside and out, the heat from the fires around the building was… Intense.”

He sees, then, with a sickening lurch, just where her scars had come from. He’d thought at first that the thin lines were knife marks, but now he can pick out the places where ridges of hot stone must have been held against her face, and steadily scalded marks into the skin.

“Vhenan…”

His voice is soft, aching with the knowledge of how she must have suffered, while he’d stood mere metres away and never known she was there. Tears well in her eyes, and he cups her cheek in his palm and trails his nose along hers.

“I thought you’d come for me,” she whispers, her voice choked and silent tears spilling down her cheeks. “I waited for you. But I couldn’t-”

Her shoulders shake, and she cuts herself off while he wraps his arms around her and presses his forehead to hers.

“I couldn’t reach the Fade,” she manages, through shuddering breaths. “I knew that if I could, I’d be able to find you and you’d come for me. But I couldn’t, and it was dark and I couldn’t move, and everything was burning-”

Athera’s sob seems to take her by surprise, and Solas aches when he draws her into his arms and holds her close while she cries.

“My star,” he murmurs to her. “My brave star, ir abelas. I should have been there. I should have torn down the Spire to get to you. If I’d known…”

She makes a soft, plaintive sound against his shoulder, and her distress pricks a thorn into his heart. He pulls her onto his lap, cradling her in the circle of his arms and nuzzling at her hair.

“I’m so sorry,” he whispers. “Forgive me, vhenan. I should have been there.”

He feels her nod beneath his chin, and knows that she needed to hear him say it, even though she understands why he wasn’t able to find her. Just like he’d needed to hear her apologise for not finding him at the vhenadahl, even though it wasn’t her fault. He thinks that, over the next few weeks and months, they will both find themselves apologising to each other a lot, for all of the little hurts they’ve missed while they were apart.

It’s a small price to pay to have her back, warm and soft in his arms.

He tucks her securely beneath his chin and breathes in the lilac scent of her. She fits so perfectly against him, and after months of grieving alone, his skin almost burns at the contact, greedy to be touched and held once again. Eventually, her tears ebb, and she sniffs and pulls back just enough to wipe her face. He leans in and trails a path of mothwing kisses along her scars, and she makes a wounded sound and presses her lips to his cheek.

“Who found you?” He asks her softly. “How did they reach you when I could not?”

She draws in a breath and scrubs at her face, and he releases her reluctantly when she climbs to her feet and starts to pace.

“I was trapped there for days,” she says, her voice stronger now. “The barrier held, but the cuffs kept me locked out of the Fade. By that point I was covered in burns, and more or less delirious. As far as I was concerned, I was only waiting to die.”

A jolt of adrenaline runs through him, and Solas clutches his hands together against the urge to reach for her again.

“I don’t remember much about being rescued. Voices and light and pain and…” She smiles, her eyes flashing when they look at him. “And a dog I apparently kept calling ma fen, until the fever broke a couple of weeks later and I came back to reality.”

He blinks at her, stunned, and she laughs quietly at him and shakes her head.

“After we didn’t return to La Petite Lion that night, Taralin and Nellas started looking for us. They’d already figured out that we’d been taken to the Spire, and when it fell, they made contact with one of Dhaveira’s friends who, it turns out, has been having a secret relationship with one of the Templars.”

She huffs and meets his gaze.

“Can you guess who?”

Solas frowns at her, his mind blank, and then his eyes widen and he only just bites back a hysterical laugh.

“Anderson,” he breathes disbelievingly. “So there was a reason that a single Templar turned and fought for the mages.”

“Exactly,” Athera agrees. “He’d already heard that two elves had been taken, so he got himself assigned to us just in case his love knew who we were, and was worried about our abduction. The plan was to make sure we survived, and then find a way to accidentally let us escape as soon as it was believable.”

“But he didn’t count on the sadistic tendencies of his superior,” Solas says, following the trail of the story. “Or the return of the Lord Seeker and the start of the rebellion.”

Athera nods, and he looks up and feels another fierce rush of relief shoot through him at the reality of her standing in front of him.

“How was it that Anderson found you when I couldn’t?” He asks then, his brow furrowed. “What skills did the Templar have that I did not?”

“Absolutely none,” she tells him wryly. “But he did have a mabari.”

Solas’ mind goes completely silent, stunned.

“A mabari,” he repeats distantly.

“Yep. A mabari.”

Athera is grinning now, and he feels a bright, bubbling humour, of the kind he hasn’t felt since before the Spire, beginning to well up in his chest. A snort escapes him, and he clamps his hand over his mouth to smother it, but then Athera giggles and all of a sudden he can’t hold it back. He bursts out laughing, the absurdity of a trained war dog being able to catch her scent when he, the Dread Wolf, could not, blasting his grief away in a torrent of painful gasps.

Athera sinks back down at his side, her eyes dancing and her hand over her mouth to stifle her own laughter, while he hauls her against him and his shoulders shake with mirth. She clings to him just as tightly, and he smothers heaving breaths of glee into her hair, and realises that only yesterday, he’d been certain he would never laugh like this again.

The realisation astounds him, and his joy is ferocious and blinding in the wake of it. When he finally has control of himself again, he cups her face in his hands and kisses her deeply, drinking from her mouth as though he’s drowning. She returns his passion, trailing a gentle nail across the ridge of his ear, and the hot spark of pleasure that shoots down his spine surprises a guttural groan from his chest.

Athera smiles against his lips and gentles the kiss, and he whines softly and digs his fingers into her hips. When they break apart again they’re both breathing heavily, and the sight of her smiling back at him with kiss-swollen lips, is almost enough to make him stiffen in his leggings. He takes a steadying breath, huffing at his own loss of control when so many more things still need to be said.

She rests her forehead against his and smiles, sad and patient, her thumb trailing gently along the edge of his jaw while they both try to calm themselves. Eventually, he closes his eyes and simply breathes her in, and she pulls back just enough for them to see each other, eyes bright in the gloom.

“After they found you, then,” Solas hears himself say quietly. “Where did you go? I waited-”

Again, he can’t finish the sentence. Those two weeks he’d spent watching the vhenadahl tree now rank amongst the worst in his considerably difficult life, and even the memory of it makes him feel cold all over.

“Isabela,” she answers, equally softly. “They saw the smoke from the Spire when they were miles out at sea, changed course, and came back. The Circle’s defences were broken during the battle, so the rune in the cuffs didn’t trigger when they carried me away, but they couldn’t break the dawnstone and I was dangerously sick.”

A shadow gathers behind her eyes, and Solas trails the back of his knuckles across her cheek until another sad smile tugs at the corners of her lips.

“Aban – she was the Qunari on board, remember? She thought that she’d be able to get them off with the right tools, so she and Taralin rowed me back to the ship with Anderson’s mabari. I don’t remember much from that time, but they tell me it was another three weeks before they’d managed to burn the damn things off, and my fever finally broke for good.”

He closes his eyes and rests his forehead against her temple, his arm encircling her waist and keeping her close where she belongs. That was why he couldn’t find her in the Fade. Not only did the dawnstone chains keep her locked away, but hardly any spirits linger over open water where there are so few people to attract them. It had never even crossed his mind that the pirate would come back for her, and once again, he curses himself for his short-sightedness.

“And then you made your way to the alienage,” he confirms softly, and feels her nod and squeeze his hand in agreement.

“I looked for you,” she replies. “But I knew after the first few days of waiting that you’d already gone.”

“And then the chevaliers attacked.”

She nods again, and Solas breathes a heavy sigh and pulls back to look at her, his expression warm.

“And you broke the elves out of the alienage, defied the shemlen powers of one of the richest cities in Thedas, and set up a free camp within throwing distance of their walls.”

He is smiling at her now, proud and amazed, and Athera blushes and looks down at their joined hands, her thumb brushing against his.

“That’s a much longer story,” she says at last, a hesitant note in her voice. “Just like, I imagine, the story of how you came to be an apostate with the Inquisition. Or, how my sister ended up with that mark on her hand.”

She meets his gaze, then, her golden eyes softly accusing, and a trickle of ice slips down Solas’ spine. He swallows, his palms suddenly clammy, and anxiety rising like a firework in his stomach.

She knows.

He had hoped for more time, but as she looks back at him, real and perfect and alive, he knows that he can’t deny it. He says nothing, and sorrow gathers like darkness in the corners of her eyes. She lets out a long breath and her gaze falls away from him, her fingers going slack in his hand.

“I knew it,” she whispers. “As soon as the rift appeared and we heard reports of what had happened at the Conclave. I knew it had to have been you, but I’d hoped…”

Her voice catches and she looks back up at him, her eyes shining with emotion.

“You promised me, Fen’Harel,” she snarls. “You swore to me. Manifestos it will be.”

And then the bed goes up in flames.

Chapter Text

Solas has always prided himself on his self-control. Building friendships with spirits requires that he keep a lid on his more passionate emotions, lest he turn the young ones from their purpose accidentally. But at Athera’s words, a blinding, fizzing shard of bitter injustice tunnels down his spine, and his magic reacts before he’s even processed it.

The blankets around them light like a tinder box, and Athera yelps and leaps away, while he remains stunned and agitated on the bed.

What of your promise to me, Pride?

He’s only vaguely aware that he’s being pulled to his feet and hauled across the room, while memories churn like an unquiet sea through his mind.

What should I have done?

You should have kept your promise.

He can smell smoke and burning, thick in his nose, and for a single moment he is standing in the ruins of Tarasyl’an Tel’as while the last great Elvhen empire falls.

You promised me, Fen’Harel.

He had. He had promised her. But beyond the rationality of that truth, the splintered parts of him crumble beneath the weight of her disdain. He has promised so much and given even more of himself away. He promised the People they would be free. He promised that he would protect and guide them. He promised Mythal he would avenge her and Wisdom that he would be wise.

And with every promise that was pulled from his willing and unwilling lips, he shattered the beating heart of his spirit, until the pieces that made him real no longer fit together. He is sick of promises. Made unwell by so many demands. If he is nothing more than the promises he’s made, then he is nothing. There is nothing else of him left.

His ears are ringing and his body is frozen and slick in a cold sweat when he finally comes back to the room. Athera’s hands are on his cheeks, thumbs brushing rhythmically along the line of his jaw while her mouth forms words he can’t hear. Over her shoulder, he sees the bed still smoking and coated in a sheen of ice, and there’s a dull burning sensation around his thighs that he thinks distantly will hurt much more later on.

He blinks, and focuses on the wide golden eyes staring intently into his, concern softening their edges until they almost glow in the dim light of the lamps. Only then does sound rush back in.

“Solas, say something,” Athera is pleading. “What just happened? Ma lath, talk to me, please.”

“You called me Fen’Harel.”

The words come out hollow and emotionless, and her hands fall still against him. Silence grows, thick and cold around them, and she closes her eyes and draws in a deep breath before releasing it slowly. He feels the movement of air against the damp skin of his face, and is vaguely aware that he’s trembling, and that his hands hurt from how tightly he’s clenched them.

Athera opens her eyes, and the confused mix of emotions in them mirrors his own so exactly, that he feels completely off-balance.

“Ir abelas,” she says slowly, as though confirming he’s still listening. “But wasn’t it Fen’Harel who did this?”

He blinks again. He can hear his heart thumping in his ears and wonders idly if the world should feel so far away.

“Did you, Solas, destroy hundreds of people at the Conclave? Or did the Dread Wolf decide that his duty was more important than this world after all?”

The dull ringing vanishes, and in the silence left behind, he can hear the heavy gasp of his breath while his scrambled emotions rush back in. Shame comes first, hot and sickly, followed swiftly by regret, guilt, and fear. He shivers beneath the hands still cupping his face, and then anger rushes through him so fiercely that he almost burns with fire again.

He jerks away from her, striding across the room and then back again like a caged animal, adrenaline running a vicious circuit through his blood.

“You speak of things you know nothing of,” he hisses. “You do not get to judge me. I will not have you judge me!”

Athera’s face grows cold and hard, but his anger flares hotter than any censure she can give.

“As you once said to me, if not me, then who?”

“No-one!” He shouts, the sound raw and ragged. “Nobody. None of you! None of you know what it’s like, to have fought for millennia and to see the world die anyway. To scheme and to kill and to sacrifice until nothing more is left.”

The air in his lungs is too hot. Too sharp. It scorches him on every exhale.

“I swore, so long ago, that I would protect them, and nothing I did has helped! All the promises I made, all the pledges to someone else’s service…” He breaks off, raking his nails down his cheeks and tearing at his skin. “I cannot keep them all!”

He startles badly when Athera’s hands capture his wrists, and a primal part of him recoils and tries to pull back.

“No matter what I do, someone will suffer!” He howls, still fighting to get away. “How can I choose? How would you have me choose?”

In a flurry of movement, Athera summons the damp blankets from the bed, and with the force of her magic pressing warm and familiar against him, he finds himself wrapped up in them and then lowered gently to the ground. Her hands are still around his wrists, and the chill of the ice melting through the fibres cuts through his rage, until all that’s left is panic and shame when his back hits the wall of the room.

“Hush,” she’s whispering to him gently. “Take a breath. You’re not alone.”

He realises that she’s trying to help him, at the same time her words reach through the fog of his distress.

“I was alone!” He cries out. “You were gone! You were gone and there was nothing left.”

He pants for breath, the tracks he’s gouged in his face beginning to throb, and the whole of his body going cold. Suddenly, he needs her to understand.

“The People were still dying, and the mages were still enslaved, and the Blight was still spreading, and Mythal was right that I’d promised her and I had to keep my promise.”

He can’t recognise the expression in Athera’s eyes, her hands still clamped around his wrists while she kneels in front of him. He twines their fingers together, clinging on with all of his strength as though he’s about to fall.

“I’ve fought for so long, vhenan,” he whispers. “And there was always some reason, some cause that propelled me forward. When you left… When you were buried by the Templars, there was nothing. There was only me and the covenants I’d made, and I had to see them through. I just wanted it to be over. I wanted it to end. I wanted…”

He trails off, his chest heaving, while Athera’s expression becomes something strange and horrified.

“You wanted to die,” she murmurs, as though something vital has fallen into place in her mind. “You unlocked your focus because you wanted to die.”

He sags back against the wall, exhausted beyond all sense, while the storm of feeling recedes and leaves him curiously blank. In its absence, he stares at her, and turns her words towards the light. Was that what he’d wanted when he’d longed for oblivion? Had some part of him hoped it would be his end?

His eyes burn when he realises that she’s right. He lowers his chin to his chest, ashamed and wounded, as he finally understands that Mythal had tried to send him to his death – and that he can’t even blame her for it.

“Fen’Harel fights for the People,” he whispers. “That is what Fen’Harel is. Even if they don’t remember him anymore, their freedom is my purpose.”

He draws a shaking breath in and looks back into her face; at her treasured golden eyes and the precious curve of her lips.

“But he is not all of me. You showed me that.”

Athera’s hands are limp in his, and he tightens his grip again and gazes back at her in anguish.

“I am more than that, aren’t I, vhenan?” He pleads softly. “More than the Dread Wolf. More than the monster from the myths. Please, my star. Tell me that he’s not all that’s left of me.”

She closes her eyes, as if in pain, and Solas watches the play of emotion pass over her face.

“You are more than that,” she whispers at last. “But you are also the Dread Wolf.”

Her eyes open and pin him in place, and he sees love and pity and regret in them, and suddenly wants to hide.

“You’ve been pulled in too many directions for too long,” she says softly. “Too much responsibility, too much duty, and too much grief. I love you, Solas. Ar lath ma. But right now, I can’t trust you. And neither can the world.”

She draws in a shaky breath, and Solas’ eyes track desperately over her face, searching for the safety he’s always known is there.

“How can I, when you don’t even know who you are? I don’t see you as the monster from the myths, but that doesn’t change the fact that you have behaved monstrously. Fen’Harel is still a part of you, and that part hasn’t decided yet which promise he’ll keep.”

He wants to argue with her. He wants to tell her that he knows who he is and what he will do, but he realises now that it isn’t the truth. He is fracturing, and he doesn’t know which path to take. He only knows that if she turns and walks away from him now, he won’t want to survive what comes next.

“Please stay,” he whispers suddenly. “Please, don’t leave.”

She looks down, tears shining in her eyes and her hands still loose in his.

“Who are you?” She asks him quietly. “Do you know?”

He shakes his head, shivering in the cold cocoon of his blankets, while a tear falls from her face and sinks into the fabric of her leggings.

“There is so much I don’t know,” he murmurs in a hollow voice. “So many things I thought I could trust that have proven to be false. I have always tried to choose the lesser of all evils, but sometimes terrible choices are all that remain.”

He releases a shuddering breath, and meets the sad expression in her eyes with a blank one of his own.

“I have always trusted in my own judgement, but I no longer know which of the choices I made were truly mine, and which belonged to someone else.” He frowns, his gaze growing distant. “I do not know if Mythal and I are still in accord, and without her… Without her, I don’t trust myself to know what is right.”

In the wake of his confession, Athera finally tightens her fingers on his and sits more comfortably against his legs, her expression pensive.

“You told me Mythal was murdered by the other Evanuris,” she says at last. “Was that a lie?”

He shakes his head.

“No. Mythal was murdered. Until a few centuries ago, I had thought her to be lost. But the first of my People do not die so easily. Despite everything a spark remained, and she found a new host in this world, inside whom she lives a half-life again.”

Athera frowns, troubled, and idly smooths a thumb over his wrist.

“What do you mean, a host?”

He smiles without humour.

“I believe your people call her Asha’bellanar.”

“The witch of the wilds? She’s Mythal?”

“She carries her spark,” he confirms. “So yes, for all intents and purposes, she is now the All Mother incarnate.”

Athera slumps at his side, one arm curled loosely around his bent knee, and he allows himself to fall against her and pushes his nose into her hair.

“And you spoke with her, after the Spire?”

“I went to her to help me to find you,” he murmurs. “She was disappointed I had abandoned my purpose.”

“And so, you carried out her wishes. As her most trusted general always would.”

She sighs, and the sound is so sad that it makes a lump rise in his throat. He manages to extricate a damp arm from his blankets and slip it hesitantly around her waist, keeping her close while he breathes in deeply at her neck.

“Yes.”

They sit in silence for a long time after that. Solas curls until he can tuck his head under her chin, and she drapes an arm around him and holds him gently while the shadows flicker around them. He is exhausted, but for the first time since the Spire, he feels safe enough to let himself drift. The burns on his thigh are pulsing, and the blankets are cold around his neck, and the marks he raked into his face are thrumming in time with his heartbeat.

He doesn’t know what will happen next. He only knows that he can’t go on alone.

Eventually, Athera urges him back onto the bed, the ice now melted and the mattress still damp beneath him. There, she has him strip out of his leggings while she pours healing magic into the blisters, and then runs glowing fingertips over his face to close the wounds his nails left behind.

“Ar lath ma,” she says in a choked voice. “I don’t want to see you suffer.”

He brings their foreheads together and stares pleadingly into her eyes.

“But you have to decide what comes next. I can’t support you if you intend to destroy my world. I will always love you, but that isn’t something you can ask of me.” She draws a shuddering breath in. “I need to know that it’s Solas I’m here with, not Mythal’s general. And you can’t promise me that right now, can you?”

He wraps his arms around her waist and holds her to him, the ache in his throat threatening to choke him when he shakes his head.

“I need you,” he whispers hoarsely. “You were right when you said that I don’t know who I am, but what I do know is that I won’t be able to find out without you by my side.”

He shudders and clings to her even harder.

“Please, my star,” he begs. “Stay with me. I can live without us being lovers. I can even live without this closeness that I sometimes think is the only good thing left in the world. But I cannot bear to live apart from you again.”

He curls his palm around the back of her neck, his expression twisted with longing.

“Please, just let me be by your side. Let me try to heal somewhere I know I can always find you. For now, it will be enough.”

He waits while she gathers herself together, the same painful love in her eyes that he knows must be in his own.

“You’ve been honest with me,” she says at last. “As honest as you’re able to be, and I know how difficult that must have been.”

She draws in a deep breath, something pained and nervous hiding in the lines of her mouth.

“Maybe for the moment, the best chance for peace we can give each other is the truth.”

The words are spoken almost to herself, and he watches resolution settle behind her eyes.

“There’s something I have to tell you, too. Someone here with us that you need to meet.”

She gets to her feet, and Solas feels a wave of frightening premonition wash over him when she slips out of his reach.

“Wait here,” she tells him. “I’ll be back in a moment.”

When the door closes behind her, he gets to his feet, a bundle of nervous energy. All he wants is to lie down at her side and sleep. He wants to go back to the cottage, when everything had been so much simpler and the two of them so much happier. But he also wants to be brave enough to face whatever he must in order to be worthy of her love again.

He meant what he’d said. He would content himself with simply being in her presence, if that was all she could offer. But he knows that it could never be all that he wants from her. He wants everything, and the thought of this stranger she’s bringing to meet him makes him burn with desperate jealousy. Has she taken a lover in his absence? Was there someone else who’d lain in her bed while he grieved?

He smooths his hands over his head in agitation, knowing that if there was, he would have no right to blame her for it.

When the door opens again, Athera slips inside and eyes him warily.

“I want you to remember that I listened to your explanations,” she says softly. “Can you do the same for me?”

He hesitates, and then nods, drawing in a calming breath and turning expectantly towards the door. But when the cloaked figure steps inside and lowers the soft grey fabric of his hood, everything Solas ever thought he knew tilts violently on its axis. The breath rushes out of him and he reaches a hand out to the wall to steady himself.

It makes no sense.

It’s impossible.

And yet-

“Revas?” He whispers. “What are you doing here?”

Chapter Text

“Hey Chuckles, look at this!”

Varric emerges from where he’s been rummaging in a stack of weapons, a subtly-crafted staff held in his hands. Solas blinks himself back to the room, aware that the dwarf has been trying to distract him from his melancholic mood for most of the day, but unable to summon the energy to care.

For the second night in a row, he’s had no sleep, and his conversation with Athera and Revas is still churning like a cauldron through his thoughts.

“This is good workmanship,” Ellana says, stepping past him to see.

“Are you an expert on staffs now, Firefly?”

She rolls her eyes and looks away, and Solas watches the two of them banter as though they’re behind a veil of mist.

“Hardly,” she scoffs. “But Madame de Fer’s impromptu lesson last night was enough to give me a few pointers.”

They bicker back and forth after that. Varric laments over how scary the newest mage to join the Inquisition is, and Ellana tells him that all mages are scary and he should know that by now. Across the room, Cassandra is eyeing a number of shining swords speculatively, and Solas suddenly feels as though he isn’t real. The sensation takes him off guard, and he almost starts shouting right there in the market, simply to prove he can still interact with the world after all.

Revas was the one who kidnapped me in Kirkwall.

The words keep replaying themselves on a bitter loop through his head.

You lied to me.

He’d felt as though the ground had fallen away beneath his feet, leaving him tumbling into space with nothing to grab hold of.

Do not shout at her, Fen’Harel. You are lucky you didn’t find her dead.

And the whole of the sordid story had come out. He’d listened numbly while Revas had recounted how he’d stalked them, pursuing them from city to city before he’d captured Athera for torture and death. He’d sank down onto the bed and stared into the distance, while his old comrade in arms had screamed that Felassan had trusted him.

And while all of the pieces had fallen into place in his mind, he couldn’t help but picture Viera’s face. How she’d looked when they’d lain in bed together. How she’d beamed at him across a crowded court.

How she’d returned to Andruil’s side and laughed while she betrayed him.

You used me.

His voice was a dead thing, and Athera had knelt in front of him and taken his hands in hers.

No, ma lath. The only lie I’ve ever told you is that the Templars were the ones to chain me. Everything else has been true.

But how can he believe her? Everyone in his life has lied to him. There had been no-one he could really trust until Athera, and now the certainty he’d had in her feels broken beyond repair. It is a snarl inside him, twisted and desperate. She’d lied to him. His star. His vhenan. The only person, apart from Mythal, he’d believed he could rely on.

“Hey, Thedas to Chuckles! Anyone home in there?”

He focuses on Varric again, the dwarf now holding out the staff to him and gesturing for him to take it.

“What do you think?”

He clasps his hands around the grip, testing the weight and feeling a comfortable tingle of magic pass through his fingertips. The staff is obsidian, with a carved whorl of blue vitriol at the head that catches the light in fractals. It’s designed for an electric mage, his second most natural class, and he’d be lying if he said it wasn’t a significant upgrade from the one he’d stolen at the Spire.

“It will suffice, if the Inquisition can afford the expense.”

The merchant crosses over to them, eyes sharp behind a gilded mask.

“Ah yes,” he says, in a thick Orlesian accent. “The Fadewalker staff. It is a little indulgent at 24 gold, but I assure you, it will be well worth the price.”

Ordinarily, Solas would take great pleasure in haggling, and using his natural gifts to barter a seller into a better deal. Right now, he can hardly muster the will to care about anything, so he stands back in the shadows while Varric talks the man down to 20, and Cassandra pays from the Inquisition’s purse.

He thinks that he thanks her, although later he can’t be sure. He doesn’t want to be here, shopping in the market while Athera and Revas wait in the elven settlement, and the whole of his world feels as though it’s crumbling around him. The problem, is that he doesn’t want to be anywhere else either – except, of course, to return to yesterday.

Having no better idea about what to do with himself, he spends the day following Ellana and the others through the city. They secure another merchant for Haven, barter for new armour for Cassandra and the Herald, and end up in a frankly bewildering conversation with a man called Deraboam, who sells only one single thing and won’t haggle on the price.

Solas lingers listlessly in the back of their group, only half-listening to their re-telling of how they’d recruited Sera while he was still in the shack, having his heartbroken and not understanding why. If he was more aware of his surroundings, he’d realise that all of his companions had been sneaking concerned glances at him all day. As it is, it’s a surprise when the late afternoon drips its sunlight over the square, and he finds himself sitting alone at a table with Ellana.

“I wanted to say something to you, Solas,” she’s saying. “I know we haven’t always got on, but I do respect you and I hope you have at least a little respect for me.”

He tries to focus on her, even though his thoughts are still with Athera, and the pulsing hurt in his chest that says: I’ve been betrayed again.

“How can I help, Herald?”

“I don’t know what Athera’s told you about me, but you’re a clever man, and you should know there are two sides to every story.”

When her words finally reach him, he almost laughs in her face. In amongst everything they’d had to discuss, Ellana had barely come up.

“What is it that you think she’s told me?”

“I think she’s told you that I was cruel to her,” she says calmly. “I think she’s told you that I was the reason she left clan Lavellan. But you should know that Athera made her own choices, and that the clan was never her priority, even though the Keeper tried to make her care.”

He should want to find out more about this, he thinks distantly. This is the perfect moment for him to draw out the whole story of whatever animosity there is between the two sisters. He is bound to both of them in different ways now, and any information that helps him move forward should be cherished. But with the afternoon sunlight beating hot at his back, and two sleepless nights behind him, he can’t find it in himself to ask.

“Whatever problems there are between you and Athera are your own,” he hears himself say. “They aren’t for me to judge.”

Ellana eyes him for a long moment, and then nods and relaxes back into her chair.

“Thank you, Solas. I appreciate that. It’s obvious you care for my sister, but if you’ll take a little piece of advice, you should be wary of getting too close.”

“Why do you say that?”

She sighs.

“Because everyone I’ve ever known to care for Athera has ended up hurt, whether she means to do it or not.”

She stands up from the table, then, and Solas watches her with dull eyes.

“Just don’t expect miracles, ok? She isn’t the most reliable person to place your trust in.”

When Ellana leaves, Solas stares after her, his sluggish thoughts slipping over themselves inside a formless anxiety. He has trusted Athera with his fragile heart, and now it seems inevitable that she will break it, if it hasn’t been broken already. She had lied so easily about Revas. Even tortured and wounded, he had never once doubted the story she’d told him.

Beneath his hurt, a flare of anger kindles when he thinks of how he’d found her. Hanging from the ceiling, weeping and afraid. Revas had done that to her. Solas’ hands clench into fists on the table, and he burns with the impulse to repay that cruelty in kind.

I will destroy whoever did this.

He’d said those words to Varric when they’d taken her back to The Hanged Man, and he’d meant them. But now it isn’t so simple. He’d pinned Revas against the wall of the shack at first, magic coiling hot and thick around them, and it had been Athera who’d pulled him away. Who’d shouted at him. Who’d told him that without Revas, the new elven settlement probably wouldn’t exist.

Do you think that I learnt nothing from your rebellion, Fen’Harel? His old friend had sneered. I know how to sow revolution in our kin.

If strategy is a chess game, then Solas’ board has been shattered, and the pieces are moving wherever they may. He drops his head into his hands, his body aching and his heart bruised.

He doesn’t know what to do.

He doesn’t know how long he sits there for, alone beneath the heat of the sun. But at some point he hears the scrape of a chair being pulled back, and a small glass of pink wine appears at his arm.

“Chin up, Chuckles. You look like you could do with a friend.”

He lifts his head, bloodshot eyes blinking wearily, to find Varric looking back at him with thinly-disguised concern.

“Are we friends?”

He’s surprised at himself for asking, but Varric just huffs and shakes his head with a smile.

“Only you could ask a question like that after all we’ve been through together. What is it with elves and trust issues?”

The observation is so blasé and so mistakenly accurate, that Solas barks out a strained laugh and then slams his mouth shut when he feels his bottom lip start to tremble. If Varric notices how close to the edge he’s teetering, he doesn’t mention it, and he picks up his wine and takes a long sip to steady himself before he crumbles completely.

“So,” the dwarf says. “Do you want to tell me how you went from deliriously happy, to whatever the hell this is in only one night? Seriously, Chuckles. Only you could have the love of your life come back from the dead and then find a way to be devastated about it.”

He looks down quickly, his throat bobbing when he swallows.

“Things are… Things have changed. We’ve been apart for a long time.”

“Bullshit.”

“I beg your pardon?”

He raises his head again, and the rogue looks back at him with a frown.

“I said, bullshit. I saw the two of you together yesterday. If you’d looked anymore besotted with each other then holy choirs would have started singing. So, try again. What happened between then and now to make you look like you’re grieving again?”

Solas open his mouth and then closes it again, uncertain of how to answer. He can’t tell Varric the truth, because to do so would reveal everything he’s tried so hard to keep hidden. At the same time, he wants to tell him something, if only to ease the terrible weight in his chest.

“It’s complicated,” he says at last, and feels pathetic for offering such a small answer.

Varric is silent for a long moment, and then he sighs and takes a sip from his own wine, before pinning Solas with a searching look.

“Ok, can we get something out in the open?” He asks. “I know you’re keeping some kind of secret, Chuckles. I’ve known it since Athera brought you to The Hanged Man. And do you know what else I know?”

Solas shakes his head, unease beginning to curdle in his stomach.

“I know that Athera has kept whatever secret you gave her. From me, from her friends, and now I guess from her sister. So, I’m going to go out on a limb here, and say that whatever happened between you last night had something to do with that secret. Am I right?”

He clenches his jaw and nods stiffly once, while Varric shakes his head again.

“Ok, so let me propose a scenario to you here. I’m guessing that whatever happened between the two of you before Kirkwall, Athera took care of you. She learnt whatever secret it is that you want so badly to keep hidden, and despite having a number of opportunities to abandon you, or betray you, she’s kept both you and your secret safe.”

Varric pauses to take another sip of wine, and Solas swallows around the lump in his throat.

“Fast forward a few months now. After spending half a year pining because this woman you love is dead, you discover that she’s alive and, miraculously, that she still loves you. But over the course of a night, something about this secret rears its head, and now you’re doing your whole grim fatalism act, and allowing it to ruin the relationship you’ve been desperate to go back to. Am I close?”

“It is not that simple.”

“I’m sure it isn’t,” Varric replies at once. “But it also is. Do you still love her?”

Solas’ stomach swoops and he folds his hands together to stop them from shaking.

“Yes,” he whispers. “More than anything.”

“Good, because I know that she loves you. And you listen here, Chuckles. Athera doesn’t fall in love. She’s a fierce and incredible friend, but she does not fall in love.” Varric sighs and rubs a hand over his forehead before continuing softly. “For better or worse, she loves you, to the point that she’s lied to everyone else in her life, and I’m guessing that she’s done that to keep you safe in some way. So, whatever’s going on between you two, do you really want to throw it all away now that you’ve found her again?”

He feels himself trembling, and he shakes his head, the thought of never seeing her again making his throat tighten painfully.

“Well then, for now, that’s all you need to know. The rest of it can be worked out later, because we’re leaving this city in a couple of days and I bet you don’t even know, do you?”

“What don’t I know?”

“You don’t know whether Athera is going to come with us to Haven.”

At once, he feels as though a chunk of ice has settled in his chest, and he stands suddenly from the table and looks down at Varric with wild eyes.

“I thought as much,” the dwarf sighs heavily. “You really are a special kind of idiot.”

“I…” His voice cracks, and Varric waves him away.

“Go to her, Chuckles. And fix this, before you run out of time.”

Solas doesn’t need telling twice. He turns from the table and strides through the city, a feeling like panic growing in his heart. Aside from the simple truth Varric’s reminded him of – that Athera had always kept his greatest secret, no matter what else has happened – he’s realised something else as well.

Athera is his friend.

Never mind that he loves her, in all of his long years, he’s never met anyone that he likes as much as he likes her. Varric might be a friend of sorts, but the only person he’s ever been able to tell everything to is the woman now waiting for him at the settlement. That was what he’d meant when he’d told her he wanted to stay beside her.

Without her, he can’t keep living inside all of the lies. He needs someone he can be honest with. Someone who knows who he is and doesn’t see him as a leader, or a myth. Someone who sees Solas first, and not the Dread Wolf hiding inside every word he speaks.

By the time he leaves the city gates, he’s running, because the thought of leaving her behind again is too terrible a thing to contemplate. Varric is right. Despite everything, he still believes that she loves him, and he can’t bear to lose that again.

As twilight falls, the settlement gates open at his approach, and he almost runs straight into Taralin when he hurries inside.

“You’d better be here to fix things,” she tells him sharply. “Because-”

“I am,” he cuts her off quickly. “I promise. Where is she?”

The rogue eyes him for a long moment, but whatever she sees in his expression seems to reassure her, and her gaze softens.

“Same place you left her. Don’t fuck it up, ok?”

He has no intention of fucking it up, and he weaves his way between the tents and heads for the unassuming shack. His hand trembles when he knocks against the wood, and when Athera opens the door with red-rimmed eyes, he feels more wretched than he’d ever thought possible.

“Vhenan,” he murmurs. “Sathan.”

She steps aside to let him in without a word, and he waits by the bed while she closes the door behind them, and folds her arms over her chest.

“I assume you’re here for a reason,” she says. “Whatever it is, say it and leave.”

She doesn’t look at him, and Solas curses himself silently for leaving without giving her a proper chance to explain. He hesitates, and then takes an uncertain step towards her. She looks exhausted. More fragile than he’s ever known her. Alongside the bitter hurt that she’d lied to him, surges a nearly painful urge to protect her.

“You hurt me,” he whispers, and Athera flinches as though he’s struck her. “I never thought you would hurt me. I don’t know how to process it. But I will. I promise. I will, because I…”

He trails off, his throat working around the words, and she raises her head and looks him in the eye.

“Because you what?”

“Because I…” He swallows, hard. “Ar lath ma.”

She looks away, tears in her eyes, and he crosses the room and sinks down onto his knees in front of her.

“I am a foolish man,” he says softly. “And you have already done more for me than anyone ever has. But there is one more thing I must ask of you, even though I don’t deserve it.”

His hands are on her waist, and he can feel the tension buzzing through her muscles.

“What else would you have of me?” She asks, every inch of her exhausted. “I don’t know how much more I have left to give.”

“Just one thing,” he pleads. “Just one. Come back to Haven with us, vhenan. Join the Inquisition.”

She looks down at him, a frown pulling between her eyes, and he tightens his grip on her as though he’ll never hold her again.

“Please, my star,” he begs. “Curse me. Scream at me. Punish me however you choose. But don’t make me walk away from this city without you again.”

Chapter Text

They take the week long ride from Jader to Haven quickly, driving the Inquisition’s horses hard over backroads and grasslands. Revas seems to know the less-travelled routes intimately, and Athera allows him to lead them towards the white mountains in the distance while she thinks.

She still isn’t sure that she’s made the right decision. They’ve left Taralin and Nellas in charge of the elven settlement, but the further away from Val Royeaux they travel, the more her anxiety grows. She’s never been very good at letting go, and by leaving the elves now, she feels as though she’s abandoning them.

But when the alternative is abandoning Solas, she can hardly make any other choice. No matter how heartsick she is over what he did at the Conclave, she doesn’t have it in herself to leave him again. The Inquisition party rode out of the city a few days ahead of them, leaving her with just enough time to tie up the loose ends in Val Royeaux, and when she closes her eyes she can still see his face on the day they left.

He’d looked down at her from his horse, a pained, hopeless expression in his eyes, and she’d reached up to take his hand and promised him one thing.

I’ll see you at Haven soon.

When he’d ridden away, back straight and face hidden beneath a dark green hood, she’d known that he hadn’t believed her. The problem is that she doesn’t know how to fix it. Trust is a fragile rope to walk upon, and it will take a long time for the two of them to weave it into something strong again. She hopes that they can start to rebuild it with her arrival at the Inquisition’s base, but she doesn’t know what will happen after that.

“You know,” Revas says beside her while they make camp for the night. “I think I do understand why Fen’Harel is so taken with you.”

She looks up from where she’s been tying a canvas sheet to a tree.

“Oh? And why’s that?”

“You both have the uncanny ability to turn brooding into an artform.”

Despite herself, she laughs, and Revas quirks an eyebrow at her while he stacks the wood for a fire.

“I’m not brooding,” she argues mildly. “I’m thinking.”

“Yes, but you’re thinking brooding thoughts.”

“Are you trying to get inside my head now, lethallin?”

He grins.

“Always.”

She shakes her head and ties off the rope, and he turns his back to her and rummages through a pack, pulling out a skillet and their meagre rations for the last of the journey. Athera watches him for a moment, noting the elegance of his movements, so like Solas’, but somehow less assured.

Since the Spire, they’ve come a long way together. She’d been broken when she’d first arrived at the alienage. The fever had left her weak, and the burns that covered most of her body were still healing painfully. She’d never considered herself to be a vain person before, but the scars on her face had made her feel nauseous every time she’d caught sight of them in the mirror. When she’d discovered that Solas had already left, part of her was glad that she wouldn’t have to see the revulsion in his eyes when he looked at them.

Then, of course, the chevaliers had attacked, and she’d knelt in the smouldering remains of one of the tenements, and wept bitterly over the pointless cruelty in the world and her own bruised heart. That’s where Revas had found her, and in the hours that followed he’d cradled her on his knee, and told her that hopelessness was an insult to the people who still fought for better.

After that, he’d stood by her side while they defended the alienage. The knowledge of a thousand lifetimes had helped her to gather the frightened elves together, and it was Revas who’d first taken their wounded beyond the city walls, and protected them while she sent more people to join him.

“You’re doing it again.”

She blinks herself back to the present, where the Dread Wolf’s fallen ally is already frying leftover nug over the fire.

“Ir abelas.”

“Tel’abelas.”

He lowers the heat of the rune and sits back in the gathering dusk to look at her.

“Tell me what you’re thinking.”

She sighs quietly and sits opposite him, her gaze moving to the snow-capped peaks, now only a day’s ride away.

“I was thinking about trust, and how easy it is to break.”

“You still worry about Fen’Harel’s reception, then.”

“I worry about his reception of you,” she corrects him with a smile. “But mostly I worry about how to rebuild what we’ve broken.”

Revas sighs and frowns at their dinner, his green eyes sparkling like emeralds in the light of the flames.

“The Dread Wolf has few reasons to trust anyone,” he says softly. “But he forgets that there are plenty of reasons for people to distrust him as well.”

“He hasn’t forgotten,” she argues. “No-one is more critical of Solas than Solas is of himself.”

Revas’ mouth pulls up into a grim half-smile.

“You say that to the wrong person, da’len.”

Her face softens, and she nods to concede his point. The man sitting opposite her is still grieving just as much as Solas is. For his world, for his leader, and for his heart that the Dread Wolf destroyed.

“I cannot forgive him, you know,” he tells her quietly. “I know you will try to forgive him for the Conclave and everything that came after, but you cannot ask it of me.”

“I know, lethallin,” she says sadly. “I doubt that he’ll forgive you for what you did to me, either.”

“And yet you have, haven’t you?”

He stares back at her from across the fire, and she meets his gaze openly. They’ve never directly addressed what happened between them in Kirkwall, but over the last few months, she’s spent too long fighting by his side to truly see him as a threat. Before, he’d been a terrifying shadow in her life. His appearance had brought with it too many duties and questions she’d rather not have faced.

But since then she’s started to see something different in him. She sees a lonely man, adrift in the world and still trying his best to help. She sees someone grief-stricken, yet still strong enough to stand and fight. In the end, she sees the man Solas had trusted to protect him while he’d raised the Veil, and the truth is, that she likes him.

“I have,” she agrees. “I’ve forgiven Solas for so many choices that grief and duty forced him to make. It would be hypocritical of me not to offer you the same.”

“And yet, the Dread Wolf will likely never forgive me for my kidnap of you. Despite what he did to Felassan.”

The bitterness in his voice is caustic, and Athera looks down at her hands and lets out a long breath.

“Ir abelas, falon.”

“Tel’abelas,” he says sharply. “You are not to blame for Fen’Harel’s actions.”

“I know, but that wasn’t what I was apologising for.” She sighs and raises her gaze to his. “I still want to save him,” she confesses softly. “I still want to show him that there’s good in this world too.”

A muscle tics in Revas’ jaw, and he stares into the flames in silence.

“It would be easier to kill him, you know,” he says at last. “Safer for the world if he were dead.”

“I’d sooner die.”

Her voice is like a blade, and Revas’ mouth twitches when he looks up and meets the fire in her eyes.

“I know, lethallan,” he says sadly. “But that doesn’t mean that I’m not right.”

***

Haven is cold when they arrive. Athera had known the town was in the mountains, but she’s still completely unprepared for the soft crush of white that blankets every surface. She’d told Solas long ago that she’d only seen the snow once before, and even then, it had looked nothing like this.

Despite her anxiety, and the tense atmosphere between her and Revas, she can’t stop a giddy smile from spreading across her face. The air is sharp in her lungs, her cheeks ice-bitten and red, and the entire world looks like something soft and beautiful while it reflects the light from the sun.

If it wasn’t for the Breach, she could almost forget why they were there.

Almost.

“Do you see, da’len?” Revas says softly from the horse at her side. “Do you understand now what your love is capable of?”

Haven’s gates are still a little way ahead of them, and Athera draws her mount to a stop and tilts her head back to stare at the sky. Above them, the clouds are a bleak whirlpool of roiling green. Arcs of lightning cut across the heavens, and beneath the storm-tossed light, the blackened remains of the Tempe of Sacred Ashes are just visible in the clear afternoon sun.

The longer she stares at it, the smaller she feels. It is a gaping mouth above them, poised to swallow the world, and she is nothing more than a speck of dust beneath the weight of its terrible glory.

Solas did this.

She thinks the words to herself, because somehow, she’s still struggling to believe them. How can the gentle man who’d once curled up beside her every night, have been the same man who tore this hole in the sky? How can she love someone who wields such a power, and uses it so badly?

She is heartbroken. And she is ashamed.

“He didn’t mean for this to happen.”

The words sound weak to her own ears, and she can feel Revas’ disapproval without having to look at him.

“No. What he intended was much worse.”

Her shame curdles, hot in her stomach, and she nods and draws a steadying breath in. What Solas had intended was the end of her world. By comparison, the Breach is barely a scratch on the landscape of reality, but that doesn’t make her feel any better.

“I will find a way to change his mind,” she vows softly. “I swear it to you, Revas. We will find another way.”

“And if you can’t?” He asks, as they urge their horses into a walk. “What happens if the Dread Wolf won’t be swayed?”

She doesn’t answer, because the truth is, she doesn’t know. How could she ever bring herself to kill him? She’d have to rip her own heart out to do it.

Ahead of them, Haven’s gates draw open, and they guide the horses towards the nearby stables and dismount onto the snow. It crunches strangely beneath her feet, and Athera shuffles her heels over the unfamiliar feeling of packed ice, while a frowning bald man steps past the fence to meet them.

“So,” he says gruffly. “I take it you’re the Herald’s sister we’ve been expectin’?”

She nods, and Revas gathers their reigns into his hand and passes them over.

“S’pose I can see the similarity. You’re the elder one, right?”

“By five years,” she agrees.

“And you are?”

Revas has stepped closer to her, his sharp eyes narrowed, and Athera nudges him with her elbow in warning and rolls her eyes. Once upon a time, he was the person who haunted her nightmares, but over the last few months he’s become more like her bodyguard. In all of her years, she’s only ever known one person to be more over-protective of her, and that person is Solas.

Must be an ancient elf thing, she thinks.

“Now, where are my manners?” The stranger asks himself. “The name’s horsemaster Dennet. I owed the Inquisition for making our farm safe in the Hinterlands, so when I sent the mounts on over here I figured I’d join them too.”

“That was brave of you,” Revas replies. “Not many would willingly travel to this place if they had another choice.”

His eyes flick to the Breach still swirling above them, and Dennet follows his gaze and nods grimly.

“Aye, it’s an impressive nightmare,” he agrees. “But someone’s got to try and fix it.”

He pins Athera with a long stare, and she meets his gaze without flinching.

“So far, the person that’s been tryin’ to help has been your sister,” he tells her. “And it seems as though you’ve got a similar kind of metal in you, too.” He grins. “Haven’ll be pleased to have you. Now, go on up to the Chantry and I’ll take care of these horses. The Nightingale’s been expectin’ you.”

That name stirs an old memory that nudges at her thoughts, but she quickly forgets about it in favour of taking in their new home. Haven is bigger than she’d expected it to be. The wooden walls are higher, the paths wider, and the cold much colder than she’d anticipated. A large crowd of tents tumbles down a sloping incline outside of the gates, and she sees a tall man dressed in Templar armour directing soldiers through a number of exercises.

A ripple of unease slips down her spine, and she moves closer to Revas when they enter the town proper, and the sheer number of people begins to overwhelm her. After months of living amongst elves, the amount of shemlen here makes her uneasy, and although she can pick out a handful of dwarves and elves hurrying to and fro, it’s clear that the humans are the ones in charge.

“Starfire!”

The familiar voice makes her smile and urges her shoulders to relax, and she grins widely when they find Varric sitting by a fire in the shadow of the Chantry.

“You’re sleeping in a tent?” She greets him. “Varric Tethras, in a tent?”

The dwarf laughs and gestures around them.

“I know, I know. Nugs might fly. But this location has other benefits that make it worth the hardship.”

“You have quite the view here,” Revas agrees. “I imagine that little goes on without your knowledge.”

Varric eyes her companion with interest, his gaze flicking between them consideringly.

“You’d be right,” he says. “And your name is?”

“This is Revas,” Athera replies. “And if you could hold off on the interrogation until after we’ve settled in, that’d be great.”

He chuckles and inclines his head.

“Sure thing, Starfire. Besides, there’s someone here whose been anxious to see you again.”

She follows his gaze further along the track towards the tavern, and a sharp spike of anticipation and adrenaline tingles to the tips of her fingers when she spots him. Solas is standing, as still as a statue, in the middle of the path. His gaze is fixed upon her and his mouth parted slightly, seemingly oblivious to the crowds of people being forced to step around him while he blocks the way.

In all of the time she’s known him, she’s never seen him look so completely surprised.

She hears Revas sigh unhappily behind her, but she pays him no mind. Her feet carry her across the distance between them without conscious thought, her heart pounding loud in her ears. Solas doesn’t move, but when she comes to a stop in front of him, there is such naked relief in his eyes that it makes her throat feel tight.

“You came,” he whispers disbelievingly, his voice almost lost to the wind.

“Of course I did,” she says softly. “I promised, didn’t I?”

A storm of emotion flashes through his eyes, and in the end she isn’t sure who moves first. All she knows is that in the next moment they’re clinging to each other, and it’s a struggle not to cry. Solas’ hands make fists at her back, and he pulls her so tightly against him that her feet leave the ground. She hugs him back, hard, breathing in the scent of snow and herbs that clings to him, while he buries his face against her neck and sucks in a laboured breath.

Her heart skips a beat when the tension in his muscles suddenly bleeds away, like water slipping down a drain. Whatever it is that his nose tells him, it alone has the power to calm him like nothing else in the world. He lets out a soft sigh and melts against her, and when her feet touch the floor again she nuzzles at the space behind his ear.

“I’ve missed you, vhenan,” he murmurs eventually. “I thought…”

“I know what you thought,” she says gently, her fingertips light on the back of his neck. “It will take time for both of us to trust each other again, but I’m willing to try. If you are.”

Solas draws back to look into her face, his expression soft and yearning.

“I am,” he says firmly. “How could I not be? My heart.”

She goes up onto her tip-toes and kisses the corner of his mouth, soft as a breath of air, and he mewls and runs his nose against her cheek, his eyes flickering closed. He looks tired, she thinks to herself sadly. As though he’s hardly slept since the last time they saw each other. She doesn’t want him to suffer.

When they finally pull back from each other, they’re both smiling softly, and only the crunch of a purposeful footstep against the snow makes them turn away. Athera’s eyes widen when she recognises the woman standing in front of her, and the sharp eyes of the Nightingale rove up and down her searchingly.

“Athera Lavellan, I presume. Or should that be, Athera Arlanan? A new name for a new life.”

“Lavellan is fine.”

The woman hums thoughtfully, and Athera keeps her expression mild even as Solas’ grip on her hand becomes bruising.

“I’m pleased to see that you survived the trouble at the Spire,” Leliana says at last. “The Herald has told me much about you. Perhaps it might be best for us to speak in private before you settle in?”

Athera squares her shoulders and squeezes Solas’ hand.

“Of course, Sister Nightingale," she says calmly. "Lead the way.”

Chapter Text

Leliana takes her to the tent on the level above Varric’s viewing point, and Athera waits while the woman who rescued her from the Spire draws the canvas shut behind them. The sound of Haven’s bustling streets is muffled, and the small space is illuminated only by the dim glow of a paraffin lantern hanging from a pole in the ceiling.

“It feels strange to have you standing here in front of me,” the spymaster begins. “You’ve been a presence in the Inquisition since the very beginning, yet only as a ghost. You do not look like a ghost now.”

“Reports of my death were slightly overexaggerated.”

Leliana smirks, and Athera assesses her with a cell leader’s eyes. The woman who met them at the Spire was fierce, and this one is no different, although she carries no visible weapon. She would make a powerful ally, and an equally powerful enemy.

“So it would seem. Have you contacted your organisation since leaving Val Royeaux?”

Athera manages to suppress a flinch, but she sees in the sharpening of the Nightingale’s eyes that her discomfort has been noticed anyway.

“You know about the revas’shiral.”

“I do.”

They face each other in silence for a long moment. The shadows collect around them, and Athera weighs her options.

“You haven’t informed the clerics,” she decides at last. “Or our cells would already be compromised.”

“You have contacted them, then?”

“No.”

“Then how do you know they haven’t been compromised?”

Athera’s lips twitch into a small smile, and she inclines her head to acknowledge the point scored.

“It would have been the first thing Varric told me. And since he’s made no mention of them, then I can reasonably conclude that nothing devastating has happened since I’ve been away.”

“I see. So Master Tethras is in contact with your operatives, then.”

“No, but he keeps an ear to the ground. I’m sure you know that little goes on in the Free Marches that Varric doesn’t know about.”

It’s Leliana’s turn to smile.

“True enough.”

She sweeps past her and takes a seat by the long table at the back of the room, motioning for Athera to do the same. When they’re comfortably settled opposite each other, the Nightingale lowers her hood and looks her in the eye.

“I won’t insult your intelligence by playing games. Clearly, you’re no stranger to subterfuge, nor to working against the powers that be. You have friends already in the Inquisition, and indeed, some who are more than friends.”

Athera nods, forcing herself to stillness when her hands want to clench in her lap.

“Your sister has been a valuable asset, but she holds certain prejudices that make her unpredictable. I do not always agree with her, but that does not mean that I don’t support the role she has to play here.”

“Which is?”

“She is the Herald. Andraste’s Chosen, sent to save us from the terror in the sky.”

Athera tilts her head, a frown between her eyes.

“Do you really believe that?”

“I believe that Ellana is who we needed at exactly the moment we needed her,” Leliana replies. “And I believe that she wields a power no-one else in this world, save for your lover, seems to understand.”

“Solas’ journeys in the Fade have made him… Esoteric.” Athera chooses her words carefully. “It’s less that he understands the mark in her hand, and more that he can extrapolate enough knowledge from his studies to stabilise it.”

“Is that so?”

“Yes.”

Leliana’s lips quirk, and Athera keeps her face carefully blank.

“I wonder, if it came down to a choice between Solas and your sister, who you would find yourself defending.”

“I wonder that as well.”

The question has occurred to her more than once since Val Royeaux, and the thought of having to make such a decision makes her feel cold. It seems that her honesty has ingratiated her with the spymaster, though, because Leliana’s expression softens almost imperceptibly.

“You are a woman who inspires strong feelings,” she says at last. “Solas has grieved for you, Varric has defended you, and Ellana does not seem to know whether to love you or hate you. I will be honest with you, Athera Lavellan. I do not know whether to be grateful to have your aid, or wary that you are here at all.”

“I understand that. To be perfectly honest with you, I’m uncomfortable joining an organisation that’s so obviously run by humans. In my experience, any elf who gets too close to shemlen power gets burned, one way or another.”

“Indeed,” Leliana agrees. “And I can’t blame you for having such an opinion, after the time you spent in Tevinter.”

The barb lands, and Athera can’t quite suppress her reaction.

“You’ve been investigating me.”

“I have. I know that you were your clan’s First, until you were captured by slavers at the age of fifteen. I know that you spent three years as a slave in Tevinter, first as a house slave in the home of Magister Dulcia, and then in the lyrium mines on the Nevarran border. I know that you returned to clan Lavellan for less than a year after your escape, and that you spent a number of years building the revas’shiral in the Free Marches, where you were also a known associate of Marian Hawke and her company.”

Leliana steeples her fingers together beneath her chin, and Athera holds her gaze.

“I know that there’s animosity between you and your sister, at least in part because you’re a mage. I know that you claim to be merely the leader of the Free Marches’ division of the revas’shiral, but that as its largest cell, this makes you the primary decision maker in the organisation as a whole.”

Athera swallows, but doesn’t interrupt.

“I know that you are clever, subversive, and strong enough to have made an elven stronghold out of a Val Royeaux slum. I know that our Fade expert loves you, the Champion of Kirkwall values you, and Ellana is distracted by you. What I don’t know, is why you are here.”

“And you’re wondering whether I’ll turn out to be an asset or an enemy.”

“I see both of those possibilities as equally likely at this stage,” Leliana says calmly. “Whatever you become here, it will certainly not be neutral. Your position as Ellana’s sister has already ensured that much.”

Athera allows her gaze to drift to the ceiling, and watches the shadows flicker against the canvas while she thinks.

“What if we could broker an alliance?” She asks at last. “Is there a way for us to co-operate from the very first, and avoid unnecessary conflict?”

“What do you propose?”

She folds her hands in her lap, her expression assessing.

“Neither of us wants to see the Breach swallow the world,” she says firmly. “For now, we are each in accord with the Inquisition’s aims. You have a wide network of spies already, I’m sure, but I would imagine you can always use more.”

“And you would offer the revas’shiral into my keeping?”

“No. The revas’shiral would remain in my keeping, but our information would be shared, and our people would work together for as long as our aims align.”

Leliana sits back in her chair, her eyes shadowed in the dim light.

“And what would the revas’shiral want in return for its co-operation?”

“The Inquisition’s neutrality,” Athera replies at once. “I’m not naïve enough to believe that the Chantry will ignore the elves in Val Royeaux forever, or that my organisation won’t be noticed if we ally with you. I also know that it would be political suicide for the Inquisition to support us visibly.”

“But you’d like to ensure that we won’t turn against you, should Orlais turns its attention to the elves.”

“The revas’shiral will work with you, on the condition that if we are threatened by the Inquisition’s enemies, the Inquisition will send aid. And, if we’re threatened by the shemlen powers outside of this conflict, then the Inquisition will not take up arms against us.”

Leliana nods slowly, her lips pursed in thought.

“These are reasonable requests. Is there anything else?”

“Yes,” she says at once. “You have two people I love working here, but the world isn’t kind to elven apostates. I want a vow from you personally, that no matter what happens in the future, you will see to it that they’re safe.”

“The Inquisition cannot make such promises.”

“I’m not asking the Inquisition. I’m asking you. If the tide should turn against the elves, if the hero worship turns to fear, then I want your word, Leliana, that you will save them. If the worst should happen, you will protect Solas, and you will protect my sister. No matter what, you will hold yourself accountable for this, or the revas’shiral will disappear back into the forests and you’ll never hear from us again.”

Leliana sighs, a grudging smile pulling at her lips.

“You drive a hard bargain, Athera Lavellan,” she says. “But you have my word. The Inquisition will remain neutral in matters of elven resistance, and should the worst happen, my network will aid both Solas and your sister in finding safety.”

She stands and holds out her hand.

“I do believe this could be the start of a beautiful relationship, don’t you?”

***

A few hours later, Athera leaves the spymaster’s tent with her hand aching and a number of letters given over to the ravens for delivery. For the first time since the Spire, she’s been able to contact Lori, Fenris, and the other cell leaders, and she and the spymaster have signed a tentative agreement to pool their resources for the time being.

It’s a dangerous decision to have made. The elven resistance operates best in secrecy, but when the choice is between co-operating with a powerful new organisation, or antagonising it, she can hardly have chosen differently. Tired and aching, she blinks in the late afternoon sun and wanders down to see Varric. She’s just started to wonder idly where Revas and Solas have got to, when she hears the unmistakeable sound of raised voices drifting from a cabin just beyond the tavern.

“I was hoping we’d get a chance to talk, Starfire,” the dwarf drawls when she approaches. “But I think you’re probably needed for some inter-elven peacekeeping.”

“For Blight’s sake. How long has that been going on for?”

“Pretty much since we lost you to the Nightingale’s clutches. I take it that your two weird apostates don’t get on?”

“You have no idea.”

She changes direction and makes her way up the ice-slick steps, listening uneasily as a muffled crash rings out from inside.

“Gods save me from stubborn ancient elves,” she mutters to herself, and then she opens the door.

At once, she has to duck when a book comes sailing through the air and hits the wood behind her, and she steps inside and shuts the door before placing her hands on her hips.

“Right, that is enough!” She shouts. “The two of you are far too old to be behaving like naughty da’lens! Who threw that book?”

Solas and Revas turn to face her, both wearing matching expressions of guilt, and both breathing heavily.

“Well? Which of you was it?”

A sly smile spreads across Revas’ face, and he points at Solas and takes an exaggerated step out of the way.

“Really, ma fen?” She says exasperatedly. “Should I assume that every time I leave the two of you alone for an afternoon, the Inquisition’s literature will start flying?”

“Vhenan-”

“Oh, you’re in trouble now Fen’Harel!” Revas sing-songs, and she shoots him a glare that makes him wilt.

“Don’t think that you’re getting away with this either. I’m pretty sure this mess isn’t all from Solas, is it?”

She looks pointedly around the room, where the floor is littered with fallen books, upturned shoes, and what looks suspiciously like Revas’ skillet sticking out from under a pile of cushions.

“Now, Athera, just remember-”

She holds up her hand for silence, and they both fall quiet obediently. After taking a few steadying breaths, she turns back to face them and folds her arms over her chest.

“I’m well aware the two of you have no reason to trust each other,” she begins. “Solas, whether you want to acknowledge it or not, Revas has more reasons than most to hate you.”

Shame falls over the Dread Wolf’s face, and he seems to shrink beneath the weight of her disapproval.

“And Revas? I know it’s too much to expect you to get along, but you agreed to come with me to Haven to try and stop the end of the world, and throwing cast-iron pans at the Dread Wolf isn’t going to help make that happen, is it?”

“It might if it hits him in the head.”

She doesn’t dignify that with a response, and after a tense few seconds Revas drops his eyes from hers and huffs.

“Fine. In future, I won’t throw things at the Dread Wolf.”

“Good,” she says. “Dread Wolf?”

Solas blinks at her, and she has to fight not to smile at the completely bewildered expression on his face.

“Yes?”

“Do you have something you want to promise as well?”

He hesitates while Revas watches him, and then nods meekly.

“I will not throw things at Revas either,” he mutters.

“Good. And?”

They both look blankly at each other, and then back to her for an answer.

“And, neither of you will spend your time sniping at each other,” she tells them firmly. “You don’t have to get along, but you do have to work together, and if you can’t be civil then you can at least make an effort to stay out of each other’s way. We’re in the middle of a shemlen organisation here, and I don’t care how many ancient Elvhen rebellions the two of you have under your belts, you can still be arrested by the Chantry if you draw too much attention to yourselves.”

She runs a hand over her forehead and shakes her head at them.

“Honestly, you’d think the trickster god and his former general might be able to summon up a little bit of caution right now, wouldn’t you? But no. While I’m busy dealing with the Inquisition’s spymaster, you two are in here yelling out your secrets for anyone to overhear, and flinging inanimate objects at each other!”

“Vhenan-”

“No! I don’t want to hear it, from either of you.”

Revas is smirking, and she shoots him another glare until he starts to look uncomfortable.

“Right, you. Pick up your stuff, and then get out of here and talk to whoever’s responsible for finding you a place to sleep. And if I hear that you’ve been drawing attention to yourself, I swear by whatever is holy that I’ll make you regret it. Understand?”

The ancient elf sighs and offers her a contrite nod before starting to gather his things. Solas watches him with a similar smirk on his lips, until he catches sight of Athera’s scowl and ducks his head remorsefully.

“Don’t think I’ve forgotten about you, oh great and mighty Dread Wolf,” she warns him. “Just you wait until he leaves.”

Solas has the good grace to look chastised, and he sinks down onto a chair while Revas packs the last of his misplaced belongings away, and joins her at the doorway.

“Ir abelas, lethallan,” he says gently. “I will behave myself in future.”

“You’d better. I didn’t sign up to be your Keeper.”

“You’re a little young to be my Keeper,” he says with a smile.

“And you’re much too old to be behaving like such a felasil.”

He huffs at her good-naturedly and swings his pack onto his shoulder.

“Perhaps. Did the meeting with the spymaster go well, at least?”

Athera thins her lips, aware that he’s trying to get into her good graces again.

“We’ve reached a tentative agreement for now. Now, get out of here before I throw you out myself.”

He hesitates at the open door, concern darkening his eyes while he looks between her and Solas. Athera follows his gaze with interest, and then softens when she realises the problem.

“Revas, he isn’t going to hurt me,” she says gently. “No matter what you think of him, I know he’d never hurt me.”

At this, Solas springs suddenly to his feet, outrage in every line of his face, and she holds up her hand to way-lay him and pushes Revas out of the door.

“Go on,” she tells him. “Before you start another Elvhen skirmish in the centre of the shem’s religious site.”

She can still hear him laughing when she closes the door behind him, and turns back round to face Solas.

“Well then,” she says long-sufferingly. “What am I going to do with you?”

Chapter Text

In the end, there isn’t enough time for the atmosphere between them to become uncomfortable. No sooner has Revas left the room, than another knock sounds against the wood, and Athera opens the door to find a stony-faced Ellana waiting for her on the other side.

“I heard that you’d arrived,” her sister says stiffly. “Can we talk?”

A sickly anxiety settles in the marrow of Athera’s bones, and her heartbeat picks up when she nods her reply.

“Of course. Can you give me a few minutes? I’ve only just got out of a meeting with Leliana.”

Ellana inclines her head, her gaze drifting over Athera’s shoulder to where Solas is still standing by the bed.

“I’ll be down by the lake when you’re ready. Try not to be too long, won’t you?”

With that said, she turns on her heel, and Athera closes the door behind her. In the quiet, she rests her forehead against the wood, and wonders how it is that she can hold her own against the Left Hand of the Divine, while the thought of speaking to her sister makes her want to crawl into bed and hide.

“Vhenan?”

Solas’ voice is soft and tentative, and she scrubs irritably at her scalp and turns to face him.

“Not right now Solas, please. Do you know where my pack is?”

She looks helplessly around at the mess in the room, her stomach rolling with nerves and her expression pained.

“Not… Exactly,” he confesses, and she makes a frustrated sound and begins to dig through the chaos.

“Great,” she mutters. “Just great. We’ve been travelling for weeks and I’ve followed you into probably the most dangerous place in Thedas right now, but do I get a chance to rest? Of course not.”

She tosses a pile of books to the side when she sees her pack sticking out from beneath his bed.

“Instead, I have to deal with the scariest woman in Ferelden, and then come back to referee an argument between two ancient idiots who should know better.”

She finally succeeds in freeing her pack from where it’s been jammed against the floor, and drops it onto the mattress to find her comb.

“Do you know what I want, Solas?” She continues, her tone biting. “I want a meal that isn’t field rations, and a sleep in a proper bed, and a chance to wash off two-weeks of travelling grime before I get interrogated by my sister. But no, instead I have to, I have to-”

She lets out a cry of frustration when she can’t untangle the leather tie at the end of her braid, and in the next moment Solas’ hands are around her own, and he draws her smoothly into his chest. She struggles half-heartedly while panic claws up her throat, but eventually he succeeds in taking the comb from her and holding her tightly against him.

“Ir abelas, my star. You have every right to be upset.”

“I’m not upset,” she argues, but her voice comes out muffled and strained, and she feels his lips curl into a smile against her hair.

“Of course not,” he agrees. “But if you were, then no-one could blame you for it. Least of all me.”

She makes a sound like hmmph against his tunic, but the warmth of his palm rubbing gentle circles over her back is infuriatingly soothing, and she draws in a shaky breath and pushes her face into his neck.

“I don’t want to talk to her,” she admits quietly, after long minutes have passed in silence.

“I know.”

“I don’t know what to say.”

Solas sighs and draws her back from him, his hands finding their way into her braid and untying it for her while she stares into his face.

“I am not well-practiced in family matters,” he admits. “But no matter what tension there is between you and the Herald, I’m sure it will be easier to get the conversation out of the way now, rather than to leave it hanging over your head for the rest of the evening.”

Athera closes her eyes and lets him re-braid her hair, his fingers untangling the knots gently and smoothing it down her back. When it’s done, he tilts her chin up and smiles down at her, and she fights the urge to squirm beneath the tenderness in his eyes.

“I’m still mad at you,” she tells him instead.

“I know, my star. Is there anything I can do to make today a little more bearable for you?”

She huffs and looks around at the room, ignoring the twinge of anxiety when she realises that everyone will be expecting the two of them to share it, even though things between them are still so unsettled.

“I suppose a bath’s out of the question?”

Solas’ lips twitch into a wry half-smile that she refuses to find endearing.

“I think a bath is a little beyond the Inquisition’s remit at the present time.”

“Figures.”

She sighs and rubs her hands over her face, already steeling herself for what’s to come.

“Then can you at least clear this mess up before I get back?”

His expression softens, and he steps back up to her and presses a chaste kiss to her temple.

“Of course I will,” he murmurs. “And I’ll have dinner waiting for you when you return.”

“No nug?” She asks hopefully, and he chuckles against her hair.

“No nug,” he confirms with a smile. “You have my word.”

***

The wind is biting when Athera finally makes her way down the icy slope and towards the glittering mass of the frozen lake. Ellana is standing on the jetty, silhouetted against an early sunset while she stares out at the landscape, seemingly lost in thought.

“You took your time.”

She doesn’t turn at her approach, and Athera aches with sadness at the distance that’s still between them.

“Ir abelas. It’s been a long day.”

She comes to a stop a few metres away, and Ellana finally moves to face her, her expression unreadable. They stare at each other for a long moment, each picking out the subtle changes time has made in them. The last time Athera truly knew her sister, they were both teenagers.

Then, Ellana was only fourteen, bitter and angry, but still so innocent to her older sister’s eyes. The person in front of her now is every inch an adult woman. In the intervening years, her younger sibling has grown taller and broader than her. Her face has lost the soft sweetness of childhood, and hardened into the smooth lines of a Dalish warrior. More striking still, is that she now bears the pale green lines of vallaslin that Athera hasn’t seen on her before.

“You chose to honour June,” she says softly. “I always thought you’d pick Andruil.”

“I was never as good a hunter as you. My talents were always more creative than solitary.”

She nods, remembering the days when they’d weave blankets together inside the aravel, while the wind howled endlessly outside.

“Do you still craft, then?”

“Master Anise took me on as an apprentice when I came of age. Before the Conclave I was to become the clan’s master crafter.”

Athera smiles, small and wistful.

“It suits you,” she says honestly. “Perhaps when this is over you’ll be able to pick up where you left off.”

Ellana folds her arms in front of herself, a nervous habit leftover from childhood.

“And you?” She asks. “It’s been nearly eight years, Athera. Did you never once think to get in touch? Did you even think of us at all?”

The words strike heavy blows against her heart, and she folds her own arms and looks away.

“I thought of you often.”

“But?”

“I wasn’t sure that I’d be welcome.”

Ellana scoffs, her green eyes sparking.

“Well, that’s convenient, isn’t it?”

Athera closes her eyes and braces herself.

“Of course, this would have to be about your feelings, wouldn’t it?” Her sister continues, frustration fizzing through her words. “No thought for anyone else. No consideration that your family might be worried about you.”

“That’s not fair.”

She opens her eyes again, hurt flying sharp from her lips.

“I came back after Tevinter so that you’d know I was ok. So that Papae would-”

“Don’t you dare talk to me about Papae,” Ellana spits back. “Don’t you dare. I was the one left behind when you disappeared. I was the one who had to make sure he slept, and ate, and didn’t simply fade away into his grief.”

Athera draws a steadying breath in and gentles the tone of her voice.

“I couldn’t help being captured, Ellana,” she says quietly. “If I’d had a choice-”

“You did have a choice!” She yells back. “You chose to leave us for the revas’shiral after Mamae died. You chose to break Papae’s heart.”

Something splinters in Athera’s chest, and she looks away quickly before Ellana can see the tears in her eyes. It was never such a simple thing, but of course her little sister couldn’t know that.

“Papae understood why I had to leave.”

“Did he? Or did you just tell yourself that to make it easier for you to bear? You left us, Athera. No matter what else you might have done since, you still left us to do it.”

“I’m here now, aren’t I?” She asks pleadingly. “Doesn’t that count for something?”

Ellana lets out a bark of humourless laughter, and Athera winces at the sound.

“You aren’t here for me though, are you? You’re here for him.”

She can’t deny it, so instead she says nothing, and watches while Ellana tries to control her anger.

“I don’t know why I’m surprised,” she says, as if to herself. “You would somehow manage to find the weirdest apostate in Thedas to get involved with.”

“Solas is a good man.”

Ellana huffs and then fixes her with a long stare.

“He certainly loves you,” she admits grudgingly. “Are you going to run away and break his heart as well?”

“For Blight’s sake, Ellana!” Athera snaps. “What do you want from me? I left, ok? I left the clan because there was a chance for me to do some good, and I did do some good. You act as though I abandoned everyone without a word.”

“You did-”

“I did not.” She cuts her off firmly. “Papae knew where I was right up until the moment I was captured.”

When Ellana opens her mouth to argue, Athera raises herself to her full height and stares her down.

“You were a child, Lana. You were only nine when I first visited the revas’shiral. Do you really think Papae told you everything that was going on back then?”

An uncertain frown darkens her face, and she shifts uncomfortably beneath Athera’s gaze.

“Papae wouldn’t lie to me.”

“No, but he might not have told you everything at that age either.”

She lets out a long breath and links her hands together to stop them from shaking.

“I’m sorry you felt abandoned. And I’m sorry that Papae missed me while I was gone. But I won’t apologise for being here now, and I won’t pretend that you’re still a child.”

“What’s that supposed to mean?”

“It means that what’s happening here is bigger than either of us,” Athera says, as gently as she can. “You were never stupid, and I know you must understand how precarious your situation is.”

Ellana’s mouth curls into a sneer.

“Ah, so that’s it, is it? You want to play the big sister now and swoop in to protect me from all of the evil shemlen?”

“I want to make sure that you’re safe.”

Athera takes a tentative step towards her, her churning nerves making her nauseous.

“Please,” she begs softly. “Can’t we just find a way to work together? I’m not your enemy, da’mi. I never was.”

Ellana is silent for a long time, and she waits while this stranger who was once the most important person in the world to her, stares into the distance away from her.

“This is bigger than both of us,” she agrees at last. “And because of that I’m willing to work with you.”

Athera steels herself for the but.

“But,” Ellana says predictably. “That doesn’t mean that everything’s fine between us all of a sudden. You’re my sister, and that still means something. But it doesn’t mean that we’re friends.”

Athera’s mouth feels dry, and she swallows around the lump in her throat.

“Ma nuvenin.”

She turns to leave before her expression can betray the pain in her chest, but she makes it only a few paces before Ellana calls her back.

“Oh, and Athera?” She says coldly. “Don’t call me da’mi again.”

Chapter Text

Athera walks for a long time after that, her feet carrying her around Haven’s outskirts until the sun has set and she’s chilled to the bone. When she returns to Solas’ cabin, she tries to pretend that the words didn’t cut her. She pretends that she hadn’t hoped for better. She pretends that she hadn’t seen the laughing little da’len who’d once loved her in the hard lines of the adult’s face. She pretends, until she opens the cabin door and steps inside, and Solas greets her with a hesitant smile.

The room is warm and clean, fragrant with the scent of jasmine and mint, and soft lanterns hang around the walls. There’s a tray sitting by the bed bearing a steaming bowl of stew and a mug of something that looks like mulled cider, and with darkness beginning to press at the windows, the whole effect is one of cosiness and warmth.

“Vhenan?” Solas asks, when she doesn’t immediately speak. “How did it go?”

And to no-one’s surprise more than her own, Athera bursts into tears.

“Oh, my star.”

The murmur comes as he draws her into his arms, the solid warmth of him enveloping her in safety and guiding her to the bed. She lets him sit her on his knee, and she curls her fingers into the front of his tunic and weeps quietly into his shoulder.

“I’m sorry,” she sobs softly. “I don’t even know why I’m crying.”

“You don’t need to know why,” he murmurs to her. “I will still be here either way.”

The words soothe something raw inside her, and she lets her tears dwindle until she’s sniffling quietly against him. The cabin is quiet and warm, and the familiar scent of herbs and ink makes her feel as though she’s come home.

“I’ve missed you, Solas,” she says at last. “So much.”

He sighs heavily and tightens his arms around her.

“And I, you, vhenan,” he whispers. “You have no idea how much.”

She wipes the last of her tears on her sleeve and pulls back to look at him, her eyes tracing a path over his beloved face while she cups his cheek with her palm.

“I don’t want to fight.”

His expression, already tender, gentles until his eyes are like liquid silver in the light.

“Nor do I.”

He ducks his head to press a tentative kiss to her cheek, and she rests against him while her gaze takes in the rest of the room, and the sheet he’s hung over the far corner to hide it from sight.

“What’s all this?” She asks, and Solas blushes sweetly.

“I believe you requested a bath before you left.”

“And I believe you said that a bath was beyond the Inquisition’s remit.”

He smiles, proud and pleased, and nudges her off his knee and back onto the bed.

“I did, but it turns out that Ambassador Montilyet is both a fierce requisitionist and a hopeless romantic. When I mentioned that I wanted to provide you with some small measure of comfort after your long route to Haven, she enlisted some of the scouts to move one of the Chantry basins into my cabin.”

He climbs to his feet, and while Athera is still blinking, dumbfounded, he settles the tray with her dinner on it over her knee.

“I believe she may also have emptied the Chantry of bathing supplies in her eagerness to be of help,” he smiles, and she reaches out to catch his hand and squeezes it in thanks.

“You didn’t have to do all this,” she tells him, hardly able to hide how touched she is that he did.

“I fear, my star, that I owe you a great deal more than this,” he replies. “But a bath is a reasonable start. Now, eat, and I will make sure everything is arranged to your liking.”

He brushes a kiss to her forehead and slips behind the makeshift screen, and Athera swallows down a wave of emotion and obediently starts to eat. The stew is thick and warm, lightly spiced with chunks of vegetables and druffalo, and the sharpness of the cider tingles in her mouth pleasantly.

For the first time since arriving at Haven, she relaxes enough to truly feel the depth of her tiredness, and when the bowl is empty she sits back against the pillows and sighs in lazy contentment. Solas returns a short time later and holds out a hand to help her to her feet, and she smiles at him sleepily and twines their fingers together.

“May I?”

She lets him lead her behind the sheet, where an impressive copper bathtub is filled with steaming water, and the scent of jasmine and mint is thick in the air. By an unspoken agreement, Solas undresses her carefully, and she keeps her back to him and tenses when she’s finally laid bare before him.

It’s too soon to think about laying together again, no matter how much her body still aches for him, but there’s no heat to the way his fingers skim over her skin. Only the gentleness of a lover remembering her again, and the vulnerability of allowing him to see.

Despite his care, she has to fight hard not to pull away. The scars from her time at the Spire are still livid and angry, coiling around her shoulder in a red spiral and wrapping around one side of her ribs. She closes her eyes, delicate and afraid, and Solas runs his fingers over the healed wounds and then presses a lingering kiss to her temple.

“You have nothing to be ashamed of,” he murmurs against her. “You are still the most beautiful thing I’ve ever seen.”

A lump forms in her throat, and she keeps her eyes closed and holds tightly to his hand when he guides her into the bath. Despite her unsettled emotions, she can’t help the soft groan of pleasure that leaves her when she submerges herself beneath the water, and the heat seeps into her skin and unwinds the tension in her muscles.

When she opens her eyes again, Solas is kneeling by the tub, a warm expression on his face while he watches her relax. She rolls her neck against the edge of the bath, and looks back at him with a tentative smile.

“Should we be doing this?” She asks, while he sighs and dips a flannel into the water.

“Perhaps not,” he admits. “But I’ve missed caring for you, vhenan. Will you let me?”

The question is so sincere and his voice so hopeful, that she’d have to be made of stone to refuse. She nods, and his face lights up in a soft smile while he urges her to lie back. He washes her hair in silence, strong fingers massaging scented oils into her scalp, and she lets him support her head above the water while he cleans the lather away.

While he works to untangle her hair, she cleans the rest of herself, all too aware of the heat of him at her back, and the slight catch of breath in his throat when she raises her leg to reach it. When her hair is oiled and arranged over the side, he nudges her to sit forward, and she groans when he digs his thumbs into her aching muscles and massages the pain away.

For long minutes, her body is torn between relaxation, and a thrumming tension that tingles distractingly down her spine. It’s been too long since they touched like this, and while her mind might be rampantly asserting all of the reasons they shouldn’t lay together yet, her body is simply growing rampant. When the water finally begins to cool and Solas guides her out of the tub, she’s both languidly warm and flushed with arousal.

It only grows when he wraps her in a towel and stands too close at her front, and she looks up to see his pupils blown wide and a blush dusting the tips of his ears. His nervous swallow is loud in the quiet, and she licks her lips and allows her gaze to travel along the column of his throat, where the heat from the bath has left a sheen of moisture in its wake.

“Vhenan…”

His whisper is both a plea and a warning, and she bites her lip and takes a step back, a regretful apology in her eyes.

“We shouldn’t. Not yet.”

He swallows again, and her eyes fall lower and linger at his waist, where the evidence of his own arousal is held tight against his leggings. It’s only a will of steel that keeps her from whimpering longingly, and she looks away quickly and tries to think cooling thoughts.

“I will leave you to get dressed,” Solas says, his voice rasping, and before she can rethink her decision, he’s ducked back through the sheet and left her both grateful and frustrated on the other side.

Get a grip, she thinks harshly to herself. Pull yourself together.

After a few deep breaths, she pulls on a pair of smalls that quickly grow damp, and slips a dark green sleeping shift over her head.

You are an adult. You are not an animal.

With that final chastising thought given to herself, she steps back into the main room of the cabin, and finds Solas standing by the window with his back turned towards her.

“You may take the bed,” he tells her, his voice perfectly even. “I will sleep on the floor as the wolf tonight.”

“Are you sure?”

“Perfectly.”

She hesitates, and then decides that the path of least resistance is the only one she can deal with right now, and climbs into the bed. The problem, she soon discovers, is that it’s still early, and her body hasn’t quite got the signal that it needs to calm down. She rolls irritably onto her side, and looks over to where Solas is still standing by the window with his hands clasped behind his back.

“Aren’t you going to change?”

He stiffens almost imperceptibly, and then lets out a deliberately slow breath and unclenches his hands.

“I am,” he says. “But the wolf is the more instinctive part of me, and I don’t believe that letting him have free reign is a good idea at the present time.”

His voice is clipped, and Athera blushes fiercely and then has to fight back an inappropriate giggle.

“So, you’re saying that if you transformed right now, I might find you humping a chair leg?”

The laugh that bursts from Solas’ chest seems to take him by surprise, and she grins with poorly disguised delight when he turns back to face her, and she finds that his arousal is still evident and his face bright with humour.

“You are ridiculous,” he sighs, when he’s finally stopped laughing, and she quirks an eyebrow at him and wriggles more deeply under the blankets.

“That wasn’t a no though, was it?” She teases.

“No,” he admits with chagrin. “It certainly wasn’t.”

She hadn’t actually expected him to agree, and her mouth drops open in shock when he huffs in frustration and sinks down onto a chair.

“Are you being serious?” She asks then. “You’d really-”

“Do not finish that sentence, vhenan,” he warns, his foot tapping against the ground and his arms folded churlishly. “Close your eyes, and go to sleep.”

She feels her face heat and obediently closes her eyes, but the conversation has done little to relax her, and instead she finds herself listening to the tap-tap-tap of Solas’ foot against the wooden floor.

“Will you stop that?”

The sound comes to a halt at once, and she opens her eyes to find the Dread Wolf positively quivering with tension on the other side of the room. In the silence, he takes a deep breath and pinches his fingers between his eyes, and then in one fluid movement he climbs gracefully to his feet and fixes her with a pointed glare.

“Not a single word,” he warns her sternly.

Before she has the chance to ask just what she shouldn’t be saying a word about, Solas stalks across the room, draws the sheet closed behind him, and Athera feels the tingle of a silencing ward block out the sound from inside.

For a long moment she simply lies there, stunned, and then her body burns and she has to clap a hand over her mouth to hold back her giggles.

Solas is on the other side of the sheet, and he’s-

He’s-

She groans and pushes her face into the pillow. The thought of him taking himself in hand only a metre or so away, is almost enough to drive her to madness.

“Infuriating, sexy, forbidden idiot,” she hisses.

And then she slips her hand inside her smalls and begins to rub at herself, quickly. She’s so tightly strung that it barely takes her a minute to crest, and she bites down hard on a pillow while her body clenches on nothing, and she rides the waves of an unsatisfying orgasm to its equally unsatisfying end.

When her heart’s finally stopped pounding and her body’s no longer screaming its need for release, she lies back in the bed and waves her hand to douse all but one of the lanterns around the room. But it’s another couple of minutes before Solas finally cancels the ward, and steps back inside without looking at her.

She says nothing, only smiles slightly when shadows collect in the periphery of her vision, and her wolf takes Solas’ place. In the next moment, he goes rigid and sniffs the air, and she blushes furiously when she realises that the Dread Wolf has caught her scent.

“Not a single word from you either,” she warns him, and burrows more deeply into the blankets.

He makes a high, frustrated sound in the back of his throat, and then drops to the ground heavily, an unmistakeable huffiness to the rigid line of his back. She hides her smile behind her pillow, and finally succeeds in closing her eyes and allowing herself to drift.

Long minutes pass in the dark, the only sound their quiet breathing, and the occasional shuffling of the wolf against the ground. Athera opens her eyes and stares through the window, the light of the unfamiliar place she’s found herself in oddly calming, but the bed still too empty without him by her side.

“Solas?” She asks tentatively. “Are you awake?”

A moment passes, and then he huffs and she hears his claws scrape against the floor.

“No.”

She smiles and moves across the bed until her back hits the wall.

“There’s enough space up here for you. If you want it, that is.”

Silence follows her offer, and then a moment later, the great wolf leaps into bed alongside her and drops his head onto her chest. She stifles a pleased sound when his fur surrounds her, and she shakes her head wryly and nudges him with her shoulder.

“You are the bane of my life, do you know that, Dread Wolf?”

He pushes his nose into her ear and she squeals.

“Ar lath ma, vhenan.”

She huffs and flings an arm around his neck.

“Ar lath ma, you great fluffy idiot.”

Chapter Text

She settles into Haven quickly, for all that there’s still tension beneath the surface. A few days after their conversation, Ellana takes Cassandra, Vivienne, and Sera on a mission to the Storm Coast, leaving the rest of them behind.

In their absence, the atmosphere between Athera and Solas is still charged. While both of them are revelling in being reunited again, the question of when they will take their relationship further has left them both frustrated.

During the day, he spends most of his time in the apothecary, working with Adan to replenish their potion supplies, or tending to the walking wounded who occasionally trickle into the town. Meanwhile, Athera works with Leliana as her unofficial second-in-command, and although she’s still wary of the Nightingale’s secrets, the two women strike up a surprising camaraderie over the long hours spent together in the command tent.

After a particularly gruelling morning working through scout reports, Athera takes the opportunity to wander down to the stables, where she knows she’ll find Revas.

Sure enough, the ancient elf is tending to one of the harts, his usually-stern face relaxed in a soft smile while he brushes the mount’s flank. She stops and watches him for a while, and thinks it strange that a man so riddled with darkness has found so much contentment here.

“You spoil them,” she says at last, and he turns to her with a grin.

“They have a hard job. The least we can do is reward them for their service.”

She hums thoughtfully and approaches the fence, where the red hart bends towards her and wickers gently. His nose is soft beneath her fingers, and she smiles and scratches behind his ears while Revas looks on with a smirk.

“See? You’re as bad as I am.”

“Surely not,” she teases. “I didn’t move into the loft above the stables to keep an eye on them.”

He flicks a rag in her direction and climbs over the gate, his eyes twinkling.

“Once upon a time, lethallan, I tended the steeds in Fen’Harel’s army. Much has changed, but the sound of the animals is still comforting after all this time.”

She stills.

“That’s…” She shakes her head, and her expression softens. “That’s actually kind of sweet, you know.”

Revas scoffs, but there’s a smile lurking at the corners of his mouth, and when the hart grows tired of being ignored and bites at her sleeve, he laughs at her attempts to free herself.

“He likes you.”

“That’s no excuse for biting holes in my tunic!”

She flicks the great creature’s nose and he releases her with a huff. As a reward, she removes a chunk of salt from her pocket, and holds her palm out flat for him to take it.

“See?” Revas says. “Spoilt.”

The hart makes a honking noise, either in protest or celebration, and the two of them laugh while Master Dennet looks on from inside.

“As much as I enjoy you interrupting my work, should I assume there’s a reason for your visit?”

Athera nods, and motions for him to join her in a walk towards the training area, away from listening ears.

“Two things,” she says. “First, is that I’ve been working with Leliana and the scouts to explore some of the tunnels under Haven.”

“Ah yes, the old smuggling system for clerics and prisoners.”

“You know of it?”

He grins at her, green eyes bright and attentive.

“People talk, lethallan. The rumours of buried treasure have circled the town a number of times since we arrived.”

“And your sleeping spot in the stables puts you in prime position to eavesdrop.”

“I don’t know what you mean.”

They exchange knowing smiles and she shoves him lightly with her shoulder.

“You’re as bad as Solas,” she laments. “Tricksters, the both of you.”

Revas’ smile wavers, and she changes the subject quickly.

“Anyway, the scouts have stumbled across a new area that seems to be fairly stable. Leliana wants me to put together a small team to explore it, and hopefully get through some of the locked doors.”

“And you believe that my particular skills will be useful to you.”

“I figured that you must have learnt some tricks during your many, many years of espionage.”

He chuckles lightly, and they come to a stop near the lake.

“I’d be happy to help,” he says. “But I doubt your brooding lover will approve.”

“Solas is busy with the apothecary and his work with the refugees. Besides, I’ll be bringing Varric and Charter with us as well.”

Revas fixes her with an assessing stare and she shifts uncomfortably beneath his gaze.

“A fine excuse,” he compliments her. “But an excuse nonetheless. How are things between you and Fen’Harel?”

She gives him an unimpressed look and shakes her head.

“Are you going to give me relationship advice now, lethallin? An Ancient Elf’s Guide to Understanding the Evanuris You’re in Love With?”

Revas snorts and elbows her, his lips curved into a smile.

“Hardly. Although I can’t help but notice that neither of you seems as… relaxed as you might, given your recent reunion.”

“Mythal enaste,” she mutters. “Is it that obvious?”

“It is to me. I haven’t known the Dread Wolf to be this hard up in millennia. Leave him to his own devices for much longer and I imagine he’ll chafe himself raw.”

Athera chokes out a startled laugh and covers her face with her hands while she blushes to the roots of her hair.

“I can’t believe you just said that,” she whines, her voice muffled and appalled.

Revas laughs outright at that, and her cheeks heat still further behind the protective wall of her arms.

“Really?” He teases. “So, you’re saying that I shouldn’t mention Solas’ staff?”

“Revas.”

“How about Fen’Harel’s fenedhis?”

“Revas!”

“Or maybe, the Dread Wolf’s di-”

Athera throws a handful of snow at his mouth, and leaves him spluttering by the lake.

***

The next day, the two of them meet with Varric and Charter at the entrance to one of the caves. The new system the scouts have stumbled across begins not far from the stables, the mouth hidden beneath a rocky outcrop within sight of one of the trebuchets.

“Know what, Starfire?” Varric says. “It’s a really good job I like you.”

“At least it’s not the Deep Roads,” she says reasonably. “And you did say you were getting bored.”

“Yeah, bored as in, I’d like to get a Wicked Grace tournament going. Not bored as in, let’s go underground where we might be buried alive.”

“Are you always this dramatic?” Revas asks.

Varric grins and points at himself.

“Writer.”

The ancient elf snorts, and Charter shares a smile with Athera behind their backs.

“I’ve already been part way down here with some of the other scouts,” she says. “This is the most stable section we’ve found, so I don’t think there will be any sudden collapses today.”

“Probably a good thing,” Revas muses. “If Solas thinks you’ve gone underground somewhere dangerous, he might re-grow his hair simply to tear it all out again.”

Athera falls still a metre or so inside the tunnel, and it’s Varric who notices the suddenly guilty expression on her face.

“Oh shit. You didn’t tell him, did you?”

She winces and shoots them all a sheepish look.

“I didn’t actually think about it,” she admits. “Do you think he’ll worry?”

“Not if he doesn’t know you’re down here,” Revas replies. “At this point, it might be better to ask for forgiveness rather than to wait for permission.”

Still, she hesitates, and Charter looks between the three of them in confusion.

“Why do I get the feeling there’s something I’m missing?”

“Starfire here has a bad habit of getting trapped beneath falling rocks whenever she goes underground,” Varric drawls. “Last time it happened, Chuckles thought she was dead for half a year and became even more fatalistic than usual.”

“Ah.”

Revas snorts again, and Athera pinches her lips together and sighs.

“There’s no point in telling him now,” she decides. “We’ll be back before dinner anyway.”

“You’ll be asking for forgiveness, then.”

“Uh huh. Probably for a very long time.”

With the decision made, she conjures a magelight ahead of them, and she and Charter lead the way into the tunnel. Despite its diminutive entrance, the passage beneath the town is big enough for them to walk comfortably two abreast, and Athera has to straighten her arm above her head to reach the mottled ceiling.

Fairly soon, they come across pictorial paintings on the walls, and Revas observes them with interest.

“These are Andrastian, yes?”

“Should be,” Varric replies. “They say that Haven is the resting place for Andraste’s ashes, after all.”

“Leliana passed through tunnels like these during her time with the Hero of Ferelden,” Charter confirms.

“Now, that’s a story I’d like to hear.”

“Wouldn’t we all? The Nightingale’s notoriously tight-lipped about what happened here.”

Athera smiles into the gloom, unsurprised, and they make their way through the twisting passage until they come upon the first door. This one is already broken open, thick wood hanging from a strong metal hinge, and Charter takes the lead through a series of winding corners until they reach the first locked entrance.

“Do you want to do the honours, Varric?”

“Sure thing, Starfire. One open door, coming right up.”

They move back while he picks the lock, and Revas sends a sweep of magic ahead of them that’s so strong it makes her shiver.

“Checking for enchantments?”

“It pays to be careful.”

She smiles at him, and thinks it best not to point out that he’s picked up Solas’ paranoia over their centuries of working together. A short while later, the lock clicks, and Varric throws open the door and looks back at them with a grin.

“You’re a useful dwarf to have around,” Charter tells him.

“You know, that’s what I’ve always wanted to be called. Useful.”

Athera laughs and nudges him while they walk down the corridor.

“How about roguish?”

“Too obvious.”

“Sneaky?”

“Too common.”

“Devilishly dashing and the answer to all of our prayers?”

“Now you’re talking!”

She laughs, and the four of them tread lightly while they pass through the caves, and the paintings on the walls grow thicker. At the next door, they find a cache of tanned furs and a store of potions, and Charter marks the spot with a bright red X in chalk.

“What are we looking for in here, anyway?” Varric asks, while he picks the second lock.

“Anything useful,” Charter replies. “We know these caves run all across Haven, and at the very least we should know what’s in them.”

“Do you think they lead anywhere?” Revas asks. “Or is it just a storage area?”

“We don’t know. They probably did lead further up or down the mountain once, but I think the routes through are probably all collapsed by now.”

He hums in agreement, and when the second lock’s picked they continue forward into the dark. It isn’t long before the comfortable silence is broken by the sound of movement up ahead, and Athera holds her hand up and cocks her head to the side to listen.

“Nugs?” Varric asks hopefully.

“No. Something bigger than that.”

“Figures.”

“What do you want to do?”

They all look to Athera, and she hesitates and then draws her bow from her back.

“We’ve opened the doors between here and Haven now, so whatever it is, we need to make sure it isn’t dangerous.”

“Ok,” Varric says. “But if you get the sudden urge to bring the ceiling down on yourself, try not to for a change, alright? I don’t want to get my ass kicked by Chuckles when we get out of here.”

“Seconded,” Revas and Charter agree.

Athera offers them all a scowl and motions for them to follow behind her. The strange clicking noises grow louder the further they advance, and when they round the corner into a wider area of stone, she swears and drops a barrier over them at the same time Revas does the same.

“Dragonlings!”

She falls back, nocking and firing at Varric’s side, while Charter dives forward with her twin daggers flashing. The creatures are large for younglings, and the nest streams from the corners of the cavern in an endless wave of sharp claws and snapping teeth.

“Don’t let them overwhelm you!” Revas yells, while he slams the blade of his staff through an armour of writhing scales. “There’s enough in here to take us all down and leave little of us behind.”

“Are you always this optimistic?” Varric yells at him, and the ancient elf laughs.

“Brooding elf, remember?”

The dwarf snorts, Bianca’s mechanism almost singing, and Athera takes down a snarling lizard when it dives at Charter from the ceiling. The swarm seems never-ending, and she takes a sharp scratch to her arm and has to draw a hunting blade from her scabbard and slit the creature’s throat to escape.

The battle in such close-quarters is fierce, and before long their conversation is forgotten in favour of keeping the nest at bay. She loses track of time quickly, moving to the rhythm of the fight and the roaring of the adrenaline in her blood. But at some point the final dragonling falls at the end of Revas’ staff, and Athera lowers her bow and slumps against the wall.

“Is everyone ok?”

Her question is met by a chorus of panting breaths and affirmative murmurs, and she looks around to find that they’re all covered in thick spatters of black blood. Varric meets her eye, and then the others do the same, and in the next moment they’re all doubled over and laughing at the gore on their faces.

“Seriously, Starfire,” Varric says wryly. “What is it about you and tunnels?”

“I didn’t bring this one down on us, did I?”

“No, but we did almost get eaten by dragonlings. What are they doing down here, anyway?”

“There used to be a high dragon in Haven,” Charter replies. “The clutch of eggs probably went into hibernation until the Breach exploded and heated the ground.”

Varric groans and scrubs a particularly large patch of blood from his cheek.

“So, I guess we should be grateful that we took care of it now before they got any bigger, huh?”

“Over twenty dragons growing beneath an isolated town? Yes, child of the stone, I believe we should be very grateful.”

“We’d better check there aren’t any more of them,” Athera says. “It looks like this area opens up further ahead.”

After they’ve caught their breath and Revas has healed the gash on her arm, they follow the passage around the corner until they reach another broken door. Before she can step through, he catches her by the shoulder and pulls her back, his brow furrowed.

“There are enchantments here. This place has been warded.”

“Why would anyone ward a door guarded by dragons?”

“Why indeed?”

Athera reaches out with her arcane sense, and meets the subtle resistance of unfamiliar magic in the air.

“They’re weak,” she says at last. “No more than twenty years old.”

“Allow me.”

She shoots the ancient elf a wry look, but steps back obediently.

“Are you getting over-protective on me again, lethallin?”

“Hardly. Although I wouldn’t like to be the one to tell Solas that I’d allowed you to be harmed by hidden wards while I did nothing to stop it.”

Varric laughs and grins at her.

“See? We’re all a bit scared of Chuckles now.”

She scoffs.

“Cowards.”

Even so, she stays out of the way, and it takes Revas only a few short minutes to dismantle the enchantments and allow them to pass through.

They follow him into a circular stone room carved out of the living rock. Athera sends her magelight to the ceiling, and it illuminates a space that looks more like a study than a cavern. The walls are stacked with piles of leather-bound books. Loose papers and strange instruments are tumbled across the floor, and a desk is tipped over on one side and surrounded by broken dragon eggs.

Varric whistles through his teeth.

“Well, shit. This place is impressive.”

“If by impressive you mean, makes no sense, then I agree.”

She treads lightly over the fallen papers and runs her fingers across the spines of the books. They’re all in different languages, some faded and barely readable, and others edged in gold and bearing the mark of strange runes at their edges.

“What in the void is all of this doing here?”

No-one answers her, and when she turns back to face them, she finds Revas kneeling next to a strange silver instrument that looks like a broken globe. The expression on his face is one of abject confusion, and she makes a mental note to talk to him about it later when there are fewer people around to hear.

“Didn’t Genitivi used to work around here?” Varric asks at last. “Could this belong to him?”

“He was a hostage here,” Charter answers. “I doubt he’d have been able to set up a place like this.”

“Well, someone was studying something.”

Revas stands suddenly, his expression still troubled, and Athera meets his eyes curiously.

“Whoever it was, some of these artefacts hold a strange kind of magic,” he says. “I think it best that we mark this place on the map, and move carefully to catalogue it over the next few weeks.”

She holds his gaze for a long moment, searching for some hidden knowledge, and then she nods and casts a last glance around the room.

“It’s getting late, anyway,” she decides. “Whatever’s here will wait for another day. Preferably one when we’re not all covered in dragon blood.”

With that decided, their party leave the cavern and make their way back to the surface. The way back is quicker without their earlier caution, and it’s still only late afternoon when they emerge back into Haven’s cold light, and the chatter of the town rushing by.

“I’ll write up a report for the Nightingale after I’ve cleaned up,” Charter tells her. “But she’ll probably want to talk to you once she’s had a chance to read it.”

“That’s fine,” Athera replies. “I’ll be in the tent all day anyway.”

“Eurgh,” Varric says with feeling. “It’s worse in the sunlight.”

She turns back to face him, and discovers that he’s right. In the open air, the thick spatters of blood are dark and disgusting, and she looks down at her own sodden body with a sigh.

“This is going to take forever to clean off,” she whines.

“I think that’s the least of your worries, lethallan.”

Athera lifts her head, and follows Revas’ gaze towards the stables, where Solas is standing with his hands clenched into fists at his sides. Even from a distance, the rigid lines of his body are unmistakeable, and the expression on his face is almost frightening in its intensity. She bites her bottom lip nervously and meets his eyes, suddenly all too aware of what her little adventure must have looked like to him.

Revas sighs and squeezes her arm in sympathy.

“Ir abelas, falon,” he says. “I think you might be in trouble.”

Chapter Text

Solas is willing to admit that he isn’t always logical, at least where Athera is concerned. She came into his life like a lightning strike and became a blazing point of light in the endless darkness of his sky. Consequently, he is irrational about her. His happiness depends on hers. His moods turn on a whim according to whether or not they’re together. He is only calm when he knows for certain that she’s safe.

When the cabin door closes behind them, he shuts his eyes against the tumult of fury beating in his chest, and tries to steady his breath.

“Ir abelas.”

Her voice is tentative, and behind the darkness of his eyelids, coloured lights burst like fireworks and herald the start of a migraine.

“Do you even know what you’re apologising for?” He hisses through his teeth. “Do you have any idea what you put me through?”

Opening his eyes again does little to quell the boiling dread in his veins – not when she’s standing in front of him, dripping in black blood and covered in gore.

“You could have been killed!”

The words burst from him like a blade, and she folds her arms in front of herself and stares him down. He wants to scream at her. Shake her until she understands.

He wants to wrap himself around her and kiss her until neither of them can breathe.

“I was perfectly well protected,” she replies, calm and infuriating. “And Charter had already explored the tunnel and made sure it was stable.”

The bark of laughter that leaves his throat is caustic, and he scrubs his hands over his face and swallows down the urge to yell. Before he can arrange the hundreds of arguments in his head well enough to respond, Athera sighs in exasperation and steps behind the curtain.

“You can shout at me in a minute,” she calls back. “But before we get into this I’d like to be less covered in blood, ok?”

Solas falls still, staring in disbelief at the greying sheet while he listens to the unmistakeable sound of her climbing into the bath. He is stunned, and briefly he entertains the notion of raking his nails down his scalp since he doesn’t have any hair left to pull out.

Instead, he lets out a growling noise of frustration and stalks across the room, plucking up a vial and swallowing down a mouthful of elfroot tonic in an effort to ease his headache.

She’d been gone. And not just gone, but exploring underground with a man who only recently had tried to kill her. Solas scrubs at his face again, his whole body quivering with pent-up emotion, and then winces when the cut on his hand pulls tight with the movement. He scowls at it, at this unmistakeable proof of just how distracted he’d been, and starts pacing between the walls to try and dispel some of his tension.

It only partially works, and when Athera finally emerges again, the sudden panicked sense that he might have lost her returns in full force. The blood’s gone now, and she’s changed into a loose white shirt and soft brown leggings, her riot of red curls damp and tumbling over one shoulder.

He loves her so much he wants to scream.

She stares at him for a long moment, golden eyes flicking around his face and coming to some sort of conclusion. Her gaze softens, sympathetic but unrepentant, and he feels a dangerous ache pulsing in the back of his throat.

“You were gone,” he says, his voice hard. “You went underground, without telling me, alongside a man who wants to kill you. Do you have anything to say for yourself?”

It’s the wrong thing to say. At once, Athera’s gentle expression vanishes, replaced by a scowl as she crosses her arms.

“Revas is my friend,” she says, and Solas is distantly surprised that he hasn’t burst a blood vessel in his head.

“Revas still wants to hurt me!” He yells back. “And he’s smart enough to know that the best way to do that is to hurt you.”

She looks back at him, her eyes flashing and her jaw set.

“I trust him.”

“And that’s exactly why he’s still dangerous!” He bellows. “By the void, Athera, you must heed me on this. An enemy can kill you but only an ally can betray you, and right now your trust is the very thing that could make it possible for him to hurt you. To hurt me.”

“And you’d know all about that, wouldn’t you?” She shoots back. “I need you to hear this out-loud, Solas, because sometimes I think you still don’t understand. You were the one who betrayed Revas.”

“And Felassan was the one who betrayed me.”

“Felassan was right!”

The words echo around the wooden room and leave a terrible silence in their wake. He freezes, the shock of it making his mind fall perfectly blank.

“What did you just say?” He whispers.

Athera’s fearsome expression falls, and she draws in a long breath and looks back at him sadly.

“Felassan knew that we were real, Solas,” she says softly. “He thought that this world deserved better than destruction. And he thought that you deserved better than to be made into a monster.”

The ache is back in his throat again, and he feels so guilty he thinks he might vomit.

“How can I condemn him for that?” She asks him. “When I feel exactly the same way.”

Solas draws in a few shaky breaths, his heart racing, and covers his face with his hands.

“I should not have hurt him,” he admits in a hollow voice. “He was my friend, and he deserved better. But that doesn’t mean that Revas is a safe person for you to be alone with.”

He lowers his hands and looks back at her, his expression pleading.

“You went underground, Athera. With Revas instead of me. Do you have any idea how frantic I’ve been? Do you have any conception of just how desperately I love you?”

He steps up to her and cradles her face in his hands.

“Please listen to me, my star. Trust him if you must, but trust me when I say that it might not be wise.”

Her eyes flicker away from him, deep in thought, and he traces his thumbs gently over her vallaslin, and tries not to think about what he would have done if she hadn’t come back to him this time.

“And don’t go down into those tunnels without me again,” he whispers. “No matter what I’m doing, I will drop everything to come with you. I swear it. Just don’t make me wait here alone again.”

She sighs softly and turns her cheek into his palm, her eyes falling closed when he brings his forehead to hers.

“Alright,” she agrees. “But you have to realise that I’m here in the Inquisition because you wanted me to be, and that means I’m not always going to be safe.”

Her eyes open and meet his, and Solas swallows around the fear still fluttering in his chest.

“You have to find a way to trust me to take care of myself, ma fen. I shouldn’t have gone into the tunnels without telling you first, and I’m sorry for that, but this won’t be the only time you can’t guarantee my safety. You can’t fall apart every time I’m forced to take a risk. Not when we’re both working here now.”

He knows that she’s right, but that doesn’t make it any easier. Not when he’s spent the day imagining her dying in the dark. He swallows and steadies his breath.

“I will try,” he promises. “But you have to warn me if you can. Don’t leave me here to find out when you’re already gone.”

She holds his gaze for a long moment, one hand brushing gently at his wrist, and then she sighs and nods against his hand.

“Ok, I promise. But next time-”

Whatever else she was going to say is cut off, when she suddenly notices the dried blood on his sleeve and the deep cut in the pad of his thumb. She draws away from him, catching his hand in hers and turning it over so she can see the injury better in the light.

“What happened?” She asks sharply. “How did you do this?”

Her concern over such a small wound lights something warm and tender inside him, and he huffs quietly and tries to hide the smile on his lips.

“It is nothing, vhenan. I was distracted while you were gone, and I mishandled a knife while chopping embrium for a poultice.”

She tsks unhappily and turns her back to him, crossing the room and rummaging through his healing supplies while he watches her with a fond expression.

“Foolish wolf,” she mutters, and some great splinter of cold he hadn’t even known was there, breaks away in the cavern of his chest.

He staggers backwards silently, his back hitting the wall on the other side of the room while a tidal wave of emotion roars up his throat. The scent of mint and jasmine is thick in the air. The room is warm, and the afternoon sunlight is soft. It bathes her in a gentle glow while she searches for some salve and a rag to clean him with, and Solas suddenly realises why he hasn’t been able to cry since he lost her.

Foolish wolf.

Before he knows what’s happening, he’s sunk to the floor with his back against the wood, and instantly started to sob. It isn’t a gentle purge. They are great, wracking things that make a terrible sound in the silence, but he’s never cared less about anything in his life.

Distantly, he’s aware that Athera has turned back to him and is moving across the room, but all he can think are three astounding words that rise inside him like sparks.

I am safe.

He cries like a child, tears dripping from his face while his shoulders heave and he struggles to catch his breath. Of course he couldn’t cry before, he realises. The only time he’s ever been safe enough to show emotion was when she was here beside him.

She’s here now, on her knees in front of him, drawing him into her arms and cradling him against her neck.

“Solas,” she murmurs. “Ma fen. What is it? What did I say?”

He clings to her, face buried in her shoulder while months of pent-up grief pour out of him, and he struggles in vain to speak.

“You said-, You said-”

He can’t manage it, and she shushes him gently and murmurs that it’s ok, while he sobs cathartically into her shirt and the pain slips away.

When it finally ends, he nuzzles against her, and the feeling inside him is almost like freedom. She’s really here, and he’s really safe, and he doesn’t have to pretend. Not here, and not with her. Never with her.

“You called me a foolish wolf,” he says wonderingly into her neck. “You haven’t called me that since… Since…”

“Since before the Conclave,” she finishes for him, and he nods and curls into her, feeling lighter than he has in an Age.

She sighs above his head, her fingers drawing patterns over his back, and when she next speaks her voice is warm and understanding.

“You will always be my foolish wolf, ma fen,” she murmurs. “Always. Nothing will ever change that.”

He feels like he could cry again, but instead he draws back and looks up at her, and presses a tentative kiss to her lips. She smiles and kisses him back, soft and kind, and he makes his hands into fists in her shirt and tries very hard not to whimper in need.

“Come on, let me get that cleaned. It wouldn’t do to have the mighty Dread Wolf die of an infected cut.”

Her teasing is the purest relief, and he lets her lead him to the bed and sits quietly while she tends to him. The wash of her magic is warm, and in a few minutes the cut has closed and left only a thin white line behind.

“There,” she says softly. “All done.”

She raises his hand to her lips and kisses the subtle scar, and Solas’ breath catches in his throat while his body starts to burn. Her touch lingers, and he leans forward and curls his other hand into her hair, drawing her face towards his.

“Athera,” he breathes.

And then he kisses her.

It is a slow kiss at first, soft with promise, and she responds just as gently while her fingers skirt over his ears. The catch of her nails against them sends a shiver of pleasure straight down his spine, and he moans quietly and runs his tongue over her lips.

A moment later, he hears it, and the sound sends a bolt of heat straight between his legs and makes him hard as a rock in an instant. Athera is mewling. Soft little noises of pleasure in the back of her throat, that he’s almost certain she doesn’t realise she makes.

It had happened the first time they’d kissed as well, and on every occasion since, and there is nothing else in this world or the Fade that has ever made him so needy. The muted whimpers tremble against his lips, and he presses his fingers to her throat to feel them vibrate through his skin.

He isn’t sure how it happens, but somehow he finds himself lying beside her on the bed, their limbs tangled together while the sound of her pleasure drives him to the very borders of madness. He has missed this. He’s missed the taste of her. The scent of lilac and ozone. He’s missed the unknowing noises she makes and how hot her body is against his.

Most of all, though, it’s her gentleness that has the power to turn him into a desperate mess. Even now, as she rocks against his thigh and he can feel the same building need rolling off her in waves, she is gentle with him. Her nails catch but never break the skin, and she sucks his bottom lip into her mouth and grazes it softly with her teeth.

Before her, every conquest had been a battle of wills, but here in their too-small bed in a town surrounded by war, the only thing he can think of is their pleasure.

He deepens the kiss, tightening his fingers in her hair until she gasps, and when she flings a leg over his hips and rocks once more against him, the friction against his cock makes him groan like a man starving.

She stills, and he only just manages to swallow a plaintive whine, his body screaming incessantly for hers and desperate for any kind of release. Her voice shakes when she speaks, and he can feel her breath against his lips and her hands clutching tightly in the fabric of his tunic.

“I don’t know if we should…”

He looks into her face, meeting golden eyes that are deep with the blackness of her pupils blown wide, and kiss-swollen lips parted devastatingly on a pant. He’s not sure his balls have ever ached so fiercely before, and it’s all he can do not to sob in frustration.

“We don’t have to,” he tells her hoarsely. “But is what we’re doing right now alright?”

She hesitates for a moment, and then nods, and he can see the same frustration tormenting them both behind her eyes.

“Yes,” she whispers, as though it’s a confession. “But if we do this for much longer I might go mad.”

It’s a sentiment he can sympathise with, and he rolls his hips torturously slowly between her legs and makes them both groan.

“Then perhaps we should keep on doing this,” he whispers breathlessly. “Only this. Would that be ok?”

It takes her a moment to understand, but when she does her eyes darken still further, and she sinks into him with something very like relief.

“Fenedhis, yes.”

It’s all the reply he needs, and with a grateful noise of his own he rolls himself on top of her and settles himself fully-clothed between her legs.

“I once told you that you would be my undoing,” he pants, in-between fevered kisses and long rolls of his hips. “But you have already undone me. No-one else could ever make me lose my senses like this. No-one else could ever hope to-”

His words are cut off by a grating moan, as she lifts herself into him and digs her heels into the base of his back. The added pressure tugs the fabric exquisitely over his cock, and he almost spills himself right then and there inside the warm dampness of his smalls.

“The feeling is mutual,” she says breathlessly, her head falling back to expose the creamy whiteness of her neck, and he ducks his head and scrapes his teeth along her pulse point until she whines and thrashes beneath him.

“Please, ma fen,” she begs. “I’m so close already.”

The words are like music to his ears, because he isn’t sure he’s going to last much longer. His lips tingle with every kiss she gifts him. His ears are burning where her fingertips drift against their points. And when she snakes a hand beneath his tunic and trails her nails lightly along the skin of his back, his whole body convulses with pleasure.

“Fenedhis, Athera.”

He needs to see her come. To have her fall apart in his arms again. But his skin feels too tight and his body is burning, and it is embarrassing but he swears that he’s only seconds away from losing control completely. He captures her lips with his, rolling his hips frantically while his orgasm rises like a tide in his stomach and he tries desperately to hold it back.

The noises she’s making in the back of her throat are the most potent aphrodisiac he’s ever known, and as he teeters on the very edge of release, he allows a wash of magic to leave his body and swirl more forcefully around her clit. She cries out, her body rolling against him, and when her orgasm rushes through her, he finally lets go with an echoing groan that’s equal parts pleasure and relief.

His vision goes white, and he feels the hot pulse of his own seed bursting inside his leggings, while Athera becomes boneless and soft beneath him. Their cries mingle in the air, and eventually he lets himself fall at her side and presses his nose to her cheek. Both of them are still twitching with aftershocks, and he keeps his eyes closed and luxuriates in the quiet peace, breathing in deeply and cementing this moment in his mind forever, along with all of the rest.

He smiles when he feels her lips seeking his, and he kisses her languorously for long minutes, and ignores the rapidly cooling release on his thighs.

“Ar lath ma, ma fen,” she whispers.

He opens his eyes and smiles at her softly.

“Ar lath ma, vhenan,” he says. “I think I need a bath.”

Chapter Text

The Fallow Mire, Athera decides, is categorically the worst place in Thedas. If it isn’t the rain then it’s the marsh, and if it isn’t the marsh then it’s the corpses, and if it isn’t the corpses then it’s the demons, and if it isn’t any of those things then it’s the Avvar, who have captured the Inquisition scouts and forced them to travel here to attempt a rescue.

All in all, if something in this place isn’t designed to be miserable, then it’s designed to kill them, and she’s beginning to forget what it felt like to be dry.

Up ahead, Ellana is leading the way with the Iron Bull a pace behind, while Solas walks at her side and pretends he isn’t still scowling at the newest member of the Inquisition. Personally, Athera thinks she quite likes him, but the first time they’d met he’d grinned and winked, and when Solas had heard him say I like redheads as they rode out of Haven, she was sure she wasn’t the only one who noticed his snarl.

Since then, the ancient Elvhen not-a-god and the Qunari Ben-Hassarath have done nothing but snipe at each other, and it shows no signs of stopping.

“Another one of those beacons up ahead, boss,” Bull says, glancing back over his shoulder. “You think you can handle it, mage?”

Solas levels a forbidding scowl at him, and swings his staff from his back with a little more flourish than usual.

“Worry about yourself, the Iron Bull. I was not the one who got caught by a corpse blade during our last battle.”

“That little thing?” The Qunari laughs. “That was just motivation to hit ‘em harder.”

The one good thing about their bickering, is that it’s pushed Athera and Ellana into a temporary truce. As they climb up the sodden steps to the stone beacon, the two of them share a conciliatory smile, and it almost feels like friendship.

“If you two are done posturing, could someone light this thing so we can clear out some of the corpses?”

“Certainly, Herald.”

Solas steps past them and calls veilfire to the brazier, its ethereal green glow a prelude to the shriek of a Terror demon and a sudden rush of cold air. The four of them are tired after a long day of traipsing through the mire, but they all fall into fighting stances with practiced ease, while Solas drops another barrier over them and the demons start to appear.

Athera is grateful for her bow when the first wave hits. The corpse flesh is slick and rotten, sucking Ellana’s sword deeply inside and rending with a wet rip. Her arrows, meanwhile, thud into the staggering bodies while her flames set them on fire. The shrieking is a terrible sound, but they fall quickly, leaving two Terrors and a wave of fragile wisps still to cut down.

The air is filled with a thin layer of drizzle, and her boots squelch with every dancing step she takes out of the demons’ reach. She shakes damp hair out of her eyes and pirouettes, landing on top of a raised boulder to better see her target. Nearby, the Iron Bull swings his hammer with a bellowing war cry, and one of the demons flies through the air and back into the water with a scream.

Somewhere behind her, Ellana is cutting down the flurry of wisps, and Athera casts her gaze around for Solas. She finds him in her blind spot, one foot in the water and the other on the path. He’s surrounded by a blazing haze of electricity, his staff held at his side while he conducts the magic like a symphony into the chest of the second Terror.

Despite herself, she finds that she’s captivated. She’s become so used to seeing the gentle, fragile side of the man, that she sometimes forgets he’s also a warrior with more battle experience than any of them. It’s impossible to forget it right now. The look on his face is startling, calm and fierce in a way she’s rarely seen before. His stance is strong, and the ease with which he forces the demon back and then harries it with potent waves of electricity is hypnotic.

Entirely inappropriately, a rush of arousal shoots right through her, and she blushes beneath the cold rain and turns quickly away. A moment later, she almost pays the price for her distraction. A final straggling corpse has hauled its way onto the platform below her vantage point, and she cries out as its blade slices across the back of her thighs.

“Look out, Little Red!”

The Iron Bull charges towards her when she falls forward, bow clattering to the ground and her hands scraping against the rock. She twists herself further away instinctively, rain clouding her vision, while Solas’ barrier swells like a physical wall around her. The back of her legs are burning, but she regains her feet, turning in time to see Bull place himself between her and the corpse, and slam his hammer through its skull with a sickening crunch.

“Athera!”

The cry comes from two sides, Solas and Ellana rushing towards her from opposite ends of the platform.

“I’m alright,” she calls back. “Finish them off!”

There’s only a single Terror left to go, and it falls quickly under a vicious assault by Solas and Ellana, while the Iron Bull stands guard at her side.

“Word of advice, Little Red?” He says. “Try not to watch your boyfriend so much when there’s still a battle to be finished. It’s a good way to end up dead.”

She snorts and looks up at him through the rain, unable to deny it even though embarrassment is sitting warm in her stomach.

“Noted. And not a word to either of them, ok?”

He laughs outright at that, and Ellana and Solas hurry towards them.

“Vhenan.”

Solas’ hands are cradling her face before she can so much as blink, and his eyes trace a path over her while he brings their foreheads together and holds her there firmly.

“Where are you hurt?” Ellana demands. “I’ve never heard you shout like that before.”

She places a hand on Solas’ arm for balance and draws away to look at her sister.

“It was my own fault,” she says honestly. “I didn’t see it come out of the water. It caught me across my legs.”

She twists around to try and see the injury, and all of a sudden, dark spots speckle her vision and she sways where she stands. Solas’ arm is around her waist at once, and her body grows hot and then cold when she sees the red of her own blood swirling into the water over the rock.

“Fenedhis, Athera! This isn’t a small injury!”

Ellana drops to her knees behind her, and Athera flinches when she presses a sodden strip of fabric to the cuts to stop the bleeding.

“No,” Solas growls. “It isn’t.”

She feels Ellana tie the fabric around each of her legs, and in the next instant she’s been swept clean off her feet and into Solas’ arms.

“Hey!” She squawks indignantly. “I can still walk, you know!”

“Is that so?”

The sudden movement has peppered her vision with even more black shadows, and she has to swallow down a wave of nausea and steady herself against Solas’ shoulder.

“Shut up,” she manages to mumble, although most of her focus is going on trying not to faint.

She feels his breath huff against her temple, and she curls her hands into his robes when he starts to walk.

“It’s too dark to keep going now, anyway,” Ellana says from somewhere nearby. “There’s a decent spot for a camp up ahead. We should wait until morning to approach the Avvar.”

Athera winces guiltily, almost certain that they could have reached the captured scouts today if they’d pushed a bit harder.

“Ir abelas,” she says in a small voice. “I should have been more careful.”

She raises her head to see Ellana look over her shoulder at her, but she can’t make out the expression in her eyes.

“Don’t worry about it,” the Herald says. “Like I said, we should wait until morning anyway. We could all do with a rest.”

Even so, Athera can’t help but feel like a burden while her sister and Bull set up their new camp, and Solas sits her down beneath a rocky outcrop out of the rain, and rummages through his pack for healing supplies. He hasn’t spoken more than a few words since she was wounded, and she reaches out to lay a hand on his arm and force him to look at her.

“Are you ok?” She asks softly, and he makes a conscious effort to relax his jaw.

“I will be better when you’re no longer bleeding.”

She can’t really argue with that, so when he asks her to take off her leggings and lie on her stomach, she doesn’t complain. The clothes are ruined, and she props herself up on her elbows and holds them in her hands morosely.

“I really liked these,” she laments, as she feels healing magic being passed through the wounds, and Solas lets out a surprised burst of laughter that makes her hide a grin.

“Only you could take a sword wound to both of your legs and be worried about your leggings.”

His voice is stern, but when she looks over her shoulder at him he’s fighting a smile, and she smirks back at him until he bites his lip and taps her lightly on the ass.

“This isn’t funny, my star.”

“Then why are you laughing?”

“I’m not laughing.”

“Yes you are.”

“Vhenan,” he says long-sufferingly. “Hush.”

She chuckles and turns back round, lying obediently still while he closes the last of the wounds, and rubs salve over the marks left behind. When he’s done, she rolls back over and sits up again, only for another rush of dizziness to swim through her skull and send her lilting to one side.

Solas reaches out and steadies her, drawing her close to him and keeping a strong arm around her shoulders while he tucks her beneath his chin.

“Careful, my star,” he murmurs. “The injury is closed but you lost a reasonable amount of blood. You’ll have to take things slow for a while.”

She manages to grunt in reply and holds onto his arm while the world starts to stabilise.

“You need a decent meal and a good night’s sleep,” Solas continues softly, his other arm going around her as well. “And we all need to change into drier clothes.”

“I’ll second that,” Ellana calls. “I don’t think I’d have got more soaked if I’d gone for a swim. How’s she doing?”

Athera looks up, smiling tentatively when she meets her eyes across the camp.

“I’ll be fine,” she says. “I just need to rest.”

***

The rest of the evening passes quickly, none of them wanting to stay out in the rain for too long. Bull and Ellana prepare a hearty stew from the dried druffalo meat they’ve carried with them, and when it’s finished they each retire to their tents to rest before finding the Avvar tomorrow.

By an unspoken agreement, Solas shares with Athera, and when she’s changed into a sleeping shift and he’s stripped down to a loose pair of linen trousers, he sets his bedroll out beside hers and props himself up on his elbow. In the soft orange glow of a magelight, shadows collect around him, deepening the hollows of his cheekbones and turning his eyes into pinpricks of silver light.

She’s rarely been so close to him recently with so few clothes between them, and her mouth goes dry at the sight of the hard curves of muscle at his shoulders, and the freckles that drift down his stomach. She lies still on her back, holding his gaze while he studies her, and privately thinking that she’d like nothing more than to flip him over and jump him.

Still, she senses that now’s not the time, and after a long minute he lets out a slow breath through his nose and cups her cheek with his palm.

“You will drive me to insanity, Athera Arlanan,” he murmurs softly. “No matter where I go or what I do, I will never be able to escape you, will I?”

She swallows, her mouth dry, and completely unable to read the expression in his eyes.

“Do you want to escape?” She asks quietly.

“No,” he replies, with a sad half-smile. “I have never been more grateful to be caught.”

He dips his head and kisses her slowly, and she wraps her arms around his neck and trails her fingers over the hard planes of his back. Gradually, he sinks into her, keeping himself propped up on one arm while his body becomes a solid weight against hers. She melts beneath him, the soft patter of the rain against the canvas a comforting sound in the warmth of the tent.

Eventually, he pulls back with a sigh, and she watches a flurry of emotion pass behind his eyes.

“What is it?” She murmurs. “What’s wrong?”

“You mean besides seeing you hurt again?”

It’s a poor attempt at deflection, and she quirks an eyebrow at him until he smiles, a strange darkness still hiding in his eyes.

“Yes, besides that. Something’s unsettled you.”

They’re facing each other on their sides now, her hand still on his shoulder and his resting lightly on her hip. She watches his face while he stares back at her, his gaze both focused and distant at once.

“You are so alive, vhenan,” he says at last. “So very, very alive.”

She waits for him to say more, and eventually his expression falls, an ancient sadness gathering in the shadows of his face.

“Death is everywhere here,” he confesses quietly. “It’s in the people dying of sickness. In the corpses shedding their diseased flesh in the water. In the demons twisted from their purpose and attacking everything at will.”

A new understanding clicks into place in her mind, and Athera’s expression gentles while she cradles his face in her hand.

“This place is a torture for you,” she realises. “It’s everything you never wanted the world to be.”

He closes his eyes and turns his face into her hand, the lines around his mouth becoming pained.

“It is everything I failed to save,” he whispers. “All of this is my failure.”

She can feel him growing tense beneath her hand, and she draws him down towards her and settles his head against her chest.

“Oh, Solas,” she whispers. “This place isn’t your doing.”

He wraps his arms around her but doesn’t speak, and she kisses the top of his head and tucks the furs around him.

“I’ve told you before, ma fen. You didn’t give this world death. You gave everything a chance at life, even if it wasn’t the kind of life you’d hoped for.”

“It isn’t right,” he says, his voice thick. “There shouldn’t be such suffering. The world should not be in so much distress.”

She holds him quietly for a time, letting him relax into her embrace while she draws idle patterns on the back of his neck. Eventually, she speaks a single word to him.

“Listen.”

In the quiet, she hears his breathing even out, and the sound of the rain and wind catching at the edges of the tent. Solas is silent for a long time, and then he shifts slightly and tilts his head towards her.

“What am I listening for?”

She smiles.

“You tell me. What do you hear, exactly where you are now?”

He hesitates, and then his muscles unwind and he lets out a long breath, a soft, content sound rising in the back of his throat.

“Your heart,” he whispers hoarsely. “I can hear your heart.”

Her smile widens and she lets her eyes drift closed.

“And is that not enough for now?”

He holds her close, and she rests her palm flat on his back to feel the steady rise and fall of his breath.

“Yes, vhenan,” he says at last. “For now, it is more than enough.”

Chapter Text

Solas has nightmares. She hadn’t noticed them during the weeks in Haven, but inside their tent in the Fallow Mire they’re impossible to miss. She wakes that night to find him twitching and whimpering against her, his feet tangled up in the blankets while soft sounds of fright bubble up his throat.

“Solas?” She whispers groggily. “Solas, wake up.”

She shakes him lightly, and he startles awake with a gasp and goes rigid at her side.

“You were dreaming, ma fen,” she murmurs into the dark. “Are you ok?”

He inhales, his nose tucked tightly at her shoulder, and then his muscles relax and he makes a quiet, relieved sound against her.

“Ir abelas, my star. I didn’t mean to wake you.”

The tent is warm and Athera is still half asleep, but she tightens her grip on him and nuzzles the top of his head.

“I thought you were meant to bring people nightmares, not dream them yourself,” she says, and Solas snorts and tries to smother a quiet laugh.

“A lingering effect of the magebane and a very persistent Nightmare demon,” he tells her softly. “Wisdom helped me to ward my dreamscape, but it seems that it is less effective in places where the veil is thin.”

She blinks herself slowly to waking, and stares up at the canvas while she processes what he’s said.

“You never told me you were being stalked by a demon,” she accuses. “How long has that been going on for?”

He sighs, his arms going around her more firmly while he tangles their legs together beneath the furs.

“The Conclave,” he whispers. “The creature is in league with Corypheus. In my grief, I was an attractive target.”

That name, if nothing else, finally shocks her into lucidity, and she sits up on her elbows with a start.

“What do you mean, in league with Corypheus? What does he have to do with this?”

Her sudden movement knocks Solas off her chest, but she still feels him tense while the silence grows thick in the air.

“Solas?” She presses dangerously. “Who did you give your orb to, exactly?”

It’s a question she should have asked weeks ago, and at the sound of his sigh she sends a dim magelight to the corner of the tent, the better to see his expression. His eyes are shuttered, and he watches her warily from behind a blank and distant mask. It should be a shock to have it turned on her after all this time, but she knows too much of him now to see it as anything other than the last defence of the guilty and afraid.

“Ma fen,” she says harshly. “What did you do?”

For a moment, a flash of rebellion lights inside him like a live coal. His eyes spark, hostile and combative, and Athera feels an almost primal instinct to submit. She catches herself at the last moment, sitting up more fully and pinning him with her own challenging stare.

“You gave your orb to someone,” she says. “Someone powerful enough to unlock it. Was that someone Corypheus?”

He glares back at her, jaw set and shoulders rigid, and then with a flicker as though a light has gone out of him, his expression slackens and falls.

“Yes,” he says hoarsely. “My agents allowed it to fall into his hands. We didn’t know he would be able to survive the power of its unlocking, and yet, it seems as though he has.”

Athera’s ears ring, and she brings her hands up to her face and closes her eyes.

“Corypheus is dead,” she says dully. “Hawke killed him.”

“Corypheus survived.”

She lets a rush of air out from between her lips, a sound as though she’s been punched ringing between the walls of the tent.

“Fuck,” she whispers. “Fuck.”

When she looks up again, Solas is watching her closely, a hesitant apology in his eyes. She wants to grab him and shake him by the ears.

“By all of the idiots in the void,” she growls instead. “How can you be so clever and so infuriatingly stupid?”

His mouth pinches into a sharp line, and he raises himself to sitting and glares back at her in defiance.

“It was a calculated decision,” he argues stiffly, and Athera bites back a hysterical laugh.

“Yes, calculated to cause the end of the world!” She hisses. “And of course it went wrong, and now we’re stuck here trying to stop the apocalypse that you placed into the hands of a monster!”

She scrubs her hands over her face again, her heart racing and her chest still trying to heave with inappropriate laughter. The whole thing is ridiculous. She shouldn’t be here. Her sister shouldn’t be in possession of the anchor. Fen’Harel shouldn’t sleep curled up around her at night, and if he does, then he should at least be as calculating as his stories made out.

She bites her lip, hard, torn between anger and frustration. This is the problem, isn’t it? She thinks. The world has made him into a myth, and he’s forever trying to live up to it, when in reality, he’s nothing more than a man.

Solas is no god, and if she ever needed proof of it, then the sheer number of his mistakes is it.

When she looks up again, he’s gazing at a point somewhere over her shoulder, his brow furrowed and his jaw tense. The rain beats at the walls of the tent, and she senses that a similar tumult is beating its way through his head.

“You shouldn’t have tried to do this alone,” she says at last. “You are so clever, Solas. Devastatingly so. But I don’t think you’ve been thinking clearly for a while now. Do you?”

He closes his eyes, the line between them deepening, and when he looks back at her again his expression is drained and lost.

“I don’t know what I think anymore, vhenan,” he confesses quietly. “So much of my life before now seems as though it was lived by someone else. A different man, with a different spirit, who made choices I no longer understand.”

His shoulders fall slowly, the last of his rebellion leaving him until he simply looks exhausted. Athera sighs and reaches for him, drawing them both back down until they’re bundled under the furs, and Solas’ head is on her chest.

“Varric’s going to kill you, you know,” she tells him, and he huffs and presses her closer to him.

“He may be right to,” he whispers.

She hugs him, hard, and for a brief moment she sees the cottage burst behind her eyes, and wishes they could go back there again.

“No, ma lath,” she murmurs. “I won’t let anyone hurt you. But I’m not going to let you hurt them, either, and that’s something you’re going to have to realise.”

For a long moment, Solas is silent, and then he sighs resignedly and becomes boneless in her arms.

“Ma nuvenin,” he whispers softly.

She doesn’t believe him for a moment, and neither of them sleep well that night.

***

The Avvar chieftain is a posturing child, Athera decides. But he’s a posturing child the size of a mountain, and his men spread between the ruined walls like a living shield made of muscle and steel. A storm is raging overhead, and beyond the Keep’s doors a steady stream of corpses are still heading towards them.

“Close the gates!” Ellana yells through the rain. “We’ll be overwhelmed!”

Her sister is engaged in a furious battle with the Hand of Korth, his great hammer sweeping through the air like a battering ram and sending shockwaves through the ground with every shattering hit. Anxiety coils in Athera’s stomach as she runs up the water-slick boardwalk, her gaze intent on the lever at the top of the battlements.

A single blow will crush her head like an egg, and she’s never wanted to dive between two opponents more in her life.

Instead, she makes a valiant effort to stay calm.

The Avvar swarm around her in the darkness, and she ducks and fadesteps between them, forcing them over the edge of the wooden walkway and sending them careening into the ground below. The clash of metal and the roar of battle echoes up to her from the lower level, where Solas and Bull are holding back both corpses and Avvar while Ellana chips away at the chief.

Athera plunges an arrow through the neck of the final guard at the bridge, and with a relieved breath hauls the mechanism back to close the gates on the Mire. With the top level clear, she peers over the edge through the rain, watching the last of the corpses fall quickly beneath Solas’ attack.

In the centre of the courtyard, Ellana is using every trick she knows to stay out of the reach of Korth’s great hammer, while Bull charges into their enemies and scatters them like seeds. Athera nocks an arrow in her bow, knowing that she can’t take down the chief without forfeiting the terms of their battle, but wishing that she could all the same.

Instead, she lets loose a series of swift shots into the heaving mass of bodies, bringing down two bellowing warriors and keeping her companions in her sights. With a snarl, she aims an arrow at a mage as he clips Solas with a fireball, and then has to dive for cover when he turns his magic on her instead.

The sudden stonefist emerges out of thin air, and she flings herself to the ground and feels the wind rush over her head, missing her by an inch. She rolls, just in time to avoid a spike of ice sent through the floor. She regains her feet with her hair running in rivulets into her eyes, and pants to catch her breath.

Her lungs are burning. The long trek through the corpses left all of them exhausted long before they reached the Keep, and her own energy is still depleted by the blade she took yesterday. She draws on her strength, slipping down the boardwalk towards the ground, while a series of static shocks pursues her with every step.

She casts around for the mage that’s targeting her, finding him hidden across the courtyard behind a mass of loose rock. Their eyes meet across the distance, and she smirks and calls her mana to her, focusing on the shifting earth until it falls with an ear-splitting roar over his head. He crumples beneath its weight, and she swallows down a flash of survivor’s guilt and leaps back into the fray.

“Stay close,” Solas barks at her, his focus on a warrior nearby. “They’re trying to isolate us from each other.”

With a jolt, she sees that he’s right. Ellana and Korth are ringed by enemies, while Bull is trapped on the other side of the courtyard, still flinging attackers through the air.

She swears, and with her next arrow binds a wave of spirit energy to the projectile, and sends it howling through the crush of bodies between her and the Qunari. The shot spreads a thin and harmless layer of her magic overhead, and the Avvar scatter away from it instinctively, parting like a sea ahead of her.

Bull uses their distraction to his advantage, barrelling through the row of warriors and joining them on the other side.

“That was a neat trick, Little Red.”

“For a mage, you mean?”

“Always.”

They share a grin, and before long the crowd of Avvar have fallen around them, leaving only Korth still left behind. The three of them separate, forming a circle around Ellana and the chieftain while they prowl at the edge. Athera feels a wave of hopeless anxiety take root in her chest; the honour laws of a duelled battle preventing them from interfering. All she can do is watch with her heart in her mouth, as the giant of a man swings his boulder of a weapon at the dancing figure of her sister.

The atmosphere is charged, and she watches in fascination and horror as the Herald twists and writhes on light feet. She’s never seen her like this before. In her mind, Ellana is still a child, stumbling after her through the camp and frightened of the dark. The woman in front of her is every inch a warrior. Her steps are controlled and assured, her teeth bared in an expression of fierce and powerful battle frenzy.

She swings the greatsword as though it’s nothing more than a dagger, clipping her Avvar opponent with the broad side of her shield and making him roar. In the midst of her terror, Athera burns with a grand and overwhelming pride. The little da’len she had cherished has grown into an adult of skill and strength, and she wills her on silently while the cold rain drifts overhead.

“Come on, little lowlander,” the Avvar taunts. “It’s only a matter of time before you slip.”

The mud is churning beneath their feet, and Athera holds her breath as Ellana twists and dives out of his reach.

Come on, da’mi.

You can do it.

Don’t let him win.

The fight is growing fierce and thunder is rolling overhead, when the chieftain lifts his hammer clean over his shoulders, and barrels forward through the storm. It happens in an instant. Ellana’s foot slips out from under her, and she falls to one knee with her shield planted uselessly by her head.

“No!”

An electric terror rushes through Athera’s nerves, and she springs forward to grab the Avvar’s back, only to have the breath knocked out of her body when Bull catches her around the waist.

She screams mindlessly, her nails gouging at the Qunari’s arms while she fights to break free. It happens as if in slow motion. The hammer raised over Korth’s head. The lightning that flashes through the sky. And her sister, kneeling on the ground, braced behind the useless steelplate of her shield.

“Da’mi!”

Just as the hammer falls and Athera prepares for her heart to break, Ellana suddenly springs like a cat from the ground. With the storm sparking around her, she rises like a breath of spring over the Avvar’s body as his blow descends, and with a wild and feral smile, plunges her sword through his neck.

Athera makes a sound like a wounded animal, her body becoming limp in Bull’s arms and her ears ringing like a siren.

“It was a feint, Little Red,” he says gently at her ear. “The boss is tougher than she looks.”

Her heart is pounding frantically in her chest, and she’s grateful for the rain when she feels hot tears spill suddenly down her cheeks. Ellana is oblivious to her distress, panting and triumphant while she pulls her sword free, and stands over the fallen body in victory. Before she can register the movement, Solas is in front of her, and she almost collapses into his arms when Bull lets her go, her shoulders heaving as though she’s drowning.

“It’s alright, vhenan,” he murmurs to her. “She’s safe. It was just a trick. Your sister’s safe.”

She gulps in air and buries her head against his chest, her hands twisting in the front of his robes while she clings on for dear life.

“I thought-, I thought-”

“I know, my star,” he says. “It’s alright. We wouldn’t have let her come to any harm.”

She draws in a shuddering breath, the sound of her sob lost to the crackle of thunder through the clouds. Solas is a warm and solid weight against her, and when she looks up again, his silver-grey eyes are gentle and concerned. She lets him press a kiss to her cheek, embarrassed and ashamed at having reacted so badly when there was nothing real to fear.

Across the courtyard, Bull and Ellana are laughing, flushed with the thrill of battle and the adrenaline of the fight. Athera feels a bittersweet smile spread over her face, and twines her fingers with Solas’ while they grow cold in the rain.

Her sister is a warrior now, and it makes her glad. But she knows she’ll never stop seeing the child she’d been, and wanting to keep her safe.

Chapter Text

There are things he should be doing. Plans he should be making, agents he should be consulting with. Instead, Solas is standing in a packed corner of the Singing Maiden, watching Athera dance. They are celebrating the rescue of the scout troupe, and it seems as though all of Haven has turned out to drink to them.

The Chargers are playing some appalling drinking song, discordant with a rumbling drumbeat and a fiddle that he’s almost sure is out of tune. Every one of the inner circle is here, either sitting around the heaving tables, or standing in corners with quiet smiles on their faces.

And Athera is in the middle of it all, dancing.

He’s never seen her dance before.

She is light on her feet, rising up on her toes to spin from someone’s fingertips, and then dropping back down with a sway on her hips that’s enough to steal his attention entirely. Her smile is bright, curled hair tumbling down her back like water, and she and Ellana are weaving in and out of the crowds as though the people are parting for them.

Now that he thinks about it, they probably are.

“Don’t look now, my lord,” a voice says at his ear. “But your devotion is showing.”

He suppresses a flinch, his attention retracting to the man at his side.

“I have no intention of hiding it.”

Revas smirks, leaning casually against the wall with his legs crossed at the ankle, and a tankard of ale in his hand.

“How times change,” he says. “There was once an era when the mighty Fen’Harel would never have thought to wear his heart so openly.”

Solas shifts uncomfortably.

“As you say, times have changed.”

“Have they?” Revas muses. “Or will she be another light you sacrifice on your long path to duty?”

Solas’ expression grows hard, his muscles tensing and primed for a fight.

“Never,” he growls. “I would never cast her aside.”

His emerald eyes flash in challenge.

“You would once have said the same of Felassan. Yet it took you little enough time to dispose of him once he opposed you.”

The guilt that crawls through Solas’ chest burns, and he looks away and swallows down a pang of distant loss.

“Would it help you if I said that I regret it?” He asks softly. “Would you feel vindicated if you knew that I wish I could take it back?”

His old friend’s calm exterior crumbles, anger like a forest fire lighting in his eyes.

“Let me turn that question around,” he says, a dangerous edge to his voice. “If I had never shown Athera mercy, and you had found her dead that day in Kirkwall, would it have made any difference to you whether or not I regretted it?”

Solas closes his eyes, the music in the room suddenly too loud, and the press of bodies too close.

“No,” he admits. “If she had died, I would have hunted you to the ends of the earth to make you pay.”

“It is of benefit to you, then, that I have a reason to hold my revenge.”

He looks back at him, searching for the lie but finding none in his eyes.

“And what reason is that, I wonder?”

Revas’ gaze drifts across the room, to where Athera is spinning lightly around Varric and making the dwarf laugh.

“The same reason that you’ve seen fit to question your choices. She and Felassan are not so dissimilar, and both of them loved you in their own way.”

He takes a sip from his tankard, his expression pained.

“I promised that I would allow her the time to try and alter your course. I do not intend to break that promise.”

“You care for her,” Solas realises with a shock, and Revas smiles without humour.

“I do. But that doesn’t mean that I trust you, Fen’Harel. With her or with the world. You still need to make your choice.”

Solas’ eyes linger on Athera, his skin suddenly feeling too hot and too tight again.

“It is not only up to me,” he whispers. “I made a promise long ago, and I don’t know if I can break it.”

Revas huffs, and he feels his disapproval like a solid weight against him.

“Your loyalty to the All Mother is commendable after all this time,” he says bitterly. “But did you ever stop to question whether she is so loyal to you?”

Solas frowns.

“What do you mean?”

“I mean, my lord, that it is immensely strange that Athera was able to stage a rebellion in the Orlesian capital, while none of your agents saw fit to report it to you. Could it be that they were asked by someone else to keep you in the dark?”

The accusation lands like a hammer blow. Solas stumbles back into the wall, his mouth going slack and his expression horrified.

“She wouldn’t,” he breathes. “Mythal would never keep that from me.”

“Are you so sure of that, old wolf?”

Once again, his world tilts on its axis, and he pushes off from the wall and turns towards the crowd. He needs to leave here. Escape to somewhere quiet where he can think. Where he can try and find the lie in his old friend’s words before the truth of it buries him.

Before he can take another step, his vision is filled by red hair and smiling eyes, and Athera tumbles into his arms with a laugh that echoes around them.

“You two had better not be arguing,” she admonishes playfully. “I told you I’d make you regret it if you did.”

The distant panic in his chest recedes, her weight in his arms an anchor he can hold onto. He pulls her against him, nuzzling at her hair and smiling in relief when she lets herself lean into his touch. Her trust is the thing he covets most in the world, and when she slips an arm around his waist and beams up at him happily, he knows that he hasn’t lost it yet.

“We wouldn’t dare, lethallan,” Revas says. “Not after the tongue-lashing we got last time.”

Solas meets his gaze over her head, a silent understanding passing between them while she rolls her eyes and huffs.

“Indeed,” he agrees smoothly. “Besides, I was just leaving. It’s getting a little too crowded in here.”

Athera loops her arms around his neck and looks up into his face, a coy smile on her lips that he wants desperately to kiss.

“And here I was about to ask you to dance. Am I going to be disappointed?”

“I don’t dance.”

She cocks an eyebrow at him, and he rests his hands on her hips and resists the urge to dig his fingernails in.

“Oh really?” She purrs. “You’re telling me that the trickster doesn’t dance?”

He smirks and leans in close, his breath ghosting over her ear while he smooths his hand across the small of her back.

“Let me rephrase that, vhenan,” he murmurs softly. “Solas the apostate does not dance where anyone can see.”

The shiver she makes in his arms is delicious, and he tightens his grip on her waist and wills his body to behave.

“Then perhaps we should go somewhere quieter?”

A rush of heat shoots through him, and his eyes darken when she takes him by the hand and draws him through the heaving crowd. All at once, Revas and Mythal are forgotten. The only thing that matters is that Athera is smiling at him, her thumb rubbing gentle circles on the back of his hand, and her hips swaying with every step. He follows her without thought.

The cold night air is a shock after the heat of the tavern, and he breathes it in deeply and shivers in the chill.

“I never knew snow could look like this,” Athera says. “Like silver and shadow in the moonlight.”

She is gazing at the quiet streets, soft snowflakes tumbling around her, and her hair almost black beneath the stars.

“It’s beautiful,” he allows. “Although I’ve never liked the cold.”

She looks back at him, her smile bright and playful, and he sees what she’s about to do a second before she does it.

“Vhenan, don’t you da-”

The snowball hits him square in the face, and he falls completely still in blind and total shock.

She hit him with a snowball.

He blinks.

No-one hits the Dread Wolf with a snowball.

Very slowly, he wipes his face with his hand, and when he looks back up at her she’s biting her lip, torn between laughter and apology. His eyes flash, dark and foreboding, and then he pulls his lips back and grins.

“Flee.”

With a shriek, she turns from him and bolts down the empty lane, her feet kicking up flurries of snow and her hair flying free behind her. He gives her a single second’s head-start, and then the hunt is on. He launches himself forward, summoning his magic until a battalion of snowballs are following above his head while he chases her out of the gates.

When they hit the sloping incline towards the lake, she glances back over her shoulder and squeals again, her own magic tossing back powdered snow behind her. A wave of it rushes into his face, and he laughs and releases two of his projectiles, hitting her squarely in the back.

“Cheat!” She yells at him. “Solas, that’s cheating!”

She feints backwards, graceful and light, and he slips at the sudden turn and loses speed.

“How, pray tell, is it cheating?”

He is out of breath, the cold sharp in his throat while his muscles burn with effort.

“Ancient tricks!” She shouts, still running, and he aims another snowball at her that clips the edge of her shoulder.

“It is my raison d'être, vhenan,” he says. “Perhaps you should have thought of that before you started the chase.”

She laughs, a bright, warm sound, and he feels it down to his toes. There is nothing dignified in this. No calculation that could make it anything other than ridiculous.

He doesn’t remember a time when he’s had so much fun.

Athera fadesteps towards the straggle of trees, and for a moment he loses sight of her and stumbles to a stop. His skin is warm, and he drops into a suspicious crouch and scans through the leaves.

“Vhenan,” he says warningly. “Are you cheating?”

There’s no answer, and then suddenly a barrage of snowballs rains down on him from the treetops and he throws a barrier up too late.

“How do you like those modern tricks?” She calls from her perch in the branches, and Solas would reply, except that he’s too busy laughing, gulping for breath while the snowfall all but buries him.

“I yield!” He manages to choke out. “Vhenan, I yield.”

The snowballs stop coming, and he sinks to the ground and laughs until he can hardly see. When he looks up again, Athera is walking towards him and giggling, and his laughter dies in his throat.

She is beautiful. Her hair is wet and bedraggled, flying away in the breeze and stuck to her cheeks with snowmelt. In the moonlight, it ripples in waves of shadow and red, and her cheeks are ice-bitten and flushed with exertion.

She looks down at him, joy in her eyes, and the rush of love that overwhelms him is almost more than he can stand. Before he can question it, he’s swept forward, tackling her to the ground and cushioning their fall with his magic. She lets out a cry of shock and delight, and then his lips are on hers and they are rolling together in the snow, hot breath mingling in the cold.

He takes sips of her laughter from her lips, his hands roving everywhere he can touch, and his cheeks aching with the strength of his smile.

“It is not wise to torment the Dread Wolf, da’len,” he smiles, and she nips his bottom lip and makes him gasp.

“No,” she agrees breathlessly. “But perhaps we’ve tormented each other enough.”

He falls still and stares into her face, and wonders how he got so lucky.

“I think it’s time, don’t you?” She murmurs. “Take me to bed, ma fen.”

Chapter Text

He doesn’t remember making it back to the cabin. But somehow they’re inside and the door is closed behind them, and Athera is standing in the centre of the room shaking snow from her hair, and almost glowing in the golden light of the lamps. Solas’ pulse is pounding in his ears, and he feels as though he’s floating outside of himself, released from the weight of his body and watching the scene unfold like a dream around him.

The night presses, soft and dark at the windows, and she seems like a mirage. A fragile wish he’d clung onto, and is now being granted even though he’ll never deserve it.

“Are you here, ma fen?”

Her voice is soft, murmured into the quiet, and when he blinks himself back to the room, he realises that she’s stepped closer and is smiling up at him gently. His heart flutters, and an answering smile, still unfamiliar to him, slips across his lips. Now that they’re inside, he is shivering. Snowmelt dripping from his clothes and turning his skin into ice.

“I’m here, my star.”

His voice rasps, and she closes the distance between them and curls her fingers behind his ears. She doesn’t kiss him at first. Merely stares into his face with a fond, molten expression that heats his blood and makes him want to hide.

“Do you remember the old Dalish saying?” She whispers at last. “May the Dread Wolf take you?”

Despite the cold, his cock twitches in his leggings, and he licks his lips and holds her gaze.

“I believe I may have heard it, once or twice.”

She draws in a deep breath.

“What if, tonight, I wanted to do the taking?”

He feels the flush rush through his body at once, pinking his cheeks and reddening the tips of his ears. He hardens instantly, leggings suddenly too tight, and the heat of his erection a distracting counterpoint to the chill of his skin.

He opens his mouth to reply, hesitating slightly while his blood flees from his brain and he tries to hold onto his wits.

Before Athera, he’d always been the one in control. How could he not have been? It was always too dangerous to allow someone else to gain the upper hand. It had come as a complete shock to him, when beneath her touch - safe and loved and adored - he’d found himself begging to be stripped of control.

“Solas?”

Her gaze is gentle, asking nothing of him, and the pressure between his legs grows insistent.

He wants this.

He wants her.

“Take me,” he whispers.

His fingers tangle in her robes and he draws her closer to him, anticipation burning in his veins.

“Are you sure?”

He nods, never more sure of anything than he is of this.

“Please, vhenan. Take me.”

The only warning he has is her smirk, and then her magic flips him clean off his feet and he finds himself flung unceremoniously onto the bed. He lands on his back with a sound like he’s been punched, the breath gusting out of him while a shock of pleasure runs down the length of his spine.

Before he can regain his equilibrium, Athera is on top of him, straddling his hips and grinning wickedly into his face. He groans, his hips canting up against his will, while she holds herself too far above him to bring him any relief. Gently, her fingers close around his chin, and he swallows and waits for whatever happens next.

“Safeword?”

“I don’t need one.”

The answer comes out before he’s even thought about it, and Athera’s expression grows hard.

“Yes, you do,” she says firmly. “I promised I’d be careful with you, ma lath, and we’re not doing this unless I’m sure that you have a way to stop it if you need to. Understand?”

Beneath the siren call of his building need, something warm and tender pricks at his heart, and Solas swallows down the lump in his throat and nods slowly once.

“Atishan,” he says at last.

Peace.

Athera smiles, pleased, and then her eyes darken and he starts to feel like prey.

“Good wolf,” she purrs.

And then she kisses him.

The whine that leaves his throat is embarrassingly loud, and he feels her smile against his lips before he registers the heat of her against him. When he does, he gasps in shock, and she makes a deep, throaty laugh into his neck that tingles to the tips of his fingers.

His skin is freezing. Damp and chilled and sensitive in the extreme.

Athera has harnessed her mana and flooded hers with heat.

The result is that her touch almost burns, her lips hot and scorching as they trail a path of soft kisses and sharp nips along the column of his throat.

“Fenedhis.”

He writhes beneath her, his body pulsing hot and cold, and his toes curling against the mattress.

“If you’re going to squirm this much, I might have to restrain you,” she says darkly. “Would you like that, ma fen?”

His hips roll uselessly above him, and he nods all too eagerly when she slides off him and crosses the room. He watches her through heavy-lidded eyes, a frantic energy running beneath his skin as she bends at the waist and retrieves a belt from the floor.

He bites his lip to keep from making a noise. The grace of her movements and the predatory way she stalks towards him is better than any fantasy he’s ever had. She pulls his tunic over his head and tosses it onto the floor, and he shivers in the cold air and lies obediently still. When she loops the leather around his wrists and lashes his hands to the bed post, he almost starts to beg.

“There,” she breathes. “Now I have you.”

She is beautiful above him. Her cheeks flushed and her eyes dark with desire. In all of his long and lonely years, no-one has ever looked at him the way she does; as though he’s the most beautiful thing they’ve ever seen. As though he’s a gift. The adoration she turns on him is almost more than he can stand.

“Athera…”

It is a plea, and she takes it for what it is. She settles herself comfortably across his thighs, keeping her weight away from where he needs it most, and bringing her lips to his skin. The heat is no less potent the second time, and he moans and clenches his hands against his bindings while she works her way down his chest.

Her lips are soft, tender but for the shock of warmth they bring out against him, and when she sucks a cold nipple into the heat of her mouth he arches up with a cry. She nips him lightly with her teeth, her nails trailing down his ribs, and he finds himself hurled back into his body with all of the force of a mind blast.

It doesn’t feel like a dream anymore. Athera isn’t a mirage.

She is here, and she is real, and the only thing he can think of is the pulsing ache between his legs and how desperately he wants her.

She torments him expertly, as though she was made to draw pleasure out of him, and when she finally reaches his stomach and dips a tongue into his navel, the guttural moan that leaves him is obscene.

“Is that good, ma fen?”

“Yesssss.”

“You don’t want me to stop, then?”

He looks down the length of his body at her. The sight of her kneeling between his legs with a sly smile on her lips, while his erection strains at his leggings, is almost enough to tip him over the edge.

“Don’t stop,” he gasps. “Never stop.”

She grins.

“What do you want, then?”

“Touch me. Please.”

Her teeth graze the skin above his waistband, and he whines.

“I am touching you,” she murmurs into his stomach. “Would you like to be more specific?”

“Fuck.”

The expletive comes out on a long moan, surprising both of them, and Athera chuckles and finally – finally – unties the laces on his leggings. The release of the pressure around him is blissful, and he sighs in relief when she pulls the last of his clothes away and throws them to the floor.

Bare and restrained before her, a sudden flash of vulnerability pierces the fog of his desire, and he tenses and winds his hands more tightly around the belt.

“Ma fen?”

Athera has paused, her hands a comforting weight on his thighs, and he draws in a deliberately slow breath and lets it out just as slowly.

“Solas, are you ok?”

The teasing smile is gone now, replaced by a look of concern, and his chest swells with emotion and the sudden, impossible certainty, that he is safe. The realisation lights a fire through his body more potent than any he’s ever known.

“Please touch me,” he begs. “I need you to touch me.”

She doesn’t hesitate, and in the next second he finds himself engulfed in the burning heat of her mouth, while a shout of pure pleasure tears itself from his throat.

This is real.

It is his last coherent thought for a while.

Athera sets a torturous pace, sliding her mouth over him oh-so slowly, while her tongue flutters against him and she cups his balls in her hand. For once, his racing thoughts quiet. There is only the heat of her, and the need building inside him as she draws him closer to the edge.

Whatever noises he’s making are out of his control, and he feels himself rushing closer with every swirl of her tongue and every spark of electricity she runs over his skin.

“Athera,” he gasps. “I’m close. I’m so close. I’m going to-”

She releases him with a wet pop and clamps her hand around the base of his cock, and he groans in frustration and pulls at the belt, while his body screams for release.

“Not yet, ma lath,” she murmurs. “Not until you’ve pleased me too.”

He opens his eyes when she climbs off him, and then has to bite his lip when her hands move to her clothes. She strips slowly, her eyes never leaving his, and he watches hungrily as her skin is revealed to him piece-by-piece.

He’s told her often enough how beautiful he finds her, but he knows when she hesitates over her scars that she doesn’t truly understand. To him, she is the most perfect thing ever to have existed. He is besotted with her. He loves the sharp angle of her collarbones, and the soft smattering of freckles over her stomach.

He loves that her palms are callused and her nails always chipped. He loves the way the muscles ripple down her back when she draws her bowstring back. He loves that her hair is wild and her eyes soft and her lips so perfect that he would write poetry about them if he could.

He would love her if she was nothing but scars. He would find her beautiful no matter how many imperfections were laid out across her skin.

She is his heart, and she has nothing to be ashamed of.

He wants to tell her all of this, but his chest is glistening with sweat and his wrists are burning deliciously against the belt, and all he can manage is a choked and desperate: beautiful, when she finally stands bare before him. But it seems to be enough. Her hesitation vanishes, and she smiles as she climbs over him and positions herself over his face.

“You’re not as eloquent as usual, Dread Wolf,” she smirks. “But I think you can still put your tongue to good use.”

He doesn’t need telling twice. His mouth waters, the scent of her intoxicating, and he flattens his tongue to her heat and licks a stripe through her slick. The noise she makes in response is shattering, and he moans against her and uses his mouth for all he’s worth.

She is soaking already, and he feels her wetness drip down his chin and exults when she grinds herself down on him, soft sounds of pleasure echoing in the air. He can hardly breathe, pinned entirely beneath her while his jaw starts to ache and his mouth floods with her taste.

He wants more of her. All of her. He wants her to smother him.

For her, and her alone, he will submit.

He can feel the trembling in her thighs when she starts to crest. The shivers roll up her body in waves, and he finds his head pushed down hard into the mattress when he sucks her clit into his mouth. He’s never been so vulnerable with another person before; never so surrounded by them, and when he feels the orgasm take her he cries out as well.

Breathing is suddenly difficult, her legs quivering but still strong around him, and his head swims while he suddenly remembers his own neglected need, straining and weeping between his thighs.

“Vhenan, please,” he babbles, incoherent and struggling for breath. “I need to come. I need you.”

Again and again: I need you.

Athera is still shivering above him, but through the haze of his desire he sees her nod, and she slides back down his body and kisses him, hard. His hips buck uselessly, seeking friction in the air, and he pulls at his bindings and whines into her mouth. When she pulls back again, his thoughts stutter, stuck on the sated beauty of her face, her cheeks glowing and eyes soft and bright.

Then she lowers herself down onto him, and he loses the ability to think in full sentences.

“Vhenan. Yes. Please. Don’t stop.”

For a time, he is nothing but sensation. The warmth of her rippling around him, the bite of her nails into his chest, and the soft slide of himself inside her that makes sparks dance behind his eyes. Then, all of a sudden, he feels as though he’s about to fly away.

“My star,” he gasps. “I need to hold you. Please, please let me hold you.”

She is glorious above him, wild hair tumbling over her shoulders and her perfect breasts bouncing with every soft rise and fall. Something in his tone must worry her though, because she cuts through the belt with her magic, and in the next moment, he’s gathered her into his arms and flipped her onto her back.

She laughs, delighted and surprised, and he sinks himself back into her and moans deliriously. There’s no stopping this now. His skin is too tight, too hot, and the scent of their sex is too sharp in his nose. The feel of her now is better than anything he’s ever known. Soft and warm and gentle, even as he increases his pace and the ache in his cock reaches an almost unbearable peak.

It strikes him, as she looks up at him with warm golden eyes, that he has come home. After all of the millennia he’s spent alone, the months when he’d thought her lost, and the painful, shattering distance between them that has almost torn him apart; she is here beneath him, around him, and he doesn’t want to give her up.

She rakes her nails down his back, her head thrown back and her neck exposed, and Solas buries his face against her and wails. The heat inside him is too much, his cock throbbing with need, and he realises that he is truly lost. He comes with a frantic shout, muffled into her skin as he spends himself inside her and then pushes down as deep as he can.

For a time, he loses himself. There’s only Athera, warm and gentle beneath him. The soft scent of her mingling with the smell of their sex. The hair that tickles in his nose while he softens and slips out of her. And the furious pulse of their hearts, gradually slowing until they seem to beat as one.

He comes back to himself with his head pillowed on her chest, while she draws gentle patterns across the back of his head and runs her fingers over his ears. Tiny shocks of pleasure flit through him at the contact, and he shivers and wraps his arms more tightly around her.

“I’ve missed you, Solas,” she whispers above him. “I’ve missed you so much.”

He can hear the trace of tears in her voice, and he closes his eyes against the prickle of them welling behind his own.

“And I you, vhenan,” he chokes softly. “You have no idea – you can’t imagine – just how much.”

While he lies there, safe and warm in the circle of her arms, every muscle relaxed and the buzz of distant pleasure still tingling through his nerves, he understands that he can’t let her go. Mythal herself could appear in the room right now and demand that he give her up, and he would cast himself between them and refuse.

She is his.

The one thing he’s ever had as his own. The one thing he’s ever wanted to be his own. And he does not know how to give her up. Not for Mythal, and not for the world.

Beneath the warm contentment of the moment, he is terrified.

But he is also safe, and he is also home, and he can’t bear to be parted from her again.

Chapter Text

“So,” Revas says. “It seems I won’t need to procure the Dread Wolf some lubricant to aid his solo endeavours after all.”

They’re hiking through the Hinterlands, Solas and Cassandra a few paces behind, and Athera bites down hard on a startled laugh while her face pinks dramatically.

“Revas,” she hisses, sneaking a wary glance behind her. “Do you always have to be so… So…”

“So…?”

“Uncouth.”

A surprised sound bursts from between his lips, and he tips his head back and roars with laughter.

“Uncouth?” He repeats, his eyes sparking with merriment. “Are you an 80-year-old Orlesian woman or an elf?”

Athera’s laugh chokes off in her throat, and she shoves him lightly while her face continues to burn.

“You know what I mean!” She whispers, aware now that Solas has definitely started to listen. “Time and a place, ok?”

She sees a spark of mischief in his eyes, and then he reigns himself in and holds up his hands.

“Fine, but only because you’re my friend.”

“I’m honoured,” she drawls, and the ancient elf smirks and shoots her a wink.

She shakes her head at him, fighting a smile even as the heat in her cheeks starts to make her self-conscious.

They left the Upper Lake camp behind them not long ago, and now they’re making their way beneath the rocky outcrops and towards an isolated shack, where Leliana’s spies have said they might find Warden Blackwall. Athera has been keeping a worried eye on the Order’s disappearance while more and more scout reports pour in, and she’s as keen as the spymaster to find out what’s really going on.

When they arrive, she sees a man in thick armour, walking calmly in front of a line of nervous and poorly-armed farm workers.

“Remember how to carry your shields!” He barks. “You’re not hiding, you’re holding. Otherwise, it’s useless.”

She holds up her hand and the Inquisition party falls still at her side, watching while the man instructs his charges.

“The scout reports said he’s been defending the refugees against the bandits,” Athera says quietly.

“It seems they were correct,” Solas replies. “A noble decision to have taken in times such as these.”

She hums in agreement, and has just stepped forward to make their presence known, when an arrow whizzes through the air and lands in the wood of the Warden’s shield.

“Conscripts! Here they come!”

The farmers' response is slow, and Athera and her companions leap forward to help them defend.

“Who in the blazes are you?” The man demands.

“Inquisition,” she replies, releasing an arrow into an approaching attacker. “And it seems we have good timing.”

“That’s one way of looking at it.”

The bandits are inexperienced, disorganised, and they fall quickly beneath the dual attack of the farmworkers and the Inquisition. Athera catches her breath and turns to the stranger at her side, but he holds up his hand to waylay her.

“A moment,” he grunts.

“Of course.”

He eyes her speculatively, and then turns to his charges.

“Good work conscripts, even if this shouldn’t have happened. Thieves are made, not born. Take back what they stole. Go back to your families. You saved yourselves.”

He turns back to face her, and Athera offers him a smile.

“That was well done.”

“It’s what any Warden would have done.”

“About that,” she says. “You are Warden Blackwall, aren’t you?”

“So they tell me.”

She nods.

“Then we need to talk.”

***

Back at the Upper Lake camp, Athera sits outside the tent she shares with Solas and writes a missive to Leliana.

Nightingale,

We found Blackwall, but he doesn’t know where the rest of the Order are.

We’ve recruited him for the Inquisition. He’ll be returning with us to Haven. Perhaps you’ll get more out of him than I could.

She signs off with a hastily scrawled star at the bottom, and then ties the scrap of paper to the leg of the raven waiting by her side. When it takes flight, she watches the dark wings soar into the sharp blue sky, and leans her head against the boulder at her back. For now, the camp is quiet. Revas and Cassandra have taken Blackwall to find a cache of supplies hidden by the apostates in a nearby cave, and Solas has slipped away somewhere, no doubt to seek a little peace.

Despite their new recruit, Athera is unsettled. The disappearance of the Grey Wardens at the same time Corypheus comes back from the dead, signals something dark and dangerous at work. Something greater than a single man courting chaos in the world. The knowledge sits like a stone in her stomach, made worse by the realisation that she can’t tell anyone about it. To tell her sister and Varric that the magister is involved would expose Solas, and no matter what, she can’t bring herself to betray him.

She sits for a long time in the quiet, turning the problem over in her mind and coming to no conclusions. Eventually, a scuffed footstep ahead of her makes her look up, and she smiles when she sees that it’s him, strolling back towards her with his hands clasped behind his back.

“You look thoughtful, my star.”

She sighs.

“It’s an occupational hazard.”

“Now that you’re the right hand of the Left Hand, you mean?”

She snorts softly and climbs to her feet, and Solas brushes a stray lock of hair away from her face and smiles at her gently.

“I wouldn’t go that far. There’s a reason Leliana hasn’t been assassinated yet. She’s too clever to trust anyone that easily.”

Solas hums and rests his hand at her hip, his eyes drifting towards their circle of tents in thought.

“Perhaps,” he allows. “But I believe Sister Nightingale already respects you, however grudgingly, and that is the first step on the path to trust.”

“Is that the voice of experience I hear?” She teases, and his lips twitch with humour.

“More than you can possibly imagine,” he says wryly. “And with that in mind, there’s something I wanted to bring to your attention before the others return.”

The stone in Athera’s stomach grows heavier, and her smile wavers slightly.

“Should I be sitting down for this?”

To her relief, Solas laughs, the soft huff through his nose that she loves, which makes his eyes crinkle warmly at the corners.

“No, my star, I don’t believe so. There’s merely someone here who would very much like to see you again. Isn’t that right, Compassion?”

With a soft rush of air, the spirit becomes visible at their side, and Athera jumps slightly and then beams with joy when she recognises the wide rim of his hat.

“Oh my- Cole!”

She steps away from Solas, already preparing to hug him, but then hesitates when she realises that a spirit might not understand the gesture. Cole lifts his head to look at her, his arms hanging by his side, while his blue eyes twinkle with an other-worldly glow in the sunlight.

“It’s alright,” he says. “You can hug me. A hug would make you happy.”

She hesitates, and then laughs and flings her arms around his neck. Cole’s strange, shifting form comes around her in a peculiar facsimile of an embrace, and she shakes her head against his shoulder before stepping away again.

“I didn’t know if you’d made it to Haven or not,” she says wonderingly. “Have you been here all this time?”

Out of the corner of her eye, she sees Solas take a step towards them, and when she looks up she finds him smiling at her with aching fondness, a proud light in his eyes.

“Cole found me a few weeks before we visited Val Royeaux,” he tells her. “Unfortunately, I was too distracted to understand the message he brought at the time.”

“I tried to explain,” Cole laments. “Misses. Missing. Did miss. Had missed. They were the wrong words to make the pain go away.”

“It’s alright, Cole,” Solas reassures him. “We found each other in the end.”

He meets her gaze, and Athera blushes beneath the strength of the affection in his eyes.

“Bright and blazing, a light in the dark. The old wolf found the heart of his pack, beating and warm again.”

It’s Solas’ turn to blush, his cheeks pinking while a bashful expression chases itself across his face.

“Thank you, Cole,” he says, clearing his throat self-consciously. “I don’t think Athera needs to hear that.”

Cole tilts his head and smiles.

“It’s ok,” he replies. “She likes it. She thinks it makes you look sweet.”

Solas coughs, his face reddening even further, and Athera grins widely at him and cups the warmth of his cheek in her palm.

“He’s right, you know,” she murmurs. “You do look adorable like this.”

Solas tries to scowl, but the effect is ruined somewhat by the embarrassed smile that pulls at his lips, and the deepening red of his ears.

“I am nearly thirty-thousands years old,” he says with a huff. “I am not adorable.”

“Oh but you are, ma fen. You’re so adorable it should be illegal.”

She kisses the tip of his nose, and Solas finally loses the fight against his own embarrassed pleasure and hides his face behind his hands.

“Vhenan, please.”

His voice comes out as a muffled whine, and Athera laughs delightedly and nuzzles at his cheek.

“See?” she whispers. “Adorable.”

“I do not know how you do this,” he complains, still hiding behind his hands. “No-one else has ever been able to do this to me.”

“And what is it that I do to you, ma fen?” She grins.

“Giddy and shy like a child, armour pulled back to reveal the softness underneath. The old wolf forgot that he could blush. But he doesn’t mind it when it’s her.”

Athera’s heart clenches, her cheeks aching around her grin, and she draws Solas’ hands away to drop gentle kisses over his face. He huffs, his eyes closed while a grudging smile pulls at the edges of his lips.

“You are infuriating,” he grumbles.

“He doesn’t mean it,” Cole says at once, and Athera chuckles and lets the Dread Wolf bury his face in her shoulder and hide.

“I know, Cole. He’s only teasing.”

Solas nuzzles at her neck, and she feels his smile widen when she presses a kiss to the side of his head.

“Are you staying with us?” She asks the spirit curiously. “With the Inquisition, I mean?”

“I want to help. Pain inside everyone, as small as pebbles and as big as mountains. I can make it go away.”

Solas finally masters himself and pulls away, the worst of his blush now gone, but his eyes still sparking happily.

“Haven is better for you being there, my friend,” he says. “But for now, you must stay out of sight.”

Cole considers this, his head tilted on one side, and Athera twines her fingers with Solas’ and waits for him to reply.

“Yes, I see that,” he says at last. “Scary spirit. Abomination. Terror instead of calm.”

“You’re not an abomination, Cole,” she argues. “And you aren’t scary.”

The spirit smiles, and Solas squeezes her hand and brushes his lips to her temple affectionately.

“You aren’t scared. You’re my friend.”

She nods.

“I am.”

“And it is yet one more reason you’re remarkable, my star,” Solas murmurs. “But others won’t share your view so easily. Revealing Cole now may put both him and the Inquisition at risk.”

She sighs, knowing already that he’s right, but hating it all the same.

“It’s alright,” Cole says. “I don’t mind. They don’t need to remember me for me to be able to help.”

“I know, lethallin,” she replies sadly. “I just wish you didn’t have to hide.”

As if on cue, the spirit tilts his head again, and Athera hears the distant sound of voices drawing nearer.

“Be careful,” she whispers quickly, and Cole smiles and then winks out of existence as though he’d never been.

A moment later, Cassandra, Revas, and Blackwall round the corner, and Solas takes a step away from her and folds his hands behind his back. She quirks an eyebrow at him until he smiles, and tips his chin up in an exaggerated display of decorum.

“They may realise that we’re together, vhenan,” he says. “But that doesn’t mean propriety shouldn’t still be observed.”

“So the trickster’s proper now, is he?” She smirks. “Does that mean I’ll have to try not to scandalise you in future?”

Solas’ eyes darken suddenly, his pupils blowing wide in a way that makes her think that her little tease has had more of an effect on him than she’d intended. Before he can reply, Cassandra draws their attention, and Athera shoots him a knowing smile and walks over to greet them.

“Did you have any problems in the cave?”

“There were more signs of that strange lyrium inside,” Cassandra says grimly. “Revas removed the cache and sealed up the entrance behind us. We should return with a party later and make sure the growth is destroyed.”

Athera nods in agreement, and makes a mental note to send a message to Leliana.

“That’ll make Varric happy at least,” she sighs. “While you were away we had word from Ellana’s group. They’re heading to Redcliffe and want us to join them before they approach the Grand Enchanter.”

“Should we leave now?” Revas asks, but she shakes her head and gestures for them to sit down.

“No, we have time, and this area’s quiet for now. We should eat and rest a little before we set off. Something tells me we won’t get much of a chance to once we arrive.”

Chapter Text

The sound of the rift is the first sign they have that something is wrong. Without speaking, Athera’s party break into a run, rounding the corner at Redcliffe’s gates and rushing straight into the Herald’s group, already in engaged in a fight.

“Get in here!” Ellana yells. “Something’s wrong with this one.”

She draws her bow from her back, already assessing the strange ebb and flow of the newest tear in reality. The lilting green energy of the Fade is more pronounced here; more controlled than the others they’ve faced. Its tendrils reach into the air almost as though it has sentience, and time seems to warp and stretch in pockets at the edges.

“Keep out of its reach,” Athera calls to her group. “It’s twisting the landscape around it.”

They drop into fighting stances, and she fires an arrow at a rage demon approaching on Vivienne’s left. The Enchanter is calm and poised, but the magic she calls to her hands is stuttering and slow, and Athera can see the beginnings of fear flickering behind her eyes.

“Revas, help Vivienne!”

The ancient elf follows her gaze, a frown darkening his face, and then he flanks to the left and lays a series of runes around the burning demon. It slips into them with a shriek, the ice exploding upwards and pinning it to the ground. A moment later, Vivienne breaks free of the anomaly, and sends a barrage of frozen spikes into her enemy with a ferocity born of fear.

Athera circles the rift while Ellana attempts to close it again, picking off shades with her arrows and keeping an eye on the rest of their companions. Blackwall is confident in battle, using his shield to defend against heavy blows that make her wince when the impact rattles up his arm. Vivienne and Solas appear to be competing silently, their casting becoming more and more elaborate while they stalk around the edges of the fight.

Varric is keeping himself clear on a grassy knoll, Bianca’s bolts singing through the air, while Sera leaps like a spinning-top in and out of the fray. When the rift finally snaps closed, all of them let out a breath of relief, and Athera grins wryly at Solas as Vivienne sweeps an imaginary speck of dust from her robes.

“Fen’Harel’s throbbing dick!” Ellana yells. “What in the void was wrong with that thing?”

Athera chokes and has to look away, a laugh building in her throat, while Solas’ ears turn a startling shade of red and he refuses to meet her eye.

“The magic is strange here,” he replies, his voice deceptively even. “I’ve never seen anything like it before, even in the Fade.”

“You mean that the demons do have gaps in their teaching, then?” Vivienne retorts. “How disappointing that must be for you.”

Solas’ lips quirk.

“Not at all, Enchanter. It simply proves that there’s always more knowledge waiting to be found, for those who care to seek it.”

Vivienne sniffs and turns her head away, and Cassandra and Ellana greet each other with a smile.

“Were you successful at the mercenary’s fortress, Herald?”

“We cleared them out easily enough, but the leader slowed us down a bit.”

“We also found a key to Valammar on his body,” Varric chips in. “Seems the Nightingale was right about tracking the red lyrium.”

Athera frowns.

“I’ll write to her when we get back to camp,” she decides. “For now, Warden Blackwall, this is Ellana Lavellan, the Herald of Andraste. Ellana, this is the Warden I was telling you about.”

“A pleasure, m’lady.”

She scoffs slightly, her eyes brightening.

“No need for that. I’m no lady. Just a Dalish elf in the wrong place at the right time.”

He considers this, and then nods stiffly once.

“True enough, but you’re doing good work here. The people need someone to fight for them.”

“Athera tells me you’ve been doing a bit of that yourself.”

Blackwall looks between the two of them, and she recognises the moment when he sees the similarity and makes the family connection.

“A bit,” he agrees gruffly. “I’d like to do more.”

Ellana grins.

“Then we’re happy to have you. Especially here.”

She turns her gaze distastefully on Redcliffe’s gates as they draw open, and then meets Athera’s eyes with a frown.

“You know I’m only here because you wanted us to explore all of the options,” she warns. “Just because we’ve decided to visit Fiona that doesn’t mean I’ll be allying with the mages.”

“I know,” she reassures her. “But you’re a leader now, and you need all of the information you can get before you make a decision.”

Ellana huffs slightly but doesn’t argue, and their large group begins to make their way into the town. Athera and Cassandra flank the Herald a step or so behind, while Solas and Vivienne fall in close by. Next comes Varric and Sera, and at the back, Revas and Blackwall walk tensely side-by-side.

Athera feels the eyes of the town on them, and realises that they should have arrived with a smaller group instead. Whether they’d planned for it to be or not, their entrance is suddenly a show of force, and with four mages in the party she isn’t surprised that the townsfolk eye them warily.

“Not very friendly here, is it?” Varric murmurs.

“The people are frightened of something,” Solas replies.

His fingertips brush against her palm, just briefly, and she turns her head to offer him a subtle nod in response. There’s something heavy in Redcliffe’s atmosphere. Even though the people are going about their day as usual, she can see no evidence of Arl Teagen’s men, and even the mages dotted around the place keep their heads down and their eyes lowered to the ground.

“Be careful,” she says softly to Ellana. “It isn’t just the rift that’s wrong here.”

Her sister nods sharply, her shoulders thrown back and her chin tilted slightly upwards. It’s the pose Athera has come to recognise as The Herald in action, in the same way that Solas sometimes postures as the Dread Wolf, and she knows by now to be on her guard when she sees it. As they approach the square, a scout in a green hood stops them, his manner tense and nervous.

“We spread word that the Inquisition was coming,” he says. “But you should know that no-one here was expecting us.”

“No-one? Not even Grand Enchanter Fiona?”

“If she was, she hasn’t told anyone. We’ve arranged use of the tavern for the negotiations.”

“That doesn’t make any sense,” Athera says. “Didn’t you meet Fiona in Val Royeaux?”

“We did,” Cassandra replies. “She invited us particularly.”

Before Athera can respond, a thin elven mage rushes over to them, his hands twisting in front of him.

“Agents of the Inquisition,” he greets them. “My apologies. Magister Alexius is in charge now, but hasn’t yet arrived. He’s expected shortly. You can speak with the former Grand Enchanter in the meantime.”

Despite herself, a bolt of cold fear sparks down her spine, and she clenches her jaw and draws herself up straighter. The single word – magister – has the power to send her straight back to Tevinter, the doors in her mind that she keeps firmly closed, opening like floodgates and spreading unease through her in waves.

“Former Grand Enchanter?” Ellana asks. “Is she not still?”

“That’s a long story,” the elven mage replies. “It would be best if Fiona explained it to you.”

Ellana hesitates, and then nods once and gestures for him to lead the way. They follow him through the murmuring town, and Athera steels herself and tries to calm her racing heart. The tavern is nearly empty when they arrive, and she scans the available exits quickly and feels Solas doing the same behind her. The heat of him at her back is a comfort, and she draws in a deep breath and releases it slowly.

This is Ferelden, not Tevinter, she reminds herself. He won’t let her be captured again.

Ahead of them, a small elven woman with a shock of dark hair is waiting for them, and Athera eyes her speculatively when she starts to speak.

“Welcome, agents of the Inquisition,” she says, her gaze taking in their burgeoning party and landing at once on Vivienne.

“My dear Fiona,” the Enchanter says. “It’s been so long since we last spoke. You look dreadful! Are you sleeping well?”

Despite her tension with the human mage, Athera feels a smirk pull at her lips and has to hide it quickly, but Fiona doesn’t dignify the barb with a response.

“What has brought you to Recliffe?” She asks instead.

“Skip the pleasantries,” Ellana replies. “You know why we’re here. You came all the way to Val Royeaux to invite us.”

She frowns, her face twisting in confusion.

“You must be mistaken. I haven’t been to Val Royeaux since before the Conclave.”

“Well that’s very strange. Because someone who looked exactly like you spoke to me in Val Royeaux.”

Ellana folds her arms in front of her, and Athera assesses the former leader of the rebel mages, searching for signs of subterfuge.

“Exactly like me? I suppose it could be magic at work,” she says. “But then, why would anyone… It is of no matter. Whoever, or whatever brought you here, the situation has changed.”

Another ripple of unease slips through Athera’s nerves, and she fingers the dagger hidden up her sleeve and keeps a steady eye on Fiona.

“The free mages have already pledged themselves to the service of the Tevinter Imperium,” she continues, and Athera feels bile rise in the back of her throat.

“Fiona dear,” Vivienne says scathingly. “Your dementia is showing.”

The former Grand Enchanter ignores her, her expression troubled but proud.

“As one indentured to a magister, I no longer have the authority to negotiate with you,” she says, and Athera can’t hold her tongue anymore.

“You can’t be serious?” She bursts out. “You’ve offered the mages up as slaves?”

She feels Solas brush a hand to her arm in warning, but she shakes him off and steps forward, her eyes sparking.

“They trusted you, and you’ve condemned them to captivity!”

Ellana grabs her wrist when she takes another step, and her sister’s eyes burn with fury when she looks back at the woman in front of them.

“An alliance with Tevinter is a terrible mistake,” she says, but Fiona merely shakes her head, her expression stricken.

“All hope of peace died with Justinia. This bargain with Tevinter would not have been my first choice, but we had no choice. We are losing this war. I needed to save as many of my people as I could.”

“And now you’ll never have another choice again!” Athera shouts. “Do you have any idea what you’ve done?”

Across the room, a door bursts open, and a broad man in crimson armours steps into the room.

“She has taken the safest choice for her people,” he says smoothly. “A brave decision that not everyone will agree with.”

He turns a sickly sweet smile on Ellana, while Athera trembles silently with rage.

“Agents of the Inquisition,” Fiona says. “Allow me to introduce Magister Gereon Alexius.”

“The southern mages are under my command. And you are the survivor, yes?”

The two begin to talk, and Athera lets their voices wash over her, her pulse thrumming in her ears while they retire to a table by the wall. She’d come here to try and save the mages from the Templars, but she could never have imagined that they would already be in chains. Every cell in her body is rebelling, shivers wracking up her spine while Solas presses a hand to the small of her back to try to calm her.

She doesn’t want to calm down. She wants to set the whole town on fire and chain Alexius to the pyre. With the Arl gone, Tevinter has made its first in-roads into Ferelden. The magisters are spreading their slavery over the south, and there’s nothing she can do to stop them. She feels nauseous, and while Ellana treats with the new owner of the mages, she struggles not to double over and retch.

She’s pulled from her thoughts when the magister’s son collapses, and before she knows what’s happening, Alexius has hurried his retinue out of the room, and they’re left alone again.

“Come to the Chantry,” Ellana reads grimly. “You are in danger.”

Athera eyes the note in her hands, and struggles to focus on the room.

“This day just keeps on getting better,” Varric drawls.

She wants it to be over already.

***

The trip across the town is quick, none of them having any patience for waiting, and when they step inside they find a rift humming in the Chantry cloisters, and a human mage doing battle with number of gathering demons.

“Good, you’re finally here!” He greets them breathlessly. “Now, help me to close this, would you?”

Ellana raises an eyebrow at him, and then holds her hand palm-up towards the rift. It closes quickly with a suction of air and a high, ringing sound, and the man smirks at her while the rest of their party pick off the last of the demons.

“Fascinating. How does that work, exactly?” He asks, and then grins at Ellana’s blank expression. “You don’t even know, do you? You just wriggle your fingers and boom! Rift closes.”

“Forgive me if this is rude,” her sister says. “But who are you?”

“Ah, getting ahead of myself again, I see. Dorian of House Pavus, most recently of Minrathous. How do you do?”

“We’d be better if Tevinter weren’t in the town collecting slaves,” Athera cuts in, her voice hard.

“Let one Tevinter in, and suddenly they’re scurrying out of the walls like roaches,” Vivienne agrees.

“Now now,” Dorian replies blithely. “I’m ever so much more handsome than a cockroach. But if you’re looking for an animal to compare me with, I have been known to go by Peacock in the past.”

Athera jolts, her gaze sharpening, and before Ellana can reply she takes a step forward and holds out her hand to him.

“Nice to meet you,” she says, her expression calculating. “I’m Athera Arlanan, sister to the Herald.”

He tilts his head quizzically, and takes her hand with an uncertain quirk of his lips.

“Oh?”

“I’ve also been known to go by Starfire, in the past.”

She watches him for any sign of recognition, and then his eyes widen, and the weak grip he has on her hand tightens at once.

“A pleasure to meet you, Starfire,” he says, his smirk broadening. “I think you and I are going to have much to discuss, don’t you?”

Chapter Text

They don’t stay in Redcliffe long, leaving as soon as Felix has returned to his father, and making for the camp at Dwarfson’s Pass where Bull and the Chargers are waiting for them. It’s dusk by the time they arrive, the sky clouded over in shades of rolling grey, and the light a soft blue glow over the hills.

Athera is still unsettled by the confrontation in the tavern, and after exchanging half-hearted greetings with Bull, she ducks inside the command tent to write a long letter to Leliana. Alone between the canvas walls, she sits for a long time and listens to the camp settling in for the night around her.

Scout Harding is laughing with Sera, and she can hear Vivienne and Dorian engaged in a debate on magical theory that’s growing more and more heated. Before long, the smell of roasting meat begins to waft inside, and she tenses her jaw while her stomach rolls uncomfortably.

It’s been years since she was a slave, and she’s spent every day since trying to forget, and fighting to free as many others as she can. But she never expected to come up against a magister enslaving mages on Ferelden soil. She doesn’t know how to process it.

When the sound of the Chargers tuning their instruments meets her ears, she slips quietly out of the tent and turns her back on the camp. The evening is already becoming raucous – so many of them in one place, that the night has the feel of an impromptu party. But she isn’t in the mood for music and laughter. Not when Tevinter has stolen an army of mages out from under their noses, and claimed a stronghold in the Hinterlands.

Instead, she straps her bow to her back and hikes a short distance away, climbing steadily up the Pass’s hills and making for a boulder half-way up. The burn in her muscles feels good, her breath leaving her mouth in plumes of water vapour against the cool night air. It’s a welcome distraction from her racing thoughts, and when she reaches her destination she sits with her legs hanging over the edge, and looks out over the view.

Below her, the camp’s fires wink merrily against the growing darkness. The Inquisition are spread out between the tents, and occasional waves of laughter and shouting drift upwards to meet her. The sight brings a wistful smile to her lips, but she feels detached from the celebration; contained within her solitude and unable to join them.

Instead, she watches the last of the sunlight slip behind the hills, and while a cold breeze blows around her, she tips her head back and looks at the stars. She’s still there, staring up at the sky, when Solas finds her and sits quietly by her side. For a long time, neither of them speak, and then he presses his arm against hers and lets out a slow breath.

“You’ve been gone a long time, my star.”

His voice is gentle, quiet in the moonlight, and she closes her eyes and tries to relax her shoulders.

“I wasn’t in the mood to celebrate.”

She feels him turn towards her, and with a final glance at the sky, she tilts her head to observe him out of the corner of her eye.

“You don’t believe your sister will ally with the mages.”

“I don’t think she was ever going to, but the stakes are higher now.”

Solas sighs, tilting her chin slightly to look at her, his expression appraising.

“What are you thinking, vhenan?” He murmurs.

She holds his gaze for a long moment, the pinpricks of light in his eyes shining brightly in the shadows, and then she scrubs her hands through her hair and climbs to her feet to pace.

“I’m thinking, that either Fiona is lying, or Alexius did something to her that none of us understand,” she says. “I’m thinking, that there’s now a Tevene army in Ferelden, probably backed by Corypheus, and if we abandon the mages now then they’ll become his to use however he wants.”

She huffs out an aggravated breath and folds her arms in front of herself, while Solas watches her silently.

“I’m thinking, how can anyone fight to be set free from the Circles, and then turn around and sell themselves into slavery? And I’m thinking, that if the Inquisition doesn’t do anything about this, then we’ll be just as bad as the slavers.”

Her ire finally spent, she lets out a long breath and stares at him hopelessly, her voice dropping to a whisper.

“What are we going to do, Solas? I don’t know what to do.”

His eyes soften, and he climbs to his feet and takes her hands in his.

“I’m as concerned about this as you are, my star,” he says gently. “Few people know better the ills of slavery than I do, but you mustn’t give into hopelessness.”

She knows that he means well, but a kernel of frustration bubbles up in her chest anyway, and she pulls her hands away.

“I know you’ve fought against slavery for longer than anyone,” she begins, struggling to keep her voice even. “But you haven’t been a slave Solas, have you?”

She meets his gaze, while the furrow between his eyebrows grows.

“You don’t know what it’s like to have every choice taken from you,” she says. “It isn’t just that people are cruel, or that they hurt you, or that you can’t make a decision for yourself about anything. It’s that everyone thinks it’s okay.”

Her voice cracks, and she draws her hands in front of her face and breathes in shakily.

“When you’re a slave, no matter what happens to you, it’s all alright. You can be insulted and wounded, worked to the point of collapse, raped or killed or simply abused, and there’s no-one, not a single person around you, that will look at you and believe this is wrong.”

Her eyes burn, and she swallows down a lump in her throat and tries to ignore the ache in her chest.

“After a while, it begins to feel as though you’re not real,” she whispers at last. “You start to think, maybe this is normal. Maybe I do deserve this. Maybe I’m the one that’s wrong. And that’s why it’s so terrible. It isn’t the abuse, or even the lack of choice. It’s that once you make someone a slave, they’re no longer a person. They’re someone else’s property, no better than an inanimate object. And you can do whatever you want to someone’s property. You can do whatever you want, and it doesn’t matter to anyone, and there’s nothing you can do about it.”

She looks up at him, her eyes shining and her expression haunted.

“Do you know what that’s like, Solas?” She asks softly. “Do you understand?”

He studies her for a long moment, his gaze pained, and then he looks away over the hills and clasps his hands together.

“I may not know what it’s like to be a slave,” he says quietly at last. “But I do know what it’s like for your body not to be your own. For it to belong to someone else, or to a cause that’s greater than yourself.”

He swallows, and wraps his arms around himself protectively.

“There were many times over the years when I was sent to fight in another’s wars, or instructed to service a stranger in another’s bed. Although I was not a slave, I didn’t truly have a choice. I-”

He breaks off, and Athera curses herself silently when she sees his fingers start to tremble. No, she realises, Solas hasn’t been a slave, but in all of the ways that matter, she’s known for a long time how terribly Mythal had used him. She steps forward and places her hand on his arm, and smooths her thumb over the fabric of his tunic.

“Ir abelas, ma fen,” she says softly. “I didn’t mean to make you remember those days.”

He places his hand over hers, his expression shuttered, and with her free hand she tilts his chin until he’s looking at her again.

“Forgive me,” she murmurs. “I was just upset. I know that you understand what it’s like.”

His lips twitch, and then his gaze opens and he reaches for her silently. She lets him draw her close, wrapping her arms around his waist while he moulds their bodies together, and releases a soft huff of breath into her hair.

“We will find a way to save them, my star,” he whispers at last. “We won’t abandon them to Alexius. You have my word.”

It may be an empty platitude, but even so, she believes him. With a sigh, she tightens her hold and nuzzles at his chest, and she feels him smile against her temple and breathe her in deeply.

“We should go back to the camp now, shouldn’t we?” She asks eventually, and Solas nods and presses a kiss to the top of her head.

“It would be for the best. But first, you must tell me. The Tevene altus who’s joined us. What do you know of him that you haven’t told your sister?”

She smiles wryly against his chest.

“Ah, so you caught that, did you?”

He hums in agreement and releases her, and she grins up at him cheekily and enjoys the exasperated expression on his face.

“Do you remember when Lori and I received that letter from our informant in Tevinter, telling us there were fifty slaves being moved along the border?”

Solas nods, and her smile widens.

“The informant’s codename was Peacock, and he stopped sending us the slave routes because he was leaving for the south.”

His eyes go wide, and then he lets out a wry breath into the cold night air.

“Dorian is the Peacock.”

She smirks.

“Dorian is the Peacock.”

“I’m going to have to be much nicer to him now, aren’t I?” Solas laments, and despite the darkness of the day, Athera laughs freely at him and takes him by the hand.

“Ir abelas, ma fen. I have a feeling that he’s one of the good guys.”

The hmmph he makes in response keeps her smiling through the walk down the Pass, and when they reach the circle of light at the camp, no-one who looks at them would ever realise the despair she’d felt so recently.

She likes it better that way.

“Hey, Glowy’s sis!” A voice calls out to her suddenly. “Where you been?”

Sera is drunk, lilting dangerously across a log while Scout Harding watches her with a fond smile and a stabilising hand on her shoulder.

“Hello Sera,” Athera smiles. “Enjoying the Charger’s mead?”

Sera laughs and blows a raspberry, and then she looks suspiciously between her and Solas, and grins.

“Ooooh, I get it! You elves needed some alone time so you could bump bits, right?”

Athera snorts, and at the frankly horrified expression on Solas’ face, bursts out laughing. When she’s calmed down, she returns Sera’s grin, while the rogue watches her with a suggestive expression and continues to sway where she sits.

“Maybe we did, Sera. Maybe we did.”

“I knew it!”

The rogue descends into giggles and teasing, and Athera returns Solas’ disapproving look with an impish grin that makes him sigh long-sufferingly.

“You know that we shall never hear the end of this now, my star?” He asks heavily.

“I know. But at least she’s happy.”

“And are you?” A voice says from beside the fire. “I would imagine that even for the Inquisition, today has been quite a day.”

She turns to see Dorian watching them, a perfectly manicured eyebrow quirked appraisingly in her direction.

“It’s been… A day,” she agrees.

“Indeed. Although it seems to me that in your line of work, you may have had many days like it.”

Her lips twitch in amusement, and she gestures him out of his seat and draws him away from the party. With an assessing glance between them, Solas lets them go, and the last she sees of him before they round the corner, he’s frowning unhappily while Sera attempts to force a drink into his hand.

“One day, you’re going to have to tell me more about that elf,” Dorian says. “He’s an odd little egg, isn’t he?”

Athera laughs, sinking down onto a convenient rock against the Pass, and motioning for Dorian to do the same.

“That he is,” she agrees. “But he’s my odd little egg, and don’t you forget it.”

“Perish the thought,” he grins, sweeping his robes back flamboyantly and perching at her side.

“So, where do you want to start?”

He studies her for a long moment, his dark eyes twinkling in the gloom while she scrutinises him in return. She’s already given some thought to the kind of person the Peacock might be. She’d imagined him to be older, perhaps in his fifties, a dusting of grey on a neatly-groomed beard, with blue eyes that saw too much of what was wrong with his society, and a stoic spirit that urged him to try to change it.

Attempting to reconcile the reality of Dorian - with his flawless skin, dark eyes, and younger man’s vanity – with the sober countenance of her imagined version, is a difficult task to accomplish so quickly.

“I suppose,” he says slowly. “We ought to begin by clearing the air.”

“Oh?”

He holds his hand out to her, and she takes it uncertainly.

“You, Athera Arlanan, are a Dalish elf, formerly a slave in my home country. I, Dorian Pavus, am a privileged and devastatingly handsome altus, who was served by slaves during most of his early life.”

She pinches her lips together to hide a reluctant smile, and inclines her head in acknowledgement.

“You are Dorian Pavus and I am Athera Arlanan,” she agrees. “As well as being a privileged and moderately attractive altus, you are also the Peacock, who corresponded with the revas’shiral at great personal risk to bring us vital information on the slave trade.”

She draws in a breath, noting that his eyes have crinkled at the corners and his hand remains warm in hers.

“As well as being a former slave and a former Dalish elf, I am also Starfire, the leader of the revas’shiral, a runaway from my clan, and the perpetually terrified right hand of the Left Hand of the Divine, to use Solas’ phrase.”

She huffs a soft laugh and finally allows the smile to show on her face.

“No doubt we’ll irritate the hell out of each other,” she says. “But I think we might have some common ground as well, don’t you?”

He squeezes her hand and a bright smirk pulls at one side of his mouth.

“No doubt,” he agrees. “Although I must warn you, if you ever call me moderately attractive again, I may go back to Tevinter.”

She laughs again when he releases his grip on her, and tries to ignore how strange it feels to be speaking to a member of the Imperium’s high society, without a shiver of a terror.

“Consider it noted,” she says. “Now that that’s out of the way, ask what it is you want to ask. I can see the question behind your eyes and it’s distracting.”

He chuckles lightly, and then grows serious.

“Your sister isn’t fond of mages,” he says thoughtfully. “Is that going to be a problem?”

She sighs heavily, her forehead furrowing while she chews on her lip.

“Yes,” she admits. “Ellana was traumatised by an abomination when she was very young, and she hasn’t trusted mages since.”

“Even you?”

“Especially me.”

“Ah.”

Dorian’s gaze drifts away, and she waits while he thinks the problem over.

“Alexius was my mentor,” he says at last. “He was once closer to me than my own father.”

“What happened?”

“Felix became infected by the Blight.”

She hesitates, processing this new information, and when she drops her eyes from his she's frustrated to find that she has some sympathy for him after all.

“So, all of this is to save his son?”

“Indeed.”

“He won’t stop, then,” she says. “There’s nothing we can say that would persuade him to stop.”

Dorian cocks his head and looks at her curiously.

“You speak as though you were a parent.”

She swallows, her heart fluttering while she resists the urge to reach for the peach stone at her neck.

“That’s a conversation for when I know you better, Dorian. And maybe not even then.”

He nods slowly, a flicker of interest flitting swiftly behind his eyes.

“I can’t argue with that,” he decides at last. “But if we can’t persuade him to stop, then you’re going to have to persuade your sister to see sense. No matter my feelings on the matter, Ferelden can’t allow an army of Tevinter mages to gain a foothold in the Hinterlands. It would be madness to let it continue.”

“I know. I said as much to Solas.”

“And what did your odd little egg say?”

“He said that we’d find a way to help them, no matter what Ellana thinks.”

Dorian smiles, seemingly charmed, and she finds herself returning it naturally.

“Then for all our sakes, Starfire," he says. "Let us hope that your odd little egg is right.”

Chapter Text

The war room is crowded a few days after they return to Haven. Dorian didn’t travel with them – preferring to be closer to Felix, and promising to hold down the fort until Athera can return with reinforcements. But despite his absence, the shouting match between the two sisters and the advisors has already grown loud enough to disturb every cleric in the Chantry, and send them scurrying elsewhere.

“I will not risk people’s lives to save a bunch of felasils who were stupid enough to sell themselves to Tevinter!” Ellana yells. “If the Imperium wants them, they can have them. A few hundred more abominations should keep them happy enough for now.”

“Will you stop behaving like an ignorant child?” Athera shouts back. “You’re not stupid, Ellana, no matter how well you’re pretending at it. We all understand that you’ve got a problem with mages, but even you must be able to see that letting Tevinter keep an army of them enslaved in the Hinterlands, is so dangerous that it’s practically suicidal!”

“And if we ally with the Templars, then we’ll have the best defence against them when they come for us.”

“Bullshit.”

Athera is fighting hard for composure, but the callousness of this woman who’s meant to be her sister, is breaking down every emotional barrier she’s ever raised.

“The Templars won’t be able to defend against a Tevene army in the heart of Ferelden, not when Alexius is already wielding some kind of time magic we don’t understand,” she argues. “The most strategic choice is to steal the mages out from under him and offer them shelter in Haven. But aside from that, how can you be ok with hundreds of innocent people being sold into slavery?”

“There’s no such thing as an innocent mage.”

Ellana’s words land like ice water around her, and Athera freezes with her hands pressed to the war table, her fingernails gouging into the wood.

“Does that include me, da’mi?” She asks her in a whisper. “Shall I tell you what it’s like to be a slave?”

The silence around them is weighted, the advisors becoming so still that barely a whisper of breath can be heard. Ellana is flushed, her eyes trained down at the map, and she doesn’t answer when Athera starts to speak.

“Shall I tell you how often my master took me to his bed?” She says softly. “Shall I describe how he liked to hear me beg for him to stop?”

Across the table, her sister pales, and Athera feels bile burning, thick and hot in the back of her throat.

“Shall I tell you about the lyrium mines?” She continues. “About how there were people there underground who hadn’t seen the sun for years? How we slept in spaces chiselled out of the rock, folded in half because there wasn’t enough space to lie straight?”

Her hands shake, and she sways where she stands, using the table to support herself when her legs threaten to give way.

“Shall I tell you about the night we escaped, when a section of the mine collapsed and half of us were buried? The guards were so frantic to get out that they slaughtered every elf ahead of them in the tunnel. Over a hundred of us made it out of the collapse, but only twenty of us made it to the surface alive.”

Ellana raises her head and finally looks at her, and Athera blinks back tears and meets her gaze.

“Did I deserve it, da’mi?” She whispers. “Would you really abandon them to the same fate?”

Ellana’s expression becomes uncertain and then grows shuttered, her hands braced against the table.

“You can’t know that it will be their fate,” she argues weakly, but both of them hear the waver in her voice.

Athera shakes her head, disappointment radiating from her like a wall of heat, while her sister stands up straighter and looks away.

“I agree with Athera,” Leliana interrupts firmly. “The subjugation of mages has gone on long enough, and to allow Tevinter to take them as slaves would be a sin.”

“The Herald makes a valid point though,” Cullen argues apologetically. “The Templars are the safer choice.”

“Not if it leaves the Imperium with an army,” Cassandra cuts in.

“The problem is that we can only choose one,” Josie says, her manicured nails tapping anxiously at her writing board. “Both factions will only accept a visit from the Herald herself. No matter what we decide, we’ll have to take a side.”

“Not necessarily.”

All eyes turn to the sound of Revas’ voice, and Athera steadies her breath as he strolls casually into the room.

“You shouldn’t be here, Revas,” she says softly, but both of them know she doesn’t mean it.

“What did you mean by not necessarily?” Leliana questions, her eyes narrowed dangerously. “How can we treat with both of them when there’s only one Herald?”

He leans against the wall and smirks, his arms folded over his chest.

“That’s easy,” he says. “You have to have two Heralds.”

The people gathered around the table stare back at him blankly, and he sighs and raises his eyes to the ceiling in mock-exasperation.

“Fine, I’ll spell it out for you then,” he says. “What do you all know about the Black Emporium, and the Mirror of Transformation?”

***

The next morning, Athera saddles the red hart and straps her pack onto the back of the seat. The day is cold and clear, and she can hear the muffled sound of Solas and Revas arguing inside the stable, trying and failing to keep their voices low. She sighs and scratches at the hart’s neck, blinking sleep from her eyes and smiling wryly into its face.

“Nothing’s ever easy, is it falon?”

He bumps her with his nose in response, and she chuckles softly and pushes her face into his fur. It’s barely past dawn and Haven is quiet and peaceful, but neither Athera or Solas slept well, and a headache is growing behind her eyes. After Revas’ announcement, it had taken only a few hours for them to finalise a plan.

In a few days, Ellana, Bull, and the Chargers - with Cole in secret beside them - will travel to the Templar stronghold to recruit them for the Inquisition. At the same time, Athera will use the Mirror at the Black Emporium to disguise herself as her sister, and travel to the Hinterlands with Leliana’s people to meet with Alexius and the mages.

For the next couple of weeks, timing and secrecy will be critical. If word gets out during their travels that there are two Heralds roaming across Thedas, then neither side will trust them, and they may lose both of them. For that reason, only Revas is accompanying Athera to the Emporium, and they’ll meet up with the rest of the Inquisition group in Redcliffe once she’s taken on the disguise.

Predictably, Solas isn’t pleased.

She turns her head away from the hart when the door to the stables slams open, and the wolf in question stalks outside with Revas close behind.

“You didn’t kill each other, then,” she jokes weakly. “Are we ready to go?”

Revas swings his leg over the back of the bog unicorn, and grins down at her warmly.

“Ready when you are, lethallan. I’ll meet you at the gates.”

With a click of his heels, the peculiar mount snorts and begins to walk down the hill, and Athera turns to face Solas when he moves to her side.

“I do not like this, my star,” he says unhappily. “The Black Emporium is a long way away.”

“And you still don’t trust Revas with me,” she points out, a small smile on her lips.

Solas sighs and takes her hands in his, his eyes searching her face.

“No,” he admits. “I don’t. But it is some small comfort to know that it would be immensely foolish of him to try and hurt you while Leliana’s people are tracking your movements across the country.”

“You mean, that your old general isn’t stupid enough to put the Nightingale on his tale if he doesn’t have to?”

He smirks slightly, and she returns it with a grin.

“I did not employ fools in my rebellion,” he says haughtily. “No matter what else he is, Revas is not stupid.”

“He’s also not a homicidal maniac,” she replies. “He isn’t going to hurt me, Solas. I promise you that.”

“He was a homicidal maniac,” Solas retorts. “Or have you forgotten what he did to you in Kirkwall?”

She doesn’t dignify that with a response, merely raising an eyebrow at him until he lets out a long breath and his shoulders slump in acknowledgement.

“Fine,” he says at last. “He is no longer behaving like a homicidal maniac, but that doesn’t mean that he’s safe, or that there won’t be danger from other quarters during your journey.”

He reaches out and cups her face between his palms, and Athera smiles and reaches a hand up to his.

“Please be careful, my star,” he whispers. “I cannot bear to lose you again.”

She goes up onto her toes and kisses him, a simple brush of their lips, and when she pulls away again he’s looking at her with such open adoration, that it makes her feel self-conscious and shy.

“I promise,” she murmurs. “I’ll see you at Redcliffe in a couple of weeks.”

He leans in for another kiss, and this time when their lips meet, his tongue finds its way into her mouth and his hands tangle in her hair. Her body responds at once, heat rushing through her like lightning, and she clings to his shoulders while he bends her backwards and hauls her close against his body.

When he finally lets her go, they’re both flushed and panting, and she blinks dazedly at him and then snorts at the smug look on his face.

“Foolish wolf,” she complains. “Just for that, I’ll have to give you something to think about for the next two weeks.”

“Indeed?”

He quirks an eyebrow at her, every inch a creature of pride, and with a quick glance around to make sure they’re still alone, she catches hold of his hand and slips it swiftly into her smalls. She already knows how wet he’s made her, and while he freezes in shock, she guides his finger to dip once through the heat of her slick, and then draws him back out into the cold again.

To her secret delight, Solas’ pupils blow wide, and he groans deliciously and tries to catch her as she swings her leg over the hart. When she looks back down at him, a grin on her lips, he’s staring up at her with equal parts frustration and approval, and she tosses him a wink and laughs when he huffs.

“That was unfair, my star,” he growls. “You know I’ll be unable to think of anything else while you’re away.”

“That was the idea,” she smiles. “It’s difficult to be grim and fatalistic when you’re horny, right?”

He tries to smother a snort with his hand, and then gives up and laughs, even while he glares at her disapprovingly. After a while, his expression gentles, and he reaches up to take her hand in his and presses a kiss to her knuckles.

“Be careful, vhenan,” he says softly. “I intend to show you just how much I’ve missed you the next time we meet.”

She bends down to brush another kiss to his lips, and nips him lightly when she draws away.

“I’ll look forward to it, ma fen. Try not to worry too much, won’t you?”

“I will try.”

He steps away from her, and she guides the hart’s reigns towards the gates, where she can see Revas waiting with his back to her, and the bog unicorn pawing at the ground impatiently.

“Ar lath ma, ma fen.”

“Ar lath ma, vhenan,” he replies quietly. “Dareth shiral.”

With a last glance at the unhappy downturn of his mouth, Athera kicks her heels and guides the hart into a trot. The gates draw open at her approach, and Revas urges his mount into motion as well, until the two of them are galloping through the snow and leaving Solas and Haven behind.

“You’re smiling,” Revas yells at her as they round the first corner, the sunlight glinting like diamonds over the ground.

“Itchy feet!” She shouts back. “I never could stand being stuck in a crowd.”

The ancient elf grins at her, his own relief at being out of the town just as obvious as hers.

“What were you and Solas arguing about, anyway?”

“Oh, nothing much,” he smirks. “The Dread Wolf just wanted me to know that if so much as a hair on your head was harmed, he would hunt me to the ends of the world and do some very interesting and inventive things to my internal organs.”

Athera lets out an exasperated laugh, and tries not to blush while Revas watches her knowingly.

“Felasil,” she murmurs fondly under her breath.

“Indeed,” her friend agrees. “I didn’t have the heart to tell him that I’m hardly the scariest thing on this trip.”

While the path through the mountains grows thinner, Athera takes his cue and slows her hart back down to a trot.

“Oh?” She asks curiously. “And who should I really be worried about?”

“Oh, just you wait,” Revas replies. “Xenon the Antiquarian has to be seen to be believed.”

***

True to his word, and despite his warnings not to stare, a few days later Athera finds herself blinking owlishly at the creature on the throne, and wondering if she’s ever seen anything so strange. Xenon’s body is a twisted, mummified thing, his skin like parchment and the scent of dry rot clinging like a shroud around him. The magic that gives him voice booms through the room and makes the hairs on the back of her neck stand on end.

“Told you,” Revas whispers, and she shoots him an unimpressed look and gives the Antiquarian a wide berth.

The Black Emporium is dimly lit, a chaotic, dark space that almost hums with the magic of the artefacts on display. Xenon keeps up a running commentary while they creep between the shelves, and the small urchin who acts as his assistant looks terrified every time he has to draw close.

Athera feels a surge of protectiveness wash over her when he sprays the ancient figure with water, but she turns away before it makes her do something stupid. They’re here for the Mirror, and if she pisses Xenon off before she’s able to use it, the mages are as good as dead.

“Hey look, a bear!”

The giddiness in Revas’ voice is a shock to hear coming from the mouth of an ancient elf, and she smiles when he drops to his knees and holds his hand out for a small white bear to sniff.

“You may pet the tiny bear!” Xenon booms. “But be careful. A magister miniaturised it specially, at great cost. He answers to Chauncey.”

Athera’s expression drops into one of wry disbelief, but Revas doesn’t seem deterred by how ridiculous the whole thing is.

“Andaran Atish’an, Chauncey,” he coos. “Aren’t you a magnificent bear?”

Chauncey bumps Revas’ knuckles with his nose, and then flops onto his back like a mabari to have his stomach rubbed. She watches in amused disbelief as Revas looks up at her from the floor, his green eyes sparkling with joy, and ruffles his fingers through its fur.

“I think he likes me!” He whispers like a child, and Athera suppresses a laugh and shoves his shoulder.

“Come on, falon,” she says fondly. “We didn’t come here for you to get another pet.”

“Spoil sport.”

He gives a last stroke to the bear when he stands, and as they leave Athera surreptitiously scratches behind its ears, offering Revas an expression of innocence when he turns and catches her in the act.

“See,” he teases. “You’re just as bad.”

“I don’t know what you mean.”

They share a smile, and he leads her through the teetering stacks of rare objects and towering schematics, until she finds herself standing in front of a twisted mirror that sends a shiver down her spine. The frame is black gilt, empty save for an unnerving shimmer in its centre, with coiling vines that wrap around and through it as though trying to hide it from view.

She falls still, staring into the kaleidoscope of colours at its centre, and feeling a ripple of disquiet shudder along her nerves.

“Is this safe?” She murmurs softly, and Revas lays a comforting hand against her elbow.

“The magic here is ancient,” he tells her quietly. “Some would say, insidious. As far as my readings on it can tell me, it’s designed not only to change your appearance, but to alter who you were and will be in the future.”

She swallows, suddenly feeling cold.

“I have to say, you’re not selling this to me.”

She feels him smile above her head, and squeeze her arm gently.

“It’s said that it selects from one of the infinite possible universes where you were brought up with a different lineage, and then twists that thread of history into the current reality. Ordinarily, this would be irreversible, and would affect not only you, but the memory of everyone who ever knew you as well.”

“Ordinarily?”

She tilts her head to look at him, and suppresses a startled flinch when he passes a small circular object into her hand without looking at her.

“Of the many things I found in the laboratory beneath Haven, one area of research pertained to this Mirror specifically,” he says, his voice so low that it barely reaches her ears. “This rune is imbued with Elvhen enchantments. It will warp the Mirror’s effects and contain them only to your body, creating an advanced glamour rather than an alteration of the timeline.”

“Why would someone be researching this thing in Haven?” She wonders, equally quietly, and he shakes his head and nudges her forward.

“I don’t know, but for now, it is enough for you to know that according to my calculations, the rune is safe to use. It will also act as a grounding stone. You need only feed your magic into it to return to your former appearance, but it will only work once, so choose that moment wisely.”

She nods, her gaze already swallowed by the twisting colours inside the empty frame. The magic calls to her, a discordant song barely audible to her ears, but growing louder as her eyes drift out of focus and her magic reaches out to it. Distantly, she’s aware of Revas stepping back and away, and she holds Ellana’s image in her mind while the Mirror reaches out to swallow her.

It hurts, but not unbearably. The Black Emporium drifts away, and Athera finds herself standing in a whirlpool of rolling colour, a song she almost recognises pitching and falling around her. There are whispers in the air, and she brings all of her will to bear and pictures her sister; the pale red of her hair; the fragile green in her eyes; the strong muscles of a warrior and the hard line of her mouth.

With a cry, she pitches forward into the swell, a shard of blinding heat stretching her bones, and rearranging the cells of her skin. She screams, the muscles in her face rearranging themselves and her body splitting along its seams. And then, just as quickly as it began, it ends, and she braces herself against the Emporium’s cold stone floor and sucks in great lungfuls of air.

“Athera?”

Revas’ voice is frantic, and she nods and waves an exhausted hand at him in response, her forehead pressed to the ground. She feels exhausted, as though she hasn’t slept in days, and her nerves tingle strangely when she finally climbs to her feet. Her centre of gravity has shifted, and when she looks down at her hands they aren’t her own.

The sensation is strange, like being a passenger inside someone else’s eyes, and when she raises her head and looks into the mirror, her breath catches in her throat. The shimmering pool of colours is gone, replaced by a pane of brilliant glass, and inside its depths she is no longer herself. Her hair is straighter, a curtain of waves that fall down her back. Her eyes catch glimmers of green in the dim light, and her body is fierce and strong.

For now, Athera is no more. The woman that looks back at her is the Herald of Andraste.

Ellana Lavellan reborn.

Chapter Text

The camp downstream from Redcliffe’s gates is a hive of activity on the morning of Alexius’ invitation. Leliana’s spies mingle with those from the revas’shiral, messages pass back and forth on the raven’s wings, while a light-armoured contingent of Cullen’s men wait around the perimeter. Solas’ white hart stands disdainfully between the grim figure of the bog unicorn and Athera’s red mount, and the Dread Wolf feeds him a chunk of salt in apology for the commotion, before taking a seat on a rock nearby.

His staff leans casually at his side, ready for them to move into the town, and he watches Athera weave between the babbling crowd with a distant pull of loss.

She doesn’t look like his star.

It’s a pathetic thing to be bothered by. He knows intellectually that she’s still Athera, but reconciling the hard, haughty exterior of her sister with the softness of the woman he loves, is proving more difficult than he’d imagined. She and Revas had ridden into camp late last night, and he’d had to convince himself to reach out and hold her in greeting.

She’d felt strange in the circle of his arms. Harder and more unyielding than the body he’s used to, and while her head has always fit perfectly under his chin, he’d found himself staring eye-to-eye with her instead. It’s ridiculous, but he misses her. He misses the soft curves of her beneath his hands, and the laughter in her eyes, and even the fading scars across her face, that have begun to look more and more like a constellation of stars as they’ve faded.

The wolf inside him is confused. She smells… wrong. The soft notes of lilac and o-zone are overlaid with something caustic, like a forest caught in the act of burning. It makes him anxious, as though someone has stolen away his heart and replaced her with an interloper. Even more than that, he’s worried about her. Only a few people have been told that she isn’t really the Herald, and with the simple piece of illusion magic that Revas has woven into her hand to mimic the anchor, she’s now an undeniable target.

His star, wearing the face of her sister and trailing a scent like fire.

He wants her back almost more than he wants the meeting with Alexius to be over.

Across the camp, she meets his eye, and he gets to his feet and returns her smile weakly when she approaches.

“We’ll be ready to leave soon,” she says, in the timbre of Ellana’s voice. “Dorian’s just left to find his way back inside the castle without being seen.”

“That’s good. Having him within the walls will be a great benefit once Leliana’s people reveal themselves.”

His words come out stiff and stilted, as though he really is talking to the Herald, and her eyes soften understandingly while she cocks her head at him in thought. The mannerism is so Athera, so undeniably his star, that he takes a sudden step forward and catches her by the hand, before falling still when he realises that he doesn’t know what to do next.

It feels as though she’s slipping in and out of reality; sometimes his heart, and sometimes her sister. He wants Athera to stay, but he can’t bring himself to kiss the face of the Herald even though he knows it isn’t her.

“This is weird, isn’t it?” She says softly, in that voice that isn’t hers. “It feels strange to be standing level with you, instead of staring up.”

His mouth twitches sadly, and he looks away and holds her hand to his lips – the closest he can get to a kiss without feeling unsettled.

“I miss you,” he murmurs, and then huffs at his own ridiculousness. “I know it doesn’t make any sense. I know it’s you. I just…”

“I understand. With any luck, by the end of the day I’ll be able to use the runestone, and come back into my own body again.”

He looks back at her, searching for Athera in the Herald’s gaze, and nods once before releasing her hand.

“I will be glad to see you again,” he confesses quietly. “Be careful, my star. Being the Herald is dangerous. There will be more than demons at work here today.”

***

Their walk through Redcliffe is tense. Revas, Solas, and Varric are accompanying Athera to the castle, and while the town’s attention is on the Herald, Leliana’s people are moving into position through the depths of the castle’s sewers. The scent of the forest fire is grating on his nerves, and Athera’s sublime impression of Ellana’s stride and the distant wariness of her expression, isn’t helping him to find calm.

When they enter the imposing hall, Revas elbows him none too subtly in warning, and Solas scowls and tries to relax his jaw.

“Announce us.”

Athera’s voice is hard, and the servant who waits for them at the steps almost takes a step backwards in response.

“The Magister’s invitation was for the Herald only,” he says uncertainly. “These others will have to remain here.”

Solas tightens his grip on his staff, and levels his most forbidding scowl at him over Athera’s shoulder. She might not look like his star, but he’ll be damned if he lets her walk into this alone.

“Where I go, they go,” she replies firmly. “Maybe you should be the one to tell Alexius that in person?”

A flash of fear lights the servant’s eyes, and then his shoulders slump in defeat and he turns without a word, gesturing for them to follow him.

“Not too friendly these guys, are they?” Varric quips, and Solas catches his eye while the great doors draw open ahead of them.

At the far end of the stone room, on a raised dais flanked by stone statues, Alexius awaits them, his legs crossed causally while he lounges on his stolen throne. The sight brings a touch of amusement to Solas’ thoughts, and he shares a glance laden with understanding with Revas, and has to suppress a smirk.

For thousands of years, they’ve watched generals, lords, and self-proclaimed gods hold court in the most opulent rooms ever yet seen. No matter the negotiations or the war, all false rulers carry themselves with the same air of arrogance and unearned greed. Solas wonders, for a moment, what it would be like to transform himself there and then; to have this pretender stare into the eyes of the Dread Wolf, and understand how small he appears.

“My lord magister,” the servant announces. “The agents of the Inquisition have arrived.”

Alexius climbs languidly to his feet, a sickly-sweet smile rippling across his face.

“My friend! It’s so good to see you again. And your associates, of course. I’m sure we can work out some arrangement that is equitable to all parties.”

“Are we mages to have no voice in deciding our fate?” A voice asks from behind them, and Solas turns to see Fiona walking towards them, a forbidding scowl on her face.

Athera’s hand twitches when she looks at her, and he knows the path her thoughts have taken. His star has fought all her life against slavery, and even though she’s here to save the mages, she’s still angry at Fiona for selling them in the first place. He can’t say that he disagrees with her.

“Fiona,” Alexius replies. “You would not have turned your followers over to my care if you did not trust me with their lives.”

“If the Grand Enchanter wants to be part of these talks, then I welcome her as a guest of the Inquisition,” Athera says.

“Thank you.”

Fiona tries to catch the Herald’s eye, but she’s already turned away to watch the magister return to his seat.

“The Inquisition needs mages to close the Breach, and I have them,” he says smugly. “So, what shall you offer in exchange?”

“Nothing at all. I’m just going to take the mages and leave.”

Solas suppresses a jolt of surprise as the tension in the room becomes palpable. He realises, while he watches Athera straighten her back proudly, that he’d expected her to negotiate. His star would have done, but she is acting the part of the Herald, and Ellana Lavellan does not suffer fools – even for diplomacy’s sake.

“And how do you imagine you will accomplish such a feat?” Alexius sneers.

“She knows everything, father,” Felix says softly from his side, and the magister’s expression darkens dangerously.

“Felix,” he warns. “What have you done?”

“Your son is concerned that you’re involved in something terrible,” Athera answers for him, and Alexius climbs to his feet.

“So speaks the thief!” He spits back. “Do you think you can turn my son against me?”

Solas tightens his grip on his staff and feels Revas do the same beside him.

“You walk into my stronghold with your stolen mark – a gift you don’t even understand – and you think you’re in control?” He continues caustically. “You’re nothing but a mistake.”

“What do you know about the Divine’s death?” Athera asks him.

“I know that it was the Elder One’s moment, and you were unworthy even to stand in his presence.”

Solas sees the Herald’s face darken, and knows that she’s thinking of Corypheus, even though she can’t say it out-loud.

“Father, listen to yourself!” Felix pleads. “Do you know what you sound like?”

“He sounds exactly like the sort of villainous cliché everyone expects us to be,” Dorian interrupts, striding casually into the room as though he owns the place.

“Dorian,” Alexius greets him heavily. “I gave you a chance to be a part of this. You turned me down. The Elder One has power you would not believe. He will raise the Imperium from its own ashes.”

“Blah blah blah, my cult is better than yours,” Athera mimics. “I’ve heard it a thousand times, and it’s always stupid and boring.”

“Well, you know, it’s a chance for the Imperium to really one-up that whole starting the Blight thing,” Dorian says.

“Is that something they need to one-up?”

“Oh heavens, no! But you have to admit, it is sublimely showy.”

“Enough!” Alexius roars. “Soon, the Elder One will become a god. He will make the world bow to mages once more. We will rule from the Boeric Ocean to the Frozen Seas.”

Solas suppresses a weary sigh, catching Revas’ eye while his former general holds his hands palm-up to the sky, as though to ask: Again?

He knows how he feels. After so many years fighting against oppression, it’s almost disappointing to realise that there’s nothing new under the sun. Frightened men will always seek power from tyrants, just as long as they believe that they will be spared the same pain.

“You cannot involve my people in this!” Fiona cries out, horrified, and Solas almost feels sorry for her.

“Alexius,” Dorian pleads. “This is exactly what you and I talked about never wanting to happen. How could you support this? Even to save Felix, this is monstrous.”

“Stop it, father,” Felix agrees. “Give up the Venatori. Let the southern mages fight the Breach, and let’s go home.”

Alexius’ face twists in pain, and he turns to face his son and lays a hand on his shoulder.

“No, it’s the only way. He can save you, Felix. There is a way. The Elder One promised. If I undo the mistake at the temple…”

His gaze turns, growing dark, and focusing like an arrow on Athera. Solas only just manages to stop himself from stepping between them, the sudden hatred directed at his star making a wave of adrenaline rise and rush, sickly-sweet through his blood.

While the argument between father and son continues, he tilts his head slightly to view the long stretch of hall behind them. At the pillars, the first guard has fallen silently, a slim dagger between his ribs as Leliana’s people take over the room like wraiths.

“Seize them, Venatori!,” Alexius cries out at last. “The Elder One demands this woman’s life!”

Solas swings his staff into his hands while the last of the guards fall, and Revas mirrors him at his side.

Behind them, he can hear the Venatori slipping to the ground, choked gurgles cutting off one-by-one while the Inquisition strikes. Alexius’ face breaks open in shock, his eyes growing wide and frightened for just a single second before he masters himself again.

“Your men are dead, Alexius,” Athera says coldly. “Surrender now, and let the mages go.”

The magister rounds on her, hatred in every line of his face.

“You are a mistake!” He hisses. “You never should have existed!”

Before Solas can register what’s happening, there’s a sudden, sharp tug on the veil. Revas jolts beside him, and he has just enough time to see a glittering ball of Fade energy burst into life in the magister’s hand, before Dorian leaps forward with a shout.

“No!”

The Peacock throws himself between Alexius and Athera, blocking the blast with his staff, and in the next instant a humming whirlpool of a rift breathes into life in front of the throne.

“Vhenan!”

The scream leaves his throat at the same time that Varric and Revas each grab him by one of his arms. In the space of a single blink, both Athera and Dorian vanish, and the rift slams closed behind them with a cacophonous crash that makes the ground beneath them tremble.

Solas stumbles forward, his heart plummeting through the floor at the same time his body breaks out in a cold and icy sweat.

“No…” He murmurs in a small voice, as though it’s a question.

And then again.

“No?”

He feels Revas grip his shoulder tightly, while the world folds in on itself and collapses inside him.

Athera is gone, snuffed out like a star.

He’s lost his heart again.

Chapter Text

The rift enfolds them in a blast of heat, and with a bone-shaking thud Athera’s feet slam into mould-slick cobblestones, and she’s plunged into stagnant water. She stumbles against Dorian, the mage’s arm going around her waist while they both struggle to keep their balance.

Before they can catch their breath, two heavily armoured guards jump in to attack, and Athera swings her bow from her back and fires two arrows into the closest one before he can reach them. With a flourish, Dorian directs a wave of purple magic towards the second, who immediately drops to his knees and screams in terror, before her third arrow finds its home in his neck.

“What in the void is going on?” Athera shouts, her heart racing, and the song of the red lyrium in the walls pounding inside her head.

Dorian looks back at her with an expression that’s both fascinated and unnerved, his staff held loosely at his side.

“Displacement, I believe,” he answers, far too calmly for her liking. “Fascinating. It’s probably not what Alexius intended, but the rift seems to have moved us to… The closest confluence of arcane energy, perhaps?”

“The last thing I remember we were in the castle hall, but this looks more like the dungeons.”

“Let’s see now,” Dorian muses. “If we’re still in the castle, it isn’t a path of arcane energy that’s displaced us, it’s… Oh!”

He spins to face her, his mouth open in delighted surprise, and she gestures for him to enlighten her before he gets lost in celebration.

“It isn’t simply where we are, it’s when. Alexius used the amulet as a focus. It’s moved us through time!”

Athera is fairly immune to surprise these days, what with having met the Dread Wolf in the Free Marches last year, but this new disaster still has the ability to shock her. She brings a hand to her head and takes a deep breath, the sudden certainty that Solas will have suffered to see her disappear, springing into her heart like a poison.

“Can that even be done?” She asks weakly.

“Normally, I would say no. Obviously Alexius has taken his research to exciting new heights. We’ve seen his temporal rifts before, remember? This time we simply passed through one.”

Athera sighs, her mind working a mile a minute to catch up with their current reality.

“What was Alexius trying to do?” She asks. “Because I’m pretty sure this wasn’t part of his plan.”

“I believe his original plan was to remove the Herald from time completely,” Dorian replies. “If that had happened, and you really were your sister, she would never have been at the Temple of Sacred Ashes or mangled the Elder One’s plan. I think your surprise in the castle hall made him reckless. He tossed us into the rift before he was ready. I countered it, the magic went wild, and here we are. Make sense?”

“Not really,” she says. “But I’m kind of used to that these days. It just seems so insane.”

Dorian hums in agreement and looks around the room, his gaze darkening on the coiling lyrium weaving its way up the walls.

“I don’t even want to think about what this will do to the fabric of the world,” he says grimly. “We didn’t travel through time, so much as punch a hole through it and toss it into the privy. But don’t worry, I’m here. I’ll protect you.”

Despite herself, she laughs, raising her hands to retie the loose strands of her braid and giving him a withering look in response.

“You have a plan to get us back, I hope?”

“I do have some thoughts on that, yes,” he agrees. “They’re lovely thoughts. Like little jewels.”

She snorts again, and they turn towards the doors.

“Alright then, let’s go. There has to be something here we can use to figure out how far we travelled, and how we can undo it.”

“That’s the spirit! Optimism. That’s what we need. And you’ll be glad to know that I’m full of it.”

“You’re certainly full of something.”

Her muttered tease brings a bright smile to his lips, and she smirks at him as they enter the corridor and start to wade through the water. The lyrium growth is worse through here, and she has to expend additional focus to keep the song out of her head. At the first set of stairs, she stops and listens tentatively for any sign of movement from above, but just as she places her foot on the first step, a blinding flash of light burns through the air, and all hell breaks loose around them.

She throws up a barrier instinctively, feeling Dorian do the same beside her, and then a familiar voice meets her ears while a warm hand closes at her elbow.

“Lethallan,” Revas breathes, his voice light with relief. “Thank all the good things in the world that we reached you first.”

Athera’s vision is still speckled with flashing lights, and she blinks dumbly into his face while the sound of a vicious fight drifts down to them from the floor above.

“I’ve got her!” The ancient elf bellows. “Clear a path to the eluvian! It won’t be long before the final assault begins.”

As she watches, a battalion of what can only be ancient elves emerge from the doors on every side, deep in combat with men who look like mere carriers for the lyrium growing out of their bodies.

“Revas, what the hell is going on?”

He’s already urging her up the stairs, Dorian a step or so behind, and she struggles to keep up on the slick stone steps.

“No time to explain properly,” he pants. “In short, you’ve been gone a year, and the whole world’s gone arse over tit and tied itself in knots in the meantime.”

“I can see that,” Dorian cuts in. “But what are you and your peculiarly well-dressed elves doing here?”

They emerge onto the next floor, the fight between the elves and their attackers even fiercer here, but Revas doesn’t give them time to pause.

“Also a long story,” he replies. “To put it simply, when Alexius realised that you weren’t the real Herald, he contacted the Elder One immediately. The attack on Haven was swift and brutal, and the Inquisition fell back to an old fortress in the Frostbacks called Skyhold.”

He meets her gaze significantly, and Athera understands without having to ask that the fortress belongs to Solas.

“A fortress? How delightful!” Dorian beams, and Revas barks a reluctant laugh and turns them down another corridor.

The clash of metal on metal is loud here, the sound echoing between the stone and vibrating like a bell inside her head.

“It was certainly useful,” he agrees. “But it wasn’t enough. The Elder One turned out to be a darkspawn magister called Corypheus, and he wasn’t acting alone. It seems that the veil has been weakening even more quickly than we feared, and…”

He pauses, his gaze flicking between her and Dorian, and then he fixes her with a long look and lowers his voice.

“And old enemies were already using the Blight to manipulate him. By the time we realised that they were involved as well, they’d already broken free of the mirrors and launched an attack on Orlais.”

Athera stops dead in her tracks, her blood running cold and her hand closing around Revas’ arm.

“They broke out?” She whispers. “Out of every path?”

He meets her gaze, his eyes haunted, and she has a sudden flashback to the Crossroads, and the creature that had hauled itself out of the black-lit glass and tried to carry Solas away.

A nightmare, he had told her at the time. Darkness and flame and blood, so thick that the white stone of the buildings could hardly be seen. Flesh in the streets. Flesh hanging from balconies, pulsing like grotesque hearts while people screamed.

If they’ve escaped as well, then this world is far more broken than she’d ever dared to believe.

“Solas?” She asks urgently. “What’s happened to him?”

Revas sighs and hauls them around another corner, this one almost free of enemies and nearly as silent as the dungeons.

“They know,” he tells her. “They know everything.”

She leans against the wall, her thoughts spinning, while the ancient elf meets her gaze grimly.

“Is he…?”

“He’s taken up his old role again,” he confirms. “Skyhold is his. The Inquisition, too, although he and your sister have been working closely together to close the rifts and protect as many people as they can.”

They start walking again, further from the site of the battle and away from the clash of steel.

“When you disappeared, the Inquisition fought back. Alexius managed to hold onto the castle, but he lost the mages,” Revas explains. “We thought at first that you might be dead, but because I crafted it, that runestone you’re carrying is keyed to both your magic and mine. I knew the link hadn’t been broken.”

He takes a key from his pocket and jams it into a thick oak door, and Athera and Dorian follow him inside.

“Solas theorised that the same kind of temporal rift we encountered at the gates had displaced you in the hall, and that if it had, you would return to the castle at some point in the future. When Corypheus was defeated and Alexius captured, we hid an eluvian here and keyed a series of wards to alert us to your magical signature. We knew we had to get to you before our old foes did.”

“Wait, what?” She asks, stumbling a step in shock. “What could they possibly want with me?”

“They know you were involved with Solas,” he answers simply. “There’s a target on your back almost as big as the one on his. Why do you think all these people tried to kill you the second you set foot here?”

“Honestly, Revas, it’s almost a compliment that you think I’ve had enough time to even consider that right now.”

He laughs brightly, and then cancels a series of wards and hauls aside a thick set of blue velvet curtains, revealing the eluvian sheltering behind them.

“You realise, of course,” Dorian says. “That I have absolutely no idea what either of you are talking about?”

“Seriously, Peacock,” Athera replies long-sufferingly. “It’s probably best if you keep it that way for now.”

The altus stares into her face for a long moment, but whatever he sees there seems to placate him.

“Very well then, dear one,” he says at last. “But should we ever escape from this awful place and return to our own time, you and I will have to have a nice long talk. Preferably one that’s less confusing than this has been.”

“Fine. But one ridiculous problem at a time, okay?”

He grins.

“Of course.”

“Solas tells me you’ve been to the Crossroads before?” Revas interrupts, and Athera nods while he places his hand to the mirror.

“This place was designed for the Elvhen,” he tells Dorian. “It will be difficult for you to navigate, but we won’t be able to stop once we’re in there. The Inquisition aren’t the only ones in possession of an eluvian, and it would be best not to get caught in-between.”

Dorian raises his eyebrow, and watches with obvious interest while the mirror lights and glows blue.

“Since a discussion on magical theory is probably out of the question,” he begins. “Can we at least assume that you’re taking us to this fortress, and that nothing will try to kill us once we get there?”

Revas smirks and gestures for him to take hold of Athera’s hand, before drawing his staff from his back and casting a ward on the door.

“We are going to the fortress,” he confirms. “As for whether anyone will try to kill you once you get there, well… The Herald might have a few choice words for her sister, once we’ve safely arrived.”

Athera raises her hand to her face and tips her head back dramatically.

“Why is nothing ever easy?”

“I’ve been asking myself that for a long time,” Revas smiles. “Now come on. We don’t have a moment to waste.”

***

The Crossroads are a whirl of motion while they rush through the crumbling walkways. When she’d been here before with Solas and Merrill, the broken paths had been wreathed in fog, the shattered eluvians like fallen sentries abandoned to mark the way. Now, the place in-between is an explosion of colour and light. Trees bloom with peculiar flowers; waterfalls rush up instead of down; and there are criss-crossing footprints and scuffmarks across the tumbling stone.

Even so, it still carries with it a sensation of wrongness. The light is a little too bright. The magic a little too fierce. By the way Dorian clings to her hand, she can guess that it looks even stranger to him, which is certainly saying something. An elf she might be, but she gets the impression that the Crossroads are somehow poisoned; glutting themselves on an excess of tainted magic and turning everything into a fever dream.

True to his word, Revas doesn’t linger, keeping a tight grip on her elbow while they pass through a series of humming mirrors and out the other side. Eventually, he reaches the largest eluvian yet, sitting atop a raised black dais veined with gold, and wreathed in carvings of creatures long lost to time. Here, he finally comes to a stop, resting his palm on the glass surface and lighting it with a flourish.

Before they enter, he hesitates, and then turns to place both of his hands on her shoulders and stare into her face.

“You must be prepared,” he says firmly. “This world is dying. None of us could save it, but all of us know it. The only way anything will survive now is if you return to the time before, and obviate the events of the last year.”

“It’s really that bad?” She whispers.

“No, it is worse, but we have accepted it. Our greatest fear was that we wouldn’t be able to hold on for long enough for you to come back. Now that you have, things will move quickly. Our enemies are already attempting to breach Skyhold. We must send you and Dorian back as soon as possible, but I’m telling you this so that you won’t descend into horror.”

He looks down and away from her for a second, before setting his mouth into a pained line.

“The Fade and this world have both fractured,” he says at last. “You can already feel how the magic is poisoned. The war these last few months has been fierce, and you’ll be stepping into a fortress that’s already under siege.”

“So, your advice is for us not to lose our heads?” Dorian asks, and Revas nods.

“If I were you, I would treat this as a bad dream,” he advises. “It’s not, of course. At least, not for us. But for you, for these next few hours, that is what it must be. Do you understand?”

Athera swallows the lump in her throat and places her hand over his.

“Ir abelas, lethallin,” she whispers. “Is there nothing we can do to save you?”

His mouth twitches sadly, and he squeezes her shoulder and shakes his head.

“It is too late for this world. Our only hope is if it never comes to pass.”

She feels her eyes burn, and Revas hesitates before dropping his voice even lower.

“Solas has waited for you,” he confesses quietly. “Sometimes, I think it’s the only thing that’s kept him going. You may only have a short time together, but remember, that while for you it has only been a few minutes, for him, it has been a year of war and loss, and the singular hope that he would find you again. Do you understand?”

She nods, not trusting herself to speak, and he finally turns from her and gestures towards the eluvian.

“We should go, lethallan,” he says with a small smile. “It’s time for me to welcome you, travellers through time, to Tarasyl’an Te’las.”

Chapter Text

She isn’t sure what she’s expecting to see on the other side. Fires and blood and screaming, perhaps. A world so blighted that it might have slipped from the arms of her nightmares and made its home in reality in front of her. But instead, they emerge into a large and silent bedroom.

The stone walls are hung with soft-woven tapestries. A grand double-bed carved from thick mahogany is pushed against one of the walls – the first sign she has that it belongs to Solas – and a fire crackles merrily in a bright and imposing hearth. A desk is set on a raised platform, and behind a folding screen she can see the shadow of a copper bathtub, steam still rising from its surface.

The curtains around the room are drawn tightly closed, the sound kept out by a silencing ward, and the space is lit by a series of flickering wall sconces that illuminate the organised chaos. Books are stuffed haphazardly onto groaning bookcases and stacked in teetering piles across the floor. Papers and ink are strewn between blankets, cushions, and half-eaten plates of food, while a vast collection of magical artefacts struggle to find space between them.

“Why here?” She asks at last, and Revas smiles sadly and shakes his head.

“He wanted to be close to you the moment you arrived.”

Her heart clenches painfully, and she swallows hard and looks away.

“Where is he?”

“On the battlefield. Word will have been sent to him, but it takes a while for messages to reach the frontlines. You probably have a little while to wait yet.”

A bolt of horror slips down her spine at the thought of Solas on the frontline. It doesn’t matter that she knows that he’s an ancient Elvhen commander. It doesn’t matter that she can tell, by the taste of the magic in the air, that his strength will have returned to him. He’s still the wolf that shares her bed, and feels safest pressing his nose against her neck.

“Until then,” Revas continues. “You must wait here. No doubt the Herald will be here any minute, and Dorian and I have business to attend to.”

“We do?”

The Peacock raises his eyebrow expectantly, and Revas offers him a grim smile and gestures for him to leave down the stairs.

“Two things, really,” he explains. “The first, is that you’ll remember everything that happened here when you return to your own time, but there are certain things it’s best you don’t know until you can be trusted to understand them.”

“You know,” Dorian muses. “I’ve never been called a liability in such a polite manner before. Did you take etiquette lessons in Tevinter, by any chance?”

Revas grins truly at that, and Athera feels a grudging smile pull at her lips.

“Somewhere far worse,” Revas assures him. “But the second reason, is that you helped to develop this time magic with Alexius. We have the amulet and we’ve been working on the theory since you disappeared, but the notes we managed to find at Redcliffe were incomplete. If we want this to work, we’ll need your help, and we’re going to need it quickly.”

“Ah, so it’s my genius you truly covet!” Dorian says grandly. “Very well then. I’m sure I can allow you the benefit of my intelligence, even if it means I’m being kept in the dark.”

He shoots Athera a wink as he ambles towards the stairs, and she catches his arm and squeezes once quickly.

“Be careful,” she says. “No matter what, both of us are going back to our own time. Understand?”

“Implicitly, my dear. After all, I’m very much looking forward to hearing an explanation for all of this.”

With that said, he disappears down the stairway, and Revas hesitates and turns back to face her before he leaves. For a long moment, he simply stares at her, and for the first time since she arrived she takes note of how tired he looks, and the pinched lines at the edge of his smile.

“It’s good to see you, lethallan,” he says at last. “And not a moment too soon.”

Before she can reply, he’s crossed the room, and she finds herself engulfed in a tight hug and held against his chest. She wraps her arms around him in return, a dangerous grief rising in her throat while he releases a long breath into her hair.

“In case I don’t see you again,” he whispers. “Dareth shiral, my dear, mortal friend. I hope that a world with you in it is far better than this one has been.”

Without waiting for a response, he lets her go, and she stands numbly in the centre of the room while the door closes behind him, and she’s left alone again. For a long second, she feels like crying, and she closes her eyes against the urge and draws in a steadying breath. When she opens them again, the room feels too quiet, and she stares at this place that Solas has made his home, and lets her fingers drift over the surfaces.

Wandering quietly between the stacks of books and scraps of parchment, she tries to paint a picture of his life here since she’d left. The man she knows has always been meticulous, but if the chaos of unfinished meals and torn pages is anything to go by, then he’s been struggling to maintain that since. Her palms rub over the furs piled across his bed, and her gaze catches on the blankets strewn over the sofa and littered across the floor.

It feels cold, he’d told her once, when he’d described what it was like to be alone. It is a crack in the wall where the wind slices through. I don’t want to be cold anymore, Athera.

Tears prick at her eyes again and she blinks them away, anxiety coursing through her veins while she waits for him to arrive. She’s never wanted him to be alone, and the thought that he has been – again – is almost more than she can bear.

At the desk, she finds papers crowded with complex equations she can’t make any sense of; diagrams of strange artefacts she doesn’t recognise; and beneath them all, a leather sketchbook that catches her eye. She pulls it out, loose pages slipping off the wood and onto the floor, and the book falling open to the centre page while her eyes widen in shock.

It’s her. Not her as she is now, wearing her sister’s face, but her as she was before, in another world that’s now so far away. She is sitting in the cabin on Isabela’s ship, her knitting piled high in her lap, and a content, wistful expression on her face while the sunlight streams through the window.

She turns the page, finding sketches from later days crowded into the margins. Her and Ellana standing beneath the closed rift outside the elven settlement, their expressions exhausted and fierce. Her standing in the snow at Haven, her cheeks ice-bitten and flushed. Her laughing with Varric at a table in the Singing Maiden. And then, later, a pair of hands she recognises as belonging to her and Solas, clasped tightly together.

She scrubs at her face before her tears can fall, finding more drawings, these ones rougher and more obviously done in haste. Solas burying his nose in her shoulder; the side profile of her hand against his face; her asleep and tucked against his chest, and then a single word cramped into a corner that she almost misses.

Vhenan.

She slams the book closed and drops it back onto the desk, breathing heavily and fighting against tears.

Foolish, foolish wolf.

She wants to scream at him. It’s almost painful, how much he loves her. What makes it worse, is that she feels exactly the same way. The thought of him alone for all this time is torturous, and she can almost hear the clock in her head ticking slowly, counting down the moments until she has to leave. She wants him to be here. She can’t save this world, but she can stop him from feeling so alone at the end. It’s the least she can do for her heart.

Lost in her thoughts, she startles badly when the door slams open, and she scatters papers across the floor as she whips around to face the stairway. For a moment, all she has is the impression of blurred movement, and then a palm connects sharply with her cheek and the sound of a vicious slap rings through the air.

“You knew!”

Before she can even feel the pain, Ellana flings her arms around her and pulls her into a bruising hug, still shouting wildly into her ear.

“All this time, you knew who he was, and you never said a single thing!”

Athera’s cheek stings, her ears ringing, and she stands still in shock while her sister clings to her and yells. Eventually, she masters herself enough to put her arms around her, only to find that Ellana is pulling away and stalking back and forth across the floor, knocking piles of books over as she goes.

“Fen’Harel!” She bellows at last. “Your weird little apostate is Fen’Harel! Have you gone completely insane?”

Her pacing comes to an abrupt stop, and she wheels around to glare at her instead. It takes a while for Athera to realise that she’s waiting for an answer, and she struggles to keep up with the situation and force her mouth to speak.

“He’s not what our stories made him out to be,” she says weakly, and Ellana lets out a hysterical laugh that sets her teeth on edge.

“I know that now,” she huffs. “I’ve fought at his side for a year against those monsters we called gods. But you couldn’t have known that! Not at first!”

She rakes her hands through her hair, her expression wild and disbelieving.

“You saved his life!” She bursts out finally. “He told me that you saved his life. Why would you do that when he was only the Dread Wolf then? What possible reason could you have had?”

Athera blinks at her, suddenly guilty although she doesn’t know why. It’s a question she’s asked herself a thousand times since that fateful day in the Free Marches. Why had she saved the Dread Wolf? What was it that had stayed her hand?

“I… don’t know,” she says at last. “He wasn’t what I expected.”

She chews on her lip and looks away, and Ellana waits while she thinks.

“They were torturing him,” she replies softly. “Arrows in his side, broken ribs, a dislocated shoulder. He just seemed so helpless. It wasn’t that I didn’t fear him. It was more that I couldn’t kill him in cold blood. It would have been murder if I had. I just couldn’t do it.”

She looks back up again, to find Ellana watching her with an inscrutable expression, her jaw clenched tight.

“Athera Lavellan, defender of the helpless.”

The words are quiet, disbelieving, but for once she doesn’t hear a sneer in her sister’s voice. Instead, she sounds tired and sad, and just a little bit approving.

“You should have told me.”

Athera’s lips twitch wryly.

“Would you have believed me?”

“Probably not.”

Her sister is smiling now, just slightly, and the sight brings another rush of tears to her eyes that she has to blink away.

“It’s weird that you’re still wearing my face. It’s like I’m standing here arguing with myself.”

Athera laughs, her expression warming.

“You know, that was something Papae and I used to joke about when you were little,” she says. “He used to say, Don’t mind little blade. If she was left in a room on her own, she’d be able to start an argument with herself.”

Ellana laughs as well, just a little too loudly, and then to her total shock, she bursts into tears.

“He’s dead,” she chokes out, through bitter sobs. “Papae and Clan Lavellan. They’re all dead now. I couldn’t save them. I’m sorry.”

Athera’s mind stutters, the news so unexpected that her thoughts simply shut down. In the ensuing silence, Ellana brings her hands to her face, still crying softly, and after what feels like an age she steps forward and folds her into her arms without a word. Her sister goes willingly, resting her head against her shoulder while a torrent of grief pours down her cheeks and collects in the hollow of Athera’s collarbone.

“Da’mi…” She whispers brokenly. “Ir abelas. I’m so sorry.”

Ellana makes a dry, wracking noise at her neck, and she tightens her grip on her and closes her eyes.

“It wasn’t your fault,” she tells her. “None of this was your fault.”

“You don’t know that!” She wails plaintively, and for a second Athera feels as though her little sister is back; curled up against her in an aravel and struggling to sleep. “I could have done something. Stopped them from going to Wycome.”

“You couldn’t have known they’d be killed.”

Ellana doesn’t answer, and she holds her for a long time until her tears are finally spent, and she pulls away and looks back at her through exhausted eyes.

“What happened here, da’mi?” She asks gently. “What happened to the world while I’ve been away?”

She draws in a shaking breath, her expression closing off again while she brings herself back under control. Then her eyes drift to the closed curtains and she swallows and wipes at her cheeks.

“Have you looked outside yet?”

Athera shakes her head.

“I couldn’t bring myself to,” she admits.

“Then it’s time that you did. This world… It will be easier to show you.”

With a final steadying breath, her sister steels herself, and then strides forward to draw the curtains wide. The silencing ward is still in place, and Athera sees towering mountains white with snow, and a sky so lit up with aurorean colours that it almost hurts to look at it.

“Come with me.”

They step out onto the balcony together, and as she passes over the ward, a vicious cacophony assaults her ears. Athera staggers under the weight of the unfamiliar magic – no longer soft and gentle, but scorching like an inferno against her skin. She braces herself against the stone rail. The sound of screams, the clash of metal and distant drumbeats, pound like a nightmare inside her head.

It is a song for the end of the world.

The ground trembles beneath them, and the mountains are ringed by darkness shot through with blazing green and red light, as though the Fade is forcing its way through the cavernous cracks and warping reality around it. She blinks through a haze of dust and ash, staring down into the wide walls of the keep, where a swarming mass of Elvhen and human soldiers weave through the rows of wounded bodies and scattered bloodstains on the ground.

The sheer immensity of it is overwhelming. When she finally looks up over the walls, beyond a shimmering dome of magic that protects the trembling fortress, the terror that strikes at her heart is like ice in the heat of her blood. Half of the mountain range has been obliterated, the peaks crushed into little more than a wave of bubbling snow, almost black with blood in the fevered light. Skyhold is surrounded by enemies on all sides, and even from a distance, she can hear the caterwauling screams of the creatures from the Crossroads, and see the way they dive like demons into the advancing Elvhen soldiers.

Above the shattered mountains, far in the distance beyond the protective dome, three gigantic dragons wheel through the sky, two with a dim golden shine to their scales, and the third as black as night. As she watches, they release trails of blistering fire over the ice, and a group of soldiers burn and are swept away to tumble down the mountainside. Beneath them, a looming mass of shadow blots out the horizon, its edges disappearing into the immensity of the battle, while the whole of the world seems to scream.

Athera’s breath freezes in her lungs. The taste of fire and the smell of blood rolls in her stomach and scorches down the back of her throat.

There is no escape from this, she thinks wildly. This is the end, and we are nothing but children.

“Behold, the might of the Evanuris,” Ellana sneers. “We killed Ghilan’nain and June in the first two months, but by then the others were beyond us.”

Athera can’t answer, her eyes fixed on the dragons, and the burning paths they cut through the fighters on the ground.

“The two golden ones are Andruil and Sylaise. The black one is Falon’Din,” Ellana continues, her voice dead and hollow. “We haven’t seen Dirthamen or Elgar’nan for weeks, but it doesn’t matter where they are now. Skyhold will fall soon, and with it, the world.”

She turns to look at her, and Athera sees in her eyes the death of the child she’d once loved. This woman is a warrior, burnt and bruised by war and grief. A trembling scar standing against the tide of the apocalypse.

“Solas has held them back for as long as he can,” she says at last. “Without him, we wouldn’t have lasted a month.” Her lips quirk in a bitter smile, and she shakes her head with a huff and looks her in the face. “Whoever would have thought that we’d all be grateful to have Fen’Harel on our side at the end? Apart from you, of course.”

She swallows and looks away, back over the burning mountains and the teeming mass of the battlefield.

“Is he out there?” She whispers.

“He’s always out there,” Ellana smiles without humour. “He’s the only thing keeping them at bay. But he’ll be here soon. You’re the only thing he’s been fighting for, and we all know it.”

Athera doesn’t reply, her throat thick with unshed tears, and her sister draws her suddenly into a firm hug and holds her there, her fingers twisting in her armour.

“I love you,” she whispers against her ear, as though it’s a secret. “I’ve been so angry, but I never stopped loving you. I want you to know that before the end.”

Athera makes a sound like a wounded animal against her, and hugs her back, hard.

“I love you too, da’mi. I wish you’d been able to understand that.”

“So do I.”

They stay that way for a long time, the clash of war ringing around them, and then Ellana pulls away and wipes her face with a shuddering sigh.

“Solas will be here soon,” she says softly. “I’m needed in the field.”

“You could stay,” Athera says at once. “You don’t have to go back out there again. Not when it’s so close to being over.”

Her sister smiles at her sadly, and squeezes her hand once.

“Yes I do,” she replies. “These are my people, too. They need to see me standing with them when Fen’Harel retreats from the fight.”

She has no reply to that, and with another solid lump rising in her throat, she watches Ellana walk back inside, and turn to face her for the last time.

“A year ago, there was so much I wouldn’t have understood, and even more that I wouldn’t have accepted,” she confesses. “But if this year has proved anything to me, it’s that I know far less of you than I thought. When you go back, promise me something, ok?”

“Anything.”

“Promise me that you won’t give up on me. Give me a chance to change. I can’t guarantee that I’ll make it easy, but I want your word that you’ll try.”

Athera’s throat tightens, and she nods and resists the urge to reach for her again.

“You have my word,” she whispers. “I haven’t given up on you, Ellana. I never could.”

Her sister smiles, her eyes shining.

“I know,” she says softly. “I understand that now. Dareth shiral, as’lin. I’ll see you soon.”

When she leaves, Athera turns her back so that she won’t have to watch her walk away. In the ashen wind, she braces herself against the balcony and screws up her eyes, holding onto composure by a tenuous thread. All around her, the war wages on, and as she looks towards the dragons and the wall of darkness on the horizon, a wave of potent magic ripples through the bleeding edges of the Fade and sends a shockwave through the air.

She clings to the stone, struggling to keep her feet, while a vast wall of sound shakes the sky and she feels her heart start to break. Across the battlefield, inside the burning craters of the mountain, a wolf throws back his great head and releases a long and mournful howl into the smouldering air.

She draws in a shuddering breath and wipes a stray tear from her eye.

Solas knows that she’s here.

Chapter Text

Athera stares at the lines of fighters in the distance, the last notes of the Dread Wolf’s cries echoing in her ears. Her face is blank, frozen in shock, while she watches the vast form of Fen’Harel detach himself from the battle and barrel his way towards her. Despite all that she knows of him, she can’t help a sudden shard of awe from rendering her speechless.

The dark mass was him.

The teeming shadows inside the crater that had rippled with the dragon’s attacks, she had taken to be a gigantic spell of a kind she’d never seen before. But now they coalesce into the unmistakeable form of a monstrously large wolf. With another plaintive howl, he launches himself into the air, front paws raised above him and the ground shuddering beneath his weight.

A stunning arc of golden magic beams up behind him, a battalion of Elvhen mages casting a spell in tandem to keep the Evanuris at bay, while black wings like a dragon’s bleed from Fen’Harel’s great back, and he propels himself over the battlefield. Athera watches in stunned and white-faced silence, as the Bringer of Nightmares, his six red eyes blazing like burning coals, flies through the sky towards her, and his demonic form becomes so large that it blocks out the light from above.

For a moment, she’s afraid that he’ll simply crash into the walls of Skyhold and smash the fortress into pieces. But just when she feels the inevitability of the collision take hold, he transforms in mid-air into a sleek black raven, and almost tumbles over the side of the balcony. Before she can so much as blink, the raven vanishes, and a pair of armoured feet hit the ground as Solas takes its place.

He is different. Both more and less than he had been before. Instead of the simple tunic of the wandering apostate, he’s clad in brilliant golden armour, dinted and streaked with blood. A thick wolf pelt is clasped over one shoulder, dirty and bedraggled, and the effect it has is to give him a ragged and eldritch air of power.

She would be awestruck by him, were it not for the way he’s looking at her. His eyes are like quicksilver, a rolling storm within the haggard lines of his face. Deep shadows collect above his cheekbones, and the expression he turns on her is one of ardent hope, so fragile and desperate that it almost hurts her to look at him.

“Is it really you?” He whispers hoarsely, one hand braced against the balustrade and the other raised tentatively towards her. “My star. Is it you?”

It’s only then that she remembers she’s still wearing the Herald’s disguise, and with a moment’s hesitation, she reaches into her pocket and feeds her magic into the runestone. The sensation of the glamour falling away makes her shudder; waves of cold pooling around her feet as though she’s shed an invisible layer of skin. But she hardly has time to notice.

The second the glamour falls, Solas makes a guttural, anguished noise from low in his throat, and braces himself against the stone as though he might fall. For a long moment, he seems frozen, his gaze mapping her face while his mouth parts on a ragged breath. Athera’s eyes fill with tears, and with a sound that’s very nearly a sob, Solas closes the distance between them and cradles her face between his hands.

The only move she makes is to grip his wrists gently, holding still beneath his scrutiny while his trembling fingers skim over her face.

“Vhenan.”

His voice cracks, and with a breath as though he’s been punched, he lowers his head and kisses her with all of the pent-up need he’s locked away for so long. His hands stay firmly cupped at her cheeks, his thumbs pressing just above the corners of her mouth, while he parts her lips with his tongue and consumes her.

Her body burns, and she loops her arms around his neck and struggles to keep her balance while he folds himself around her. It’s almost like the first time they kissed, she thinks in a daze. When he’d been so lost, and then had held her so reverently as his touch spread over her skin like fire.

These thoughts flit through her head in less than a second, and then she finds that she’s perched on the stone rail, her legs parted while he fits himself between them and makes soft, yearning noises that vibrate against her lips. In the safety of his arms, the sound of the war drifts away. All she can hear is his panting breath, while the taste of blood and ash mingles with the familiarity of him on her tongue.

She isn’t sure how long they stay there for, locked together as though only they exist, but when he finally draws away there are tear tracks coursing gently through the dirt and blood on his face. She reaches up and brushes them away, her fingertips light over his skin, and he catches her hand in his and presses it more firmly against his cheek.

“Ir abelas, ma fen,” she whispers. “I didn’t mean to leave you again.”

Solas’ eyes fall closed. He draws in a series of gulping breaths, and then his expression crumbles and she draws him into her arms while he collapses in relief against her. With a sudden flash of power, his armour is gone, revealing the familiar green tunic beneath it, and she holds him close while he buries his face in her shoulder and starts to sob.

“You came back,” he moans into the damp fabric of her robe. “You came back.”

She has nothing to say to that, and so she simply holds him, rubbing circles over his heaving shoulders while he weeps the grief of the last year into her skin. Eventually, he calms, breathing deeply at her neck while he moulds their bodies together.

“Ar lath ma,” he murmurs at last, and she squeezes him tightly and nuzzles at his temple.

“Ar lath ma, ma fen.”

The last trace of tension leaves him, and she finds herself supporting his weight while he burrows more closely against her.

“I’m so sorry.”

He huffs a frustrated breath that tickles the skin of her neck, and when he finally pulls away she’s surprised to see that he’s smiling sadly.

“You have nothing to be sorry for,” he says. “My heart. This… All of it. It was my miscalculation. My mistake.”

“You’re not to blame for the Evanuris.”

“No,” he agrees softly. “But I am to blame for my own stupidity.”

She knows that there’s more he wants to explain, but she can’t bring herself to interrupt him while he looks at her, his eyes roving over her face and his fingers trailing covetously through her hair.

“I have missed you so much, vhenan,” he says at last. “For a time, I thought that there might be a chance to save this world. But when Corypheus fell and the Evanuris rose, I knew that this time, there was no hope for victory.” His lips quirk sadly. “Not even the last hope left to a desperate fool, as there had been once before.”

She swallows the tears in her throat and cups his cheek with her palm. There is a deep resignation in his eyes that she’s never seen there before, but also a strange sort of peace.

“It would have been different if you were here,” he confesses quietly. “I was too blinded by my own grief. I didn’t notice the signs, even when they were staring me in the face.”

She raises herself up onto her toes and kisses him softly, and he makes another lost sound into her mouth and draws her close against him.

“Tell me what happened, Solas,” she whispers. “How did they escape?”

He sighs and rests his forehead against hers, a deep weariness gathering in the shadows of his face.

“I told you,” he begins quietly. “It was my mistake. My arrogance. My pride.” He shakes his head and looks away from her, their faces still close together. “When I locked them away, it was only meant to be a temporary measure until I could find a way to destroy them for good. The Veil was never meant to last for millennia.”

“But you miscalculated,” she realises. “You didn’t know it would leave you so weak.”

He nods heavily, his fingers still carding through her hair.

“My mistake was in not realising how much of our power depended on the Fade. Once it was held back, every ounce of magic I possessed went into keeping their eluvian from opening.”

Her eyes widen in shock, her thoughts tumbling over the implications of what he’s said.

“Wait,” she says hesitantly. “Does that mean…?”

“Every spell needs an anchor, vhenan. Whether that is a runestone like the one in your pocket, or merely the mage who casts it, it is simply a matter of choice.”

“So, you’re saying, that the anchor for the Veil is you?”

To her incredible relief, Solas’ eyes spark with humour, and he throws his head back and laughs. The action seems to surprise him, and when he looks back down at her his expression is warm, and he brushes a kiss to her forehead.

“My impossible star,” he murmurs. “You always have been able to make me smile, even in the direst of circumstances.”

He sighs and rests his lips at her temple, his arms going around her waist again.

“No, ma lath, even I am not quite so arrogant as that,” he says gently. “The Veil was intended to isolate them from the People, and cut them off from their physical bodies for long enough for me to imprison their spirits. I theorised that if I could force them into uthenara together, I would be able to use their subsequent shock to trap their spirits behind an eluvian of my own design.”

She processes that for a long moment, and then shakes her head wonderingly.

“That’s… Brilliant, Solas,” she says honestly. “You removed every single ruler from Elvhenan without even needing to raise a sword.”

He chuckles softly into her hair, and she feels him smile against her.

“You give me too much credit, vhenan. I promise you, many millions of swords had already been raised by the time I came up with my solution.”

The sound of grief is in his voice again, and she presses a kiss to the underside of his jaw and feels him melt a little against her.

“You said that you miscalculated,” she prompts him. “In what way?”

“The Veil was supported by the artefacts your sister has been reactivating across Thedas,” he explains. “But its primary anchor was Skyhold.”

“The fortress?”

“Indeed. The original building was made by my own magic over many thousands of years, and there is still a great deal of power in the foundation stones, no matter that the original building has fallen over time.”

He pauses for a moment, and then rests his cheek on top of her head.

“The enchantments for the eluvian, however, were not so great a feat of magic before the Fade was sundered. In my hubris, I anchored those to me.”

Athera’s blood runs cold, and she grips him hard and closes her eyes.

“So, all of this time,” she begins. “If you’d have died-”

“There would have been nothing left to hold the Evanuris back,” he confirms. “As I said, I did not anticipate how much the world would change, nor how close I came to losing my power entirely. I intended to seek out the Evanuris’ physical bodies and destroy them as soon as the Veil was raised. Then, all I would have needed to do would be to sever the eluvian’s connection to the Fade once and for all, and with no-where for their spirits to flee to, they would have simply ceased to exist.”

“But instead, you fell into uthenara yourself.”

She feels him nod above her head, his fingertips tracing patterns over her hips.

“And in the intervening years, their bodies have been lost, while the effort of keeping the eluvian closed delayed my return to strength.”

Despite the sombre moment, Athera snorts, and then has to stifle a wave of laughter against his chest.

“Delayed?” She says in disbelief. “Yes, I’d say that 5,000 years is something of a delay, ma fen.”

She hears the rumble of his laughter beneath her ear, and smiles when he kisses the top of her head.

“It doesn’t matter now,” he murmurs. “There was yet another element I hadn’t foreseen, and even in your time, my star, the damage has already begun.”

“What do you mean?” She asks. “What happened in my time to cause this?”

She pulls back to look at him, and he meets her gaze with a hollow, pained expression that makes her want to chase it away.

“The magebane,” he whispers at last. “Each time my connection to the Fade was broken in your world, the enchantments were weakened as well. Those nightmares that I believed were the work of a demon? They were the work of a demon in league with my old enemies, as well as with Corypheus. By the time we travelled to Redcliffe castle, the Evanuris were already able to exert some will over the denizens of the Fade, although the physical walls of their prison remained intact.”

For a long moment, she simply blinks at him, and then her eyes widen and her hands clench tight in the front of his tunic.

“They’re already escaping,” she whispers in horror. “Solas, how are we meant to stop this? The Inquisition isn’t strong enough to stand against enemies like these!”

As if to emphasise her point, one of the golden dragons lets loose a shattering roar across the sky, and Solas draws her closer against him, instinctively shielding her with his body and turning her away from the chaos around them.

“There is still hope, vhenan,” he murmurs against her ear. “At least in your world. The walls have not yet fallen, and while Corypheus may already be in touch with their spirits through the Blight, he does not yet know what’s using him.”

Athera’s thoughts reel, and she closes her eyes and draws in a steadying breath.

“The Blight,” she begins slowly. “The red lyrium’s song. That’s them, isn’t it? The Evanuris?”

When she looks up at him again, he’s smiling at her with a spark of pride in his eyes.

“My brilliant star,” he murmurs. “Yes. The Blight was an ancient sickness, something Andruil awoke deep in the Void, and carried back to Elvhenan. When I trapped the Evanuris in their mirrors, I also contained the Blight inside what you now know as the Black City.”

“It was Arlathan, wasn’t it? The Black City is Arlathan.”

Another wave of grief falls over his face, and he nods wearily while his forehead furrows in pain.

“It was,” he confirms quietly. “With the Evanuris destroyed, I had hoped to find a cure. Before the Tevinter magisters broke through the gates, the sickness was contained in pockets across the city.”

“But they woke it up and it spread. Not just through the city, but into this world as well.”

He nods again, exhaustion bringing his shoulders low.

“The Blight’s song was always discordant,” he says softly. “Manipulative. But until recently, I was not aware that the Evanuris had managed to harness it for their own aims. Now that they have, this world is lost. Outside of these walls, there is perhaps no-where else that the sickness doesn’t reign.”

He rests his palm against her cheek, his expression growing hard and his body tense.

“They must not be allowed to escape, my star. The eluvian’s enchantments must hold.”

“And the Blight? Solas, what can we do about the Blight?”

“I have some theories on that,” he replies, his lips quirking at one side. “But they are too numerous and too uncertain for me to explain to you right now.”

She opens her mouth to berate him – to argue that if she’s going to fix this then she needs to have all of the information she can get. But then he lowers his head and closes his eyes, as if in agony, and his fingers tighten at her hips.

“I am going to die here, vhenan,” he whispers. “There is no escape for me. And yet, even though I know it to be true, I find myself clinging onto the foolish hope that at least some small part of me – perhaps, the best of me – will be able to return to your time with you.”

Her hands have risen to cradle his face before he’s even finished speaking, the deep impulse to protect him at odds with the rational voice in her head that knows she has to leave him behind.

“Ma fen,” her voice cracks. “If I could take you back with me-”

He cuts her off with a kiss, scorching and desperate, and she digs her nails into the back of his neck and returns his ferocity in kind. When they break apart again, they’re both breathing heavily, and there is a wildness in Solas’ eyes that she’s never seen there before.

“Do not-” he begs in a choked voice. “Do not say it. I cannot bear it.”

Athera blinks silent tears down her cheeks and presses their foreheads together, and he draws in a laboured breath and sets his jaw again.

“I cannot let my courage fail me now, my star,” he whispers. “Not at the final curtain. As I said, there will be a part of me returning with you, and although I fear that it is selfish, I believe it to be necessary as well.”

She waits for him to say more, absently smoothing her hand down the back of his neck while her vision grows blurry with tears.

“There was once a method of communication used by the Elvhen,” he says hesitantly. “We called it ama’theneras. It was a means of sending messages, or more accurately, memories, through the Fade and to another’s mind.”

He smiles ruefully, his eyes shining, and his fingers finding their way back into her hair.

“It has never been attempted through time, nor from the same person to himself across a separated timeline, but I believe that when the rift opens to take you home, there will be an opportunity for the method to work.”

Athera frowns while she tries to translate the phrase.

“Ama’theneras… Sending a dream?”

“Essentially,” he confirms. “Its literal translation is ‘the sharing of a waking dream’.”

She shakes her head to clear it, his gaze holding hers while she thinks.

“You’re saying, that you’re going to send the Solas in my time some of your memories of this year?”

He looks back at her, guilty and determined.

“Not some of them, vhenan,” he corrects. “I’m going to send him everything.”

Chapter Text

Later, Solas will try to work out which came first: the dramatic tug on the veil, the blinding flash of light, or the sudden agony that had lanced through his temple and sent him to his knees. At the time, it feels as though everything happens at once. One moment, he is standing between Varric and Revas, his heart shattering in his chest. And in the next, he is on the floor with an invisible fire poker being driven behind his eyes, while the wolf in his chest howls in relief as Athera steps back into the room.

She is wearing her own face again, and when the rift slams closed behind her, she draws herself up to her full height and fixes Alexius with a scowl.

“I’m afraid you’ll have to do better than that, magister.”

Solas struggles to his feet, Revas and Varric supporting him on either side, while Alexius slumps to his knees in defeat.

“You’re not even her,” he sighs, as though his heart is breaking. “You win. There’s no point in extending the charade. Felix…”

His son crosses the room and helps him back to his feet.

“It’s going to be alright, Father.”

“But you’ll die.”

Solas’ head is pounding, and he leans heavily against Revas and tries to blink the flashing lights from his vision.

“Everyone dies,” Felix says quietly.

While the Inquisition soldiers take Alexius away, Revas tightens his grip on him and hisses irritably into his ear.

“What is wrong with you?”

He doesn’t answer, although he does finally find his equilibrium and manage to still the shaking in his legs.

No sooner has he done so, than the doors crash open behind them, sending another sharp spike of pain through his skull and almost making him vomit. Something else has come through the rift with Athera, he’s sure of it, but all he can do for now is watch in quiet pain while Alistair and Anora cast the mages out of Redcliffe.

The room is swaying around him, and he can hardly make sense of the words being spoken across the echoing hall. He focuses on Athera, on the intoxicating fierceness of her beloved face, and despite the nausea rising in his stomach, he swells with pride when she refuses to conscript the free mages into servitude.

At the mere suggestion of it, her eyes flash, and she levels a glare at everyone in the room.

“By the conference of my sister, the Herald, I have the authority to treat on behalf of the Inquisition,” she declares firmly. “And I will say this one thing to you all now. The Inquisition will have allies, not slaves.”

Before long, the great hall is nearly cleared of soldiers, and Athera strides over to him with a glimmer of fear in her eyes. Behind her, the king and queen await them, and he manages not to embarrass them both by wrapping her up in his arms.

“Solas?” She asks, quietly but urgently. “How are you feeling?”

He sways slightly, Revas’ hand tight at his elbow, and blinks through a wave of vertigo.

“I feel…” He draws in a weak breath. “Terrible.”

Her eyes soften, and her hand twitches as though to reach for him before she thinks better of it.

“I thought as much. If I say the word, ama’theneras to you, do you understand what’s happening?”

His eyes widen, and Revas curses softly at his side.

“Who?” His former general demands. “Who sent the message?”

“Solas did,” Athera says. “From a year into the future, and back through the Fade with me.”

If he didn’t feel as though he was about to pass out, Solas would argue about that. Both about the mechanics of time travel, and the idea that he’d be foolish enough to send so many memories to himself that he feels as though his head is going to split down the middle. But since he’s barely managing to stand up straight, he stays silent and lets Revas swear creatively for him.

“He – you – said that we’d need to get you to a private room quickly,” Athera continues, her eyes tracing anxiously over his face. “He said that you’ll need to sleep for at least a day to process the dreams, and you’ll need someone there to make sure your magic stays contained.”

“That is correct,” Solas manages to reply weakly. “Ama’theneras is an unpleasant working. The longer the receiver resists it, the worse the fever becomes.”

“Alistair and Anora have offered us rooms in the castle for the night,” she says. “You and Revas go and find one for now. I’ll join you when I can.”

She hands a set of clanking iron keys off to the man keeping him upright, and when she makes to turn away, Solas can’t resist brushing his fingers against hers and reassuring himself that she’s real. She catches his eye and slides her little finger around his, just as briefly, and then Varric looks between the three of them and raises his eyebrow with a sigh.

“That’s it?” He asks. “None of you are going to explain whatever it is you’re talking about to your dear old friend, huh?”

Revas snorts, and Athera grins down at the dwarf and shakes her head.

“Long story,” she says. “Really long story. I’ll buy you an ale back at Haven?”

Varric huffs and cleans an imaginary speck of dust from Bianca before answering.

“Sure thing, Starfire. But just so you know, I’m holding you to that. And I’ll want some answers while we drink.”

Whatever else is said, Solas doesn’t hear it. Without offering a goodbye, Revas steers him out of the hall and into the sprawling castle, his fingers like a vice around his arm.

“Only you could invoke ama’theneras at a time like this,” he grumbles. “A crazed magister, enslaved mages, and a shemlen king and queen on our doorstep, and of course the cunning wolf decides that it’s the perfect time to render himself incapable.”

Solas grits his teeth against the nausea and scowls out of the corner of his eye.

“Technically, I have done nothing. Or have you not been standing next to me for all of the time we’ve been here?”

Revas makes a disapproving sound in the back of his throat, and hauls him around a corner.

“Right, of course,” he says bitterly. “It’s just your future self who’s as pig-headed as you are.”

Through hazy vision, Solas sees the corridor ahead of them widen, tapestries decorating the stone walls and sconces lighting their way.

“I highly doubt that,” he refutes. “Time travel has never been achieved before, not even in Elvhenan. It’s more likely that Athera entered the Fade and met with a spirit who took my form, than that she and Dorian actually travelled through time.”

They come to a stop outside a thick oak door, and Revas pushes him roughly against the wall while he unlocks it.

“There you go again,” he says. “A wolf with a pig head. Your brains have surely suffered in uthenara, if you’ve forgotten that spirits can’t perform ama’theneras without a corporeal body.”

Solas bristles when he takes him by the arm again and leads him inside, but he’s startled to realise that Revas is right. Whoever Athera met on the other side of the rift, they couldn’t have been a spirit if they were able to wear his face and send the memories at the same time. The thought disturbs him, and with his head pounding and his legs still weak, he doesn’t argue when he’s pushed down to sit on the edge of a generous double bed, while Revas opens the shutters on the windows.

As the dull afternoon sunlight streams inside, illuminating a small but luxurious room of plush rugs and stone floors, Solas rests his elbows on his knees and tries to centre himself. By rights, he should sleep at once, but the image of Athera vanishing from his sight is still replaying itself behind his eyes, and he feels exposed and vulnerable with Revas so close by.

His star might have found a way to trust him, but Solas knows only too well that if their roles had been reversed, and Athera were dead instead of Felassan, he would never be able to forgive him. Revenge would be a sickness he’d be compelled to carry out, no matter the personal cost. He won’t be able to relax until she finds them, and until then, he’ll just have to wait.

Across the room, Revas finishes casting a series of protective wards and pulls a rough-hewn chair back from the small wooden table, before taking his seat to face him. For a long moment, they simply look at each other.

His old general is harder than he remembers; a colder glint to his eyes than the one he’s known before. The characteristic smile that he once knew so well is gone, and in its place he recognises the shadow of grief hiding in the lines of his face.

“You’re really not going to sleep until she gets here, are you?” He asks at last.

Solas shakes his head.

“I’m really not going to sleep.”

Revas sits back in the chair and folds his arms, an inscrutable expression passing behind his eyes.

“I wouldn’t kill you, you know,” he says. “Not when she’s ordered me to look after you.”

“Athera doesn’t order,” Solas replies quietly. “She suggests.”

“True, but she expects the best of people, and I find that I’m loathe to disappoint her.”

“That makes two of us.”

They fall silent again, and Solas closes his eyes and hunches his shoulders closer to his knees. The fever is beginning to rise, bubbling beneath his skin like a poisoned tide, and a deep ache has taken up residence in the fibre of his muscles.

“You’re going to have to choose between them, you know,” Revas says into the quiet. “No matter how much she loves you, Athera won’t survive the All Mother’s plans.” He blows out a soft breath, and Solas hears the fabric of his robes rustle against the wooden seat. “She won’t want to survive the All Mother’s plans.”

Solas swallows down a wave of nausea that has nothing to do with the fever, and pushes his knuckles into his closed eyes.

“Do not speak of it,” he whispers. “I beg you.”

“You cannot hide from this, Fen’Harel,” Revas says coldly. “Events are now in motion, and it won’t be long until you have to decide. Will you be the one to disappoint her?”

Solas’ throat aches, and he sucks in a dry breath and feels the magic boiling inside him, spreading a thin sheen of sweat over his skin.

“Mythal, she…” His voice comes out weak and breathless. “She is relying on me.”

“Mythal asks too much of you, and always has done.”

He opens his eyes at that, wide and disbelieving like a child’s.

“Oh, for-” Revas cuts himself off and then huffs. “Elgar’nan’s scorched nipples, will you stop looking so impossibly surprised? I was your friend once, Solas. It’s only you who decided to turn self-sacrifice into a love language. The rest of us were observant enough to know when you started to break.”

There’s too much in that sentence for him to process right now, with his body growing weaker and more pained by the second. Instead, his thoughts get stuck on Elgar’nan’s nipples, and against his will he snorts, and then claps his hand over his mouth to smother a wave of hysterical laughter. Across the room, Revas bites down on his lip, humour shining in the green of his eyes, and for a moment, a note of camaraderie hums tentatively between them before it falls silent again.

When his laughter recedes, the pounding in Solas’ head begins to reach a crescendo, and he drops his face into his hands and cradles his forehead in his palms.

“What would you have me do?” He whispers. “The worlds cannot stay sundered as they are. Whether by my hand or the hand of time, the Fade and the Waking will be one again.”

He hears Revas shift on his seat again, and while the long silence extends, he breathes deeply and tries to ignore the growing sickness in his veins.

“Yes, they will,” he replies at last. “But the veil doesn’t need to cause catastrophe when it falls. Its way can be eased. You know this, Fen’Harel!”

“It is only theory that says so,” he shoots back. “We have no idea how it might work in practice.”

“And is that a reason not to try?”

“It is not that simple,” he insists, his pulse pounding in his temples. “Even if the theory could be made a reality, the amount of power it would take would be monumental. More so than any mage in this world possesses.”

“If you manage to retrieve your focus, you will have that power.”

Solas huffs, his skin growing clammy and weakness seeping through his muscles.

“You would have to trust me to take possession of it first.”

“I would entrust it to Athera’s keeping,” Revas says mildly. “And only when she has extracted a promise that you will try, would I allow you to take it.”

“And what then?” Solas bites back, his own voice sending a shard of agony behind his eyes. “The veil is the last failsafe should the Evanuris escape. It is the only thing keeping them from touching this world.” He draws in a gulping breath, and presses his palms more firmly against his head. “And even if we could be assured of their destruction, what of the Blight? The only way of ensuring, beyond a shadow of a doubt that it is destroyed, would be to- to-”

“To destroy the entirety of creation in a burst of raw power, and reshape the world to your will?”

The sneer is back in Revas’ voice, and Solas trembles to hear him speak the words out-loud.

“You quarantined the Blight before, old wolf. You could give yourself enough time to find a cure again.”

“I no longer possess the optimism I once did,” Solas confesses in a hollow whisper. “I was so sure I would find a way… So certain in my own talents. And look at where they’ve brought us! I do not trust myself anymore, Revas. I no longer know which path is right, and which is the one I merely hope will be right.”

Revas is silent for a long while after that, and Solas breathes deeply while chills begin to run the length of his spine.

“Have you contacted your agents in Val Royeaux yet?”

“And why should I do that?”

Revas scoffs, and Solas curls his hands around his ears.

“You know why, Fen’Harel.”

“Please,” he murmurs quietly. “Let us speak no more of this now. There will be other days. Other moments. I-”

With a sudden lurch, his mouth floods with saliva, and he clamps his lips closed and curls over his knees.

“You are a prideful fool, harellan,” Revas says sharply. “Sleep, and save yourself this sickness.”

He shakes his head, the fever reaching a peak and rushing through him like a tide. At once, his body glistens with sweat, and his teeth start to chatter while he groans and tilts sideways across the bed. The weight of his duty feels like a chain around his neck, and he wants Athera with a fierceness that takes his breath away.

For the next hour, he lays curled around himself on top of the sheets, waves of nausea ebbing and flowing through his stomach, while his body oscillates between unbearably hot and freezing cold. If he were alone, he might give in to the urge to call out for his heart to hold him, but with Revas watching him from across the room, he stays stubbornly silent while ama’theneras pulls the fever through him in waves.

Eventually, when the late morning ends and the light of the afternoon sun begins to spill through the open windows, Revas curses and climbs to his feet.

“You are a felasil,” he tells him.

And then he leaves, slamming the door behind him and driving another blade of pain behind Solas’ eyes.

In the sudden silence, he finally lets out a plaintive whimper, his fingers curling into the sheets while he swallows down the urge to sob. It’s pathetic really, he thinks, that the great Fen’Harel can’t cope with a fever. But in Elvhenan, before magic was forced from the world, fevers only existed as a result of magical working; there was no such thing as disease.

Consequently, he’s never had to live with one for so long before, and all of a sudden he has a renewed appreciation for the mortals of this world, who somehow manage to endure this without panic, when he is beginning to feel as small and afraid as a child.

He isn’t sure how long he drifts in this haze for, but at some point when the sun is still hot against the stone, the door to the room opens and a familiar scent meets his nose. He rolls over at once, a pained grimace pulling at his face, and through blurred vision he sees a flash of red as Athera hurries across the room towards him.

“Oh, ma fen,” she murmurs, her voice laced with worry. “Why must you always be so stubborn?”

The bed dips as she kneels at his side, and with a blissful wave of relief, he lets himself be drawn, shivering, into her arms.

“Vhenan.”

His voice comes out more strained than he’d expected, and he buries his nose against her neck and curls his fingers into the back of her shirt. The fever is almost unbearable now. A cold sweat has soaked through his tunic, his whole body aches, and he can’t stop himself from trembling even while she holds him tight.

“Foolish wolf.”

He lets out a choked laugh against her shoulder, and then grits his teeth when he feels a lump rush dangerously up his throat. Revas has retaken his seat across the room, and Solas will be damned if he cries in front of him. Even safe in Athera’s arms.

“The Solas in the future said to apologise for him,” she says softly. “He’s sent you the memories of a year, and he knew that it would take you a long time to process them.”

“A year?” Revas says from behind them. “That is a dangerous thing.”

Solas feels Athera tilt her head to look at him, and he breathes in the lilac scent of her and waits for his heartbeat to slow.

“It’s easy to lose yourself in another’s memories,” Revas explains. “They come through as though the receiver has experienced them first-hand. To live a year in that way… It will be as though he were really there.”

Athera’s arms tighten around him, and she lets out a slow breath and presses a kiss to his temple.

“Ir abelas, ma fen,” she says. “From what I saw of the future, this won’t be an easy thing for you to live through.”

He nods to show he’s understood, too exhausted to do little more than hold her.

“Stay?” He whispers, and she moves them both to a more comfortable position and settles his head on her chest.

“Of course I’ll stay,” she tells him softly. “Go to sleep now, ma lath. I’ll be here when you wake.”

Chapter Text

When Solas has finally drifted into a fitful rest, Athera extricates herself gently from the bed, and tucks the blankets more securely around him. He still looks pale and sick, and there’s a deep furrow between his eyes, but the fever seems to have vanished just as quickly as it came. Quietly, she draws the shutters partly closed, leaving the room in a warm, dim light, and then she crosses the floor and sits down in the chair beside Revas.

At first, he doesn’t speak, and then with a sigh he pours them both a glass of wine and pushes hers towards her.

“You must have been a revelation to him,” he says quietly, his eyes fixed on Solas. “Until he met you, I do not believe that anyone had ever thought to comfort the Dread Wolf. Not even Mythal, or the lovers he’d known.”

She sips her wine in silence, unable to give voice to how horrifying she finds that admission.

“But you did, didn’t you?” Revas asks, his gaze slipping to hers. “Even when he was the terrifying monster from your stories, you took care of him.”

She looks across the room at Solas, her heart clenching while the image of him standing on Skyhold’s balcony and preparing to die, rushes behind her eyes.

“He was vulnerable,” she whispers at last. “He needed someone to stand by him.”

Revas hums thoughtfully around the rim of his glass and looks away, his fingers drumming on the table.

“I do not believe you understand just how wholly Fen’Harel is yours,” he says. “There are a million different kinds of love in this world, but the depth of his feelings for you cannot be quantified by mere words alone.”

He lets out a slow breath and turns his gaze towards her.

“In one thing, at least, the old wolf was right. Mortals in this world do not have access to the full range of emotions that the Elvhen experience. It is simply a matter of longevity. Love over millennia is necessarily different from love over a short number of years. But between you and he, the emotion he feels for you is the product of thousands of years of cruelty and apathy, brought suddenly to its end.”

Athera swallows, and Revas shakes his head as though to clear it.

“He calls you his star,” he says at last. “I would more accurately describe you as his guiding star. His true north. The one point in the world he will always return to, and which, if it were taken away, he would be unable to find a way to move on from.”

“I think you give me too much credit.”

The echo of her words from before, when she’d been bound and held by him in Kirkwall, makes him smile with a guilty grimace, and she grins at him to break the tension.

“I think you don’t give yourself enough,” he replies. “When you’re in the room, you are the only thing he sees, Athera. The only thing he’s interested in seeing. The only thing he wants to see. It’s obvious to anyone who looks between you closely.”

“And you’re wondering how that can be used.”

There is a tone of disapproval in her voice, but also of grudging acceptance. When the whole of the world is at stake, she can hardly blame Revas for seeking all of the options to save it. Especially now that she’s lived through just what the future could hold.

“I think you must accustom yourself to the idea that there’s a choice coming for him soon, and that you will be a deciding factor,” he says slowly. “Don’t let a misplaced sense of loyalty stop you from fighting for him to choose you, because Mythal will certainly have no hesitation in manipulating him to her aims.”

“I don’t want to toy with him,” Athera argues quietly. “I don’t want to be another person pulling his strings, forcing promises out of him when he isn’t even sure what to think.”

“Is your love for him a lie?” Revas asks sharply.

“Of course it isn’t!”

Her voice rises, outraged, and Solas stirs on the bed, a pained whimper slipping from his lips and his fingers twisting in the blankets. Athera’s face softens, and she puts down her wine and crosses the room to his side, taking one of his hands in hers and smoothing her fingers over his face.

“Ir abelas, ma fen,” she murmurs into his ear. “Everything’s alright. It’s just a dream. Atishan, vhenan. It’s only a dream.”

She brushes a kiss to his forehead, and he settles back into the deeper recesses of sleep. She watches the expressions move over his face for a long while, wondering how far through the year he’s progressed, and what new horrors he’s experiencing. It feels impossible that he could absorb all of the memories of a year in only a single day, but as he’s told her before, time moves differently in the Fade.

Eventually, she sighs and kisses his forehead one last time, before retaking her seat next to Revas.

“It is not a manipulation to love him,” he tells her. “You need to be sure that he understands all of his options before he goes to Mythal. For he will go to her, Athera. It won’t be long now. The All Mother’s general will always return to her side.”

“I know,” she whispers hoarsely. “The general will always do what she orders. But Solas… Solas just wants to rest.”

They sit in silence for a long time after that, each lost in thought. After a while, Revas tops up their glasses and fixes her with a wry smile.

“So, before we start to see the effects of ama’theneras on his magic, would you like to tell me what in the void happened when you vanished into the Fade?”

Despite herself, she laughs softly, and then rubs a weary hand across her face.

“That’s going to be complicated,” she says.

He smirks.

“I’m sure I can keep up.”

***

They speak quietly together for the rest of the afternoon, until twilight has fallen and then been washed away by the early darkness of night. Revas is troubled by what she saw in the future, and when she tells him that the eluvians are anchored to Solas’ magic, he twists both hands into his hair and pulls.

“Felasil!”

There is something wild in his eyes when he looks up at her again, and he cuts off a burst of disbelieving laughter and shakes his head.

“Perhaps, lethallan, it is a very good thing that I was unable to kill Fen’Harel when I intended to.”

She quirks an eyebrow at him.

“You think?”

He huffs lightly, and no sooner has the rush of air left him, than Solas suddenly arches from the bed. Before Athera can even process what’s happening, Revas drops a barrier over him as his magic crackles through the air. She lurches to her feet and watches Solas writhe and cry out in his sleep, sparks dancing from his hands and colliding with Revas’ shield.

“What’s happening?” She asks desperately, the scent of scorched o-zone sharp in the air.

“His magic is reacting to the trauma in the Fade,” Revas snarls, his teeth gritted in concentration. “The integration of two people’s memories into one sleeping mind is a difficult one, and the more intense the emotions involved, the more forcefully his body will seek to expel it.”

“Is it hurting him?”

“Not physically. He is living through a war in his mind. It’s only to be expected that there will be repercussions outside of it.”

“This is why he told me to have the two of us here,” she realises. “He knew this would happen.”

Revas pants, straining against the Dread Wolf’s magic.

“Undoubtedly.”

For the rest of the night, the two of them take it in turns to maintain the barrier around Solas. For long hours, he tosses and turns on the bed, sometimes silently, and at other times with streams of panicked Elvhen bubbling from between his lips. Athera hears her own name more than once in the midst of his cries, and she paces anxiously around the perimeter of the barrier, praying for it to be over.

By the time the worst is finally done, the darkness is thinning beyond the windows, a blue-streaked dawn threatening from somewhere behind the hills. At long last, Revas lets the barrier fall, and slumps heavily into a chair while Athera does the same beside him.

“It’s nearly done,” he says, his voice strained. “He will wake soon.”

She nods, exhaustion aching behind her eyes, and pours them both a glass of water which they drink in silence, greedily. At long last, Solas is still on the bed, lying flat on his back with his arms held rigidly at his sides. She recognises the moment when he wakes, tension draining from his shoulders and his ribs expanding with a deliberate breath. When she makes as if to stand, Revas rests a hand on her arm, holding his finger to his lips and urging her to wait.

She settles back in the quiet, watching Solas’ eyelids flicker, until he takes another deep breath and stares fixedly at the ceiling. For long minutes, he simply lies there, his hands clutching the blankets on either side of him. And then without moving, he opens his mouth, and his voice cracks on a single soft word.

“Athera?”

She stands, and takes a tentative few steps closer to the bed.

“I’m here, ma fen.”

He doesn’t move at first, and then he swings himself to sitting in one fluid movement, and plants both of his feet on the floor. She sees at once that he’s shaking, and when his eyes meet hers the depth of horror in them makes her throat feel tight. Wordlessly, he reaches for her, and when his hand closes over hers she finds herself pulled onto his knee and cradled tightly against him. She wraps her arms around his shoulders, pressing her face against the top of his head while he buries his nose in her shoulder and breathes.

She had braced herself for tears, but if anything, Solas is disturbingly silent. He holds her as though she is sand slipping through his fingers, rocking them both slightly on the edge of the bed, while his hands make fists at her back. She presses gentle kisses to the parts of him she can reach, and when his shoulders lurch with a pained breath, she feels him bite down hard on the fabric of her shirt to keep himself in check.

They stay that way for a long time, cradled closely together. But when the sky beyond the window becomes more blue than black, Revas finally stands from his position at the table, and Solas raises his head.

“She told me what she saw there,” Revas tells him, and with a shudder, he holds her even closer. “We should take a walk.”

At first, Athera thinks that Solas will argue, but after a long second he simply nods, and with a final lingering look into her face, releases her and climbs unsteadily to his feet. She twines their fingers together and he grips back, hard, his jaw clenched while Revas leads them from the room, and through the silence of the pre-dawn castle.

Outside, the air is sweet and soft, damp with the dew of early morning and brushing like a balm over her face. Beyond the gates, Solas comes to a stop, tipping his head back and closing his eyes while the gentle light dapples over his pale skin, and the dawn chorus begins to chatter around them. She thinks that there are few moments in which he’s looked so beautiful to her, and her chest constricts with how desperately she adores him.

Eventually, he opens his eyes again, and when he looks towards Revas waiting ahead of them, she wonders at how this will change their relationship. The Revas of today hasn’t had to fight the Evanuris for a second time, but the one Solas met in his dreams must have stood by him through it all. Is it strange, she wonders, to have new memories with him that the man in this time will never know?

She doesn’t ask. There’s something fragile about the peace that surrounds them, and she’s content to let Revas lead them through the little scrap of forest at the castle’s north bastion, while the world wakes slowly in the trees. Solas is stiff and tense beside her, and she sneaks glances at him out of the corner of her eye while they walk, noting the ticking of his jaw and the shadowed distance in his eyes.

Before long, the trees begin to thin, and Revas perches on a boulder by a slow-moving river, and watches them approach. There’s something odd in the way he’s looking at Solas, as though waiting for something, and she tenses until she catches the expression of gratitude in her lover’s eyes. He loosens his grip on her hand slowly, and then with a last look into her face, presses a kiss to the inside of her wrist and lets her go completely.

Before she can ask what’s happening, he takes quick strides away from them towards the water, stripping his clothes from his back as he goes until he’s standing completely naked on the bank. At first, he simply waits there, and then with a powerful grace that makes her mouth go dry, he dives smoothly over the edge, and disappears beneath the tide.

Athera blinks, for once completely speechless, and when she turns to face Revas he’s chuckling softly at the bewildered expression on her face.

“What just happened?”

He pats the boulder beside him, his shoulders still shaking lightly, and she sits and glances back to the river, where Solas’ head is alternately appearing and disappearing beneath the surface while he swims.

“In times of great stress, it was not unusual to find Fen’Harel swimming laps for hours every day, often to the point of exhaustion,” he explains. “He used to say that it helped him to clear his mind of extraneous details and focus on the here and now. In fact, the original structure of Skyhold once held a private underground cavern that was fed by the nearby waterfall, purely for that purpose. I would be interested to see if it still lingers.”

She processes that in silence for a while, and then her lips curve up into a soft smile.

“You brought him here to help him,” she realises, touched beyond belief that he would try.

“I brought him here so that we didn’t have to deal with a mental breakdown on the journey back to Haven.”

There is a sneer in his voice, but when he looks down at his hands rather than meeting her eyes, she knows he doesn’t mean it.

“Thank you,” she says sincerely. “I would never have known to do this.”

He scoffs lightly, but even that feels half-hearted at best.

“Well, now you’ll know in future, and I won’t have to do it again.”

Hopelessly charmed, Athera pecks him chastely on the cheek, grinning cheekily when he scowls at her, and laughing outright when he can’t hide the way his eyes are twinkling in spite of himself.

“You’re just a big old softie really, aren’t you?” She teases, and he elbows her and shakes his head in exasperation.

“Just don’t spread it around.”

“I wouldn’t dare.”

They share a grin, and as the morning brightens around them, Athera leans against him and watches Solas swim. It’s strange still, to see him involved in something so physical. She’s become so used to seeing him wounded, or content and quiet at the cottage or in their cabin at Haven, that the moments when he breaks free of his humble apostate guise still surprise her.

In the dawn’s glow, he is beautiful and powerful, preferring to swim underwater for long stretches, and then breaking the surface with a sucking breath of air before submerging himself again. While she watches him, she thinks of all the different sides of Solas she knows exist, and how difficult it must be for him to contain them every day.

This man, beating a path through the tides as naturally as any athlete, isn’t the same as the hunched and scholarly apostate he presents to the Inquisition. Neither is the scholar the same man who goes into battle, conducting magic like a symphony and raining destruction down on his enemies. Mythal’s general has lived a life of politics and war, but the fragile wolf she met in the Free Marches seems to want nothing more than peace.

Now, with the memories of a year he hasn’t really lived inserted into his personality, there is a different side to him growing again. Keeping all of the facets of Solas’ spirit safe inside her heart, is becoming more difficult by the day. She only hopes that she can cope with the changes this will bring about in him, and that he doesn’t retreat to somewhere she can’t reach.

The sun has fully risen by the time he hauls himself out onto the bank again, and for a long moment he stands still in a shaft of sunlight, his eyes closed and his head tipped back, entirely unashamed of his nakedness. Despite her concern for him, the sight is arresting, and she stares unabashedly at the droplets of water running down his chest; the freckles scattered over his skin; and the hard curves of muscle he hides from everyone but her.

“Don’t look now, lethallan,” Revas murmurs. “But you’re starting to drool.”

She blushes fiercely, caught in a thorough cataloguing of Solas’ body, and Revas laughs near-silently at her side.

“Shut up,” she grumbles. “It’s not my fault he’s beautiful.”

He snorts, while across the clearing, Solas finally draws in a cleansing breath and begins to put on his clothes.

“Sure,” he says. “If you like that sort of thing.”

She looks back at him, aghast.

“I’m sorry, do you see something there not to like?”

Revas quirks an eyebrow at her.

“Oh, you have got it bad, haven’t you?”

She shoves him, hard, her face heating again, and he shoots her a wicked grin while Solas crosses the distance towards them. He seems calmer than he was before, but he still holds his hand out for her to take as soon as he comes to their side. She stands and lets him draw her against his chest, his body chilled and solid while he buries his nose in her hair.

When she pulls away again, he keeps his hand wrapped around hers and looks back to Revas.

“Ma serannas,” he says softly. “You did not need to do that.”

“No matter what I feel about you, Fen’Harel, things do tend to go better if you’re thinking clearly,” Revas replies. “Do you know now what you must do?”

Athera looks between the two of them, while a seemingly silent conversation plays out in the air. Eventually, Solas looks down, his brow furrowed, and then meets Revas’ eyes.

“They cannot know everything,” he says. “To reveal all now would be to condemn ourselves.”

“Agreed.”

“You have had a thought, I presume?”

Revas holds his gaze for a long moment, and then nods.

“I think it’s time.”

Thoughtlessly, it seems, Solas draws her closer again, his lips brushing against her hairline while he thinks. Eventually, he lets out a long breath that blows stray strands of hair over her eyes, and nods.

“Very well,” he agrees. “They will not like it.”

“No. But it must be done. Too much is at stake for us to hide now.”

Athera draws back and looks between the two of them, suddenly beginning to appreciate just how annoying her cryptic conversations with the two men must be to everyone else.

“Are either of you going to tell me what you’ve just decided?” She asks, and Revas smirks at her while Solas’ lips twitch.

“We think it’s time, lethallan,” Revas says, and Solas brushes his knuckles to her cheek.

“It’s time for the Inquisition to be told that the ancients are walking in their midst,” he clarifies. “We must hope that they do not take it too badly.”

Chapter Text

With the revelations they need to deliver hanging over them, it seems as though the trip back to Haven takes no time at all. The free mages are travelling in convoy a few days behind them, and when their small party reaches the familiarity of Haven’s gates, Athera’s sense of homecoming is overshadowed by a churning anxiety she hasn’t been able to shake.

The town is strangely busy, a frenetic sense of industry hanging over the population, and when they’ve stabled the mounts Leliana is the one to walk out and greet them.

“Good, you’re here,” she says briskly. “The Herald’s party is also arriving this afternoon, and we have much to arrange before then.”

“Were they successful?”

“I received word from the Herald three days ago, that while many of the Order were corrupted, over half were able to resist them. The surviving Templars will be here early next week.”

Athera nods, climbing over the stable’s fence and joining her on the path.

“That’s good. The mages will probably beat them here by a couple of days.”

“Cullen will be thrilled.”

Leliana smirks at her knowingly, and Athera can’t help but grin in response.

“But tell me,” the Nightingale says, as they begin to walk through the snow. “Your letters were vague regarding the disturbance at Redcliffe. You mentioned that you had more to pass on?”

Athera hesitates, and knows that her unease has been noticed when Leliana’s eyes sharpen. During the journey to Haven, Revas and Solas had both agreed that she ought to be the one to reveal their origins to the spymaster before the rest of the advisors are told. But with the trust between them so fragile, she’s wary of what will come next.

“There’s a lot to tell you about what happened in Redcliffe,” she says slowly. “But more than that, I need to tell you about how some of us ended up here.”

“You speak of yourself?”

“And of Solas and Revas.”

The Nightingale comes to a stop and observes her closely, and Athera meets her gaze as openly as she can.

“Is there somewhere we can talk in private?” She asks. “This is going to take a while.”

***

It takes the rest of the morning. Leliana leads her to the war room, and with an icy glare, she sends the rest of the Inquisition members and Chantry clerics scurrying away from the door. Even so, Athera raises a silencing ward, and they pull up chairs to the table while she struggles to find a way to begin.

In the end, she starts with uthenara, relaxing a little when it turns out that Leliana has heard of the long sleep before. The Nightingale doesn’t interrupt. Even when Athera describes running into a wounded Solas in the Free Marches – leaving out the fact that he was a wolf at the time – and discovering that he was one of the ancients, she remains disturbingly calm.

So, Athera keeps going. She tells her about the Dalish camp, and their exploration of the Crossroads with Merrill. She lies outright when she explains that Revas is Solas’ friend, and how he had travelled with them to Val Royeaux and found her when Solas couldn’t. And in halting whispers and shuddering pauses, she explains that old enemies from the days of Arlathan are waiting in the wings, and the dark future she saw at Redcliffe could still come to pass if they don’t take steps to change it.

When she’s done, her throat rasps, and she’s travelled right past anxiety and into a blank and emotionless calm. For a long while, Leliana simply watches her, and Athera can’t make out the expression in her eyes. The room is quiet, and the two women are cradled in its silence, suspended in a bubble of time.

After what feels like an age, she finally gets to her feet, her face still shuttered and her eyes like blades.

“I want to speak to them. Now.”

Athera has already prepared for this, and she nods exhaustedly and cancels the ward around the room. The spymaster crosses the floor, calling for a runner to bring Solas and Revas to them, along with something to drink. Athera smiles at that, climbing to her feet as well and stretching out the aching muscles in her back.

When she looks back at Leliana, she is assessing her again, and Athera’s lips twitch sadly at the suspicion she now feels between them.

“Ir abelas, falon,” she says quietly. “It wasn’t my intention to deceive you, but it wasn’t my secret to reveal.”

“Not until you had ingratiated yourself here, you mean?”

She suppresses a flinch at the harshness of her voice, and feels her expression fall.

“Not ever,” she replies honestly. “Their origins had no relevance to the work we were doing here. We had no idea the Evanuris were involved until Alexius sent Dorian and I forward in time.”

“And what does the altus have to say about all of this?”

“Nothing.”

Leliana raises an eyebrow in disbelief, and Athera smiles at its familiarity.

“I find that hard to believe.”

“It’s true,” she insists. “But only because the details were shielded from him. He knows about Corypheus, but he doesn’t know what was hiding behind him.”

Leliana pinches her lips into a thin line, but before she can make any further argument, the sound of footsteps echoes from the corridor. Athera steels herself, lifting her chin as the runner, a female elf bearing Dirthamen’s vallaslin, leads Solas and Revas into the room.

The change in them is startling. Athera has always been able to see beyond the mild-mannered apostate disguise they present to the Inquisition, but now, neither of them are hiding. Both walk in with their backs straight and their heads held high, and while Leliana’s agent deposits a heavy tea tray and a pitcher of water on the table, a quiet strength projects outwards from both of them.

Leliana dismisses the elf with a flick of her hand, and when the door closes behind her, Athera raises the silencing ward again and stands back to watch the discussion. At first, the Nightingale does little more than stare at them, and then she folds her arms in front of herself and scowls.

“It is true, then. You are not of this world.”

“I would think it more accurate to say that we are from an earlier version of this world,” Revas replies. “And that we have a vested interest in the continuation of this one.”

A muscle in Leliana’s jaw tics, and her gaze sweeps over them again.

“Athera has told me of your old enemies,” she says at last. “But she has not told me of how they came to be that way. Until now, I had thought that only myths remained of the Elvhen empire, but now I see that its remnants stand in front of me, with all of their secrets still hidden.”

“It was too dangerous to reveal ourselves in the beginning, Sister Nightingale,” Solas says calmly, his eyes suddenly showing every year that has fled behind him. “Age is not the same as strength, and those of us who only recently woke into this world possess no extra power with which to defend ourselves from harm.”

“Indeed,” Revas agrees. “We are just as vulnerable to a blade, or an arrow, or to the persecution of the shemlen, as any mortal elf living today.”

“And yet, you would have me believe that it was accident that led you to be here, Solas?” Leliana demands, her tone glacial. “At the precise moment the Conclave exploded, you, an ancient elf, were waiting in the wings, and there was no ulterior motive for you being here?”

Even though the spymaster’s back is to her, Athera keeps her face perfectly blank, and clenches her hands at her sides. They had prepared for this line of questioning, but she knows first-hand that Leliana is no fool, and if they don’t secure her support now their discussion with the advisors can only go badly.

“A lie of omission,” Solas says. “The weapon that Corypheus wields, it is Elvhen.”

Athera can feel waves of anger radiating from Leliana, and bites down hard on her lip to stay silent when Revas takes up the tale.

“Our cities are now in ruins,” he says. “And as such, they are beset by treasure-seekers, runaways, and thieves.”

“One of the foci, a great well of magical power used by our People, found its way into the hands of the Grey Wardens,” Solas continues. “Through his control of the Blight, Corypheus is able to manipulate them, and it was they who stole the focus and passed it into his hands, although we didn’t know how he achieved this at the time.”

This, Athera knows, is true, although it leaves out the fairly crucial fact that Solas’ agents were the ones who allowed the corrupted Wardens to stumble across the object in the first place. She keeps her hands clenched tight behind her, and tries to read Leliana’s mood from the blank expanse of her back.

“Everything you know about me until that point is true,” Solas says. “All that I told you about my meeting with Athera, and the fall of the White Spire, happened just as I described.”

“But you did not come to the Conclave simply because you had no-where else to go.”

“No,” he agrees. “I came because I was grieving, and in my grief, the recovery of a stolen artefact of my People seemed like a worthy task. I was able to track the power of the focus to Haven, but with so many Templars and shemlen attending the talks, I was unable to enter the Temple of Sacred Ashes to retrieve it.”

Not for the first time, Athera marvels at his ability to manipulate the truth without outright lying. It is disconcerting to see it at play, especially because she can already tell that it’s working.

“So, when the Conclave exploded you were aware of what had caused it?” Leliana asks, her voice guarded but not antagonistic.

“I knew that it must have been the focus,” Solas confirms. “But I assumed that whoever wielded it must have been destroyed in the explosion, and the artefact lost.”

“Until Athera travelled into the future and told you of what she saw there.”

“No,” Solas corrects. “Until my future self used an Elvhen technique to send his memories of the divergent year through the Fade, and into my sleeping mind.”

For the first time since entering the room, his gaze slips to hers over the Nightingale’s shoulder, a storm of hurt passing quickly behind his eyes. Athera’s heart clenches, and she offers him a gentle smile, knowing that soon enough he will need to speak properly about what his other self had lived through, and that it will be difficult for them both.

“You possess memories of the future?” Leliana asks, her tone disbelieving and intrigued in equal measure.

“I possess memories of a future,” Solas corrects. “One which it is in all of our best interests to see averted.”

Before the spymaster can respond, a bell begins to toll outside, announcing the arrival of the Herald’s party at the gates. Athera’s heartbeat picks up, and Leliana turns to face her for the first time since Solas and Revas arrived.

“I require more time with your associates,” she says sharply. “Can I trust that you will be able to handle the Herald’s return yourself?”

Athera inclines her head, recognising an order when she hears one.

“Of course, Sister Nightingale. I’ll see them settled and let Ellana know that you’ll speak with her when you’re finished here.”

With a final nervous glance at her associates, she crosses to the door. But before she can leave, Solas wraps a hand around her wrist and draws her to a stop. She looks up at him in surprise, her expression softening when she sees the yearning in his eyes. Since assimilating the memories from Redcliffe, he hasn’t spoken to her about them, but he has stayed conspicuously close. Needing to touch her regularly and press his lips to her skin. A silent reassurance that she, and this world, are real.

He bends his head to her now, brushing an achingly tender kiss to her lips and running his nose against hers. She flushes with embarrassment to know that Leliana is watching, but she can’t find it in herself to deny him, and instead she presses a soft kiss to the corner of his mouth and squeezes his fingers gently.

“Dareth,” he whispers to her, and she smiles at him sadly.

“You too.”

His expression calms, and he quirks his lips in a half-smile before letting her go. She leaves without another word, stepping over the silencing ward and into the bustle of the Chantry. Mother Giselle eyes her with interest when she walks through the hall, and she avoids her gaze and continues quickly into the cold streets, making for the stables.

The sense of industry is no less potent than it was earlier, and she keeps her head down as she walks, weaving in and out of the swelling crowds and slipping through the backstreets. Up ahead, she can see the Chargers’ silhouettes swarming at the gates, and Ellana riding in astride a black hart. The crowd parts for her, and she raises her hand to them in response to their cheer.

Athera smiles at the sight, even as her stomach lurches unpleasantly. She’d once told Leliana that any elf who gets too close to shemlen power gets burned, and the more these people adore her sister, the more she fears the moment they will turn. Lost in dark thoughts, she makes it only a few more steps before she feels a delicate ripple against the veil, and Cole is standing in front of her, his blue eyes intent beneath the shadow of his hat.

“The song was wrong,” he says urgently. “She made it better, but then Envy came.”

She falls still, wishing that Solas were here so that he could unpick the spirit’s cryptic speech.

“The Templars were infected with red lyrium, so the song wouldn’t sound the same,” she says slowly. “But is Envy a thing? A person? Or something else?”

“Envy crept across the Veil, wearing someone else’s face,” Cole replies. “He said he was like me, but he wasn’t. He came to hurt. He hurt her, but she sent him away. It hurt more because he wore your face.”

He ducks his head, suddenly small and child-like again.

“I helped.”

Athera blinks at him, a cold feeling creeping down her spine and prickling her veins with dread.

“You’re saying, that a demon called Envy wore my face?”

“It hurt. Older sister. Favourite. Beloved. The one that Papae loves best.”

Her breath catches, and she looks towards the stables, to where Ellana has dismounted and is deep in conversation with Bull and Dennett.

“That’s not true,” she whispers, as though all of the air has fled from the town. “Ellana had to be protected. Even if it meant that I had to leave.”

“She doesn’t know,” Cole moans unhappily. “She thinks it was your fault.”

“She can’t know,” Athera manages to choke out. “It would only hurt her more.”

The spirit flits towards her, miserable and distressed.

“I’m sorry,” he says. “It hurts you, too.”

She swallows.

“Yes.”

“I don’t know how to help.”

He sounds completely devastated, and Athera reaches out and squeezes his arm, shaking her head while she tries to swallow down the ache in her throat.

“You don’t need to help this, Cole,” she says softly. “There are plenty of people here in Haven who need you. You’ve already done enough by looking after her for me.”

Cole’s eyes spark and then fall closed, and she walks away from him before he decides to say more. Even without the spirit’s warning, seeing her sister again after Redcliffe is even stranger than she’d imagined. Not long ago, hers was the face she saw whenever she looked into a mirror. And a year from now, in an alternate future she prays will never come to pass, she had looked into her eyes and promised that she wouldn’t give up on her.

This new knowledge of the envy she hides only makes that harder to achieve, and when she reaches the stables, she’s disappointed at the distance that’s between them again.

“Hey, Little Red,” Bull greets her. “You get the mages?”

She forces a smile onto her face and raises her eyebrow in challenge.

“Of course I got the mages,” she says in mock-offence. “What kind of a fake Herald do you take me for?”

The Iron Bull laughs, a great booming sound, and Ellana finally meets her eyes.

“Are they here yet?”

Athera shakes her head.

“No, but they’ll probably beat the Templars here by a couple of days.”

Her sister frowns, but doesn’t make any further comment. Instead, she climbs over the fence and lands gracefully in front of her, her eyes already scanning Haven’s crowds.

“Where’s Leliana? We need to debrief before the full meeting.”

“She sent me to tell you that she’ll be busy for most of the afternoon, but I have a feeling she’ll want to speak to you in private before anyone else is told.”

Ellana’s gaze sharpens, and Athera refuses to look away.

“Told what?”

Behind her, she can sense that Bull is listening, even though he’s gone back to grooming one of the mounts.

“Honestly, you won’t want to hear it from me,” she replies, a small smile tugging at her lips. “But when you know, I promise that you can come and ask me anything you like.”

“Is that meant to make me feel better?”

“No, it’s-”

Before she can finish the sentence, Cole flickers into life at their side, and Ellana yelps and jumps away.

“I told you to stop doing that!”

“He can’t help it, da’mi,” Athera tries to calm her. “That’s just how he moves around.”

It’s the wrong thing to say. Her sister’s face darkens, and then she rounds on her with a snarl.

“How do you know that?” She demands. “Cole met us at Therinfall.”

Athera winces guiltily.

“Actually, he met me, Solas, and Leliana at the White Spire,” she says, twisting her hands together nervously. “He’s been helping people in Haven since before Val Royeaux.”

At this, Bull and Ellana both pin her with a calculating look, and she lifts her chin and stares them down.

“Don’t fight,” Cole says agitatedly. “You don’t really want to fight. I know you don’t.”

Ellana looks between them, and then with a muttered curse, she turns in a flurry of snow and marches towards the training area, where Cullen and Cassandra are watching her approach. As soon as she’s gone, Athera’s shoulders slump, and Cole gives her a look of unutterable sadness before vanishing again.

When she looks up again, Bull is studying her, and she rubs a weary hand over her forehead and meets his eye.

“Something you want to say, the Iron Bull?”

He hesitates, and then his expression grows hard.

“You know too much, Little Red. I may not know what it is, but I do know that you know too much.”

With a final assessing glance her way, he saunters past her, bumping her with his shoulder as he passes.

“You should be careful of that, you know. Too much knowledge can be dangerous.”

Coming from their resident Ben-Hassrath spy, she takes it for the threat that it is.

Chapter Text

The next week is by far the most difficult Athera has experienced since joining the Inquisition. The meeting with Ellana and the advisors became a tense and cold thing, the conversation moving from disbelief, to anger, to fear, and ending on a sudden threat by Cassandra to execute all three of them. Only calm and patient explanation by Solas and Revas saved them, and alongside Leliana’s calculated support, the meeting broke up without bloodshed.

Since then, the atmosphere inside Haven’s walls has changed. The mages arrived in a flurry of activity, the town’s population swelling by more than eight-hundred magic users in a single hour. Cullen had spent that evening snarling and snapping at everyone who crossed his path, while the townspeople watched the newcomers through wide and terrified eyes.

Fiona and her charges quickly found residence in the tents and shacks dotted around the outskirts, but the Commander’s men also upped their patrols. By the time the Templars arrived, headed by Delrin Barris, tensions were already high, and on the seventh day after the meeting with Leliana, Athera finds herself caught in the middle of a fight.

She’s pacing anxiously in front of the Chantry when it happens. Solas and Revas are meeting with Leliana and the Herald, planning for the two elves to lead the first group of townspeople to Skyhold. It’s a tentative truce between the ancients and the Inquisition, but Athera can’t shake the certainty that something terrible is about to happen.

Distracted as she is, the sudden sound of raised voices comes as a shock, and when she looks up she sees three Templars surrounding a human mage. The woman has her arms raised in placation, and at her feet there are a number of smashed lyrium bottles spilling over the ground.

“I’m sorry,” she pleads. “I didn’t see you there.”

“Then maybe you should watch where you’re going,” one of the Templars snarls.

The other two bear down on her, eyes flashing with violence, and Athera rushes down the snow-choked slope and straight into the space between them.

“Enough!” She shouts. “Haven is not a prison, and you aren’t the jailors anymore.”

The largest Templar, dark eyes shadowed by darker eyebrows, looms over her, his hand heavy on his sword.

“I don’t take orders from you, mage.”

An echo of sickly fear, a remembrance from the White Spire, trickles down her spine. But she stands her ground.

“As the Herald’s sister and the Nightingale’s right hand, Templar, I think you’ll find that you do.”

A flash of recognition moves behind his eyes, but his face remains drawn in a frown. She meets his gaze while his two companions take a wary step back, and the mage behind her holds her breath.

“None of us are here for this,” Athera says quietly, her eyes fixed on his. “This is not the same world it was before the Breach, and it won’t be the same world again.”

The tension in his posture begins to ease, and he takes an uncertain step away from her, his hand falling from his sword. She draws a silent breath of relief, and looks around to where a circle of observers has gathered. Her heart is pounding in her chest, but she can’t ignore the sense of a tipping point hanging in the air. Tension is the direct result of fear, and the people here are scared. They’re looking for reassurance that they’re safe.

She remembers her words to Clan Sabrae, so long ago now, and draws herself up to her full height.

“It is a curse, they say, to live in interesting times,” she begins, her voice raised to carry over the crowd. “But this is the time we’re living in.”

The snows swirls in soft eddies around her, and silence hangs heavy in the air.

“For some of you, the world was safer before now. Before the mage-Templar war. Before the Chantry splintered. Before the Breach rent the sky. But for some of us, there was no safety to be found in any world we’ve ever known.”

She meets the Templar’s gaze, and then turns her attention to the crowd.

“This is a new world. Whether we like it or not, the old one is dead and it isn’t coming back. But we have a chance here to make something better. Something fairer. Something that everyone can be proud of,” she says clearly. “There is no honour in subjugation. It is no act of strength to destroy someone weaker than you. The old world was ruled by fear, but I ask you all now, is an elf so much more dangerous than a human? Is a mage so much more terrifying than a Templar?”

There are murmurings all around her, but she steels herself to go on.

“What is dangerous, is ignorance. When we don’t understand something we begin to fear it, and when we’re afraid we do terrible things in the hope they will keep us safe. But they will not keep you safe. This is where fear, ignorance, and violence has brought us.”

She raises her hand to the Breach, and the crowd follows her gaze, their skin reflecting the sickly green glow of the Fade.

“There are times in history that draw everyone together,” she says at last. “Times where we all have a choice in whether to maintain an old order, or create something new. This is one of those times. Here, in Haven today, we are building something new. A world where mages and Templars are equal. Where Andraste’s Herald is an elf. And where anyone, regardless of their origins, can live their lives free from prejudice and pain.”

She turns her gaze back to the Templar, and his eyes are soft and afraid.

“It’s easy to choose violence,” she says quietly. “It’s much harder to be kind when we’re afraid. But I have to believe that we can be.”

Her attention returns to the crowd still watching her in silence, and she smiles.

“I believe that all of you here, working to save this world from destruction, can also help to build a better world at the end. I believe in all of you, and I know that the Herald does too. We can be better. We are, all of us here, brave enough to try.”

There’s a smattering of applause from somewhere by the stairs. Then it grows into a rumble, and then a roar, until Athera is standing in the midst of a crowd of cheering people, her heart double-beating in her throat. She lets it continue for a while, her chest swelling with emotion, and then she steps back and holds out her hands for the Templar and the mage to come towards her.

They do so, hesitantly, and in the sight of the celebrating crowd, she steps away and gestures for them to make peace. For a long moment, they hesitate, each staring into the other’s eyes, and then they reach for each other at the same time, and tentatively shake hands. The noise around them is deafening, and Athera beams at the two of them, and then holds up her hands for silence.

“There’s work to be done,” she says finally. “It’s time that we did it together.”

With her ears ringing, she turns on her heel, making for the shack she shares with Solas and seeking to escape the sudden attention directed her way. As she passes through the backstreets and weaves behind the Singing Maiden, she catches sight of Ellana and Cullen standing on the Chantry steps. She can’t make out the expression on their faces, but their focus is trained on her, and she makes her steps as confident as she can and refuses to show weakness.

It’s a relief when she steps into the cabin and closes the door behind her, the wood blocking out the sound of the crowd’s excited babble. She draws a shaking breath in and closes her eyes to re-centre herself, and in the quiet, her muscles finally start to unwind. Despite her years in the revas’shiral, she still isn’t comfortable speaking to a crowd, and the stakes here are so much higher than any she’s dealt with before.

When she’s calmer, she moves about the room, picking up one of her stray shirts and folding it into a drawer, and looping one of Solas’ discarded belts around the bedframe. After so long here, the space is starting to look like a place they share. A single life lived together, rather than two separate lives that only briefly intersect. It isn’t a position she’s been in before - at least, not like this - and it comes with a peculiar contentment that she doesn’t have a name for.

This has become their home. Their shelter from the storm outside. And with the world so hopelessly in uproar, it’s something that she cherishes. She sinks down onto the end of the bed, watching the door, and wonders where Solas is, and whether he’s ready to talk to her about Redcliffe yet. She feels as though events are moving quickly now, and she needs to understand how he might have changed.

With a sigh, she stands up again and casts a fire rune beneath the copper bathtub. She has no desire to go out there again, and for now, she’s content to sink into the water and wait.

***

She’s still drifting in the steaming heat some time later, neck tipped back against the lip of the bath, when she hears the door open and a gust of cold air blows in. She opens her eyes and turns her head towards the sheet, beyond which she can make out Solas’ shadow standing in front of the closed door.

“I’m just getting out,” she calls. “How was the meeting?”

He doesn’t answer at first, and she wraps a towel around herself and draws the makeshift curtain open. He’s silhouetted against the darkening window, his face lighting up in a soft smile when he sees her, yet his expression still shadowed by grief. Her gaze softens, and she crosses the distance between them and lets him take her hand in his.

His skin is sharp and cold after being out in snow, and she draws him close to her while he nuzzles at her neck, his arms encircling her waist. She sinks into him, trailing her fingers across the back of his head, quite content to stay where they are for the time-being.

“I heard you speak today,” he murmurs against her. “You were magnificent.”

His lips are brushing, slowly but insistently along her neck, taking sips of water from her skin while his hands knead gently at her hips. She squirms in both arousal and embarrassment, her face heating while he continues his path to her collarbone.

“Solas,” she whispers breathlessly. “We need to talk.”

He hums against the hollow of her throat, his hands now tight on her ass, and she feels him beginning to grow hard against her. Her fingers twine in the back of his tunic, almost against her will, and he makes a pleased sound against her chest and nips sharply at her skin.

“Ma fen,” she tries again, her thoughts unspooling into desire. “You need to tell me what happened.”

He stills, warm breath drifting across her breastbone, while his nose remains a point of cold at her throat.

“What happened?” He repeats softly. “You know what happened, my star.”

He raises his head at last, and his expression is pained, somehow wild, while his pupils are dark pools of desire.

“I destroyed the world.”

His voice rasps, dark and forbidding, and before she can even register the words, he’s fadestepped them across the room and her back hits the wall with a thud. His mouth descends on hers, lips chilled with magic and snow, while his tongue is a burning point of heat as he swirls it into her mouth. She moans helplessly, hands clutching at his shoulders, and he pushes the weight of his body into her and traps her against the wood.

“I destroyed the world,” he gasps, feverish kisses still marking her skin. “For a year, I watched my worst fears made real. Witnessed the last chance for peace vanish inside the roaring void of war and sickness.”

His magic is as frantic as his hands, spilling from him like a tide and lighting up her nerves from inside.

“And then,” he gasps. “You arrived. Torn through the Fade to stand like a beacon of light in the darkness of Skyhold’s walls.”

He steps away briefly, only to tug her towel away and have it fall in a pool at her feet. She whines, body twisting with want while she struggles to concentrate on his words. He swoops down on her again, one hand reaching to untie the laces of his leggings where his cock is already straining at the fabric.

When his lips meet her neck again they’re followed by a sharp bite of teeth.

“And after everything, after all that I had done, all that I had failed to save, you were kind,” he breathes desperately at her ear. “How are you always so kind?”

And, oh, there is danger here. Delicious and dark, the pulsing spirit of him burning like hot oil beneath her skin. His fingertips trail fire over her ribs, and there is a frightening intensity to the marks he leaves at her throat.

“I do not deserve it,” he moans at last. “I will never deserve it. But I crave it like a Templar craves lyrium. I love you, Athera. Ar lath ma. You must know. You must understand, how desperately I adore you.”

She no longer has the ability to answer him. His body pins her to the wall, her chest crushed exquisitely beneath him, until the only sound she can make is a frantic, high-pitched keen while his magic takes her apart.

““I would give you everything. Anything. Everything in all the worlds if I could, and it would still never be enough. I need you to know. I have to show you, I have to make you see, just how much-”

He cuts himself off with a frantic sound at her jaw, and she finally manages to control herself enough to grip his face between her palms. The expression he turns on her is anguished and adoring, his cheeks flushed and his lips parted on a desperate pant, a thin, bright streak of red blood on his lips from where he must have broken her skin.

Wherever the cut is, she can’t feel it. Instead, her body is a live-wire. A spark of lightning held inside a cloud, desperate to arc into the ground and shatter. His clothes rub coarsely against her over-sensitised skin, and she can feel the rigid length of him hanging over his waistband and rubbing between her thighs. She digs her nails into his skin and her pulse jumps when he hisses in delight.

“Show me,” she whispers breathlessly. “Show me.”

He doesn’t hesitate. As soon as the words are out of her mouth he hauls her legs up around his waist, and with a single hard thrust, he seats himself inside her like a key fitted into a lock. The cry she makes is guttural and pleasured, and when he slams back into her again she sees stars.

He sets a frantic pace, and her body responds to his touch and his magic as though she were made to be held by him. There is no resistance as he slides back into her, his magic working an inferno through her nerves until she can feel her orgasm building everywhere. It is a tingle of electricity in her scalp; a point of fire in her fingertips. Her toes curl, her back arches against the wall, and her cries echo in the silence of the room while she begs him to let her fall.

I love you, she thinks desperately. I love you I love you I love you.

All at once, as though it’s nothing more than an echo of her thoughts, her magic spills into the air around them. She opens her eyes in shock, unaware that she’d even closed them, to find the same startled surprise in Solas’ gaze, before his face contorts in agonised pleasure. She clings to him, poised on the crest of a wave and desperate to be dragged under, but there is another feeling now competing with her need.

It is deeper than desire. It lies far beneath her skin, wrapped around the very heart of her, and she feels it reach for him as though seeking a home. Solas’ hips are still moving, rolling against hers until the pleasure is almost unbearable, but his eyes are fixed on hers. They are wide, and terrified, and burning with such profound longing that she feels tears begin to flow down her cheeks.

“Stop,” he gasps helplessly. “Athera, sathan. Stop.”

Time seems to slow. The room disappears into darkness, until all she can see is the violent silver of his eyes, threads of storm-blue and violet pulsing around the darkness of his pupils blown wide. The only sounds she can hear are her heartbeat and her own panting breath, and the frenzied desire of her body falls into the background when his magic reaches for hers.

He rushes into her like the heat of summer, burrowing down, down into the heart of her until lights burst in sunspots behind her eyes. She wants him to consume her. Burn her up into nothing, until there’s no border between the two of them left.

“Athera.”

His voice is breathless, agitated, and afraid.

“I can’t stop,” he pleads. “My star, you must pull back.”

She hovers on the precipice - body, mind, and magic straining - and then with a sense of unspeakable loss, she shatters the connection between them. They both cry out at the sudden emptiness when it breaks, and with a frantic cry Solas crushes her against him and pounds into her with abandon. She clings to him in return, her nails drawing blood on his back while she muffles her own frenzied pleas into his skin.

Her orgasm crashes over her like a breaking wave, and she screams into his neck and braces herself through the most potent pleasure she’s ever known. Distantly, she hears Solas shouting at her ear, his voice unravelling into guttural moans as he spills deep inside her, setting off aftershocks along the length of her spine.

With a liquid stream of Elvhen tumbling from his lips, he carries her to the bed, and they both collapse in an undignified heap on top of the tangled sheets. Athera’s ears are ringing, and she feels elated and grief-stricken, although she doesn’t know why. She curls into him, only becoming aware that she’s crying when she watches her tears darken the material on his chest.

His arms wrap around her possessively, protectively, and he muffles his own quiet sobs into her hair and rocks her gently against him. They stay that way for a long time, and when her tears finally ebb she tugs weakly at his clothes, needing to feel his skin against hers. He undresses without getting up, flinging them onto the floor and then drawing her back into his arms, and something ragged and needy in her heart finally settles when he tangles his legs with hers.

“What was that?” She whispers wonderingly at last, her cheek still pressed to his chest.

He draws in a breath that shakes, and his hand finds its way into her hair.

“That should not have been possible,” he murmurs, his voice thick with unshed tears. “With the Veil still in place… Without the proper preparations… We should not have been able to get so far.”

Something about the broken astonishment in his voice makes her lift her head to look at him, and he meets her gaze with a look of distant awe.

“You know, of course, what a bonding is?” He asks quietly, and she hesitates and then nods uncertainly.

“In Elvhenan, bonding between partners was not just legally binding, but magically. It was the tying of two spirits together, so that no matter where they were, they would always be able to find each other again. Two souls that became as one, so that neither would ever be alone.”

Athera’s eyes widen, and she digs her nails into his chest.

“You’re saying, that we just bonded?”

He shakes his head quickly, his hand coming up to cup the side of her face.

“No, my star. You stopped it before it could complete.”

Something pained flickers behind his eyes, but it’s gone as quickly as it came.

“If you hadn’t…” He huffs a bitter breath, and his face suddenly closes off from her, becoming the neutral mask she so hates. “Ir bellanaris abelas,” he murmurs. “I had no idea such a thing could be possible with the Veil still in place. I intended only to show you how much I loved you, but in doing so, I very nearly bound you without your consent. I…”

There is such agony in his eyes, that she raises her hand to his lips and cuts him off before he can speak.

“Wait,” she says, more firmly now. “If it was a bonding, then surely both parties would have to consent? You said there were preparations before this was attempted. That it was a choice that people made.”

He nods uncertainly against her hand, and then draws her palm away and presses a kiss to its centre.

“Yes,” he admits, in a hoarse voice. “A bonding can only be completed if both partners are truly in love. If their spirits are so aligned that they do not wish to be separated. But I did not warn you of what I was doing. I had no idea that you – that your spirit - would be able to respond as it did. I should not have-”

But Athera’s heart is soaring, a deep, private part of her still trying to reach for him, needing to feel the warmth of him tangled beneath her skin. She places her hand softly over his mouth again and shakes her head, tears in her eyes.

“I had no idea,” she murmurs. “But you didn’t trick me into anything, Solas. I reached for you. If you hadn’t have asked me to stop, I would have carried it through to the end.”

He removes her hand again, his eyes glistening.

“But that is not the way it should be done,” he whispers. “I would not have you make such a commitment without understanding what it means. Forgive me, vhenan. I did not think.”

Her gaze softens, and she kisses him gently. He lets out a relieved sound against her, and his lips are soft and reverent over hers.

“There’s nothing to forgive.”

With a sigh, he folds her into his chest, and she listens to his heart beating frantically beneath her ear. In the quiet, he trails his fingers up and down her arm, his breath gusting across her temple while she buries herself against him. Her limbs are heavy, wrung-out with pleasure, but there is a gap in her chest where the warmth of him had been, and even though he is here beneath her cheek, she somehow still misses him.

“How should it have been done?” She asks eventually. “Before we began it, what should have happened?”

She feels a smile swiftly hidden against her temple, and an answering one flicker across her lips.

“I would have prepared a proposal,” Solas whispers softly. “We would have discussed it at length, and only when I was certain you understood what you were committing to, would I have made us bonding rings, and presented you with one somewhere with just the two of us to see.”

His voice grows soft and wistful, and his fingers draw patterns at her shoulder.

“I would have got down on one knee, and made my intentions clear, and begged you to join me in a ceremony that would declare our love to the world for all eternity. Bellanaris, vhenan. No matter what came.”

She closes her eyes, a happy sigh leaving her as she tightens her grip on him.

“You know that I would say yes, don’t you?” She asks softly at last.

The sudden, brittle tension of his body beneath her tells her clearly enough that he doesn’t.

“What?” He whispers.

The word comes out breathless, and small.

“If you were to ask me to bond with you one day,” she says, slowly and very clearly. “I would say yes, Solas. I will always say yes.”

The rigid lines of his body unwind beneath her, and he lets out a strangled breath into her hair.

“I know, my star.”

But his heart is finally slowing beneath her ear, and a moment later, she feels him begin to stir against her hip, and hides a smile in his chest.

“Liar,” she rebukes him gently.

He huffs a laugh, bright and joyful, and then she finds herself on her back while he looms over her and kisses her tenderly. They make love slowly this time, no words needed when he slips back inside her, the wetness of their earlier coupling making it all too easy. The heat builds slowly, fingers trailing over warm skin, while pulses of healing magic close up the marks he’d left at her throat before.

They come at the same time, muffling quiet cries into the other’s mouth, and Solas kisses her languidly for long minutes and holds her close against him.

“Ar lath ma, vhenan.”

She smiles into the near-darkness.

“Ar lath ma, ma fen.”

She falls into sleep warm and sated, cradled against his chest in a reversal of their usual position, while his hand brushes through her hair. It isn’t really a solution to whatever he lived through in Redcliffe, but for now she lets herself believe that their love will be enough.

She sleeps deeply, the night passing in a haze of murmured endearments and half-remembered kisses pressed into her skin.

But when she wakes in the morning, the sunlight too bright and her muscles aching pleasantly, Solas is already gone.

Chapter Text

The journey through the Frostbacks is hard, even with the mounts. Solas rides the white hart at the head of their convoy, while Revas and the bog unicorn bring up the rear. Along the wide mountain paths, a selection of mages, Templars, crafters, and townsfolk trail in a serpent between them. Some ride horses at the edges, guarding against the threat of attack, while most press forward on foot, bearing carts of supplies and cages with ravens, heading towards their new home.

It’s a five-day trek on foot over the treacherous ice, and although his body moves inexorably towards his old fortress, Solas’ heart is still wrapped up in bed with Athera. The wind bites at his ears and turns his nose red, and at night, he stands in the darkness and watches the campfires wink into life.

Above him, the stars are cold and distant, and he remembers a different journey he never really made. Ragged refugees hauling themselves onward, while the Herald walked determinedly at his side, and his spirit was an open wound still calling for his heart. Even his magic isn’t enough to warm him, and yet, he hadn’t been able to bring himself to say goodbye.

Their near-bonding was an accident. Something he had never dared hope might be his, but the phantom warmth of Athera’s magic in his chest aches like a missing limb. He is torn between disgust at himself for setting it in motion without her consent, and a deep, enduring, world-shaking joy that she had reached for him regardless. The wolf in his chest is not so conflicted as his mind.

Mine, it howls. My heart. My love. My mate.

Mine mine mine.

It is a drumbeat within him, and it is the final, shuddering wave that breaks away the last of his feeble resistance. This world is broken, but it is real. These people, following him with fragile trust into the bitter mountain ridge, are real. He recognises some of them from the year that will never be. The spy who’d first brought them news of the fall of Val Royeaux. The healer who had worked night and day to save so many who would otherwise have perished. The stable hand that had rushed into battle to rescue a dying horse.

They are all here, and he knows now the truth of their hearts, perhaps even better than they do. For so long, his choice had seemed to be between his heart, and his duty. Athera and Mythal. Lover and Mother. Protector and Leader. Now, he sees that it is a choice between hope and despair.

He knows despair intimately. He has seen it in others and in himself. It was despair that had poisoned him when Mythal had died. It slept at his shoulder through the long years of uthenara, and guided his hand when he’d struck Felassan down. He’d felt it like a millstone on his chest when he’d given his focus to Corypheus, and he’d buckled under its weight when Athera had vanished into the rift.

All that despair has ever given him is pain. All that he has created through it has ended in destruction, but he has never wanted to be someone who destroys.

Over the long journey, the cold burns in his lungs, and a guttering, fragile flame of hope expands adamantly in his chest. He will not condemn this world to oblivion. He will not see it fall to Corypheus, nor to the madness of the Evanuris, nor to his own despairing hands. His path has changed. Instead of the beckoning darkness of the dinan’shiral, he sees hope ahead of him for the first time in an Age.

She is waiting for him in Haven. The woman who had reached for him, body and spirit, and welcomed him home. And hope is also here in these broken people, struggling through snow and ice to a fortress that has withered with time. He believes, now, that he can find another way. He must find another way, because Revas is right. Athera won’t survive Mythal’s plans, and a world without Athera is not a world worth living in. No matter what his mother believes, Solas will fight for something better. Something brighter.

He will fight for his star to live.

When Skyhold emerges over the mountain’s peak, he is the first to see it. His hart, Gyal, paws impatiently at the ground, and Solas draws in a breath that aches and looks out over his old home. The structure is changed from when he last knew it, but his memories from the false year mean that it doesn’t come as a shock.

Where once there had been towering marble spires, coiling up into the clouds like spirals of air, now there are battlements of heavy stone and weathered rock. The air no longer hums with spirits, and the floating highways and bridges that had once branched out from his stronghold, are now buried beneath thousands of years’ worth of snow. Even so, he smiles to see it, remembering how refugees had poured in from across Thedas to shelter in this new structure, and how it had stood as the last defence until the very end.

The sound of light hoofbeats shakes him from his memories, and Revas pulls the bog unicorn to a sudden stop beside him.

“Tarasyl’an Te’las is no more.”

There is grief in his former general’s voice, and Solas looks at him out of the corner of his eye.

“The foundations are still strong,” he replies. “And the magic within them. It will serve the Inquisition well in the years to come.”

Revas turns a sharp gaze on him, and Solas looks away.

“You truly believe it will take that long?”

“I believe there is a great deal of work to be done, and we will not accomplish it by dwelling on the threshold.”

Without waiting for a response, he kicks his heels and spurs his hart onwards, down the winding slope, over the fractures in the shifting ice, and onto the arching bridge. His memories coalesce, overlaying themselves like mirages across the present landscape. He sees the lost highways of Elvhenan, the gold hurricane spires of old reaching up from the static grey of the Ferelden keep. He sees himself, as he was before, arrogant and fierce, and himself as he had been during the lost year; brittle, wounded, and lost.

This time, he doesn’t lose himself to them. The here and now intrudes, sweeping away regrets and wounds and past recriminations, and drawing him back into the borders of his body. He feels the hart move beneath his legs. Hears the people of Haven following at his back. And sees the hope of a new path glittering in the cold darkness of the abandoned halls.

Skyhold was where the world was lost once before. And if Solas has anything to do with it, then Skyhold is where it will be saved again.

***

Days later, he wanders through the fortress, remembering it as it once was and assessing what needs to be rebuilt. The people have already woken the old stone simply by their presence, and familiar magic thrums beneath his feet. The mounts have been stabled. The kitchens are humming with life again. Scaffolding is already being erected around the crumbling keep, and a steady buzz of conversation and footsteps permeates the air.

If he concentrates, he can sense the buried map of his ancient stronghold in his mind’s eye. His magic traces the old contours, seeing beyond his extensive wards and the accumulation of rock and time. Passageways, unknown to the people here, open at his touch, and after he claims the rotunda for his own workspace, he takes one to the undercroft.

The forge is one of the few things that has survived intact from the days of Elvhenan, although its sculpted decorations and intricate runes have worn away over the passing of the years. Solas stands in the cold and watches the waterfall roar over the open wall, his toes flexing against the ground, where his ancient magic is less of a hum than a howl. This was where he’d forged the orb, the melted rock still revealing where the power of a Veil-less world had heated the stone into liquid fire.

It was also where he’d said goodbye to Athera, sending her back through the pulsing rift and into another world. Into this world, even though the man he’d been had never seen it again. The next breath he draws trembles, but the grief-stricken sound that follows is lost to the crash of the waterfall. He had stood here, another man marked for death, and as he stands there again, he remembers.

***

The walls around them crash as the first line of dragonfire scorches the dome. Solas stumbles, the shockwave against his magic reverberating like a bell inside his chest. They’re out of time. He is curiously calm, Athera’s hand held tightly in his, and he draws her into the undercroft where Revas, Dorian, and Leliana are waiting.

“Is it ready?”

His voice is sharp, steadier than it should be, and his general turns to him with a grim nod.

“Dorian has finished sequencing the runes. It only needs to be activated.”

“You must go now,” Leliana says. “Our protections won’t hold much longer.”

At her words, a primordial shrieking cuts through the air, and the fortress groans and quakes as another dragon joins the attack. It is here that his courage fails him.

He turns to Athera, cupping her face in his palms, and there are tears brimming in the deep gold of her eyes.

“Ma fen…”

He wants to keep her. He wants to fold her around himself and beg her to stay. Instead, he kisses her, a violent meeting of their lips that draws agony through him as surely as any sword. She meets him with the same ferocity, her nails digging into the back of his neck while shards of stone begin to fall around them.

When they pull back, he holds her there for a moment longer, memorising her face, and trying to absorb the love he sees in her eyes so that he’ll never have to live without it again.

“Ar lath ma,” she whispers.

He swallows down the screams in his throat until he feels as though they’re glass, cutting at the tender flesh beneath his ribs.

“Ar lath ma, my impossible star.”

She kisses him one last time, a soft press of her lips to the corner of his mouth, and he can’t help the dry heave his chest makes in response. Behind them, he can feel Dorian beginning to draw on the Veil, and a sharp green glow infiltrates the edges of his vision.

He doesn’t want her to go.

“A moment,” Leliana says, and Athera draws back from him to meet the spymaster’s gaze.

He doesn’t release her hand. If this is to be the end, then he won’t let her go until the very last moment. Athera seems to know what he needs – she always knows what he needs – and she steps back against his chest as she turns to face the Nightingale, and allows him to bring his arms around her waist.

He holds her there tightly while the two women observe each other, his face pressed into the top of her shoulder and his eyes closed against reality.

“I thought it was your sister that we needed,” Leliana begins. “But it was you, too. The three of you together. Fen’Harel, the Herald of Andraste, and the leader of the revas’shiral. Remove a single piece from the board, and the world will fall.”

Athera twines her fingers with his, and he pushes his face against her neck and holds onto her like a lifeline.

“Whether by divine right, twisted fate, or outrageous chance, this world needs you. When you return to your own time, Athera Lavellan, do not let us down.”

“I won’t,” she replies. “You have my word.”

Solas keeps his eyes closed until he feels Leliana turn away, and the door closes behind her with a thud that echoes in the air.

“Solas,” Revas says, his voice gentler than he’s ever known it. “You have to let her go.”

The screams rise up his throat as a bitter ache, but he keeps them locked down tight, pushing his nose into her skin and breathing her in, and letting the memories of their too-short life together spark behind his eyes. She reaches over her shoulder and cups the side of his face, and he finally relaxes her grip so that she can turn in the circle of his arms.

“I’m so sorry,” she whispers, her voice choked. “I’m so sorry I couldn’t save you.”

He wants to tell her that she did save him. From the moment she’d found him in the forests, she’s been saving him. With every soft smile and gentle touch. With every impossible trust freely given, she has saved him. And yet, he will still die here alone.

He kisses her again, unable to speak, and this time when they draw back he releases her completely, and takes a final step away. Dorian calls to her from the rift, still fighting the magic while Skyhold falls around them, and with a last lingering look into his face, Athera turns her back on him, and steps out of this world and into the next.

He feels something within himself shatter, but he can’t falter. He draws on his memories, unspooling them like thread through the layers of reality, gathering them like vines between his hands and forcing them through the tear after her. His magic is powerful, lashing out, desperate to reach himself on the other side. Frantic for him to understand.

He takes up everything, all that he can give him, and with a last frenzied push he binds all of his love, all of his regret, and all of his grief into a single pleading thought.

Trust her. If you trust no-one else, trust her.

And there - there is where his casting ends. Except, against all of the rules of magic and reason, it doesn’t.

Whether by the force of emotion, the sudden rending of the Veil as the dome collapses, or simply a dying man’s wish to be understood, when ama’theneras ends, the final moments of his life unspool themselves through as well. Solas drops to his knees when the rift closes, a ragged wail rising from his lips. Revas crosses the room and sinks down in front of him, his hands heavy at his shoulders.

“Do not give into despair, my lord,” he says softly. “She is safe. You saved her. There is little more we can ask.”

Solas grabs at his arms. Grief is an obliterating force, and he finally crumbles beneath its weight. Nevertheless, his general lifts him to his feet, and together they turn and walk out into the war. The air is scorched. It burns down his throat. The last trace of Athera’s scent is lost in the smell of burnt flesh, fire, and blood.

Above them, the dome is gone, and three dragons sweep down like falling stars and begin to raze Skyhold to the ground.

“I should have listened to you,” Solas says to the man at his side. “Forgive me.”

Revas faces him with a smile.

“Well, it’s better late than never, my lord.”

And Solas laughs. He laughs until he cries. Until his body blurs into his demonic form. Until he takes flight, leaving Revas to stand against the tide of corrupted Elvhen swarming up the mountainside. Until he bears his teeth and sinks them into Falon’din’s neck. And as Sylaise and Andruil descend on him, and he feels his fur catch alight and he burns like a second sun in the sky as he falls, his last thought is that he is dying alone. And that it is even worse than he’d feared.

The Dread Wolf plummets to the ground in a tangle of wings and claws, while the dragonfire consumes him.

He dies.

And then, impossibly, he opens his eyes. There is an unfamiliar ceiling above him, and his spirit is thrashing around in his chest, panicked and anguished, and so bitterly alone that he thinks his heart must stop beating with the strain. He breathes, tasting the air of the former world on his tongue, and understanding that he was the one that was saved. He was not the man whose memories ended with a burning fall into his final Blighted home. He is the one who remains.

He swallows down the lump in his throat, and his only thought is for his star. But he’s frightened that if he moves even a single muscle then he will realise that this is the dream, and be plunged back into the end of the world again. He lies still for a long time, and then when the pain becomes too much – when the agony of not knowing outstrips the terror of being wrong – he speaks a single word into the quiet.

“Athera?”

His fingers are rigid against the bed, and he hears movement across the room and a familiar, all too beloved scent meets his nose.

“I’m here, ma fen.”

He draws in a ragged breath.

He is home.

***

In the undercroft, Solas opens his eyes, and the sound of the door closing behind him is loud even beneath the waterfall’s roar. He holds Athera’s star token in his pocket, the points pressing into his skin, and he remembers another man who’d held it so tightly and for so long, that it had become smooth and reflective in the heat of his palm.

With a jolt of surprise, he realises he’s been crying, and he twists his fingers subtly and uses magic to clean the tear tracks from his face.

“The people here are settled,” Revas says. “We’ve put together a list of what we’ll need to bring with us when we return. Are you ready to leave?”

He nods, still facing the falling water, and the place where Athera had left him. He hears Revas cross the room on light footsteps, and when he looks at him out of the corner of his eye, he’s observing the room closely.

“This was where it began. Where your focus was forged, and the great trick was planned.”

“It was,” he agrees. “And it was also where it ended.”

He sighs, and links his hands behind his back to steady them.

“I never thanked you, did I? For looking after her in Val Royeaux.”

“It was never her I intended to harm.”

Solas turns to face him.

“Nevertheless, you protected her when I could not. You have my thanks for that, Revas. Whether or not you feel you need it.”

Revas’ scowl deepens, and he crosses his arms and glares at him from across the room.

“Something has changed in you, Fen’Harel. Dare I ask what that something is?”

Solas swallows, hesitating over what he owes. This is not the Revas who had held him together at the end of the world, but he also is. Only at the end did he truly understand just what he’d taken from his former friend, and he knows, now, that it’s a debt he’ll never be able to repay.

He lets his hands fall to his side and faces him head-on, as equals for the first time in centuries beyond counting.

“Felassan was right.”

The sentence is soon swallowed by the cacophony of the water, but its presence lingers like smoke in a jar. In its wake, there are no words for the expression that contorts Revas’ face. Grief follows triumph. Agony is preceded by joy. Fury shares a space with misery, and all of them bring him to his knees.

He falls at Solas’ feet, nails gouging marks into the stone and his back bent in torment.

“Get out,” his former friend hisses. “If you’ve ever had any care for me, get out.”

Solas casts a final, sorrowful eye over him, and leaves without another word.

Chapter Text

The raven arrives over Haven’s walls at midday. Athera and Leliana are working side-by-side in the spymaster’s tent, the silence between them still taut and oppressive. The rush of wings makes them both look up, and with a dismissive flick of her hand, the Nightingale directs her to take the letter from the corvid’s leg.

Athera strokes the shadowy feathers, murmuring her thanks under her breath, and with a sudden start she recognises the handwriting on the crinkled parchment.

Taralin.

Her focus sharpens, and she absently plucks out a piece of meat to feed to their messenger while she unfolds it with her other hand.

Starfire,

The shemlen sent a representative to our walls today. The city’s ground to a halt without the elven workforce. We’d hoped that they might negotiate with us, but they don’t recognise our authority without human backing.

The chevaliers are moving at Val Royeaux’ gates, and we’ve seen strange Templars at the Keep’s boundaries at night. They glow red in the dark, and being near them makes the mages sick.

I don’t know what power you have in the Inquisition, but something is coming. We need aid, or some plan to move the settlement to somewhere else. Otherwise, I fear there will be a slaughter.

Em’an halani, lethallan. Please.

Athera re-reads the letter twice, and then closes her eyes in worry. With everything that had happened in Redcliffe, she’s had little time to worry over the elves at Starfire Keep, but now it seems that they’ve run out of time.

“Something is wrong?”

When she looks up again, Leliana is still bent over her work, but she knows she has her attention.

“There are Templars and chevaliers massing around the settlement at Val Royeaux,” she says. “Taralin is asking for aid.”

“And what would you have the Inquisition do?”

Athera swallows, and tries to gauge the spymaster’s mood from her silence. In the beginning, she had bargained for the Inquisition’s neutrality in matters of elven resistance, unless the elves were directly threatened by their conflict. In this, she knows that Leliana could refuse. But if the red Templars stalking the Keep are already in Corypheus’ thrall, then any attack on the settlement is also an attack on the Inquisition.

The elves need the Herald’s banner.

“Corypheus is in control of the Templars at the Spire,” she says at last. “He may attempt to weaken Orlais by striking the Val Royeaux elves. Alive, the humans can always bargain for their return to the city. Dead, and the capital will be an easy target for him to subdue.”

Leliana’s hand has fallen still over her letter, and in the dim light her mouth curls up into a grudging smile. She lifts her head and looks Athera in the eye.

“You’ve never been anything less than bold, have you?”

“I see no point in half-measures.”

A thread of warmth enters the Nightingale’s eyes, and she inclines her head in acknowledgement.

“You have proven yourself untrustworthy,” she says at last. “Under ordinary circumstances, this would either have meant your execution or your expulsion from my service. But you have also proved to be an invaluable asset, and whatever subterfuge you’ve engaged in has so far been for the greater good.”

She steeples her fingers beneath her chin, and Athera holds her gaze.

“Now, you commend the elves to me, not as ten thousand innocent souls in need of benevolent protection, but as strategic lynchpins in the battle for Orlais. This is devious, Athera Lavellan.”

“And also true.”

“Which is exactly why it’s so devious.”

Leliana sighs, her eyes sparking.

“You are correct, of course, that Val Royeaux is weakened by their absence. Your obfuscation, however, lies in both of us knowing that no matter whether they are protected or sacrificed, the elves will not return to serve their former masters.”

“We also both know that turning the Keep into an Inquisition outpost would send a message to Corypheus,” she argues. “It would show him that there’s strength outside the city, if not within it, and that conquering it will take more resources than he currently has at his disposal.”

The smile on the spymaster’s face is bright now, and Athera’s lips curve up in response.

“I wish I didn’t find you so impressive, Keeper of the Revas’shiral,” Leliana says. “It makes it very difficult for me to treat you with the disdain that your secrets deserve.”

“How about we continue to find each other impressive professionally, and work out other ways to show our disdain?” Athera asks lightly. “Card games, perhaps?”

At this, the Nightingale laughs, and draws a ledger towards her with a flourish.

“Card games are more Josie’s forte, but I’m certain we can find a different past-time to indulge in,” she says. “Now, if we’re to bring ten thousand displaced elves under the Inquisition’s banner without declaring war on the fabric of human society, we’re going to need our ambassador’s help.”

She gets to her feet, purposeful and energised.

“Come, Athera Lavellan. Let us find a way to begin.”

***

Once Josie’s brought into the scheme, things move more quickly than she ever could have imagined. Athera has never worked closely with the ambassador before, seeing her as more of a diplomatic voice in war room meetings than as any serious player of the Game. But watching her at her negotiations shatters those illusions into dust. Despite her innocent appearance, Josephine Montilyet is both undeniably impressive and politically ruthless.

Over the next week, ravens pass back and forth swiftly between the Inquisition, Starfire Keep, and various noble houses pledged to Orlais. Leliana’s runners in the city swell in number, garnering gossip and blackmail material at a rate that seems unbelievable. At the same time, Josie parlays with the lesser nobles, passing on tidbits of information regarding the greater houses that they can use to their advantage.

By the end of the week, no less than five diplomatic betrothals have been signed; three marriages dissolved; a treaty to procure an obscure spice from Rivain has led to the unwavering support of Marquis de Montsimmard, and with his backing, Vivienne’s Duke Bastien has pledged himself officially to the Inquisition’s peace-keeping presence at Starfire Keep.

With Val Royeaux now a cauldron of gossip, back-stabbing, and diplomatic scrambling, there are few voices left to cry fear over their support of the elves. On the day before Solas and Revas are due back from Skyhold, Athera stands between Leliana and Josie at Haven’s gates, and watches as a two-hundred strong procession of soldiers, mages, Templars, and supplies, begin their journey to Orlais.

The sight is overwhelming, especially because she knows that at that moment, small groups of elves from the revas’shiral are also crossing the country, ready to lend their weapons to the settlement outside the city’s walls. In ten days or so, what began as a ragged attempt to save as many as she could, will suddenly have official standing in the eyes of shemlen society.

Ten-thousand elves now have a home.

“You realise, of course, that this will not stop here.”

Athera blinks herself away from the marching bodies, and turns to Leliana.

“Your people will hear of this across Thedas, and they will respond. Are you ready for what you’ve begun?”

There’s a lump in her throat and she swallows to clear it. The gentle smiles that Leliana and Josie have turned on her are almost too much to bear.

“My people deserve a home,” she says, through a throat that rasps. “I never thought to see it in my lifetime.”

“We cannot bargain for something more permanent,” Josie says apologetically. “And I cannot promise that we will always be able to send aid.”

“I know.”

“But for now,” Leliana continues. “It is strategically necessary to maintain order in Val Royeaux. For as long as that situation holds, you may count on the Inquisition’s support.”

She thanks them, her throat still thick and a dull buzzing sound ringing in her ears. When they take their leave she stands for a long time in the snow, and watches the convoy make its way out of the town. She feels drained. Exhilarated to the point of exhaustion.

The elves have a home.

Starfire Keep bears no crystal spires. There are no feats of architecture or soaring cultural artefacts to keep them safe. It is ragged, and piece-meal, and on the borders of a shemlen capital city. But it is a home. And it is theirs.

She watches the Inquisition’s company until they disappear completely from view, and when she turns back to face the town, Varric is waiting for her. The rogue is leaning against the stone wall in front of the stables, his hands folded across his chest while he walks a gold coin leisurely over his fingers, and eyes her with a quirked eyebrow.

“So,” he begins. “You’ve a thing for older men, then?”

Athera freezes, and then she barks a surprised laugh and shakes her head ruefully.

“Did your spies pick up on that, or have people been told?”

Varric smirks at her, passing the coin over the back of one hand and onto the knuckles of the other.

“There might have been some whisperings,” he concedes. “But the Herald and the Nightingale told the inner circle about your ancient companions this morning. Some of us have taken it better than others.”

He looks significantly over her shoulder, and she follows his gaze to where Vivienne is watching them with an icy expression, and then further to the right, where Krem is busy beating the Iron Bull with a stick.

She blinks, nonplussed.

“Erm, is that safe?” She asks.

“Probably. He asked for it, anyway.”

“Huh.”

“So, Starfire. You adopted an ancient elf in the woods, travelled forward in time and back again, and now you’ve managed to secure human backing for an elven settlement right on the borders of Val Royeaux.”

She looks back at him, and he flicks the coin into the air with the tip of his thumb and catches it in his open palm.

“I think it’s about time you bought me a drink, don’t you?”

He closes his hand, and when he opens it again, the coin is gone. Athera grins, and leads him into the bar.

“So,” he says, when they’ve settled in a quiet corner with a flagon of ale each. “Chuckles is older than he looks.”

She hums around the lip of her tankard, a vaguely surreal feeling taking hold of her at the thought that she can share this part of Solas’ life with Varric now, and it won’t be a betrayal.

“He’s older than the Chantry,” she tells him wryly, and watches in amused satisfaction at the amazed expression that chases itself across his face.

“How much older, exactly?”

“He isn’t sure, but he thinks he’s about thirty-thousand years old.”

It’s a rare event indeed to see Varric so obviously rattled, and she beams at him and savours the way he goggles at her in response.

“Andraste’s tits, Athera,” he says at last. “You sure know how to pick them.”

“It wasn’t intentional,” she protests. “I didn’t know he was one of the ancients when I ran into him.”

That part, at least, is true, but she can hardly tell Varric that Solas was a wolf at the time, or that he’s really the Elvhen trickster god Fen’Harel. Even her open-minded dwarven best friend might struggle with that piece of the puzzle right now.

“So, for all of this time you’ve been, what? Showing him the sights?”

She laughs, and takes another swig of ale.

“Something like that,” she says. “He’d only just woken from uthenara when we met. The new world has been… Confusing for him.”

“That sounds like an understatement.”

Varric takes a sip from his mug, and Athera waits while he weighs a question in his mind.

“The Nightingale was tight-lipped about what happened in the future,” he begins at last. “A need-to-know basis, I guess.”

She stays silent, and he rolls the words hesitantly around his mouth before continuing.

“But I’m going to go out on a limb here, and say that whatever happened in the future, it was enough to make Chuckles and Bristles out themselves as coming from a lost empire-”

Despite the sombre tone of his sentence, Athera chokes on her drink and holds up a hand to stop him.

“Wait. Revas is Bristles now? Should I ask why?”

Varric grins at her, his lips twisting in the familiar way she loves about him so much.

“Two reasons,” he says. “One, because he’s almost as easily wound up as Chuckles.”

She nods.

“And the second?”

“Because he spends his life grooming Dennett’s mounts with horse-hair brushes, and they’re, you know,” he shrugs. “Bristly.”

Athera blinks at him, and then throws back her head and laughs. She can’t wait to tell Revas that he’s been given a Varric Tethras nickname, and she has a sneaking suspicion that her ancient friend will enjoy it almost as much as she does. Across the table, Varric chuckles good-naturedly at her, and then he grows serious again.

“Seriously though, Starfire,” he says. “I can’t imagine those two would reveal themselves for no reason. How worried should I be here?”

She sighs and stares down at the drink in her hands, agonising over how much to say. Varric is one of her oldest friends, and she trusts him with her life. What she can’t decide, is whether giving him more knowledge now will be a kindness or a curse.

She chews her lip, and looks him in the eye. She has to tell him about Corypheus.

***

Afterwards, Varric drops his head into his hands and curses, long and emphatic, under his breath. Athera watches him sadly, knowing something of the trials he and Hawke had gone through the first time, and understanding why the magister’s name makes him want to tear his hair out again.

“We’re going to need Hawke here, aren’t we?” He says heavily at last, and her eyes soften in sympathy.

“I think so, Varric,” she replies. “If I were you, I’d contact her soon.”

He drains his tankard and sits back with a groan.

“After this is all over, do you think we can go one whole decade without the world trying to fall apart around our ears?”

She shakes her head and lowers her brows in mock-seriousness.

“This is Thedas, child of the stone.”

Her imitation of Solas’ voice makes him laugh delightedly, and by the end of the night, neither of them can remember how many rounds of drinks they’ve bought, or how to get back to their respective beds. As quietly and subtly as she’s been trained to, Midha, Leliana’s runner and Fen’Harel’s spy, guides the giggling elf and the stumbling dwarf through Haven’s sleeping streets.

In the morning, neither can remember how they made it home, or who left the regeneration potion by their beds.

Chapter Text

They arrive back at Haven in the late afternoon, and Solas smiles to see the familiar town, even as Revas takes the mounts and stalks towards the stables without offering a goodbye. His former general has been silent during the journey home, the two of them riding hard over the ice without exchanging a word. Since his admission, something has changed between them, but with the maelstrom of Revas’ grief brought howling to the surface, Solas can’t guess at the path of his thoughts.

He sighs inwardly, and takes a moment to resettle the guise of the humble apostate over his shoulders before making his way through the streets. The place is less crowded now that they’ve moved so many to Skyhold, but there’s a whispering energy about the people that wasn’t there before. He listens intently to the murmuring gossip flitting between them as he walks, and by the time Varric greets him by the tent, a sense of sublime shock is sitting like a bird inside his chest.

“So, Chuckles. No plans for a few-thousand-year nap today?”

Solas falls still mid-step, and takes a moment to consider how he feels before answering. He’d expected the Nightingale to tell the Inner Circle eventually, but a thousand lifetimes of protecting himself with secrecy isn’t an easy habit to break. He blinks at Varric for a long moment, assessing the smirk on the dwarf’s face, and recognising the glib joke for the attempt at understanding that it is.

Against all of his long-honed instincts, he makes an effort to repay the gesture of friendship in kind.

“I do not find myself so exhausted by the world yet, Master Tethras,” he replies dryly, and Varric snorts under his breath.

“I stand by what I said in your cabin. You’re a difficult elf to understand.”

“That is not the first time I’ve been told something similar,” Solas allows with a small smile. “Nor do I think it will be the last.”

Varric returns his smile, but when he shifts uncomfortably and looks away, the Dread Wolf braces himself for a more solemn topic.

“So, I figure that in this situation, threats aren’t gonna get me anywhere,” Varric says at last. “And Andraste only knows this feels like asking the obvious question, but you do love her, don’t you? You being with her, it isn’t part of some ancient Elvhen scheme none of us are experienced enough to see?”

Despite the relative newness of their friendship, the emotion that descends over Solas feels a lot like grief. He looks sharply away, contemplating why Varric’s words — reasonable, in defence of his friend — make him feel so… sad.

“Athera is the brightest thing I’ve known in an Age,” he says quietly. “Love is too small a word for what I feel for her.”

His admission burns with truth in his mouth, and he realises that it’s Varric’s suspicion that has trickled like ice down his spine. For all of his prowess and skill, suspicion was the thing that Fen’Harel had cultivated above all else. Known for his trickery, even allies suspected him of duplicity, and no matter where he has wandered, amongst friends or foes, his earnestness has never been trusted.

In this new world, with his ancient origins hidden, he’s enjoyed the simple friendship Varric has always offered him; and only now that it’s tinged with distrust does he realise quite how much he’d miss it if it were taken away.

“I figured,” the dwarf says. “No-one’s that good of an actor. But, y’know. Old friends. I’ve got to play my protective bit, haven’t I?”

He looks back, to find the same easy smile he has become accustomed to on Varric’s face, and something rigid and tense relaxes in the pit of his stomach.

“I’m glad she has you to watch over her.”

The words come out sounding more sincere than he’d meant them to, and he enjoys the look of fond surprise that Varric shoots at him, before it’s hidden behind his usual wry expression.

“Well, someone’s got to try,” he says. “Have you heard what she did while you were away?”

Solas shakes his head, the few whispers he’s picked up on his walk through Haven not enough to piece together a clear picture, and Varric gestures him to the low wall by the tent.

“Alright, Chuckles. Before you report in to Leliana, let me fill you in.”

***

After his conversation with Varric, Solas very nearly skips his report to the Nightingale to run to their cabin and kiss her. He has known Athera to be remarkable, of course, but securing a recognised town state for the elves — however ragged and temporary —is a feat that hasn’t been accomplished since the Dales last fell.

The hope that’s been expanding in his chest since he left now burns even brighter for the news, and it’s all he can do to keep a delirious grin from his lips as he stops outside Leliana’s tent, and knocks against the pole to announce himself. Only when he’s waiting for a response does he remember that Athera is probably still working with the spymaster inside, and he makes a valiant effort to school his features in anticipation of seeing her again.

“Enter.”

He draws a breath and pushes the canvas aside, taking a moment to adjust to the dim light while Leliana waits for him. With a pang of disappointment he sees that Athera isn’t there, and idly he wonders when he’d last looked forward to seeing someone so much after such a short time apart.

“She’s taken some work to your cabin,” the Nightingale says. “Ostensibly to review it more closely before sending it out with the ravens, although I suspect it has more to do with wanting to be there when you return.”

He catches himself and looks back at her, quickly stifling his wounded pride that his appraisal of the tent had been quite so obvious, and his pleasure at knowing that Athera is waiting for him.

“My apologies, Sister Nightingale. I’m here to give my report on Skyhold, as you requested.”

She inclines her head and waves him into the seat beside her, and only when he’s sat does she follow him into her own chair.

“Show me what you’ve discovered.”

He draws some of the sketches he made out of his pack, and spreads them over the table while the Nightingale leans over to observe them. Over the course of the next hour, he details the markers their people have placed along the mountain to guide others in making the same journey, and describes the state of the stronghold and the tentative construction efforts that have already begun.

He brings her reports by the few dwarven masons they’ve acquired, and from Master Dennett who has already settled into the stables with many of their mounts. Next, he tells her about the possible supply lines, and brings out a stack of papers on Skyhold’s current defences, and Leliana questions him at length on how they might move the bulk of their forces across the mountain pass.

When he’s done, she sits back in thought, and Solas has to make a conscious effort to still the shifting of his legs. Outside the tent, twilight is falling, and his eagerness to see Athera has only grown. Silently, he rebukes himself as a ridiculous da’len, but on an even deeper, far more private level, he pokes at the unfamiliar feeling of happy anticipation, and delights in its novelty.

He’s broken out of his thoughts when the Nightingale shifts, and he lifts his gaze from the table to find her watching him sternly, her fingers steepled beneath her chin.

“She has always known your secret, hasn’t she?”

Solas’ attention snaps back into place, and he makes his face into a mask and inclines his head.

“From the very first.”

Leliana hums thoughtfully but doesn’t break his gaze, her lips set in a hard line. He holds still beneath her scrutiny, and wonders how his deception has affected Athera’s standing in the spymaster’s employ. The sense of protectiveness that washes over him is still a surprise – the very idea of having someone else to protect catching him off-guard even now – and he finds that he wants to defend her sense of loyalty more than he wants to establish his own security here.

He stays silent, and says nothing.

“You will have heard of her efforts for the elves in Val Royeaux,” Leliana says at last, seeming to change the subject entirely.

“It is a remarkable feat,” he replies evenly. “And I’m sure it could not have been accomplished without the Inquisition’s support.”

Her lips twitch.

“You and she share that in common, you know,” she says. “The ability to ingratiate yourself even in the face of suspicion.”

“I suspect that most elves in this world are well-practiced in flattery,” he returns. “It is a valuable skill to learn when your safety is never anything but tenuous.”

Leliana stands, then, and paces back and forth before turning to look down at him.

“Then answer me this, Messere Solas,” she demands. “What are your feelings towards her, truly?”

The question knocks him off-balance, precisely because he’d been so worried about the Nightingale’s suspicion of her. It’s with a sense of relief and a twinge of self-pity that he realises that, like Varric, the spymaster is concerned for her; and wary of him.

He swallows and looks away, and when he speaks his voice is soft and strained in the early evening silence.

“I have told you this already,” he whispers. “At the Spire.”

“You told me she was everything. After discovering the length of your life, however, I find that hard to believe.”

Despite himself, one hand clenches on his lap, and his eyes darken when he looks up at her. Leliana is well-practiced in the Game, but he doesn’t miss the slight flash of fear in her eyes when she meets the Dread Wolf’s gaze.

“You are a mortal,” he says, dangerously softly. “And so you perhaps believe that a long life means that in time, people start to matter less. But that is the opposite of what occurs, when every Age that passes seems destined to become worse by comparison.”

He wets his lips, questioning the wisdom of speaking so plainly, but unable to abide the idea that she would believe his love for Athera is a lie.

“I have lived for longer than your Chantry,” he says boldly, and measures the passage of shock over Leliana’s face. “I have seen my People destroyed, broken down into little more than savages or slaves. Everyone I have ever cared for is dead. Every place I have ever known is a ruin.”

He stands, then, the light of Fen’Harel still in his eyes.

“If there is one lesson I have learnt well, it is that people possess a boundless capacity for cruelty and destruction. And yet…” His face softens in spite of himself, and Leliana’s tracks the change. “And yet, I met Athera.”

His brows furrow in thought, and he finally breaks the Nightingale’s gaze to look towards the canvas door.

“I do not know how to describe to you what it was like to discover such kindness, in this world that had seemed so broken,” he says softly. “I do not know how to explain how it felt, to be looked upon with such care after thousands of years spent dreaming alone.”

He shakes his head, and turns back to face her.

“I can only tell you that your mortal heart could never begin to understand the depth of my feelings for her,” he says, his voice hard. “And I warn you now, Sister Nightingale, that I will not be parted from her. By you or by anyone else, for any reason, including a mistaken attempt to protect her.”

Leliana meets his eye, and he is distantly impressed that she hasn’t flinched or turned away under the weight of the Dread Wolf’s gaze. After a long moment, her expression relaxes, and she nods decisively once.

“As long as that remains the case, Solas, you and I will have few problems,” she says. “But I warn you now, Messere, that I do not trust you. You and Revas are an unknown variable, and in my job, unknown variables are to be investigated or eliminated.”

He lets the wolf fall from his expression and dips his head in acknowledgement.

“From the former Left Hand of the Divine, I expect nothing less.”

***

A short time later, he finally finds himself dismissed. Darkness has fallen recently and Haven is quiet, a soft snowfall drifting onto the wooden roofs and canvas tents. He breathes deeply, and then turns with far more eagerness than he would ever once have allowed himself, and walks quickly through the streets.

At the door to their cabin, the windows lit up with golden light, he pauses, allowing the sense of anticipation to build in his chest. It swells within him, warm and gentle, until his fingers are tingling and his legs itching to move. With a huff at his own stupid smile, he opens the door and steps over the threshold.

The warm air is a welcome relief after the cold outside, and it smells of herbs, mint, and old parchment. Across the room, Athera is hunched over the desk with her back to him, her red hair catching the light from the paraffin lamps. At the sound of the door closing, she turns around, and the simple delight of her smile upon seeing him, makes him shiver happily.

“Solas, you’re back!”

He opens his arms and she crashes into him without a second’s thought. He stumbles, his back hitting the door while he gathers her into his chest and she curls her hands around his neck.

“Vhenan.”

It is a whisper against her ear, and all of the tension he hadn’t even realised he’d been carrying melts at once from his shoulders. He nuzzles at the space behind her ear, breathing in deeply and letting the wolf reaffirm her place at the centre of their dual heart. He smells ink, and snow, and the soft underlay of lilac that he loves.

Their memories together flicker behind his eyes, and he breathes again, and sees the shape of her day as clearly as if he’d been there himself. The canvas of the spymaster’s tent; cold sandwiches eaten in haste; elfroot picked from an icy ground; and woodsmoke from Varric’s fire still clinging to the fibres of her tunic.

She draws back, just enough to look into his face, and when he dips his head to kiss her, they’re both smiling so much that they dissolve into laughter against each other’s lips.

“I missed you,” she says softly. “Did everything go ok?”

“No more than I missed you,” he murmurs. “Everything is fine.”

He sees her uncertainty, and he can’t blame her for it given how he’d left. Instead of explaining, he cups her face between his hands and kisses her deeply, drinking from her mouth and teasing her lips with his teeth until she melts in his arms.

“Ar lath ma,” he whispers.

She opens her eyes slowly, dazed, and then she grins wickedly and shoves him hard into the wall. His breath leaves him in a rush, and he blushes at how quickly his body reacts, swelling suddenly inside his leggings until he can feel his pulse aching viciously between his legs. Athera smirks, both hands planted firmly on his chest, and he bites his lip when she tilts her head to consider him.

“Is that a present in your pocket or are you just pleased to see me?” She teases, and Solas has to stifle a snort.

“Why don’t explore and see what you find?”

His words come out more breathless than he’d expected, and Athera hums and places her hands on either side of his head.

“Ears,” she murmurs, her nails catching on their edges and drawing a shudder through him at once.

He holds his breath, his eyes fixed on her face, as she skirts her fingers over his jawline and continues her exploration.

“Nose.”

She boops it gently and he chuckles, and then she traces the cupid’s bow of his lips and the sound cuts off in his throat.

“Mouth.”

She places a kiss there, and then moves lower to nip at the dimple in his chin. The way his body reacts to that comes as a complete surprise, and both of them freeze at the guttural groan that tears itself from his chest.

“Hm,” Athera says against his skin. “Interesting.”

She licks at it, tantalisingly slow and soft, and Solas’ hips buck of their own accord and he digs his fingers into her hips.

“Vhenan,” he pleads.

But Athera won’t be hurried. Enticingly slowly, she continues her exploration, murmuring shoulders… biceps… nipples… stomach… navel… until her hands are skirting over his hips and drifting maddeningly close the throbbing line of his cock. He whines through his teeth, pulling her closer by her hips until he can rut slowly against her, the speed at which she’s brought him from placid to desperate a surprise even now.

She forces him back again, breaking the delicious friction and drawing another pleading noise from low in his throat. She hums again, and as she stares directly into his face, she finally cups the waiting bulge in his pants, and smirks.

“Fenedhis,” she says solemnly, and despite the aching need humming through his body, Soals throws his head back and roars with laughter at the dead-pan expression on her face.

She giggles, a blush of pleasure rising to her cheeks, and with his laughter still heaving in his chest, Solas lifts her up and carries her bodily to the bed. She falls on her back still giggling, and he descends over her like a tide, his smile almost too wide to kiss her properly while he undresses her with feverish urgency.

“You – are – ridiculous -” he growls, punctuating each word with a sharp nip of his teeth at her neck.

“And you love me for it,” she grins, even as he finally manages to get her naked and draw his own tunic over his head.

He smiles down at her, elbows propped up on either side of her head.

“Yes,” he agrees. “I do.”

And then he slides down the bed, pulls her legs open, and begins at once to devour her. The cry of surprise she makes deepens quickly into a groan, and he’s delighted to find her already wet and ready for him. With two weeks since they were last together, and far too long spent being played with against the door, he finds that he has no patience for a drawn out tease. He makes her come quickly, sending his magic out to spread the sensation far over her skin until she’s pleading and gasping beneath him.

Before she has time to recover herself, he sits back and pulls off his leggings, breathing a soft gasp of relief when his cock finally springs free.

“Ma fen.”

He turns again to face her, and finds her flushed and panting, her legs spread wide and her arms open to encourage him back. If he hadn’t reached the point of desperation some time ago, he would sit back and sketch her like this – relaxed and wanton, her hair sticking to her chest and every inch of her a vibrant welcome. But since his body has hardly stopped screaming at him since she pinned him to the door, he merely lines himself up and sinks gratefully into her.

Still over-sensitive, Athera moans unrestrainedly, and her body still clenching with aftershocks is almost enough to drive him over the edge. He growls a feral note and fists his hand into her hair, tilting her head back to expose her neck to his teeth.

“Your wolf,” he agrees darkly against her skin. “And you, Athera, are mine.”

With that said, he loses himself, rolling his hips in long, deep strokes that send waves of pleasure up his spine and cascading into his stomach. She is still rippling around him, but now her cries are rising, and he feels her body pull taut and her hips lift to match him as she chases a second release.

“Greedy,” he murmurs into her ear.

And then he bites her shoulder, hard.

Magic arcs out from his lips, fizzing through the length of her body until she comes with a startled shout, her nails digging into his back. Solas curses just as loudly, and a moment later he spills himself inside her, his hips rolling languidly and all of his nerves singing at the same pitch as she holds his head to her neck.

“Fuck,” she laughs breathlessly. “I really missed you.”

He chuckles, relaxed and happy, and quite content to stay where he is, their bodies sticking together with sweat and other assorted fluids, while he comes down from the high. She seems to recognise his intent not to move, and he feels her smile against the top of his head and nudge him with her knee.

“You know, you’re not exactly light as a feather, ma fen.”

“No?” He teases. “And there I was thinking you’d missed me.”

She snorts, and then he has a second to notice the change in her mood, before she draws her hands to either side of his ribs and starts to tickle him.

If he were ever asked, Solas would never, in a thousand lifetimes, admit that he squealed. But that doesn’t change the fact that he does, the high-pitched sound ringing from his mouth as he pushes himself off her so quickly that both of them nearly fly off the bed. He finds himself with his back against the wall, his knees bent and his hands raised in defence while Athera doubles over with laughter.

“You squealed!” She gasps helplessly, and Solas scowls even as his eyes spark with humour.

“I did no such thing,” he says mildly. “You must be hearing things, vhenan.”

“Liar, liar, pants on fire!”

She nuzzles at his face, a dazzling smile on her lips, and he uses magic to clean the worst of their mess from their skin, and kisses her.

“You may notice, my star, that I’m not wearing any pants.”

She giggles again, and Solas sighs contently as he draws her back into his arms, and presses a series of fond kisses over her face. Eventually, she subsides, relaxing back against him and smiling into his face.

“You’re different since you’ve been away,” she says quietly. “In a good way, I mean. You seem happy.”

He runs his nose along hers, his expression warm.

“I am happy,” he whispers. “And I have decided. I will not condemn this world, my star. No world that has you in it could ever be worthy of such destruction.”

She looks back at him with wide eyes, and it seems for a moment that she’s forgotten how to breathe.

“Solas,” she rasps, her voice barely a whisper. “What does this mean?”

He cups her face in his palm and smiles at her gently.

“It means that we will find another way, together,” he vows to her quietly. “I choose you, vhenan. I want you to know that I will always choose you.”

Chapter Text

The day comes a week later when they’re finally ready to close the Breach. So much preparation has gone into this moment — so many disparate peoples working together to avert disaster — that when it happens, it almost feels anti-climactic. Afterwards, Athera will remember the churning in her stomach as she’d made her way out with the mage division, up the mountain pass and into the shattered Temple.

She will remember how the mages and Templars had put aside their differences in those moments, each of them taking their places alongside each other without argument or suspicion. She will remember her sister standing with Solas and the advisors, and her own silent plea to the universe that Ellana would be safe. And she will remember Solas, slipping his leash and allowing Fen’Harel to the surface; his calm, authoritative instructions that had tied them all together as the attempt began.

“Mages, focus past the Herald! Let her will draw from you!”

The Fade had crackled behind him, the magic an almost overwhelming force, whipping through them and singing.

“Templars, be ready to counter their effects should the Herald fall!”

And then, as one, they had dropped to their knees, channelling raw power through their staffs and into the anchor. Athera had felt a sudden lurch, as though her feet had left the ground, and then the sensation of her will joining with the army at her back. The Breach had fought them like a tidal wave, roaring out into the Waking and attempting to find a purchase on the unchanging world.

And then Solas’ power had joined them, and she’d felt the taste of it alight like home on her tongue. Scorched earth in the moment after a lightning strike. There was an almighty explosion, and they were all blown backwards. And then, miracle of miracles, the Breach was closed, and Ellana had risen like an avenging fury in the midst of the green wisps of Fade.

Athera remembers cheering, screaming and shouting their victory with the rest, and in the tumult Fiona had leapt into her arms and the two women had embraced. She remembers Ellana’s eyes seeking her out, sharing a smile together that had meant so much, and then Revas pulling her into a hug and holding on tight, his breath hot at her ear.

Now, she walks through Haven’s crowds, and for once, everything is good. The sky above them is still scarred, but the roiling whirlpool is nothing more than an afterimage of remembered green. The people dance together around the fires, and it feels like the whole world has released a long and gusting breath.

Varric is regaling Sera and Blackwall with a tale while Cassandra sits nearby and pretends she isn’t listening. She sees Vivienne sitting primly with Cullen and Josie, and even their resident ice mage has deigned to crack a smile. Leliana is surveying the scene from a spot on the wall next to the Iron Bull, and Athera catches sight of Revas sitting on top of the stables, his legs dangling over the roof while he stares into the distance.

She watches him for a while, her own mug of terrible ale held loosely in her hand. Since he and Solas returned from Skyhold, he’s been quieter and more withdrawn than usual. She hopes they hadn’t fought while they were away, but between the two of them, there’s still so much anger and pain that she isn’t sure how they’ll ever work through it. She sighs, and has just decided to go and join him, when she catches sight of Solas leaning casually on the wall by the Chantry.

His face is half cast in shadow, the firelight flickering across one sharp cheekbone and making his eyes glow like coals in the dark. For a moment, she sees the shadow of a decadent leader pass over him, and a thrill lurches warmly in the pit of her stomach. A second later, it’s gone, and he tilts his head towards her and smiles a soft smile, his own mug of ale held languidly in his hand.

She changes course without thought, weaving through the celebrating crowds and the steady thrum of cheering and music, and joining him in the shadows.

“Are you having fun observing everyone, Trickster?”

His lips quirk at one side and he cocks an eyebrow at her suggestively.

“And if I am?”

“I’d ask if you’d picked up on any gossip.”

He snorts, and she grins as he draws her into his side with a loose arm around her waist.

“Well, vhenan,” he murmurs. “You’re in luck.”

“Oh?”

Her question comes out on a soft breath, the playful tone of his voice and the warmth of him at her back proving to be a potent combination. He hums against her ear, and she suppresses a shiver and feels him smile in response.

“Look to your left,” he says softly. “Just beyond Varric’s usual spot, part way up the stairs.”

She follows his gaze, and tries to ignore the heat of his mouth so close to the point of her ear.

“What am I looking for?”

“At the side of the tavern,” he whispers. “I think we could be witnessing a love story.”

She frowns, and then makes a surprised sound when she notices who’s caught his attention. Maryden has stepped outside the Singing Maiden to take a drink, and Krem is standing nearby, oblivious to everyone but her. Even from a distance, the look on his face is unmistakeable, and when the singer catches his eye he blushes and looks away.

“Brilliant,” Athera breathes. “Oh, they’ll be so cute together!”

Solas laughs, deep and rich, and she turns to face him with a smile.

“I had no idea you were such a romantic,” he teases, and she blushes and loops her arms around his neck.

“Oh, hush. It’s worked out pretty well for you so far, hasn’t it?”

His expression softens, and he presses a soft kiss to the corner of her mouth and hums.

“It has indeed.”

She catches his chin in her hand, and has just brought her lips to his when the watch bell begins to toll through the air. Both of them go rigid at once, mugs of ale falling from their hands and to the ground, and Athera catches a flash of fear in Solas’ eyes before determination overtakes it.

“Athera-”

“I know.”

“-be careful.”

Then, they’re running hand-in-hand towards the gates. In an instant, the sound of celebration is replaced by the cacophony of war, and Athera bellows at people to get to safety as their army leaps to attention. Out of the corner of her eye, she sees Revas jump from the stables and Dorian materialise out of no-where, his staff already in his hand.

“There’s never a dull moment with you around, is there darling?”

She scoffs, and they converge on the gates with the bells still ringing for the attack.

“Cullen, what’s happening?” Ellana asks.

“One watchtower reporting. It’s a massive force, with the bulk over the mountains.”

“Under what banner?” Josephine asks.

“None.”

“None?”

Cassandra lets out an angry shriek as Cole appears in front of them, and both Athera and Ellana grab her by an arm to stop her from attacking him instinctively.

“I’m sorry!” He says. “I’m sorry, I should have stayed with them! I could have helped!”

“Cole, what are you talking about?” Athera asks.

“The Elder One, I should have seen. The red Templars went to him. He’s very angry you took his mages.”

“Shit.”

“Cullen, give me a plan,” Ellana barks. “Anything.”

But it isn’t Cullen who answers. Both Solas and Revas step forward, and in the darkness and with the bells of war tolling all around them, there’s no mistaking them for anything but the ancient generals they are.

“We prepared for this,” Revas says.

“The siege engines are more than double what they would have been,” Solas agrees. “Cullen, your men need to man the trebuchets and keep the army at bay.”

Cullen takes a moment to collect himself, and then nods decisively.

“If we’re to withstand this attack we must control the battle,” he agrees, and then turns his gaze to the gathered army. “Get out there and hit that force. Use everything you can. Mages, Templars, you have sanction to engage them!”

Athera draws her bow from her back, and feels the rest of the Inner Circle ready their weapons around her.

“That is Samson. He will not make it easy,” Cullen shouts. “Inquisition, with the Herald! For your lives! For all of us!”

In the midst of the roar that ripples through them, Athera sets her jaw. Tonight, she has two purposes. Defend her sister — and protect the people. With the others, she runs into the fray, starfire arrows streaking through the night and into the oncoming Templars. Despite taking half of the army from Corypheus, the force is still formidable, and she swears she recognises a contingent of Grey Wardens fighting at their side.

“My star!” Solas yells from beside her. “Revas and I must direct the assault.”

“Go!” She yells at him. “I’ll stay with Ellana.”

The cold air is already hot with magic and ash, and he presses a hard kiss to her lips before turning and running back to a lookout point just beyond the walls. She watches him go, covering his retreat with a haze of arrows until she loses sight of him in the crowd. Then, she has little time to do anything except fight.

She ends up at the outer-most trebuchet with Ellana, Dorian, Bull and Varric, while the Templars attack in waves.

“Turn it into the mountain!” She pants to her sister. “You won’t win with brute force. You’ve got to play this for tactics.”

Ellana has barely spoken to her since Solas and Revas revealed themselves, but now she’s elated with battle frenzy. She shoots her a feral smile — her face streaked with blood — and runs for the machine. Athera defends her, time losing all meaning in the chaos, and the first she hears of the mountain’s fall is Ellana and Bull’s victorious cries. She turns just as the avalanche buries a sizeable wave of Corypheus’ forces, but there’s little time to feel guilt for her order.

Before they can recover, the magister himself streaks through the air on top of the corrupted dragon, and they all dive out of the way of its flames. When she pulls herself out of a snowdrift, Haven is burning, and she grabs Ellana by the shoulder and hauls her back to the gates.

“You have to protect the people!” She shouts. “Distract him. He’s here for you!”

Ellana doesn’t argue, and as she turns away to do just that, Athera catches her by the arm.

“Da’mi, be safe.”

“You too.”

Her sister squeezes her fingers before dashing back into the town, and Athera sees her climb onto one of the cabin roofs and raise the anchor above her head.

Save Ellana. Protect the people.

She runs in the opposite direction, catching Cullen as he hurries by, and seeing the flash of a red behemoth lumbering towards them out of the corner of her eye.

“Commander! There’s a path for the townsfolk out of Haven.”

Cullen stumbles to a stop in a flurry of snow and wheels around to face her.

“What?”

“Solas saw it, in the future at Redcliffe,” she says urgently. “Find him, and get everyone into the Chantry and out of here.”

“What about you?”

“My place is with Ellana.”

Cullen’s expression gentles, and then he steels himself and gives her an Inquisition salute before hurrying away. Athera turns as well, rushing into the stables to release the mounts and hauling a collapsed beam off one of the stable hands while she’s there.

“Get out of here,” she tells him. “Take the mounts to the Chantry. Cullen will know what to do.”

He stammers his thanks and complies, and Athera catches the reigns of her red hart and swings herself onto its back.

“Well then, Arlise, let’s see if you really are as fierce in battle as they say.”

The hart whinnies beneath her, and she launches them into motion. From up here, she feels powerful. Arlise needs little direction, weaving between attackers and leaping over bodies while she fires arrows from atop his back. With the added speed and height, she can see more of the battle unfolding, and she gallops back and forth across the town, losing track of everything except the words inside her head.

Save Ellana. Protect the people.

The townspeople are fleeing to the Chantry in a great wave, but too many of them are getting caught in the cross-fire. She hauls a collapsed wall off Flissa; has her hart kick down the door of a burning building to free a trapped man; and flings a set of explosives away from two people crushed beneath a cart.

All the while, she yells into the night, drawing the Templars’ attention and sending flaming arrows into their midst.

At long last, Haven is nearly empty, and she tugs on the reigns and turns Arlise away from the Chantry, to where Ellana is still flitting between buildings and attempting to evade the dragon.

“Da’mi!” Athera shouts. “They’re out! Time to go!”

The streets are swarming with enemies, but the people have fled. She gallops towards Ellana’s out-stretched arm, ready to pull her into the saddle — when Corypheus’ dragon attacks. With a concussive force that knocks the breath from her lungs, Athera and her hart are flung backwards by the flames and the force of the creature’s landing. She cries out, twisting to detach her feet from the stirrups and jump clear of Arlise to avoid being crushed.

For a heart-stopping moment, she’s simply flying through the air. And then she hits the ground hard and rolls, and feels her ribcage crunch.

The scream leaves her mouth silently, her lungs still struggling to draw in air, and she coughs and gasps in the snow while agony like a knife slips between her ribs. Her vision blurs, and she hears ringing in her ears and struggles to hold onto consciousness. It’s only when she hears a mocking voice drift through the air that she finally manages to sit up.

She’s fallen down a ridge outside the town, beyond the trebuchets and towards the buried army. There’s a grey veil over her vision, and far above her she sees the flickering light of Corypheus’ flames and the dark shadow of his dragon.

Save Ellana.

She struggles to her feet, biting back a cry of pain and nearly falling to her knees again when her ribs crunch disturbingly beneath her skin. A gentle wicker from the darkness tells her that Arlise has found her, and the hart lowers himself at her side, nudging her gently until she’s settled once more in the saddle.

“Ma serannas, da’len,” she wheezes. “If we get out of here, you can have all of the salt you can eat.”

A soft snort is her response, and she smiles through silent tears of pain and nudges him up the snow-slope, scouting for a better vantage point. Eventually, she finds it, just beyond the ring of flames and out of the magister’s eyeline. She’s shivering, snowmelt dripping down her skin, but the heat of the flames and the ash and snow in the air make her squint to find Ellana.

She’s leaning against the loaded trebuchet, and with a quick glance Athera knows that she’s seen her. High up in the darkness, a flare lights over the hills, and with a wave of relief she realises that the people are safe. It only lasts for a second, before Corypheus lets out a roar of distaste and turns his gaze to Ellana.

“I will not suffer even an unknowing rival,” he growls. “You must die.”

Athera unsheathes a dagger from her boot, and meets her sister’s eye. Her vision is filled all at once by a wave of green, and with a jolt she understands that Corypheus has brought the focus. To her surprise, a wave of propriety anger overwhelms her.

That is Solas’ orb, she snarls inside her thoughts. It belongs to Fen’Harel. You have no right to use his dreams, monster.

“You expect me to fight,” Ellana spits out. “But that’s not why I kept you talking.”

Athera grips Arlise’s reigns tightly.

“Enjoy your victory,” her sister sneers. “Here’s your prize!”

It happens quickly. With a vicious war cry, the Herald kicks the trebuchet’s mechanism, and the arm releases its weapon into the mountain. At the same time, Athera lets out a shout of her own and leaps Arlise over the flames. Corypheus twists in shock as the hart rears onto its hind legs and kicks him square in the chest. He flies back into the shrieking dragon, the orb tumbling from his hand as the mountain roars towards them.

For a moment, everything is a confusion of green and white, and Athera reaches for the focus — Solas’ focus — before the sound of Ellana crying out registers in her ears. There’s a split second in which she hesitates; torn between reaching for her sister’s arm, or scooping her heart’s terrible weapon into her hands. Then the dragon takes flight and snaps her out of her indecision. She kicks her hart into action and tugs Ellana up behind her as Corypheus soars into the sky.

“We have to get out of here!” She yells.

And then the avalanche is upon them.

Chapter Text

Solas is standing behind the Commander when Cullen lights the flare. He watches the explosives fly up into the darkness, arching like a falling star over the trees. Below them, the dragon roars, the trebuchet fires, and the avalanche howls down the mountainside and swallows Haven whole. The survivors at his back cheer, and Cullen barks directions to his men.

Find the Herald.

Get out there and search.

Bring her back here, now.

Solas stares down at the waves of white with a blank and distant expression, whatever panic he might have felt dulled by sheer disbelief. All around him, the Inquisition is rallying, heading out in search of Ellana Lavellan, and not a single voice that echoes in his ears speaks her sister’s name. Athera is down there, too. She stayed, and he should have known that she would, but in the furore of battle he’d allowed himself to be herded into the tunnels along with everyone else.

He’d left her behind.

Nausea rises in his stomach, and unnoticed by everyone, he slips away from their camp and strides into the snow. At the first copse of trees, he steadies himself, calming his racing heart and drawing on whatever reserves of the Dread Wolf he still possesses for long enough to transform. With a blast of heat and a rush of shadows, his hands become paws, his skull collapses and lengthens, and his vision dims while scents and sounds assail him with all of the potency of sight.

In the body of the wolf, he can’t help a whine of distress from slipping through his teeth. But it’s the only moment of grief he allows himself. His canine spirit is thrashing inside him, the frenetic howl of mate and lost and hunt propelling him forward. He launches himself into movement, galloping down the frigid snowbanks and back towards the town he’d left.

It feels good to run. His Elvhen body may be weakened by battle and exertion, but the wolf’s muscles are strong and primed for the hunt. The scent of snow is sharp in his nose, and he picks out threads of magic, blood, and sweat pulsing in the air. In the dark, every noise is amplified, and he avoids the clumsy stumbling of the humans in their armour, still clamouring for the Herald nearby. His focus is absolute, reaching out for Athera’s scent in the darkness, praying for the brush of lilac and o-zone that he would recognise anywhere.

He out-runs the Inquisition scouts quickly, and he’s nearly at the mountain of snow where Haven had once been, when the muffled sound of galloping hooves meets his ears. The stench of hay, sweat, and the animal aroma of the hart rushes in his nose, and he launches himself out of the way of the beast just before it’s upon him. The wolf’s instincts alight, and he hits the ground hard and bares his teeth in a snarl, muscles quivering and primed to attack.

The hart wheels around to face him, and the silhouette atop its back draws his attention with the blade of his staff pointed directly at him.

Revas, his Elvhen mind supplies, at the same time the wolf prepares to pounce.

“Careful, Fen’harel,” his old friend says in warning. “The wolf that attacks the Inquisition’s people will find itself put down swiftly.”

His teeth gnash together, torn between instinct and rationality. He twists where he stands, a growl building low in his throat while his tail lashes restlessly over the snow.

“Of course, you could give me a reason to attack,” Revas continues. “Mythal only knows we are long over-due for a fight.”

The hart paws at the ground, its breath misting in the air, and the wolf in Solas’ mind urges him to bite. He lowers himself down, paws digging hard into the snow at his back, already tasting the blood in his mouth and anticipating the tearing of flesh. And then-

“But I think Athera would be disappointed if either of us were hurt, don’t you?”

With all of the force of a shock of cold water, her name blares like a siren in his head, and Solas reasserts himself over the wolf with a curse.

Athera-Heart-Star-Mate-Love-Home-Lost.

He whines, and turns in a frantic circle before regaining control of himself again. It takes him a moment longer to remember how to project his voice in this form, but when he does his words come out on a growl.

“Why are you here?”

Revas’ staff blade is still pointed towards him, and Solas can smell the scent of anger, distrust, and pity on the wind.

“Three reasons,” he replies. “The first, because Athera is my friend.”

“The second?”

“Her sister is necessary.”

“And the third?”

Revas’ eyes spark in the darkness.

“I do not trust you to go after them alone.”

Solas’ ears twitch as he catches the sound of the scouts moving towards their position. For now, they’re not close enough to cause them a problem, but every second they stand here is a second that Athera remains lost.

“I would never harm her,” he rumbles dangerously.

“Perhaps not. But that was no trinket Corypheus carried. I must be sure you have no means of retrieving it.”

It takes a moment for his mind to catch up, and then the image of the orb swells behind his eyes, and he feels himself start to salivate.

“Exactly,” he hears Revas whisper, as if from a great distance. “You are not yet ready for that kind of trust.”

He blinks waves of green light from his vision, the remembered heat of his Ages of dreams burning like a forest fire in his heart.

“Do you believe you could take it from me?” He asks, dangerously softly.

Revas tightens his grip on the staff, and Solas catches the scent of something fierce rush through him before he opens his mouth to speak.

“Would you try to kill me if I did?”

His body turns rigid, and shame swells in his chest and brings his head low.

“I do not want to hurt you, Revas,” he whispers.

“Just as you didn’t want to hurt Felassan?”

As the wolf, he can almost taste Revas’ grief in the air, and the dangerous scent of retribution feels like rot in his nose.

“I have no excuses,” he says softly. “No doubt you are owed far more than a mere pound of flesh for what I’ve stolen from you. But please, Revas, do not punish her for my crimes.”

He looks up at him beseechingly. Every inch the penitent crawling in the snow.

“She’s still out there. She may be hurt. Injured. In pain.” His voice cracks on the last word, and still Revas doesn’t look away. “If you care for her at all, then I beg you, help me to find her. Then you can enact whatever revenge you see fit. Sathan, falon. Ma halani. Please.”

The wind howls around them, the snowstorm beginning to rise, and at long last Revas releases a long breath and lowers his weapon.

“You are fortunate that she is too good for you, Fen’Harel. For now, our truce remains.”

He flicks his chin in the direction of the buried town, and Solas doesn’t wait a moment longer. He leaps back into motion, running downhill, his paws sinking into the vast snowdrifts as Revas and the hart follow behind. Here, the scent of blood and metal is thicker, and the tang of blighted magic makes him want to sneeze. He huffs through his nose, shaking the sensation away, and snuffling closer to the ground in search of Athera’s trail.

Instead, he finds another animal stench; but it’s one he recognises at last.

“This way,” he calls. “Her hart came this way.”

Revas follows him silently, and Solas squints through the haze of snow and drives them forward against the wind. Before long, he hears the whinny of a creature in distress, and his heart clenches as he picks up speed.

Not Athera, he begs the universe silently.

Not my heart.

Anything but that.

Instead of the twisted body he fears, he finds Arlise pawing at the snow, snorting and stamping at an otherwise blank layer of white. He startles as he draws close, rearing back onto his hind legs and kicking out, and he growls a challenge even as Revas catches hold of the reigns.

“Don’t antagonise him, you felasil!” He yells. “He's a war mount and you’re a wolf! What did you think was going to happen?”

But Solas can hardly hear him. His nose has caught on a familiar scent beneath the snow – lilac, o-zone, and blood.

No, he pleads in horror. Take anyone but her.

Then, he starts to dig. His movements are frantic, burrowing down into the frozen ground, heedless of the cold or the burning in his paws. His attention narrows, until the only thing that exists is the scent-trail far beneath him and the pounding in his ears. He projects his senses outward as far as he can, picking up the barest hint of stone and heat, and a second rush of warmth that speaks of the anchor.

“They’re both down here!” He bites out, although he can hardly hear Revas over the storm. “I can smell them. I-”

He never finishes the sentence. Suddenly, his paw connects with a warm, metallic object buried in the snow. A flash of pale green invades his vision. His heart swells. His magic reaches out. The orb tumbles from the snowdrift — and Solas is thrown backwards by the body-slam of Revas’ mount.

He howls as he sails through the air, twisting and rolling while his entire being bends itself to his focus.

Mine. My power. My dreams.

He hits the ground and snarls, baring every one of his teeth while Revas wheels his hart to a stop between him and the orb. The barest brush of his paw against it has lit an inferno in his veins, and every cell in his body is screaming at him to take back what’s his.

“Stand aside, Revas,” he growls. “The orb of dreams does not belong to you.”

“You cannot be trusted with it,” his old friend replies. “I will not let you take it without a fight.”

Behind his friend and adversary, Solas can feel the pulse of his power calling, reaching out with tendrils of familiar magic and vibrating in the cavern of his bones. He tries one more time.

“Stand aside.”

Revas readies his staff and stares him down, his face hard and his position unmoved.

“No.”

Solas has no choice. He attacks.

Revas avoids the first snap of his jaws with all of the skill of a seasoned Elvhen warrior. But between the two of them, it’s Fen’Harel who bears the greatest marks of war. He sails over Revas’ shoulder, avoiding the kicking of the hart’s hooves and snapping at its legs. Both mounts panic, careening through the snow, and Revas is thrown from the saddle and hits the ground hard.

He rises gracefully, just in time to parry Solas’ next leap with the wood of his staff, and send the Dread Wolf arching through the air. He catches himself mid-flight, bearing down and snapping just enough to dig his teeth into Revas’ forearm. He grunts in pain, and sends a spark of electricity through his skin that zaps Solas’ through the mouth and makes him yelp and let go. Then, they’re scrabbling in the centre of the storm, guttural growls and wild cries joining in the air as each tries to gain the upper-hand.

Behind them, the orb pulses, calling for its master, and with a burst of raw power Solas tears the staff from Revas’ hands and knocks him to the floor. Victory and bloodlust rush through him, and he plants his paws on Revas’ shoulders and bears him down into the snow, saliva dripping from his teeth and onto the man beneath him. They are both panting, and the scent of blood and magic is a symphony in his nose.

“Yield,” he commands.

Revas’ face contorts in a disturbing smile, and he laughs a broken sound into the air.

“And now we know which you would truly choose,” he wheezes softly. “Is your heart so easily tossed aside in pursuit of your old power, Dread Wolf? Does her life mean so little that you would abandon it for your dreams?”

Realisation comes slowly, and then falls like an avalanche over his soul. His snarls cut off in his throat, and he stares down at his old friend, horror-struck, and snaps his slavering jaw closed.

“The orb is right there, Fen’Harel. You’ve won. Possess it now if you must.”

He backs away, paws retreating from his prey and his victory turning to ash in his mouth. For a moment that might be an eternity, he steps outside of his body and sees himself as he truly is. Not as a man toiling to save the world, but as a monster baying for blood and power while his heart still bleeds underground. Revas pushes himself to sitting, cradling his arm in his hand, and Solas feels sick at the sight of the teeth marks dripping blood into the white of the snow.

He shakes his head, his spirit trembling, and with a wrenching sensation he turns from the green light at their side.

“Take it,” he whispers, in a dead and hollow voice. “Revas. I beg of you. Take it.”

He doesn’t wait to see if he does. With the madness excised, his fear for Athera is amplified, and he hurls himself back into the tunnel and digs as though his life depends on it. His muscles burn, and his thoughts chase themselves like sharks inside his head. He feels as though he’s splitting, and he needs Athera more than he’s ever needed anything in his long and terrible life.

With a howl, he finally breaches the edge of the snowfall, and tumbles down into the tunnel buried inside. It takes a moment for him to orient himself, the avalanche having turned everything into a confusion of white. But then he recognises the stone walls as those that were hidden beneath Haven, and he runs into the darkness ahead.

He passes paintings of Andraste; broken doors hanging from their hinges; an X marked in chalk on the rock, and then he bursts into an echoing cavern where a stuttering torch casts its light over the walls. For one heart-stopping moment, all he can smell is the soft scent of lilac, the forest-fire burning of the anchor, and the heady bouquet of too much blood. And then a crackling cough meets his ears, and his eyes zero in on Ellana slumped unconscious on the ground, and Athera’s pale face leaning weakly beneath her.

“Hello, ma fen,” she whispers brokenly.

And then a thin stream of blood bubbles from her mouth, and her head slips hard to the floor.

Chapter Text

The next few minutes blur and disintegrate around him. He transforms back into the man in one fluid movement across the room. Then, he’s tugging Ellana’s deadweight away from Athera’s lap and cradling her face in his palms. His hands are shaking, and his clothes drip with snowmelt while soft bubbles of blood froth from her lips and her eyes roll back in her head.

“No,” he murmurs. “No no no no.”

He’s still frozen in indecision, the words tumbling from his quivering lips, when a strong pair of hands grasps him by the shoulders and pulls him away.

“You’ve weakened your magic too greatly for this,” Revas says. “See to the anchor. I will take care of Athera.”

Solas allows himself to be pushed away, and he kneels uselessly by her side as Revas begins to pass waves of magic over her body.

“Solas,” he barks. “See to the anchor.”

He startles, and then shakes himself and turns towards Ellana. The anchor is sparking inside her hand, and he makes a conscious effort to block out the sound of Revas’ murmuring beside him, and draws on the last reserves of his mana. The wards have been split, and it takes him a long time to coax the magic back into quiet and rebuild them beneath her skin.

All the while, and despite his best attempts to ignore it, he can feel the orb calling to him from the other side of the room. He shudders at the feeling of all of that power so close by, and his head spins when he finally finishes stabilising the mark, and he leans heavily against the wall.

“Her ribs were shattered,” Revas says darkly. “They punctured a lung.”

Solas’ head snaps up, and he swallows down a pained noise and crawls towards her, his body drained and trembling. She looks so fragile, lying there on the ground, as pale as death even as her eyes flicker open again. He cups her face in one hand, and the weak smile she turns on him makes him want to howl with guilt and shame.

He had abandoned her. At the moment she needed him, he had chosen his focus. How close had he come to losing her this time? How could he ever be worthy of her?

Something of his turmoil must show on his face, because through the haze of her pain her expression grows concerned, and she reaches up to bring him closer.

“Solas?” She murmurs. “What happened?”

He can’t help it. He is weak, and he needs her, and he hates himself for it. As carefully as he can, he folds his arms beneath her and buries his face in her neck, breathing her in while she holds him in return.

“Ir abelas,” he chokes out. “Ir bellanaris abelas.”

“Ma fen?”

Her arms tighten around him, and he bites back a sob and whines against her.

“Revas?” She asks over his shoulder. “What happened?”

There’s silence for a long moment, and Solas presses his lips to the cold skin of her neck and waits for the judgement to fall.

“Fen’Harel made his choice,” Revas says at last. “It was not an easy one.”

Athera tenses, and then lets out a sharp cry by his ear.

“He bit you!” She exclaims in horror. “Solas! You bit Revas!”

He shrinks away from the censure in her voice, pulling back guiltily as she struggles to push herself into a sitting position against the wall. When he next looks up, she’s glaring at him with an expression like thunder, and he resists the very canine urge to grovel against the ground.

“Oh you, you-” She huffs, grasping for words. “You are a bad wolf.”

It should make him laugh. Indeed, behind him, Revas lets out a boom of disbelieving laughter that echoes around the cavern, and Athera shoots a weak and wry smile back at him. But he is exhausted, and ashamed, and still too close to his transformation for such a stern command not to hurt.

Instead of laughing, Solas is torn between wanting to chuckle and wanting to cry. The conflicting urges combine in his mouth and come out as a choked and desperate spluttering, and he brings his hands up to hide his face while hot tears tumble down his face.

“I’m sorry,” he moans. “I’m so sorry. I’m sorry-”

He keeps on repeating it, even as Athera tugs him back into her arms and he folds himself pathetically onto her lap.

“Foolish wolf,” she whispers sadly.

He does laugh, then, through waves of tears, and she anchors him with a palm pressed tight to the back of his neck while he sobs out his shame into her stomach. For a long time after, he loses himself in the warmth of her body beneath him, and the soft paths her fingers trail over his back. Distantly, he’s aware that Revas and Athera are talking quietly over his head, but he lets himself drift in the quiet while they make whatever plans they need.

Eventually, she urges him up, and he raises his face to hers and presses a tentative kiss to the corner of her mouth.

“Ir abelas, vhenan.”

She huffs, nuzzling at him slightly, and he sighs and closes his eyes.

“We’ll talk about this later,” she says sternly. “For now, I think it’s best we get my sister back to the Inquisition before Cullen loses his mind, don’t you?”

***

Days later, Athera finds herself lying in the back of a covered cart as it’s hauled through the mountainside towards Skyhold. Ellana has recovered quickly from the anchor’s overloading of her system, but Athera’s ribs have been slow to heal, and the cold air irritates her damaged lung and makes her cough every time she sticks her head outside. Instead of riding at the head of the convoy with the rest of the Inner Circle, she’s been confined to a stuffy pallet of blankets and warned by everyone not to move.

Inside the cart, surrounded by walls of tanned animal hide that let in only the barest glimmers of light, she is hot, and uncomfortable, and bored out of her mind. Grumbling to herself, she piles the blankets at her back and pushes herself into a sitting position, wincing and cursing when a bright blade of pain rushes through her chest. After a few steady breaths, it calms, and she stretches out her aching muscles and stares ahead at the walls.

It wouldn’t be so bad if she had something to do, but since the cold is still making her cough embarrassingly hard, she can’t even draw back the hides to let in enough light to read by. And maintaining a magelight is still difficult since a mountain fell on her head. Her companions have been attentive — each taking their turn to travel with her for a couple of hours at a time. But Solas has been conspicuous by his absence, and she’s growing frustrated, and a little hurt.

As soon as she thinks it, a ripple of the veil announces Cole’s arrival. She smiles when he perches by her outstretched legs, his hat seeming too big in the cramped space and his eyes unnaturally bright in the darkness.

“Shame is hard for Pride,” he says. “It feels sharp, splitting, an echo of failure. His purpose twisted and cold.”

She sighs, and lets her head fall back against the blankets.

“I know that,” she says softly. “But he has to face this or he’s just going to make the same mistakes again.”

“He doesn’t want you to be disappointed,” Cole says. “You’re his star. Bright. Burning. Perfect. He feels smaller now that he’s failed. He wants you to be proud of him.”

She sighs and rubs a weary hand over her eyes.

“I am disappointed. I’m disappointed that he hurt Revas, and I’m disappointed that after everything we’ve been through together, he still thinks that retreating into a shell and isolating himself is the best way to deal with his feelings.” She frowns. “But I’m also proud of him for letting it go. I’m always proud of him.”

She shakes her head and casts her eyes to the ceiling.

“I know how difficult it was for him to turn away from the orb and everything it means. Even though it took Revas to remind him of himself, it took courage from Solas as well. But how am I meant to tell him that if he doesn’t come and see me?”

“He’s hurting himself,” Cole says. “Walking too far. Too much magic. Healing. Food. Warmth. For others but not for him.”

“For Blight’s sake. Why?”

Cole cocks his head, his expression sad.

“The wolf is trying to atone. If he can help them, maybe he isn’t a monster after all.”

Athera throws her head back against the wall and makes a frustrated noise in her throat.

“He’ll come to you soon,” Cole says. “He hurts, and he’s tired, and he can’t be away from his star. It’s difficult when he has no light to navigate by.”

With that said, the spirit turns his face from her as though listening for something. Then he vanishes in another ripple of the veil and leaves her alone again. In his absence, Athera scrubs at her face in frustration and stares unseeingly at the dark ceiling above her pallet. At any other time, her instinct would be to jump out of the carriage, march up the mountainside, and tow Solas back inside by the ear.

She smiles slightly at the thought of taking the Dread Wolf by the ear, and then knocks her head back against the wall, defeated. Right now, with the strongest will in the world, her body isn’t ready to go marching anywhere. She sighs again, and hopes that Cole’s right and that Solas won’t have exhausted himself too much by the time he finally gives in and comes to see her. For now, there’s nothing for her to do but wait.

***

For the next few hours, she reclines in a corner of the cart, and watches the cold mountain light slip through cracks in the walls while she drifts on the edges of sleep. The temperature is dropping, twilight drawing nearer, and her ribs are beginning to ache fiercely again. She shifts uncomfortably in her blanket nest, and startles badly when Cole flickers into life at her side.

“He’s coming,” he says. “It hurts. The wolf is afraid.”

She sighs and shakes herself closer to waking.

“I won’t hurt him, Cole.”

The spirit smiles and dips his head.

“I know. You’re like me.”

Then he vanishes again. A few moments later, the carriage jolts, and Athera pushes herself into a more comfortable position as Solas hauls himself inside. Her first impression is that shame has taken a visible toll on a man so often so close to its edge. His shoulders are hunched, and even in the shadows of the cart, she can see that his hands are shaking with exhaustion.

“May I join you?”

His voice is a whisper, and he seems so thoroughly uncertain of his place beside her that it almost makes her start shouting. Instead, she takes a deep breath and gentles her voice.

“You never need to ask me that, Solas. You’re always welcome with me.”

He flinches visibly from her words, and she sees at once that she could have hurt him no more deeply had she run him through with a sword. He shuffles closer to her like a penitent on his knees, and when he’s close enough to touch she reaches out and curls her fingers around the sleeve of his tunic. His skin is as cold as ice beneath her hand, and she shakes him lightly and sighs.

“Let me see you, ma fen.”

He ducks his head still further, and with a subtle twist of his fingers he sends a magelight to the ceiling. In its golden glow, he keeps his eyes bowed down, and she takes in the sheen of sweat on his face and the unnerving grey tinge to his skin. His self-inflicted weakness infuriates her.

“Do you feel better now that you’ve worked yourself to sickness?” She asks sharply. “Tell me, what good does it do you to torture us both like this?”

He finally looks up at her, guilt and shame carved in hollows beneath his eyes.

“I didn’t know what else to do.”

At that, she surges forward and grabs his face between her palms, her expression fierce even as her damaged ribs protest the movement.

“You come to me!” She shouts in anguish. “You come to me because I love you, and no matter what you’re feeling, or how much you think you deserve to be punished, I will take care of you.”

He makes a sound as though he’s been stabbed, and almost against his will, his hands come up to hold tight to her arms.

“What good does it do either of us if you tear yourself apart? After everything we’ve been through together, how can you not trust me?”

“I do trust you,” he says instantly. “My star, I trust you as I’ve trusted no other in my life before now.”

“Then what was this in aid of?” She demands, shaking him and watching as he weakens before her eyes. “How can you say you trust me when you won’t let me help?”

“It’s not you I don’t trust,” he whispers. “It is me.”

He looks wretched beneath her palms, his expression open, broken, and pleading.

“I thought that I had chosen,” he continues hopelessly. “I thought the choice was done. Over with. Finished. Until so recently, I knew that it wasn’t. That I’d been lying to myself about my certainties, and making excuses for how long I could stay. But before that night, I truly believed that I’d chosen.”

Tears well in his eyes, and he blinks them back furiously while Athera swallows the lump in her throat.

“But when it mattered, when you needed me… When you were buried beneath a mountain and wounded — dying, even — I chose power.”

The words come out on a hollow, tortured note, and his grip on her grows so tight that it hurts.

“In that moment, I didn’t think about the People. I didn’t think about Haven or Revas or the refugees. I didn’t think about you. There was no altruism. No sacrifice.”

He sucks in a breath and screws his eyes shut, pained.

“I have always, no matter what, held fast to my moral code,” he whispers raggedly. “Even in times of great destruction, when my plans went wrong, when great evils were done in my name, there was a greater purpose behind them. A larger dream for a better, kinder, fairer world. For so long, those morals were all that I had. All that I clung to. All that was there to separate me from them.”

He spits the word as though it’s poison, and Athera blinks away tears.

“But there was no moral code after Haven fell. No excuse or reason for my behaviour. I felt the orb’s power, and I-, I-”

“You wanted it.”

The words are barely a breath between them, but Solas clamps his mouth shut as though he’s been muzzled. In the shadows of the cart, he makes an anguished noise and nods, a single, powerful sob shaking the fragile curve of his shoulders.

“I did,” he says in a terrible voice. “My star, ir abelas. I did.”

Chapter Text

Skyhold has stood in the heart of the cold mountains for Ages beyond counting. It was raised in a world without a Veil and played host to spirits, gods, and immortals. Its walls were cracked when its creator stole magic from the world, and over many forgotten eons it has crumbled, fallen, and been rebuilt again.

Skyhold’s foundations are made of more than rock and stone. They are steeped in magic; pulsing with the wisps of ancient spirits; imbued with the sentience of thousands of years.

In short, Skyhold is alive, and for the first time in this new and broken world, she is happy.

Her walls are tended by dwarven masons who treat her with care. Her stables are filled with mounts both noble and new. Hundreds of feet bustle over her stone floors and voices echo inside her great halls. She and the many spirits that form her have a purpose again, and she aids her new arrivals in a thousand little ways.

She heats her stones to keep them warm. She nudges them down forgotten corridors to where the cracks in her foundations groan. She sends her magic out above to protect them from the snow. In her gardens, new herbs and crops grow. And she listens, and she waits, until her wolf and the sisters arrive.

When they cross over the drawbridge, Skyhold rejoices, because she is not restricted by one flow of time. She remembers the wolf falling to earth in a tangle of wings and claws. She remembers how she was destroyed. But most of all she remembers the first sister who had once been Inquisitor, and the second that had travelled through time to save them at the end.

She greets them with a warm breeze, perfumed air, and a delight that the wolf’s star feels in her bones.

There you are, little one, Skyhold thinks. You fell through time between my walls, and now you can feel me too.

The castle is delighted by this. It’s always been easy to communicate with the wolf, but others lack his sensitivity. It seems that his star is different. She arrives on a cart, pushing herself to her feet and holding her chin high as she walks through the courtyard and up the winding stairs. She is in pain, and Skyhold rages to see one of her charges so wounded.

She lightens the atmosphere around her, helping her up steps and whispering around her skin. When the star notices, her eyes go wide, and she touches the walls gently and whispers: was that you?

The wolf is more shocked than she is, and Skyhold gusts around him, whispering: fool and felasil and mine.

He smiles fondly and tells her: I am sorry, my old friend.

She guides them to the old Inquisitor’s room so that his star can rest.

Skyhold watches, quiet and contemplative, over the following weeks. She nudges the mortals in gentle directions. She protects them from themselves. And when the new Inquisitor is finally named, she vows to aid her too.

Your Leader. Your Herald. Your Inquisitor.

Skyhold adores her, and the star loves Skyhold too.

Chapter Text

Athera’s quarters are quiet in the wake of Skyhold’s cheering, and she crosses the room and sinks gratefully onto one of the sofas in front of the empty fire. The wooden floor echoes with noise while the advisors, Solas, and Ellana arrange seats around the low table and wait for her to begin. She takes a moment to compose herself before speaking.

It’s been two weeks since Corypheus attacked, and Athera’s energy still drains quickly. The bruising in her lung is severe, and her body’s been battling a mild fever for days that’s made every thought a struggle. She draws in a steadying breath and looks around at them all; at Leliana seated next to her, and Solas and Ellana a respectful distance opposite.

“Are you sure you made the right choice?” She addresses the question to Ellana. “It’s you the people have grown used to looking to for strength. The Herald could still have become the Inquisitor, if you’d wanted it.”

Their conversations since Haven have been strained. Ellana’s tightly-held animosity towards her older sister wars with her concern for her injuries, and she’s never anything more or less than polite. Now, her green eyes pin her, and Athera attempts to hold off another painful coughing fit and listen to what she has to say.

“If I’d have wanted the position of Inquisitor, I’d have taken it,” she says bluntly. “Maybe it would have been simpler to have the Herald as the Inquisitor too, but when that monster attacked, it was you who decided to fire the trebuchets at the mountains.”

Athera nods.

“Tactics.”

“Exactly. I might not like the fact that you ran off to join the revas’shiral, but since you did, you’re the one out of the two of us with experience as a leader.”

Athera lets the sharp barb pass, although Solas bristles at Ellana’s side.

“On top of that, splitting the role between two of us is just the smartest thing to do. You’ve told me often enough how dangerous this is, and after Haven…” She trails off, a shadow passing behind her eyes. “And after Haven, I think I understand that now. If something were to happen to me in the field, the Inquisition still needs a leader.”

“Nothing will happen to you,” Athera says sharply. “You’re still the only one able to close the rifts. Everyone knows that. They’re here to defend you.”

“The Inquisitor is right,” Leliana agrees. “Protecting you is a priority. However, I must agree with the Herald. Splitting the symbolic role is the best way to ensure the Inquisition’s stability, and it has the added bonus of dividing our enemy’s attention.”

“You mean, that they will think twice before sending assassins,” Josie says.

“Of course. It’s much more difficult to infiltrate an organisation and kill two leaders without attracting attention, than it is to stage an attempt on one.”

Athera swallows down the maddening urge to cough and rubs a weary hand over her eyes.

“Disturbing assassination possibilities aside, are we sure that the people will follow me as loyally as they would have followed Ellana?”

To her surprise, it’s Cullen who smiles at her from his position behind an armchair.

“You spent the first few days after Haven unconscious, and most of the journey to Skyhold on the cart,” he says.

“Don’t remind me.”

He chuckles lightly.

“My point is, you didn’t hear the people talking of your escape. They will follow you as surely as they will follow the Herald.”

She frowns.

“What were they saying?”

“The Sisters,” Solas says, very quietly. “The Sisters Lavellan saved us all.”

Leliana nods and meets her gaze.

“The Herald was a beacon,” she agrees. “But you underestimate the vision you struck on the back of that hart. No-one who escaped Haven did so without seeing you make a stand between them and the monsters that pursued them. When Ellana stood toe-to-toe with Corypheus and his dragon, you were there as well.”

“The people saw you,” Cullen adds. “They saw the two of you together, and they felt hope.”

Despite the solemnity of their words, Athera has to smother a laugh, and when she meets Ellana’s eye she sees the same secret smile playing about her lips.

“Well, it’s apt, if nothing else.”

Josie’s brows knit together in confusion.

“Why apt?”

Her sister’s eyes sparkle, but it’s Solas who answers, his expression troubled and his hands folded in his lap.

“The name Lavellan is apt. In Elvhen, it means they who journey to a hopeful place.”

Leliana hums thoughtfully and turns to their ambassador.

“Do you think you could release that knowledge, subtly?”

“Consider it done.”

Ellana raises a questioning eyebrow, and Athera shakes her head.

“Tactics.”

“Indeed,” Leliana replies. “The two of you are symbols now. The more the world believes it to be ordained, the fewer dissenters we will have to contend with.”

“I’m not ordained. I made a choice to be here, just like everyone else.”

“With apologies, Inquisitor,” Josie says. “But the Inquisition is new, and our standing is tenuous. We must use every diplomatic tool at our disposal if we’re to be taken seriously on the world’s stage.”

Athera sighs and rubs absently at her chest.

“I know, Josie. That doesn’t mean I have to like it.”

She takes a moment to compose herself, and fights back another sudden urge to start coughing.

“Alright,” she says at last. “What are our next steps?”

***

The afternoon and evening passes slowly. Now that they’ve established Skyhold as a place of safety, and themselves as capable of withstanding an attack by a dragon, requests for alliances, aid, and support have poured in. Crestwood has been struck by rising undead and a proliferation of rifts. The Exalted Plains is under siege by fighters in the civil war. The Emerald Graves harbours an organisation calling themselves the Freemen of the Dales, and an urgent request for aid has come from the Emprise Du Lion, along with disturbing reports of red lyrium bursting through the ground.

On top of all of that, refugees are making for Skyhold as a place of pilgrimage, and they still haven’t secured an invitation to Empress Celene’s ball.

“If what I saw in the future at Redcliffe holds true,” Solas is saying. “The Empress is still marked for assassination. If our enemy continues in his aims to cause maximum destruction, then the attempt on her life will be made at the Winter Palace.”

“Unfortunately, Celene is still wary of the Inquisition’s power,” Josie says. “But our future is still uncertain enough that her best approach to stabilise her own throne is not to legitimise us with an invitation as equals.”

“We need to prove ourselves to be a contender in the civil war talks, then,” Athera says. “We don’t have enough information to send Ellana out to the Emprise or the Graves yet, but if we can establish the Inquisition as a peace-keeping force, and the Herald as a key figure in that aim, then we might draw enough goodwill from the people to force Celene’s hand.”

“What do you suggest?” Leliana asks.

Athera stares down at the map they’ve spread haphazardly across the coffee table, and tries to forget other maps she’s stood over with Loranil at her side.

“The people of Crestwood can’t wait,” she decides. “I suggest we send Ellana in with a team to do what she can with the rifts, and once the area’s secure our soldiers can follow them with a convoy of basic aid.”

“You send me to all of the nicest places, Big Sis.”

The gentle joke makes Athera look up in surprise, and Ellana’s face does something complicated when she realises what she’s said.

“What’re big sisters for?” She asks softly.

Ellana huffs lightly but doesn’t correct her, and Athera’s chest warms, just briefly, before she looks back down again.

“In the meantime, Leliana, I want more information on the state of the Emprise and the Graves. The Freemen are deserters from the war, but we don’t know what purpose this Fairbanks has in setting up there.”

“It will be done.”

“And what about the Plains?” Cullen asks. “We’d draw more attention there, but it could seem as though we were taking sides between Gaspard and Celene.”

Athera chews on her lip, her gaze tracking over the troops movements and Leliana’s meticulous notes.

“We can afford to let them continue for a few more weeks. That area’s politically and personally dangerous though, and if the scout reports are right, then there’s a Dalish clan right in the middle of the violence.”

She draws in a crackling breath and rubs at her chest again.

“I’d like to send a small group from the revas’shiral in to meet with the clan, secretly,” she says at last. “They can lend support and find out if there’s a way to convince the elves to leave, as well as getting us more information on how the war stands. If they’re discovered, there’s also nothing to link them back to the Inquisition.”

“Just a group of elves helping out another group of elves,” Ellana agrees.

“Exactly.”

“I will send a message to Loranil,” Josie says. “The Inquisition can provide them with a discreet escort from the Free Marches to ensure that they get there safely.”

Athera smiles at her gratefully.

“The only thing left, then, is the problem with the wardens,” Leliana says. “As you all know, my network has struggled to track down the root of their disappearance. We found some evidence of encampments on the Storm Coast, but beyond that, nothing.”

“Do you think this is a priority?” Cullen asks.

“Undoubtedly. The Order is secretive, but ever-present. The fact they’ve vanished at a time of such upheaval is a bad sign.”

Athera clears her throat nervously, and Leliana’s attention sharpens.

“I actually have Varric working on that,” she says quietly. “Give him a week or so, and we should have a warden contact who’ll agree to meet with us.”

“You’ve set this in motion already?”

She nods.

“Before Haven. Just in case.”

Leliana’s lips twitch.

“This is the kind of information I should keep Cassandra away from, correct?”

“For now, if you value Varric’s life and limbs, definitely.”

The two women share a grin, and the meeting finally draws to its end. The advisors wish her a goodnight, and Athera walks Ellana to the door. Her sister is pensive, hesitating on the threshold, and she waits for her to speak.

“I wanted to talk to you about everything,” she says. “But it looks like I’ll be heading out to Crestwood first thing tomorrow.”

Athera swallows.

“I’ll be here when you get back,” she offers hopefully.

Ellana holds her gaze for a long moment, and then nods and turns to leave.

“Don’t let that infection get the better of you while I’m gone, alright?”

“I won’t. Dareth shiral, da’mi. Be careful.”

“You too.” She hesitates. “As’lin.”

When the door closes behind her, Athera stares at the wood for a long time, fighting with the hope in her heart and the terrible fear that it will be crushed again. There are moments in her life that she recognises as formative; scars left behind that shape her, mould her, and lead her down each new path. Ellana’s terror over her magic is still the first, and one of the deepest wounds she’s ever been dealt. The loss of her mother, and then of her sister, set her on a path of self-sacrifice that she’s hardly managed to step off in the years that followed.

Between Varric and Solas, she knows enough of herself now to recognise how easily — and how often —self-sacrifice has strayed into self-harm. How frequently she hides the belief from herself, that perhaps she doesn’t deserve as much care as other people. Perhaps her role in life is to be left behind. So much of her anger at Ellana is hidden behind her love for her. So much of her frustration is tempered by the terror that if she ever speaks it, she’ll be abandoned. She hopes for a reconciliation almost as much as she fears the path to get there. Honesty is a trap, and she doesn’t want to get caught in it again.

Standing at the top of the stairs, Athera finds herself overcome by a wave of exhaustion, and she sags against the bannister as Solas approaches at her back and places a gentle hand on her waist.

“You’ve over-stretched yourself today, my star,” he murmurs. “Come and sit down. Your body still needs to rest.”

She lets him lead her back to the sofa, and when he guides them both down onto it she curls up gratefully with her head on his shoulder and their hands interlinked over his stomach. His free hand comes up to rest against her forehead, and she leans into the cool touch like a cat, even as he grumbles unhappily.

“Your fever’s increased since yesterday. You need to take better care of yourself, Inquisitor.”

The sharpness of her new title from his mouth brings her up short, and she shifts backwards to see that his face has closed off from her. The wolf is hiding behind his mask again.

“You were quiet in the meeting today,” she says softly. “Do you think I should have refused?”

His brow furrows, and he looks down at their joined hands and smooths his thumb over the tips of her fingers.

“No,” he replies, equally softly. “I would trust nearly no other to lead, vhenan.”

She allows the tension to slip from her shoulders, and squeezes his hand gently.

“Then what has you hiding back behind your walls again?”

His expression flickers, like a light coming on inside, and his mask slips just enough to let her see the worry behind his eyes.

“I know too well how it feels to become a symbol of something greater than yourself. Though I trust you to lead them wisely, I wouldn’t wish the burdens of leadership on you either.”

He sighs, and finally lifts his gaze to hers.

“I fear for you, vhenan. I fear that they will ask too much, and that you will give it. And I fear…” He trails off, his throat working. “I fear that I will ask too much, and you will give it, and that I won’t know until it’s too late that the burden has been too great a thing to bear.”

Ah, she thinks. We’re back to the focus again.

She shifts to press closer to him, and tilts his chin until he’s staring into her eyes and can’t look away.

“Ar lath ma,” she whispers. “If I didn’t, I wouldn’t be here. The situation we find ourselves in isn’t easy. Events are unfolding now that are out of our control. I won’t pretend that things are simple, or that I find them easy to deal with. I don’t. But I would rather be here with you and the Inquisition, trying to make things better, than hiding somewhere safer where nothing could possibly hurt me.”

Solas’ expression turns anguished and adoring, and he brings their joined hands to his face and nuzzles her gently.

“I have been the cause of so much destruction,” he says quietly. “I do not want to wake up one day and find that I’ve destroyed you, too. You must promise me, my star, that if there ever comes a day when I am a burden, rather than a strength, you will tell me.”

She swallows and nods, trailing her fingers over his cheekbones gently.

“You have my word.”

“And likewise, with the Inquisition, you must swear that you will not take on too much alone. I know what it’s like. How easy it is to lose yourself. I would not have you lose yourself in the same way.”

She smiles sadly and presses their foreheads together, and he releases a long breath and closes his eyes.

“That’s what I have you here for, isn’t it?” She murmurs. “To help pick me up when I stumble again.”

The ghost of a smile touches his lips, and he presses a kiss to her cheek and breathes her in.

“My finest role in all the Ages,” he whispers against her skin. “I will not see you fall.”

Chapter Text

The next few days are a whirlwind of work, frustration, and bedrest. Despite her best efforts, the fever spikes dangerously only a few hours after Ellana has left for Crestwood with Blackwall, Vivienne, and Sera. Athera groans in the midst of her sweat-soaked sheets, her chest burning and a coughing fit wracking her shoulders. Her first thought is that Solas is going to be furious with her. Her second is that she made a mistake in sending him off to the rotunda first thing, because now she doesn’t think she can manage the walk across the castle to find him.

Her vision is blurry, and she rises on shaky legs to cross the room and grab a pitcher of water from the desk. She only makes it a couple of steps before she sinks to the ground and hacks as though she’s trying to force her lungs out of her throat.

“Behold, the mighty Inquisitor,” she whispers despondently to herself, and then struggles back to the bed.

The effort exhausts her, and after another few minutes of staring longingly at the water on the other side of the room, she calls softly for Cole. She isn’t really sure how Cole’s listening ability works, or whether he could hear her from wherever he is in the castle, but a few moments later he winks into life at the end of her bed and perches there like a bird.

“Sharp stabbing, hot and cold. Too weak to lead. Shouldn’t have said yes. Solas will be angry-”

She winces and holds up her hand to stop him.

“Don’t worry about all of that, lethallin,” she croaks. “Fevers always make people feel the very worst things about themselves.”

“But you’re hurting.”

“I am, but I’ll feel much better once my lung heals properly and this infection’s gone.”

Cole cocks his head and twists the edge of her blankets together between his hands.

“How can I help?”

“Could you ask Solas to come up here? Don’t worry him. Just tell him the fever’s got worse and I need some potions.”

“Okay,” Cole says simply, and then blinks out of existence again.

Athera lets her head fall back against the pillows, and makes a mental note of all of the things she needs to get done today. Most of her correspondence she can do from her bed, and the advisor’s reports are thorough enough that she can direct them from here as well. She had hoped to explore the castle at some point, and see where everyone has settled into since they arrived. More than anything, she’d wanted to find Revas and discover what he’s done with the focus, but there’s no hope of that when she can barely cross the room.

She’s just decided that she’ll ask Leliana to send him up to see her later, when her bedroom door bursts open and Solas rushes inside in a panic, his hands still streaked with plaster and a paintbrush behind his ear.

“Vhenan, what happened? Cole said you were hurt, couldn’t walk, in pain.”

She lets out a groan even as she smiles at him fondly and pulls him down towards her.

“Breathe, ma fen,” she says gently. “I told Cole not to worry you. It’s just the fever. It seems this infection’s more determined than we thought.”

He kneels next to her on the edge of the bed, and places his hand on her head as he sends a wash of magic over her body.

“Fenedhis lasa,” he curses. “You have a chest infection and your system isn’t fighting it properly because of the injury. Stay here. I’ll be right back.”

Before she can stop him, he rushes out of the room again, and she slumps back on the pillows just as Cole appears on the edge of the bed.

“I thought I asked you not to worry him?”

“I told him the truth,” Cole says uncertainly. “Did I do it wrong?”

She reaches out to squeeze his hand and gives him a sympathetic smile.

“Sometimes, the truth of what we’re feeling inside sounds much scarier to someone on the outside,” she tells him. “He didn’t need to worry.”

“He doesn’t like it when you’re sick,” Cole replies. “Sickness is new. It was only the Blight before. The fever makes him think of death and monsters and being alone. The wolf doesn’t like feeling helpless.”

She closes her eyes and lets out a sigh.

“He’s going to be insufferable about this, isn’t he?”

“He’s going to help, even if it’s annoying.”

That draws a surprised laugh from her, which then turns quickly into a wave of wracking coughs. Solas hurries back into the room, just as she’s hanging her head over the edge of the bed to better catch her breath, still wheezing horribly.

“Athera…”

Her name leaves his mouth soft and scared, and he kneels behind her on the bed and places both hands on her back to push a wave of mana through her spasming chest. Her coughing eases at once, and she slumps backwards into his arms and lets her head loll against his shoulder.

“Ma serannas, ma fen,” she says breathlessly. “My lungs and I are having a difference of opinion about the best way to breathe.”

He huffs out a shaky laugh, and arranges her carefully in his arms while he sits back against the headboard.

“Here, drink these. They will help.”

She opens her mouth obediently for him to pour in an elfroot tonic and a healing potion, and feels the last of the stabbing pain in her ribs ease as she swallows. She can’t help the soft sigh of relief that leaves her, even as she looks back towards the water again.

“I don’t suppose you can bring that over here without getting up, can you?”

Solas follows her gaze, and then with a precise bit of magic she isn’t sure how to recreate, he hovers the tray over to the bed. It settles on the sheets beside them, and when she looks up at him he’s smirking, pleased with himself. She chuckles and kisses the underside of his jaw.

“Show off.”

“Are you complaining?”

She’s too busy gulping mouthfuls of water to answer, and he settles her more comfortably against his chest and takes the glass from her when she’s finished. She snuggles deeply into his arms with a sigh, and is only slightly surprised when he tightens his grip and buries his nose in her hair.

“I’m alright, ma fen,” she reassures him. “You don’t need to go all protective on me.”

“Whether or not I need to is neither here nor there,” he says primly. “I’m feeling the urge to wrap you up in blankets and coddle you right now, and I see no reason why I shouldn’t indulge.”

She laughs lightly, and is glad that he can’t see the blush of girlish pleasure that lights up her cheeks when she tucks herself back under his chin. It’s been too long since he’s been playful like this, and these are the moments she treasures.

“What about the fresco?” She mumbles. “Won’t the plaster dry wrong?”

“Forget about the fresco. I’m sure I can correct any inconsistencies later. For now, let me be where I want to be.” He hesitates. “Okay?”

She nuzzles into his chest and hides a smile against his plaster-spattered tunic.

“Very okay,” she murmurs. “I always want you here, Solas. You know that.”

He sighs contently and presses a kiss to the top of her head, and before long she’s drifted into sleep in his arms, feeling safer than she can remember being in a very long time.

***

True to Cole’s promise, over the next few days, Solas is annoying — and adorable. He sleeps with her bundled up against him, alternating fire and ice magic through his skin depending on what her body needs. When she wakes at night wheezing and gasping for breath, he’s there with water, or potions, or a wave of mana to ease the cramps in her chest and throat.

During the day, he moves regularly between the rotunda and her quarters, often emerging at the top of the stairs flecked by paint and plaster, and carrying a tray of food. While Athera arranges an office of organised chaos over the bed, the advisors troop in and out almost as often as Solas. But after the first day, when he’d barked at Leliana that if she didn’t give his heart a break he would lock the door and keep them out indefinitely, they no longer stay for very long.

Finally, nearly a week after her sister left for Crestwood, Solas pronounces himself satisfied with her temperature and finally lets her get up.

“You know, in all of the Dread Wolf’s stories, I bet no-one’s ever told one about you being an excellent nursemaid.”

Solas’ cheeks dimple with a long-suffering smile, and he helps her pull on a thick robe before she leaves the room.

“That may be because I’ve never felt the urge to nurse anyone before, my star. It seems you bring out my softer and less renowned qualities.”

Athera stands on her toes to press a kiss to his cheek, and he catches her in his arms and kisses her more thoroughly before she pulls away.

“Well, I think that’s a shame,” she says. “Maybe I’ll write some more poetry about it.”

He laughs, then, her favourite sound that ends on a snort and brings an embarrassed pink flush to his cheeks.

“I don’t think the world is quite ready for poetry about the Dread Wolf’s nursing abilities,” he says.

She hums thoughtfully and slips on a pair of boots, composing the quickest nonsense she’s ever managed inside her head as she goes.

“Okay, how about this?” She asks, and clears her throat dramatically. “Underneath the dreaded wolf, there’s a wolf that none can see. A little less sharp, a little more fluffy, and the sweetest old wolf to me. He paints all day and cares all night, and cuddles up in his sleep. And if a fever rears its head, it had better flee in fright!”

When she turns back around, she finds to her shock and delight that Solas is blushing excessively. His cheeks and ears are bright red, and he’s smiling bashfully down at his feet, and almost looks as though he’ll combust with pleasure.

“Oh, ma fen,” she smiles affectionately. “You really are the most adorable wolf in the world, aren’t you?”

He hides his faces behind his hands and whines, his feet shuffling against the floor as though he doesn’t know what to do with himself.

“Vhenan, please.”

She sidles up to him with a mischievous grin.

“Oh? But you know, I think you like it,” she whispers. “Being told that you’re good. Knowing that I think you’re good. Don’t you, ma fen?”

The sound he makes next is closer to a groan than a whine, and in an instant Athera forgets that she’s meant to be heading to the war room, or about anything else at all. They haven’t had sex since before Haven fell, and with the way he’s squirming in front of her, she realises that she wants him desperately. Before he has the chance to drop his hands from his face, she slinks up beside him and breathes against his ear.

“Get on the bed, ma fen. I have plans for you this morning.”

A full body shudder runs through him, and he complies without hesitation, moving across the room as though he’s drunk. She feels a swooping sense of protectiveness when he sits on the edge of the bed, his hands clutching tight to the mattress and his eyes distant and glazed. She forgets, sometimes, that until her he’d been without touch for so long. That sometimes, the best way to ease Solas’ fears and give him a break from the maddening march of his own thoughts, is to take control like this.

“So good for me,” she whispers.

His hips twitch forward against his will, and he licks his lips and stares adoringly across the room at her. She stands up straighter and starts to perform.

“Clothes off,” she instructs sharply. “Hands on the headboard. Let me see you on display.”

He scrambles to do what she says, losing his clothes so quickly that she’d laugh if he didn’t seem to need this so badly. When he’s stretched out on the bed, gloriously naked and obscenely beautiful, his hands raised above his head, she stalks slowly towards him and runs her fingertips down the side of his ribs.

“Such a beautiful wolf.”

A choked sound cuts off in his throat, and his cock twitches where it’s already fully hard and jutting from between his hips. She slips her boots off again and then draws the robe from her shoulders, and Solas follows the movement hungrily.

“What do you want, ma fen?”

He bites his bottom lip, and for a wild second Athera wishes she had a switch or a riding crop to strike him with. Just gently. Just enough to tempt him to speak. Instead, she flicks his nipple, hard, and he yelps in shock and then groans deliciously, melting back into the sheets.

“Oh,” she breathes. “You like that.”

He swallows, and then nods quickly once.

“What else do you like?” She asks. “What do you want me to do?”

He stays silent, his cock already leaking and his toes curling against the sheets. She flicks his nipple again, harder, and this time he throws his head back in ecstasy, exposing the pale line of his throat. Athera’s mouth goes dry, and she squeezes her legs together and takes a steadying breath.

“I’m going to need a verbal answer, Solas, or else we aren’t going to do this. Understand?”

He draws in a ragged breath and raises his head to face her again.

“Yes,” he agrees, his voice rasping.

“Yes what?”

“Yes, Inquisitor.”

The sound of her title, hoarse and wanting, shouldn’t make her core pulse as deeply as it does. She runs her fingertips across his stomach and smiles wickedly.

“Good boy,” she purrs. “Now, tell me what you want.”

He opens his mouth, hesitates, and then bites his lip uncertainly.

“I want you to use me,” he croaks out at last. “I want you to take what you want from me and make me earn whatever you give. I want you to make me beg.”

His face and ears are red by the time he’s finished, the blush spreading endearingly down his neck and onto his chest. But it’s exactly what she wanted to hear.

“Well done,” she praises him. “Why don’t we see if you can put that pretty mouth to good use, hm?”

She strips out of the rest of her clothes quickly, intensely gratified when Solas’ hands flex and turn white on the headboard, as though he can’t help but reach for her and had held himself back at the last moment. Sinuous as a cat, she crawls over him, murmuring soft promises and endearments that make his blush deepen and his cock twitch. When she reaches his mouth, she pauses, holding herself above him while he cranes his neck to reach her.

“Do you want a kiss, ma fen?”

He whines and arches higher, so close that she can feel his breath on her lips.

“Do you think you deserve one?”

His expression flickers, a shadow moving behind his eyes that tells her more about his state of mind than she’d understood before. Her heart aches, and she bends closer, following him down towards the pillows while he looks up at her uncertainly.

“Yes,” she whispers to him. “You do.”

He groans into her mouth, a yearning, needy sound, and she swipes her tongue across his lips and lets him drink his fill. When she pulls back again, they’re both breathless, and she grins and manoeuvres herself so that she’s crouched above him, her knees on either side of his head and her back to the headboard.

“Now, let’s see if you can earn your release, shall we?”

“Please,” he gasps. “Please, my star.”

“What do you want?”

She can feel him straining up to meet her, but she holds herself tantalisingly out of his reach, ignoring the flexing of the muscles in his arms as he fights to push himself higher.

“I want to please you,” he begs. “Let me please you, vhenan. Let me show you how good I can be.”

Her pelvic floor clenches helplessly at the desperate tone of his voice, and she chuckles and finally lets herself drop to meet his mouth. Despite the fact that he’s the one prone and begging beneath her, she’d be lying if she said that their little game hadn’t worked her up as well. The first swipe of his tongue against her makes her moan, and she has to resist the urge to clamp her knees tight to the side of his head.

“That’s it,” she praises breathlessly. “That’s my good wolf.”

His answering groan reverberates straight through her, and she almost tips forward onto his stomach at the pleasure that rockets through her nerves.

“Hold me in place,” she instructs him sharply. “Don’t let me fall.”

His tongue is still working inside her, and she lets out a breath of relief when his hands let go of the headboard and clamp around her thighs instead. Safely secured, she bends at the waist, and licks a firm stripe up the side of his cock that makes him buck and moan into her skin.

“I don’t think I said you could move, did I?” She asks. “Maybe I’ll have to hold you down too.”

She makes good on her promise, bracing herself with one hand pressed tight to each side of his hips, while she takes him into her mouth slowly and softly. Before long, he’s panting and moaning against her, the vibrations almost enough to drive her over the edge. She pulls her mouth off him when she feels him start to harden impossibly further, and the whine that ricochets against her clit makes her see stars.

“Make me come,” she pants. “And I might decide to let you come too.”

If she’d been hoping for a less enthusiastic response, then she’d have severely under-estimated the personality of the man beneath her. Solas pulls her towards him so quickly that she jolts and digs her fingers into his skin, and a moment later she lets out a guttural cry as he begins to devour her. His mouth seems to be everywhere, and she recognises the subtle pulse of magic reaching deeper inside her only when she falls over the edge.

Her muscles jerk. Her vision blurs, and she comes with a shout as her toes curl into the sheets and her legs clamp down around him against her will. Distantly, she’s aware that his hands are running soothingly over her legs, and that he’s murmuring Athera and my star and vhenan against her. She sucks in a breath, twitching with aftershocks, and finally notices the way he’s shifting and writhing beneath her.

“Please my star. Please vhenan. Please, let me come. I’ll be good. Sathan vhenan’ara. Please.”

She wishes she could turn around and see his face, but the muscles in her legs seem to have gone missing, so instead she slurs the words good wolf, and closes her mouth around him again. His chest heaves with an aborted gasp for air that she feels against the skin of her thighs, and then he’s thrashing and whimpering against her, so close to his release that she can already taste him on her tongue.

Just when she thinks that he can’t last much longer, he jerks beautifully beneath her and lets out a high-pitched groan as he spills suddenly down her throat. She swallows as best she can, sucking softly around him when he starts to soften and withdraw, which brings the most gorgeous, breathy moan from him she’s ever heard. When she finally releases him, he’s trembling, and he presses kisses over her legs as she licks the last of his spend away and strokes her hands over his stomach.

“Was that good, ma fen?”

With some effort, she lifts herself off him and turns around, and he reaches for her and draws her back down on top of him.

“Don’t let go,” he whispers, and her heart almost bursts through her chest.

“Never,” she promises.

She kisses him slowly, leisurely, the sweat drying on their skin while he becomes soft and pliant against her, his eyelids flickering and an adoring, entirely fucked-out expression on his face.

“You were perfect,” she murmurs against his jaw.

He lets out a gentle sound, somewhere between a laugh and a sigh, and hauls her closer against him.

“Ar lath ma, vhenan,” he says softly. “Don’t ever let me go.”

Chapter Text

With her fever finally gone and her lungs almost healed, the work of the Inquisition begins to feel like a spinning top. Or, more accurately, a thousand different spinning tops on a thousand different tables that she has to keep running between to stop them all from toppling over. If she isn’t tending to the castle then she’s managing reports, and if she isn’t managing reports she’s holding meetings, and if she isn’t holding meetings she’s taking correspondence, and if she isn’t doing any of those things then someone, somewhere, will way-lay her about another problem that needs her immediate attention.

With so much to contend with, it’s with a deep breath of relief that she finally makes time to wander down to the stables in search of Solas’ elusive former general. She finds him in the pen beside the barn, brushing down a dappled grey nuggalope that makes a braying noise when it sees her. Revas looks up at the sound, and an expression of both welcome and contrition passes over the sharp angles of his face.

“Inquisitor,” he rumbles, a shade of teasing entering the solemnity of voice. “To what do I owe the great honour of this personal audience?”

She rolls her eyes at him and hops up onto the fence.

“Don’t you start. I’ve already threatened to toss Varric into that roaring fire he’s so fond of if he doesn’t start using my name again.”

Revas snorts, and the nuggalope chirrups to get him to continue with its grooming.

“Though I have no doubt that you could fling Varric into the hearth if pushed, I’m not sure you’d have quite so easy a time with me.”

“Call me Inquisitor again and we’ll find out, won’t we?”

He dips his head in a mock bow, the corners of his mouth lifting, and they lapse into silence while he runs the brush over the mount’s flank, the sleeves of his tunic rolled to the elbows. Athera tightens her hands on the fence beneath her, watching the sunlight dapple his skin and steeling herself for the conversation to come.

“You didn’t come to see me,” she says at last, and Revas stiffens almost imperceptibly.

“You were being well tended to.”

She raises an eyebrow at him, unimpressed.

“So, your absence had nothing to do with the person doing the tending then?”

“On the contrary,” he corrects. “It had everything to do with it.”

She waits while he leads the nuggalope back to its stall and joins her at the fence.

“Fen’Harel had no intention of letting us speak alone while you were unwell, and I had no intention of remaining in any room he was in.”

“And do you think that’s a mature attitude for either of you to take?”

Revas’ lips thin in displeasure, his expression becoming uncharacteristically cruel. For a second, he reminds her of the man he’d been in Kirkwall, and she suppresses the shiver that threatens to trickle down her spine.

“It has nothing to do with maturity, lethallan,” he says, his voice hard. “It has to do with safety.”

“Yours, his, or mine?”

“All three, if you must know.”

He sighs, and holds his right arm out in front of him, his eyes growing dark and distant as a storm cloud.

“You let it scar.”

Athera reaches out to touch the bite marks that wrap around his forearm, the after-image of teeth a vivid white against the warm brown of his skin.

“Was that to remind you, or to remind him?’

“A little of both,” he admits. “It’s always sensible to remember what the Dread Wolf’s jaws can do.”

She swallows, and smooths her thumb gently over the bumps of the healed injury.

“He regrets it,” she whispers. “More than you know.”

“The Dread Wolf regrets many things, da’len. But that does not excuse them.”

She looks down, guilty and ashamed as she always is when this conversation is broached. It’s difficult, sometimes, to hold Solas’ cruelties in the same space in her mind, when she thinks of the wolf who’d only recently begged for her to dominate him in bed. Who’d pleaded to be able to show her that he could be good after all.

“For what it’s worth, I’m glad you were there for him, Revas,” she says softly. “I’m glad you were there for both of us. For all of us. I know how much it cost you to stand in his way.”

When she looks up into his face, Revas’ eyes have softened, and he places his other hand on top of hers where her fingers still cover his scars.

“Thank you for reminding him of himself,” she tells him sincerely. “Thank you for reminding him of me.”

Revas sighs.

“Fen’Harel isn’t a monster,” he says quietly. “But he still behaves monstrously. There was once a good man, a brave and principled man, at the heart of the Pride of Elvhenan. I see shades of that man again when he is with you.”

“But you still don’t trust him.”

He scoffs, not unkindly, and she lets a sad smile grow on her lips.

“One of the few wise things the Dread Wolf has done in recent years is to know that he can’t trust himself to always make the right decisions. So no, da’len, I do not trust him. No more than he trusts himself.”

“That’s why you took his focus.”

Revas’ grip tightens on her hand, and his green eyes look up and pin her with their intensity.

“I took possession of his focus because he was blinded by the power it offered. Tell me, da’len, are you?”

She meets his gaze steadily, never more certain of anything than she is of this.

“No,” she says softly. “If you must know, I’m terrified of it. No-one should have that power. Not even him. Not even me.”

“Yet he may have need of it before this is over.”

She shudders, even though the sun is warm on her back.

“Not yet,” she whispers. “Not for a long time, I hope.”

He smiles, just slightly, and releases his hold on her hand.

“I am glad to hear you say that.”

“Is it somewhere safe, at least? Somewhere it won’t be discovered accidentally?”

“It’s in the castle,” Revas replies. “As the Inquisitor, and Solas’ lover, you should know exactly where that is.”

He motions her down off the fence, and Athera follows as he takes her through the courtyard and back into Skyhold. People greet her and cast curious glances at her companion as they pass by, and Varric raises a wry eyebrow at them when Revas leads her into the rotunda where Solas is bent over his desk.

He looks up in surprise when they enter, and his expression grows guilty and then closes off completely.

“You have decided to show her, then.”

There’s no censure in his voice, but Athera recognises too well the sudden rigidity of his shoulders and the steely clench of his jaw.

“I’ve told you many times that I would entrust this decision to her.”

Revas has yet to roll down the sleeve of his tunic, and Solas’ eyes flicker to the bite marks in his arm before he turns his face away in shame.

“Very well,” he says softly. “You know where it is.”

Revas inclines his head in a mock-bow, and a splinter of pain crosses the Dread Wolf’s face before it’s swiftly hidden again. Athera aches for him, but when she tries to catch his eye he stares determinedly down at the table, his gaze unfocused and roving over a pile of scattered notes.

“Come, da’len,” Revas says quietly, and she draws her attention back to him as he crosses to the sofa.

“The wards are in place,” Solas says in a hollow voice. “No-one will see or hear anything amiss.”

Revas inclines his head in acknowledgement, and then with a wave of his hand, the sofa slides aside. A square patch of floor melts away beneath it to reveal a stairway spiralling down into darkness. Athera’s mouth gapes open, and her friend laughs softly as he gestures for her to go first. She looks back at Solas, only to find him still staring at the desk, his hands clenched into fists against the wood and his eyes distant and glazed.

She suppresses a sigh and steps into the dark. For a moment, the secret corridor reminds her of another; one taken down into the inky blackness of the Spire, cuffs around her wrists and Cole a silent shadow at her side. But then the scuff of Revas’ footsteps behind her brings her back to the present, and she draws in a steadying breath and follows the path underground.

As they walk, flickering wall sconces spring into life, illuminating a cylindrical cavern that widens the further down they go. The walls are unnaturally dry for something that’s dug down so deep, and she can feel the weight of ancient magic and the flutter of invisible spirits twirling around them as they descend. Revas chuckles, the sound echoing strangely, and she chances a glance at him over her shoulder.

“Something funny, hahren?”

“Skyhold’s happy we’re exploring,” he says with a smile. “The veil is thinner here, and the wisps aren’t often able to reach the people above.”

She smiles, resting a hand on the wall to keep her balance, and feeling the steady thrum of emotion pulse beneath her fingers.

“Other people can’t feel it, can they?” She asks. “If they could, I assume I’d have heard about it by now.”

“They can’t,” he confirms. “A particular sensitivity to magic, and to spirits in particular, is necessary to pick up on the castle’s mood. Most mages in the modern day don’t possess a deep enough connection to the Fade to distinguish Skyhold from the general existence of magic beyond the Veil.”

She hums thoughtfully, and peers down to where a cavernous marble floor emerges into view some distance below.

“I don’t think I have a particular sensitivity to spirits,” she says. “I’d never been much of a dreamer before Solas helped me to hold onto my awareness while I sleep. Even now, I can’t do it consistently.”

“I can’t be sure, of course, but I would guess that your trip through time has something to do with it,” Revas tells her. “Skyhold was where you returned to us again, and more than that, you visited a Skyhold in which the Veil was already torn asunder. It’s possible that you absorbed some of the excess magic during your short time there. Have you noticed an increase in your power?”

She frowns, considering, and places her feet carefully onto the next steps.

“Honestly? I’m not sure. The only time I’ve really used my magic since was to close the Breach, and during the attack on Haven. At the Breach we were all casting together, and when Corypheus attacked I was a bit more preoccupied with the army bearing down on us than on whether my magic felt any stronger.”

Revas laughs and makes a sound of agreement behind her.

“Understandable. Perhaps next time you practice, you ought to be aware of how your magic feels.”

They come to the bottom of the stairs before she can consider how the idea of more power makes her feel. Once there, she’s distracted by a mosaic floor in deep greens and golds, and elaborate frescos painted on the walls. She recognises them as being in Solas’ style, although they’re less pictorial than mathematical; precise blocks of colour that give the impression of forests, while leaving her with no idea of how that impression’s been conveyed.

“Some of his earlier work,” Revas says mildly, as he leads her through a set of oak doors and into a corridor with more of the same. “He’d improved his depictions somewhat by the time his rebellion began.”

“When you say early, how early are we talking here?”

“Oh, within his first five thousand years,” he replies. “Mythal gifted him the land here on the occasion of his one thousandth year as a body. Before that he lived on her estate, or sometimes with Andruil, although that was always a rather fraught dalliance from both sides.”

Athera stumbles a step and has to reach out to steady herself against a wall.

“Andruil?” She asks weakly.

Revas comes to a sudden stop ahead of her, his spine straightening incrementally.

“Ah,” he says, still facing away. “Have I put my foot in my mouth?”

“Just a little,” she manages, although her voice comes out breathy and small.

He turns to face her, a guilty expression chasing itself across his face and an apology in his eyes.

“If it helps, it was less a relationship than it was a rather unhealthy contest of wills fought via sex as a medium.”

She barks out a disbelieving laugh, and rubs a frantic hand over her eyes.

“I’m not sure that helps, lethallin!” She chuckles, almost hysterically. “Is that why she sent that woman into his bed later? I don’t know her name. The one who tricked him.”

“Viera,” Revas says softly. “I wondered if he’d told you that story.”

“Not all of it. Only that it happened, and that she’d hurt him.”

He looks away, his forehead furrowed in thought.

“What you have to understand,” he says at last. “Is that even after a spirit takes on a body, some part of them continues to cling to the ideals they held before. Certain emotions will always attract them, challenge them, or wound them more than others. Have you noticed that in him yourself?”

She nods slowly, her thoughts still stuck on the idea of Solas — her Solas — lying in the huntress’ bed.

“He’s always been prideful,” she agrees. “And shame is more difficult for him to bear than almost anything else, I think.”

“Indeed. With this in mind, you might understand why a former spirit of Pride would be attracted to someone with such skill as a hunter. Before she over-reached herself and broke into the void, Andruil was a formidable leader. She was also devastatingly talented, pursuing great quarries for years or even decades at a time, purely for the thrill of the hunt and the pride that came with her victory.”

“She challenged him.”

“To be better than he was,” Revas agrees. “If she could prove her skill in a hunt, then why couldn’t the new elgar’venathe prove his wits in court? In the beginning, the two of them revelled in out-doing each other, planning subtle bids for power and less subtle challenges both physically and mentally. It was inevitable that this would spill over into their private lives.”

“But something went wrong?” She guesses.

Revas smiles grimly.

“Two somethings. The first was Ghilan’nain, a new ascender to the ranks of the Evanuris who quickly caught Andruil’s eye. Her skill in the creation of new creatures was the perfect complement to the huntress’ desire for cleverer and more dangerous prey.”

“And the second?”

“While there’s pride to be found in the initial conquest and subjugation of a worthy competitor, there is little to be found in maintaining that control. Solas discovered quickly that although he relished his victories against Andruil, and was spurred to greater heights by his defeats, the constant push-and-pull was leading them both to become more tyrannical in their dealings with each other. A thousand little cruelties began to mount where once there had been a mutual respect.”

“So, what happened next?”

“He ended the game,” Revas shrugs, almost falsely carefree. “But as I said, there was little that Andruil loved more than the hunt, and she was unwilling to allow him to extricate himself from her without some form of pursuit. After many years, in which he proved himself immune to her attempts, she decided to show him just how powerful an enemy she could be. Since she couldn’t keep him for herself, of course.”

“That’s terrible,” Athera breathes. “And cruel.”

Revas hums in agreement.

“The incident with Viera came much later,” he says quietly. “He’d built Skyhold by then, and become Mythal’s most trusted general. I suspect Andruil’s desire to trap him wasn’t quite so simple as merely a spurned lover seeking revenge."

“What else was it, then?”

“A political move, during an era of great strife between her and Mythal. But also a daughter’s grief, at being replaced in her mother’s affections by a man who’d also rejected her.”

He sighs, and offers her a small smile as he turns back down the corridor.

“Regardless, lethallan, I would caution you not to dwell too much on the machinations of the Evanuris, or their sexual contests. It was many Ages ago, and very much a different world.”

Athera follows him in silence, but it isn’t easy to try and forget that the man she loves was also once lover to the Goddess of the Hunt. While Revas may dismiss the events as coming from another world, the scars that run through Solas go back at least that far, and perhaps even deeper than she’d imagined. At moments like this, it’s difficult to believe that she could ever hope to offer anything to a man whose life eclipses hers by so many millennia. A man with so much history coiled around his heart.

Lost in her thoughts, she barely notices where they’re going, until Revas comes to a stop outside an enormous arched door, its intricately carved stone glowing blue in the dim light of the sconces. She examines it curiously, feeling the glowing runes press back against her magic and the Fade move further away.

“Lyrium?”

Revas nods.

“With an object of such concentrated magic, even so many miles of stone can’t prevent it from being noticed by an attentive mage.”

He draws in a breath and places his hand on the door.

“Prepare yourself,” he warns her. “The calling will be intense.”

Chapter Text

Despite Revas’ warning, Athera is still unprepared for the almighty wave that crashes over her when the door swings shut behind them. The room is a vast stone hall, with a set of stairs leading up to what looks to her like an ancient ballroom, although the marble floor has faded with time. In its centre, Solas’ focus stands on a plinth, floating just above the stone and caught behind a glowing blue barrier.

The last time she saw it, it had been inside a haze of light as it spilled from Corypheus’ hand. Now, it pulses with a dim green glow, and sings with all of the potency of the raw Fade itself. For a single moment, the urge to take hold of it and press it inside her skin almost overwhelms her, before she shakes the song away and leans heavily against a wall.

“Alluring, isn’t it?” Revas asks darkly.

She swallows and shakes her head. The song is beautiful, but it’s also too much. It feels as though it could consume her entirely, obliterating who she is until there’s only music and magic left.

“Could he really absorb that kind of power?” She asks, almost breathlessly. “It feels overwhelming even from here.”

They haven’t moved from the stairs, and Athera has no intention of getting any closer if she can help it.

“You’ve only ever known him in his weakened state, falon,” Revas reminds her gently. “The Elvhen were far more powerful than any mage you’ve known in this world, and the Evanuris more powerful still. Fen’Harel may not have possessed the raw power of someone like Elgar’nan, but he was still an overwhelming force to those of us without the talent and strength to wield a focus like this ourselves.”

“Were they uncommon, then?” She asks curiously. “How many foci were there in Elvhenan?”

“There were many foci, of many different kinds,” he tells her. “Even I possessed one at one time.”

“But they were different to this?”

“In the way that a ripple differs from a tidal wave, certainly,” he confirms. “Most Elvhen bought their foci from small suppliers of magical artefacts, skilled crafts people in their own right. But foci of the kind Fen’Harel crafted and was able to command? Of those, da’len, there were only ever nine.”

Her stomach sinks, and despite the warmth of the humming orb nearby, she shivers and wraps her arms around herself as though they might protect her.

“One for each of the Evanuris,” she whispers.

“This was a rare power in Elvhenan, da’len. It is far rarer now.”

She stares at it from across the room, and thinks guiltily of how it should be destroyed. She’s even more guilty to realise that she has no intention of destroying it. Not while the world is so dangerous, and Solas so deep in her heart.

“Is it safe here?” She asks at last. “What if he just decides to come down one day? It is his castle, after all.”

At that, Revas snorts, and his face lights up with a true smile that makes her blink in surprise to see it.

“Skyhold is her own consciousness,” he says. “And for the time-being at least, she’s locked him out. Fen’Harel could no more enter this hall than you could take flight over the Frostbacks, falon. For which we should all be grateful.”

***

When they finally make it back to the rotunda, Athera is in a pensive mood. Revas leaves her with a subtle nod, and she turns her gaze to Solas. He’s still standing by his desk, this time with his back to her, and she thinks that if he could leave without it being obvious that he’s fleeing, he would already have strode from the room. Her head is filled with thoughts of Elvhenan; of a supremely powerful Fen’Harel razing armies and charming courts, before returning to Andruil’s bed.

It makes it difficult to approach him, and she stares at the tense line of his back in silence for a long time. In the end, it’s Solas who breaks first.

“Skyhold was pleased to show you her old rooms,” he says, his tone unreadable. “As I’m sure Revas will have told you, she is not so pleased to welcome me there at present.”

Athera swallows and says nothing, and when Solas turns to look at her his face is an expressionless mask.

“There is something inexpressibly tragic in being distrusted by your own castle,” he murmurs. “But it is not so tragic as being distrusted by your own heart.”

She squares her shoulders, even as her gaze softens.

“You know I trust you, ma lath.”

He drops his eyes from hers, a frown furrowing his forehead, and then continues as though she hadn’t spoken.

“It is even more tragic, still, to be distrusted by yourself.”

When he looks up again, his expression is shadowed, and she crosses the room and takes both of his hands in hers.

“Sometimes, there’s wisdom in recognising our weaknesses, Solas,” she says gently. “You aren’t wrong to be wary. And you aren’t being punished by being forced to take your time.”

“Aren’t I?”

She shakes her head, and presses their foreheads together.

“No, ma fen,” she whispers. “This isn’t a punishment, from Skyhold or from me.”

“Then what is it?”

“Protection,” she breathes against his lips. “Both of us love you. Won’t you let us try to keep you safe?”

His hands clench tight on hers, and his expression splinters. He pulls her closer to him, and she finds herself wrapped up in his arms while he pushes his face into her shoulder. She holds him in return, and hates how surprised he always is when anyone offers him the barest hint of concern.

“Foolish wolf,” she whispers.

He huffs against her neck, and she feels his lips press gently to the skin beneath her ear.

“Ir abelas, vhenan,” he murmurs. “One day, I will remember not to expect the worst. It seems I am still unfamiliar with being cared for. No matter how frequently you offer me grace, I cannot seem to stop waiting for it to be taken away again.”

He sighs softly and pulls back to look into her face.

“I’ll work on it.”

She smiles at the warmth in his gaze and presses a kiss to his lips.

“Good, because we still have time. I haven’t given up on you, ma fen, and neither has Skyhold.” She hesitates. “And neither, really, has Revas.”

Solas releases a long breath, his shoulders falling and his muscles growing slack as he leans in to kiss her again. It’s a soft kiss, tender and sweet, and Athera melts into it until a loudly cleared throat breaks them apart.

“Sorry to interrupt, Starfire,” Varric drawls. “But there’s someone here who wants to see you. You’ll have to put Chuckles down for a while, if you can stand to tear yourself away.”

Athera drops her head onto Solas’ shoulder and groans.

“There’s never a moment’s privacy in this castle,” she laments.

He laughs softly by her ear and smooths his palm down her back.

“Not for the Inquisitor, it seems,” he says quietly. “Go with Varric, vhenan. I am well. You don’t need to worry about me today.”

She snorts and looks back at him wryly.

“I always worry about you. Felasil.”

***

Varric is uncharacteristically nervous when he leads her back outside, and Athera wipes all thoughts of the focus and the Evanuris from her mind as they cross back through the courtyard. She has some idea of who he’s taking her to see, but she hardly dares to believe it until they emerge onto the battlements, where not one, but two familiar figures await her.

In spite of the stress of the last few months, in spite of all that rests on her shoulders, and in spite of the danger of them making the journey here, her face breaks into a beaming smile. She runs across the distance between them and jumps into Hawke’s arms, while Fenris looks on and pretends he isn’t smiling.

“Good to see you too, Starfire,” Hawke grins into her hair. “And I’ve gotta say, going from dead to Inquisitor in only a few months is a bit of a dramatic turnaround, even for you.”

Athera pulls away and smiles up into her face. Marian looks tired, thinner than she was in Kirkwall, but still as strong as an ox. She wonders just what her friend and Champion has been doing since they last parted ways.

“Yeah, about that whole being dead thing,” Fenris cuts in gruffly. “Anything you want to say about that, U’venise?”

She turns to face him, and finds him glaring down at her with his arms crossed and his pale eyes sparking dangerously. She swallows the rush of fondness that makes her throat go tight, and steps into his space carefully.

“Ir abelas, falon,” she tells him. “If the Orlesians hadn’t have blockaded us in, you’d have been one of the first people I wrote to, I promise. Will you forgive me?”

Her young angry wolf, one of the friends most deeply in her heart, looks down at her for a long time. And then the rage falls from his shoulders and he draws her soundlessly into his chest.

“You do that to us again, and I’ll kill you myself. Understand?”

She wraps her arms around him, ever-mindful of the lyrium burning beneath his skin, and laughs wetly into his armour.

“I think at this point you’d have to get in line, lethallin.”

He huffs a reluctant laugh into her hair and releases her, and she looks between him and Hawke and then gestures pointedly.

“So, did you find her, did she find you, or did Varric find both of you and bring you here together?”

Fenris looks away, but Hawke’s eyes soften on him and she touches his arm gently.

“We sort of have you to thank for that,” she admits. “When word reached me that you were dead, I’d already been thinking about sending a letter to Fen for a while. When it happened…”

“When it happened, I was already tracking her northwest to Weisshaupt, and I got word that she’d turned around and started heading back north.”

“We ran into each other in a disgusting little inn on the Anderfels border, and after that-”

“-after that, I refused to let her run out on me again.”

Athera recognises the pain of their parting — of what Fenris still clearly sees as a betrayal — in the tight line of his mouth and the guilt-ridden love in Hawke’s eyes. It reminds her so much of her first weeks and months in the Inquisition, when both she and Solas had been so wounded, and the trust between them still so fragile. No matter what, she’s always known how devoted Fenris is to Hawke, but she understands more and more how the mythos that surrounds her might make her want to push him away, to save him from a loss in the future that neither of them could prevent.

She hopes that this time, they can stay together. No matter what, in all of the time she’s known them, they have always been better and safer together.

“Well, I’m glad my dying caused one good thing at least,” she grins, breaking the tension and making all three of them scowl at her.

“You know that I love drama, Starfire,” Varric says. “But that was a bit too dramatic, even for me.”

She shrugs easily.

“In future, I’ll be sure to try harder not to die.”

“Yeah, or Chuckles will lose his entire mind.”

Hawke smirks knowingly, and Fenris raises an eyebrow.

“The weird ass apostate’s still around, then?”

“Oh, he’s more than just a weird ass apostate, Broody,” Varric grins. “He’s-”

Athera clears her throat loudly, and steps between them with her arms raised.

“That is need-to-know information, Varric Tethras,” she admonishes. “And so it isn’t to be blurted out in the middle of Skyhold, even if we are a few feet above everyone’s heads up here.”

Varric grimaces and dips his head guiltily.

“Sorry, Inquisitor,” he grins. “Your rooms, then?”

“Definitely, but I don’t think walking these two across the courtyard is going to go down too well with Cassandra right now.”

She turns to face them and smiles mischievously.

“Race you across the roof?”

Hawke lets out a booming laugh, and Varric groans and drops his face into his hands.

“Last one there has to polish everyone’s armour!” The Champion crows.

Then, the race is on.

Chapter Text

It’s strange, having Hawke and Fenris in Skyhold. She’s used to seeing them holding court in the Hanged Man, surrounded by drinkers and the seedier side of the city, or else chopping firewood and building shelters in the centre of the revas’shiral. Hawke might be the Champion, but she’s never aspired to grandeur, and Athera feels almost ashamed at the casual opulence of Solas’ castle and the rooms she’s taken inside it.

Fenris, in particular, looks uncomfortable here, and as she sits on the embroidered sofa and tells them the truth at last, she feels a distance growing between them that has never been there before. When she’s done, the young wolf meets Hawke’s eye, and then scowls down into the glass of wine he’s been steadily sipping in silence.

“So, let me get this straight,” he says gruffly. “Your weird ass apostate is an ancient dreamer, your sister’s somehow got stuck with a ball of ancient magic in her hand, Corypheus is back and trying to rip down the veil and destroy the world, and if he manages to do it, a load of ancient Elvhen are going to jump out of the Fade and slaughter everyone in Thedas just for fun. Is that about right, U’venise?”

He sounds furious, but Athera knows him well enough by now to catch the fear behind it. His gaze slips to Hawke when she stands and leans heavily against the mantlepiece, her head bowed low and her expression distant and worried.

“You’re sure it’s Corypheus?” She asks quietly.

“I saw him with my own eyes.”

Hawke nods, accepting it without question, and Athera struggles against the urge to comfort her — to comfort both of them — now that she’s had to bring the magister back to their door. But before she can make up her mind on whether or not to go to her, Varric shifts on the chair at her side, and when he speaks his voice is deadlier than she’s ever known it.

“Revas was the one who captured you in Kirkwall?” He hisses.

Her eyes snap to his, and she almost recoils at the visceral anger darkening his face. She’s never seen Varric like this before, and she swallows nervously and draws in a breath. She’d deliberated over whether or not to tell them the truth about what happened that day, but since she hasn’t been able to tell them who Solas really is, it was easier to explain how Revas came to be so intimately tied into everything by revealing how they’d really met.

Right now, she’s starting to regret it.

“He was,” she says softly, and Varric’s hands clench into fists on his knees.

“Then would you like to explain to me why he nearly killed you, and why on earth you’d keep him around here afterwards?” He bites out.

When Athera looks up again, both Hawke and Fenris are watching her with the same murderous expressions on their faces, and she twists her hands together and clears her throat uncomfortably.

“It’s… complicated,” she says weakly. “Solas and Revas… They were friends for a long time. Millennia, even.”

“And now they aren’t.”

She nods, deciding quickly how best to explain their feud without revealing Solas’ identity.

“Solas made a mistake, not long after he woke from uthenara,” she tells them. “He killed a man — a former friend — for something that happened while he was sleeping. It isn’t my story to tell, but it’s enough to say that Solas regrets it now and would take it back if he could.”

“We’ve all killed people, U’venise,” Fenris growls. “Why did this death make Revas try to kill you?”

She looks between them all and then sighs sadly.

“The man Solas killed was Revas’ husband,” she whispers. “He loved him very much.”

Three matching expressions of shock stare back at her, and then Varric slumps back into the chair and runs an agitated hand through his hair.

“Well, at least I can follow the logic of that,” he says grimly. “Solas killed Revas’ husband, so when you and Solas started getting close-”

“Revas decided to take away someone he loved as revenge.”

“But he didn’t actually do it,” Hawke cuts in. “He left you there for Solas to find instead. Why?”

“He couldn’t do it,” Athera replies, knowing that it’s only half a lie. “But he couldn’t just let me go, either. He wanted Solas to suffer, so he left me alive and hoped that Solas would be looking for me.”

There’s silence for a few beats, and then Varric leaps from his chair and starts to pace.

“Andraste’s tits, Athera!” He yells at last. “How can you say that so calmly? The man tortured you.”

“Varric-”

“No. Don’t you Varric me, Starfire. You forget, I saw you that day. I saw what he did to you! There might only have been a couple of cuts, but the way he left you hanging there — you couldn’t stand. You nearly died.”

She looks down, a lump rising in her throat suddenly, because she knows that Varric is right. She’s come to trust Revas, to care for him the same way she cares for all of her friends, but they’ve never really addressed what he did to her that day. She’s forgiven him because it would have been hypocritical to punish him for his crime against her when she doesn’t hold Solas’ crimes against him, but that doesn’t mean that the thought of what he’d done doesn’t still hurt her. Usually, she simply decides not to think about it.

She’s being made to think about it now.

“I know, Varric,” she says, her throat rasping. “It… It hasn’t been easy. He did nearly kill me, but he also saved my life.”

She looks up again, to find the dwarf staring at her with both pity and frustration in his eyes.

“After the Spire, I was so broken. I think if Revas hadn’t been there, I might have simply laid down and let the Templars kill me when they came for us in the alienage.”

She hears Fenris and Hawke both suck in a shocked breath, but she keeps her gaze fixed on Varric.

“Revas found me then. He was already guilty about what he’d done, and without Solas there, he helped me. Not only did he save my life, but he brought me back to myself too. He made me laugh. Gave me something to believe in again. I would never have been able to rally the elves and set up Starfire Keep without him. He saved all of us during those months, and… He’s my friend.”

Her final words come out on a guilty whisper, and she drops her head down before any of them can see the tears gathering in her eyes. For a long moment, all she can hear are her own rasping breaths while she tries to get herself back under control — and then suddenly she’s surrounded on all sides as Varric, Fenris, and Hawke move to smother her in a hug.

It shocks her so much that she lets out a startled laugh, and before she’s even realised what’s happening, a sob bursts from her mouth and she’s started to cry. Instantly, she’s mortified. She hates crying in front of people, it makes her feel exposed and vulnerable and as though she could crawl into a hole and die. But when she tries to pull away, all three of her friends tighten their hold, and she gives up and weeps into Varric’s shoulder while Hawke and Fenris crush her between them.

She isn’t sure how long she cries for, but when she’s done she feels embarrassed, and guilty, and lighter than she has done in months. She pulls back slowly, her face flushing, and all three of them move back to give her some room.

“Are you sure you don’t want me to kill him?” Fenris huffs into her hair, and she laughs and shakes her head, smiling up at him fondly.

“No thanks, lethallin. I’d miss him if you killed him now.”

“You’re a fucking lunatic, Athera,” Hawke says disbelievingly. “Only you could forgive a man who tortured you, and then become his friend.”

She sinks further into the sofa and scrubs the last of the tears from her face.

“Like I said, it’s complicated. He did hurt me, and he shouldn’t have done it, and he regrets it.”

“And he saved your life, and the lives of the elves, and hovers around you now like he’s your own personal bodyguard,” Varric finishes, watching her shrewdly.

She nods and looks away.

“There’s something else,” Fenris says. “What else is there about this that you’re not telling us? There’s another reason you forgave him, isn’t there?”

In the privacy of her own thoughts, Athera curses herself for having such perceptive friends. But she doesn’t have it in herself to lie to them directly. Not about this, anyway.

“I don’t blame him,” she answers, and then holds up her hands to silence their cries of outrage. “I don’t mean that I think he was right to hurt me!” She clarifies quickly. “I mean that he didn’t know me, he had no idea who I was, and he was grieving. All he knew was that Solas had killed his husband and then fallen for someone.”

She chews on her lip and raises her gaze to the ceiling, thinking.

“What happened in Kirkwall, it wasn’t really about me,” she decides at last. “It was about Solas, and how much he’d hurt him. But when Revas helped me after the Spire, that was about me. When he decided to come and work in the Inquisition instead of staying somewhere safer, that was about me. When he decided to put himself in a situation where he’d have to see Solas every single day, and not give in to the impulse to hurt him, that was about me.”

She looks around at them all, and sees them watching her steadily.

“I won’t make excuses for what he did in Kirkwall,” she says softly. “He was wrong to do it, and no doubt Solas will never forgive him for it. But Revas will also never forgive Solas for killing his husband, and yet…”

“And yet, you’ve forgiven them both,” Varric realises, his eyes widening in understanding. “You had to forgive Revas for hurting you, because you forgave Solas for killing the man Revas loved. If you’d held the torture against Revas, you’d also have had to hold the death against Solas, too. And you couldn’t do it, could you?”

She looks up at him miserably.

“No,” she whispers. “And now you finally understand just how tense their relationship is, and how weird it is that I care about them both.”

“Fasta Vass,” Fenris growls, and Hawke brings a hand up to her face.

“Only you, Starfire,” she drawls. “Only you.”

It’s quiet for a long moment after that. Varric still looks troubled, but when a brisk knock sounds at the door, none of them prevent her from opening it. Leliana is on the other side, the Nightingale’s gaze sweeping over Athera’s red-rimmed eyes and quirking an eyebrow in question.

“Am I interrupting?” She asks.

“Honestly? Yeah, but I think we’re about due for an interruption. Come in.”

She does, her attention falling on Fenris and Hawke in turn, and a dark expression landing on Varric a moment later. He winces dramatically and takes a couple of steps backwards, but Leliana merely pinches her lips together and waves him away.

“It isn’t me you need to be worried about,” she says. “It’s Cassandra. But, now that we’re all here, what is it that you know?”

The spymaster’s presence is nothing if not commanding, and before long they’ve settled into a discussion about the wardens and Hawke’s contact in the Western Approach. Athera is grateful for the change in subject, and she sits quietly in a corner of the sofa while the Champion and the Nightingale make plans for Hawke, Fenris, and Varric to meet with their anonymous warden and send word back to Skyhold when they’re ready.

When the meeting finally breaks up, it’s already dark outside, and they leave Athera’s rooms with promises to be careful. Leliana lingers at the open doorway, and she tenses uncomfortably while the Nightingale observes her.

“Should I ask what it was that upset you?”

Her voice is sharp, but Athera recognises the concern in her eyes and smiles at her warmly.

“No, it’s fine,” she tells her. “Ancient history, really, but I hadn’t realised I was still upset until I started to talk about it.”

“It’s often the way in times like these,” Leliana replies gently. “When the world falls into chaos, the next moment for quiet can take a long time to arrive. Only when it does do we have the chance to take stock of how we really feel.”

“Do you speak from experience?”

The Nightingale smiles almost wryly.

“I spent a long time with the Hero of Ferelden. Those years didn’t lend themselves to quiet contemplation.”

Athera nods in understanding, and Leliana’s eyes rake over her once more, and she hums as though she’s confirmed something.

“You are doing well here, Athera Lavellan,” she says. “The last year has not been easy, but you have risen to the challenge and we are all the better for it. Do not feel as though you must bury your feelings to lead us. We’re here as your support, and you should take advantage of that when you need to.”

Athera’s expression softens, and she’s touched that Leliana cares enough to offer her comfort. But before she can say so, a cry rings out from the stairway below them, and the two women share a startled glance before rushing in its direction. When they round the corner, the sight that meets them makes Athera’s jaw drop, and Leliana falls still at her side — for once completely speechless.

“If you ever hurt her again, I will stuff every single one of those grooming brushes down your ungrateful throat until you choke on them, is that clear, Bristles?”

Revas is splayed out on the floor, half-leaning against a wall, and Varric is glaring down at him with fury in every line of his body. Hawke and Fenris are at his back, and there’s blood dripping from Revas’ mouth and bruises blooming across one side of his face. Athera makes as though to rush forward, but Leliana catches her by the arm, while the ancient elf’s eyes flicker guiltily towards her and then back to Varric again.

He works his jaw, checking that it isn’t broken, and then looks up at the dwarf calmly.

“I think that’s only fair, Master Tethras,” he says.

Varric observes him for a long moment, and then nods.

“We understand each other, then?”

“I believe that we do.”

The dwarf reaches out a hand to help him up, and Revas allows himself to be pulled back to his feet.

“Good,” Varric growls. “And I don’t want to see you using magic to clear those bruises up, either.”

“I wouldn’t dream of it,” Revas says sincerely.

Athera is still standing, open-mouthed on the stairway, when Solas steps through the door besides Revas, and promptly finds himself laid out flat on the floor by a decisive punch from Fenris. At that, she does let out a shout of horror and leap forward, only to be blocked by Hawke and Varric while the Dread Wolf blinks dazedly up at his attacker.

Athera’s heart is racing, and she watches in disbelief as he makes the same careful check of his jaw that Revas had, before tilting his head in question.

“That was for getting Athera into a situation where your former friend nearly killed her and none of us were told about it,” Fenris growls.

Solas’ expression clears, and much like his former friend, he nods and seems to agree.

“I believe that punch has been a long time in coming,” he says coolly. “I am glad she has others who care for her.”

Fenris doesn’t back down as quickly as Varric did, looming over Solas while his lyrium marks flicker dangerously beneath his skin. Behind him, Revas is wearing a smug expression, even while he nurses the growing swelling across one side of his face. Eventually, the tension becomes too much for Athera, and she rushes down the stairs to help Solas back to his feet.

He looks up at her with a soft expression, despite the blossoming bruise around his eye, and when she opens her mouth to apologise he places his finger to her lips.

“Do not, my star,” he says gently. “Your friends are right to defend you.”

She huffs, somehow dangerously close to either hysterical laughter or hysterical tears, and instead she presses a kiss to his hand and turns to face her companions.

“Is that enough now, do you think?” She asks weakly.

They look between each other, considering, and then Hawke grins.

“I mean, I’m a little jealous that I didn’t get to punch anyone, but yeah. I think we all know where we stand now. Right?”

She claps Athera on the shoulder and ushers Fenris and Varric down the stairs, and with an amused look at all of them, Leliana takes her leave as well. When they’re gone, Athera looks helplessly between Revas and Solas, who are both staring at each other with matching expressions of distrust. This time, when she opens her mouth to apologise again, it’s Revas who closes his hand over her face and shakes his head sadly.

“Do not ever apologise to me,” he says severely. “Not ever will I need to hear an apology from your lips. Do you understand?”

Her eyes fill with tears, and she nods slowly against his grip and hears Solas let out a breath at her side.

“That may be one of the few things we’ve ever agreed on, lethallin,” he says quietly, and Revas snorts and releases her gently.

“I originally came here to see whether I could make the Champion’s acquaintance before she undoubtedly left, but I think now that I’d rather go in search of some ice for this jaw,” he says with a smile. “Do not feel guilty about this, falon. It is no doubt well deserved.”

He hugs her briefly, and Athera wraps her arms around his neck and buries her face in his shoulder. She feels him sigh against her, and then, so softly that she almost misses it, he speaks four words into her ear.

“Ir bellanaris abelas, da’len.”

When he pulls away, he looks ashamed, and Athera watches him leave with a confused mix of feelings that she can’t even hope to identify. Somehow, she finds herself back in her rooms, with Solas sitting on the sofa and gingerly running his fingers over the swelling around his eye. Her heart clenches at the sight — she’s never seen his face marked for long before — and she kneels next to him and draws healing magic to her fingers before he pushes them away.

“I believe this is the kind of injury that is meant to be borne in public,” he says with a soft smile. “It has been a long time since I’ve allowed myself to show any evidence of vulnerability, but I dare say that it won’t do me any lasting harm to allow the bruises to linger.”

Athera shakes her head, and reaches out to brush the burgeoning black eye as softly as she can.

“It wasn’t your fault,” she whispers guiltily. “You shouldn’t be punished for what Revas did.”

Privately, she thinks that Solas has already been punished enough, but he only smiles and presses a kiss to the tips of her fingers.

“It’s important to your friends that I accept my share of the blame for your injuries,” he says. “I am happy to wear this black eye if it will make them feel better.”

He cocks his head then, considering her, and she swallows down the urge to argue.

“You decided to tell them the truth about Kirkwall after all.”

“I had to,” she says. “There are some secrets I have to keep from them for now, but they’re my friends, and the longer the lie went on the more hurtful it became.”

She looks at him steadily while she says this, and sees both the flash of hurt and the acceptance of its necessity as it flits behind his eyes. The lie about Kirkwall had hurt Solas more than anyone, no matter how necessary it had been. The one thing that’s helped them to rebuild their trust since, is that he knows without doubt that she’d told him the truth as soon as they were reunited again.

Now, he lets her trail gentle kisses over his face in apology, and his fingers grip just a little too tightly at her hip.

“I’m sorry you must keep my secret from your friends,” he says softly. “It is one of the many burdens of leadership that I would never wish upon you, vhenan.”

She nestles into his side and wraps her arms around his waist, drained by all of the drama of the day and needing to reassure herself that he’s okay.

“It’s less the burdens of leadership, and more the burdens of friendship that I’m worried about right now,” she admits.

Solas chuckles lightly above her and presses his face into her hair.

“Friendships can be burdensome,” he agrees. “But there are far worse burdens to bear.”

Athera shifts herself slightly and nuzzles under his jaw.

“Even when my burdens end up giving you a black eye?”

Solas laughs and kisses her temple fondly.

“Even then, vhenan,” he says. “Although I wouldn’t say no to some ice.”

Chapter Text

Over the next two weeks, Athera discovers one crucial thing about the burden of leadership: it involves paperwork.

A lot of paperwork.

If she isn’t poring over intelligence with Leliana, then she’s answering never-ending requests at her desk, or scribbling notes to the myriad servants and runners who way-lay her on her way across the castle. She’s signed so many requisition orders she’s thinking of giving herself the official title Hoarder of Itemised Stuff, and if one more letter comes her way she thinks she might start screaming.

Unfortunately, the letters manage to find her anyway.

__

Athera,

We’ve cleared most of the undead out of Crestwood and closed the rift beneath the lake. The weather’s improved now the magic’s been calmed and the supply lines are opening up.

The people here need more aid than we’ve sent — especially food and materials to rebuild their homes with.

The bastard of a mayor flooded the lower village when the Blight infected his people. He’s gone missing and left them leaderless. Can I request the Nightingale puts someone on his tail?

Ellana

__

Da’mi,

Well done with the rift and the undead, I know that can’t have been easy. Cullen’s putting together another convoy of aid and it’ll be there in a week.

You’re right, the mayor is a bastard and I’ve set the Nightingale on his case. He won’t stay out of her reach for very long so I expect him in Skyhold soon.

Stay put with your team for now and help where you can. I’ll send word when I know what’s coming next.

A.

__

Starfire,

We’ve been watching the Dalish camp in the Dirthavaren for a few weeks. They seem content enough here despite the civil war raging around them. Yesterday I and a couple of others introduced ourselves, and even though they’re wary of us there are things we can do to help. I think some basic support here will soften them to the Inquisition’s cause.

Requesting canine leather, iron, and great bear hides to restock their stores.

In the meantime, we’ve been seeing strange magic from Gaspard’s battlements. I know you didn’t want to take a stand in the war so soon, but I think you’ll need to send some fighters in here to clear them out. There’s a whiff of necromancy about this that none of us are comfortable with.

Lori.

PS: Do you have any ideas about how to catch a flighty halla? All tips gratefully received!

__

Lori,

Consider your requests fulfilled because I’m a generous overlord. That magic sounds like a problem, so stay clear of it until I can send Ellana and her team to you to take a closer look.

Dareth, lethallin. Don’t do anything stupid.

Starfire.

PS: Spread out, stay quiet, and then shepherd it like hell!

__

Da’mi,

I just got word from Loranil that there’s strange magic being used by Gaspard’s men in the Dirthavaren. You’ve got a good team with you already and Vivienne knows more than most, even if she never lets anyone forget it.

Once you’ve confirmed that Cullen’s convoy has reached Crestwood, move out to the Plains. Scout Harding and Loranil will both meet you there, but be careful. A civil war’s a dangerous place to be.

Dareth shiral, as’lin.

Athera.

__

Inquisitor,

We’ve received reports of unrest in the Denerim alienage. The nobles are saying that elves have gone on strike and are demanding better wages.

They’re blaming the revolt on Starfire Keep and are asking us to send aid.

What should we tell them?

Charter.

__

Inquisitor,

Another report has come through from Starkhaven. The alienage is burning, but this time so are some of the other areas of the city. It seems the elves finally got tired of taking orders and now Sebastian Vale is asking the Inquisition to send men to calm everything down.

We await your orders and are ready to move on your command.

Cullen.

__

Starfire,

The Inquisition’s people have done wonders for the Keep. We’ve got more people here than ever and our numbers keep growing.

The shems in Val Royeaux want to bargain for their workers to return, but most of the elves here are wary about getting screwed over by the nobles. Can you can spare a diplomat or two to help us with the talks?

It seems you’re changing the world over there, Inquisitor. Don’t forget about us, okay?

Taralin.

PS: Nellas says that if you can send some spices he’d be grateful. The man’s set up another restaurant with Dhaveira and he wants to experiment with new flavours.

__

Inquisitor,

There are now reports of seven alienage uprisings in different towns and cities across southern Thedas.

We need to discuss this soon.

Leliana.

__

Late in the evening, Athera drags herself away from her piles of requests and joins the advisors in the war room. Cassandra and Solas are there as well, and she already knows that it’s going to be a long night.

“Coffee?” She asks hopefully.

Solas hands her a cup just the way she likes it — strong and sweet, with a dash of cold milk. She smiles at him gratefully and then turns to the war table, tracking over the movements of their people and confirming what she already knows.

“Alright then,” she says at last. “What are our most pressing problems?”

Leliana steps forward, and Athera focuses on her.

“We’re monitoring the situation in the Emprise and the Graves. Getting close to Sahrnia is difficult because of the sudden cold snap, but our scouts are beginning to make headway.”

“Should we send a convoy in?”

“The entry points are treacherous and there’s undoubtedly a Red Templar presence there,” Cullen replies. “We need more intelligence before we can send anyone in.”

“Indeed,” the Nightingale agrees. “For now, we must wait for the scouts to do their work.”

Athera’s forehead creases in thought, but eventually she nods and moves on.

“And the Graves?”

This time, it’s Cullen who answers, his expression troubled.

“A former Templar, Samson, is operating in the area as part of Corypheus’ forces. I’d like to send more men and more of Leliana’s people inside to find out what he’s working on.”

“You know him?” She asks curiously.

“I knew him, once,” he replies, his expression dark. “He isn’t someone we want moving around without our knowledge.”

Athera watches him steadily, but the Commander doesn’t seem to want to discuss the issue further, so she only nods and agrees to scope out Samson’s known hideouts. The atmosphere in the room has grown tense, and she knows that all of her advisors are waiting for a delicate way to question her about the elves. The truth is, she doesn’t know what to do about them.

The thought of an elven uprising is tantalising, but with Corypheus still at work, she can’t afford to wage open war against shemlen society by sending men to aid them. Nor can she bear to send a military force to subdue them. Her kin deserve fair wages and living conditions, and she can’t deny that a small part of her wants to see them burn the nobles to the ground. As Inquisitor, she has to put that part of herself aside, and it feels like a betrayal even now.

She lets out a long breath and rests her hands on the war table, glancing from face to face before she begins.

“Okay,” she says at last. “How bad is the situation with the elves and what are our options for dealing with it?”

The advisors release a collective breath, but Solas only meets her gaze and then looks away again.

“We’ve had requests from across southern Thedas,” Leliana begins. “All of the leaders want a military response, flying under the Inquisition’s banner.”

Athera feels nauseous, and she closes her eyes and draws in a deep breath.

“I will not send soldiers to slaughter my people,” she says quietly. “Not even with a sword against my neck.” She looks back at them and meets their attention head on. “What are our other options?”

“Inquisitor,” Cullen says tentatively. “The nobles aren’t asking for a slaughter. Merely a peace-keeping presence to manage the hostilities. It would be a show of strength and support from our organisation to their population, nothing more.”

His expression is open and guileless, but Athera has to make a concerted effort to control the rage that rises in her chest. When she speaks, her voice is hard, and she digs her nails into the wood beneath her and braces herself for an argument.

“What they want is for an elf who’s risen to power to pick a side, and to choose human society over the plight of the elves,” she says coldly. “There’s no such thing as a peace-keeping soldier, and a military force is only ever a threat. I will not have my people see me send fighters to help subdue them when their demands are more than reasonable.”

“They’re lighting cities on fire!” Cullen argues.

“With good reason,” she shoots back.

The atmosphere in the room sizzles like water on the boil, and Cullen crosses his arms.

“Violence isn’t the way to progress,” he says, and Athera barks out a bitter laugh that sounds caustic even to her.

“Violence is all that the city elves have ever experienced from the nobles who trap them in those slums,” she snarls. “They have no negotiators, no ambassadors, no legal standing whatsoever in the cities they’re forced to call home. They are beaten, abused, bullied into poverty and kept there with an iron fist. Starfire Keep is proof that shemlen society will crumble without its elven workforce. It’s about time the nobles realised that for themselves.”

“So you’re simply going to let them run riot?” Cullen snaps. “When Corypheus is still out there causing chaos?”

“Of course not!” She says exasperatedly. “That’s why we’re having this conversation! But I will not take up arms against the elves, and I will not betray my people’s trust merely to keep the peace.”

She’s breathing heavily by the time she finishes, and she takes a few steadying breaths and looks back down at the table.

“We will not send soldiers,” she says softly. “That is not up for debate. So, I’ll ask you again, what are our other options?”

When she next looks up, the advisors are looking between each other warily, but she sees a subtle half-smile settle on Solas’ lips and knows that she’s made the right choice.

“Perhaps the answer to your question is in your earlier argument,” Josie says thoughtfully. “You said that the elves have no legal standing, no negotiators to put forward their demands.”

Athera nods uncertainly and watches her ambassador think.

“Well then,” Josie says at last. “Why don’t we give them some? Send diplomats to the alienages instead.”

Athera frowns in thought, and then looks to Leliana who’s watching her with a sharp smile on her lips.

“We’d have to be careful,” she says slowly. “The Inquisition couldn’t be seen to be taking sides.”

“No,” Solas agrees. “But if you could send a diplomat to each city under the Inquisition’s banner, then it would certainly send a message.”

“Is it the kind of message we want to send though?” Cassandra asks, and Athera gestures for Solas to continue.

He takes a moment to organise his thoughts, and then steps up closer to the table.

“The shemlen want you to pick a side,” he tells her. “They assume, because you have neither the might nor the will to start a war, that you will side with them. But they would also say, at least publicly, that they bear no ill will towards the elves.”

Athera nods slowly, thinking.

“The subjugation of the elves isn’t explicit,” she understands. “The humans will argue that they employ elves and live alongside us, so that in essence they’re neutral to our existence. Even if we all know that isn’t the case, that’s the image they want to present.”

“Exactly,” Solas says, his eyes flashing. “So, give them what they say that they want. Give them true neutrality, and watch them try and then fail to justify their anger at your response.”

“You would tie their hands,” Leliana says. “An Inquisition diplomat, tasked with overseeing talks between the elves and the nobles, would ensure that the elves get a fair hearing.”

“And because it’s an act of neutrality, something that the elves have never been afforded before, it would be seen as explicit support for them while leaving the humans with no official way to complain,” Athera realises. “Brilliant.”

Her heart is racing, and she feels a fluttering hope take root in her stomach that’s almost too painful to bear. Solas is smiling at her warmly, and even Cullen seems mollified for now.

“Can we do it?” She asks Josie. “Do we have people who could do this without prejudice?”

To her surprise, Josie scowls, and then smirks at her dangerously.

“A diplomat’s first loyalty is to their organisation, Inquisitor, not to their people, family or friends,” she says. “If the Inquisitor sends a diplomat to ensure that fairness is carried out on both sides of these talks, then that is what will be done. No more, and no less. It would be dishonourable to act otherwise.”

Athera swallows hard, a nervous energy running beneath her skin.

“Taralin already asked for this,” she tells them. “The rulers in Val Royeaux want to negotiate the return of their elven workforce, and she’s already requested our help.”

“Starfire Keep could be the perfect test case for us,” Josie says. “Not only is it the Orlesian capital, but the population of Val Royeaux is already struggling without its workers. They know they need the elves to return, which gives us a strong starting position to work from.”

For a moment, everyone is quiet, and then Cullen lets out a breath and nods decisively.

“It could work, Inquisitor,” he says. “It will need to be handled carefully, but…” He rubs the back of his neck awkwardly, and then sighs and meets her gaze. “If there’s a chance that we can broker a better deal for the elves without waging a war, then it’s certainly worth us trying.”

Athera looks back at him for a long moment, and then draws herself up to her full height.

“Let’s do it,” she says. “Let the people who’ve requested aid know that we’ll be sending diplomats to meet with both the nobles and the elves, and that Val Royeaux will be the first city to host them. Oh, and Josie?” She turns to her ambassador with a feral smile. “I want to be there at Starfire Keep.”

Josie meets her gaze with a twinkle in her eyes, and then dips her head in a bow.

“I will see that it is done, Inquisitor.”

Athera lets out a long breath and smiles at her tiredly.

“Thank you, Josie. I appreciate it.”

“In the meantime,” Leliana cuts in. “We’ve received word from Hawke in the Western Approach. The Champion requests your presence now they’ve met with their warden contact and identified a Venatori presence in the desert.”

“I expected this,” Athera says. “I’ve already warned Bull and Dorian to be ready to leave.”

“And Solas?” Leliana asks curiously.

She meets his eye across the table, and one of his cheeks dimples when he smiles back at her fondly.

“I intend to travel with the Inquisitor, Sister Nightingale,” he says calmly. “I would imagine that goes without saying.”

***

The meeting breaks up not long after that, and Athera and Solas retire to her quarters long after midnight. The castle is quiet, but she can feel a bubbling, frenetic emotion pulsing through the stone walls. When the door closes behind them, she turns to find Solas with his arms open and waiting for her, and she walks into his embrace without a word and tucks her head under his chin.

“You did well today, my star,” he murmurs. “I was proud to watch you at work.”

She releases a long breath against his neck, her shoulders unwinding while she twists her fingers into his tunic and tries to release the tension in her muscles.

“I’m worried about them,” she says quietly. “The elves, I mean. It’s going to take time for Josie to organise the negotiations, and in the meantime I won’t be able to support them visibly if the shemlen send in chevaliers to subdue them.”

“The city elves aren’t stupid, my star,” Solas says quietly. “They know what they’re risking by challenging the lords of their cities.”

“That won’t make it any easier if they’re slaughtered.”

She soaks up the comfort he offers for a moment longer, and then pulls away while worry courses through her like a physical thing. Solas watches while she runs an agitated hand through her hair, her eyes distant and deep in thought.

“You have given them hope, vhenan,” he says at last. “They look at what you and the Herald have achieved here, and the way the elves of Val Royeaux were able to defy their rulers and survive, and they see an opportunity for more. Would you deny them the chance to take their lives into their own hands, perhaps for the very first time?”

“Of course not!” She says. “I just… I didn’t mean for this to happen, Solas. I know where I stand with the revas’shiral. I know how to protect my people there, but I never intended for Starfire Keep to be a challenge to human society. I just wanted to keep everyone safe.”

“Do you regret its existence?”

“No! I could never…” She replies, frustrated and unsettled. “But I didn’t plan for this. The elves are fighting back believing that I’ll stand with them, but as Inquisitor my hands are tied! I can’t send soldiers to help them without starting a war, and I can’t stop the shemlen from attacking them. I just… I feel like I set this in motion, and now I’m abandoning them to whatever happens between now and the negotiations.”

She scrubs a hand over her eyes, her shoulders bowing and a hopeless expression falling over her face.

“I don’t know how to protect them, Solas,” she finishes in a small voice. “How can I protect them?”

She stares at him helplessly, and he looks back at her with both sadness and understanding in his eyes. With a sudden lurch, Athera realises that there’s perhaps no-one in the world who understands her situation better than he does, and her gaze softens as he steps up to her and presses his forehead to her temple.

“This is yet another burden I wouldn’t have wished for you,” he murmurs against her cheek. “But if you’re amenable, I may have some ideas.”

She nods and lets him start to undress her carefully; his touch a comfort rather than an intent for more.

“You are correct that you can’t send Inquisition soldiers to help them, but you aren’t without access to more covert means of support.”

“What do you mean?”

“I mean, vhenan, that you have the revas’shiral under your leadership, as well as links to a number of Dalish clans.”

“I won’t ask them to fight the chevaliers,” she says sharply. “They wouldn’t stand a chance against a shemlen army.”

Solas helps her out of her tunic and then folds it neatly by the side of the bed, his hands coming back to smooth soothingly over her arms.

“I am not advising you to raise an elven army, my star,” he says with a smile. “Merely suggesting that an elven presence may make the nobles think twice before attacking the alienages.”

She frowns as she lifts his tunic over his head, laying it on top of hers and running her palms over his chest.

“Explain?”

He reaches for the buckle of her belt and she lets him tug it free while he thinks.

“The revas’shiral are a clandestine organisation. They are used to operating in the shadows. Would it be so difficult to send a few of your people into each alienage, to help the city elves develop escape routes and supply lines beyond the human’s reach?”

She steps out of her leggings, and Solas leads her to the bed and lies down next to her, draping a fur over them both and waiting while she thinks.

“It’s… Better than nothing,” she decides carefully. “And the Dalish?”

“Malicious compliance,” he smiles, a shade of the trickster he’d once been flashing in his eyes. “There are no laws against the Dalish making camp on the outskirts of a city, as long as they move every few days. Have the clans move within sight of each city where the talks are due to happen, far enough away that they can’t be considered a threat, but close enough that the nobles will have to think twice before raising arms against the elves.”

He cups her face in his palm and smiles warmly down at her.

“It should buy you enough time for the negotiators to arrive, and if it will make you feel better, I will have some of my agents keep an eye on things and report to me if there’s any serious unrest. Does that help?”

He tilts his chin to consider her, and Athera feels her heart swell and her body sink into the bed. He’s leaning over her on his side, shadows gathered in the hollows of his collarbones and his expression gentle and open. She realises, suddenly, that there’s no-one else she would rather be here with, and no-one she would trust more to help her.

It sometimes bewilders her, that this man with all of his pain and all of his experience and all of his impossibly long life, has chosen her to be with. That he would lie here in the middle of the night and work to help her people, means more to her than anything anyone else could ever give her. She feels emotion swell in her throat, and she leans up and kisses him softly, pressing gentleness and love into his skin until she’s sure that he must understand how important he is.

“Ar lath ma,” she whispers against his lips, and he smiles and nuzzles at her cheek.

“Ar lath ma, vhenan,” he says softly. “Never feel that you must do this alone. I have… Many lifetimes of experience in these matters. I will always help you if I can.”

“I know,” she smiles up at him. “You wouldn’t have given us a castle if you didn’t want to help.”

He snorts at the teasing expression on her face and pulls her down to lay on his chest. With a wave of his hand, the lights in the room are extinguished, and she burrows into him and hides her smile against his skin.

“While that is true, I must correct you on one point, my star,” he says.

“Oh? And what’s that?”

He sighs into her hair, and she feels him tighten his hold on her while all around them, Skyhold’s magic sings.

“I didn’t give Skyhold to the Inquisition, vhenan,” he says quietly. “I gave her as a gift to you.”

Chapter Text

They arrive on the Western Approach two weeks later, after riding hard while the scenery transforms around them, shifting from the cold white of the mountains to the sharp gold of the heat-stricken desert. Almost instantly, Athera knows this isn’t a climate she could ever live comfortably in; but at least she doesn’t hate it as much as Solas.

He tries to hide it, but on the first day as the sun beats down and the air shimmers like a mirage, she catches the Dread Wolf positively scowling at the sky while he casts a subtle sunblock spell over the top of his head. She turns away quickly before he can see her smile, and adds another piece of knowledge to the list she keeps inside her head: Fen’Harel is a creature better suited to a temperate climate. And he can get sunburnt after all.

The thought is oddly endearing, and she finds that she’s smiling to herself every time she catches his lips turning down in a moue of displeasure, when another gust of cloyingly hot air whips the sand up into their faces.

No, Fen’Harel doesn’t like the desert at all.

Dorian, meanwhile, is positively basking in the warmth, tipping his chin back to the sun and closing his eyes in contentment.

“You know,” she says casually, as they walk from base camp on the first day. “I think we gave you the wrong nickname, Peacock.”

He tilts his head over his shoulder to look at her, a curious expression on his face.

“Oh?”

She hums.

“We should have called you Lizard, for how much you enjoy sunning yourself at every opportunity.”

Ahead of them, Bull lets out a bark of laughter and Dorian frowns in mock-offence.

“I’ll have you know that I’m far too pretty to be a lizard,” he sniffs primly.

“Oh, I don’t know about that ‘Vint,” Bull chuckles. “Stay out in the sun much longer and your pretty skin might just turn into a set of scales.”

Dorian scowls and flicks his hand dismissively.

“Meanwhile, your unsightly hide is leathery enough to be made into boots already.”

“Oh, ouch.”

“Children, please,” Athera says fondly. “Let’s leave the bickering for after we’ve met up with the Warden, okay?”

“Sorry, Little Red” Bull grins. “He just makes it so easy.”

Dorian only scowls, and mutters something that sounds suspiciously like I’ll show you easy, you lumbering great ox. Athera smiles and quirks her eyebrow at Solas, but he’s too busy narrowing his eyes at the sand as though he might be able to vanish it from the face of the earth by sheer will alone. She muffles a snort and looks out over the terrain, hoping for the Dread Wolf’s sake that they don’t encounter anything too difficult between the camp and the cave.

Unfortunately, her hopes go unanswered. They encounter varghests, White Claw Raiders, and have to shelter out of the sight of a high dragon on their trek across the desert. By the time they reach the meeting place, they’re all hot, sticky, and bad tempered; and none of them more so than Solas. It’s a relief to enter the comparative coolness of the cave, but something in the atmosphere makes her uneasy.

“Go carefully,” she murmurs to her group. “I’d have expected Hawke to be here by now.”

There’s a general hum of agreement, and they each ready their weapons as she leads them carefully through the tunnel. At the door, she hesitates, listening for any sound of someone on the other side. When nothing obvious meets her ears, she eases it slowly open and steps into the cavern.

The cave is well-lit, but shadows collect in the corners and she’s surprised to find a desk and a set of chairs strewn haphazardly around the space. She notices a low cot tucked into the alcove furthest from the door, and piles of scattered papers, and then she has no more time to notice anything — because a strong figure looms out of the shadows and pins her against the wall.

The movement is so fast that she doesn’t have time to prepare her bow or defend herself, and the first thing she sees is the grey eyes of her assailant, while the cold bite of a dagger presses against her neck. Her heart jumps into her throat, adrenaline spiking, and then her attacker stiffens and turns rigid against her.

“Release her,” a deadly voice hisses. “Or I will paint these walls with your blood.”

A wicked-looking knife cuts into the man’s throat, and over his shoulder, Athera sees Solas, awaiting the stranger’s choice like an avenging god of nightmares. His eyes are dark and his magic has gone wild, blanketing the room in a web of heat that tastes like lightning and rain. In an instant, the man releases his blade and lets it clatter to the floor at his feet.

Before she can so much as blink, Solas has yanked him backwards and away from her and placed himself between them, every inch a furious god. The man falls hard onto the stone, and then there’s the sound of running and shouting, and Hawke and her company burst into the room.

“Woah there!” She yells. “No need for anyone to get themselves killed. Stroud, this is Inquisitor Athera Lavellan.” She meets Athera’s eye with a wry and knowing look. “And this is Solas, her lover, which I assume you’ve gathered already.”

“Could’ve used that warning a little earlier, Champion,” the man says gruffly from the floor.

Next to the doorway, Varric and Fenris are both trying not to smirk, and Dorian helps the Warden to his feet.

“Yeah, well, I didn’t expect you to hold a dagger to her neck the second she walked in here, did I?”

“I’m on the run!” Stroud snaps back. “What else did you think I was going to do?”

Athera clears her throat awkwardly, standing on her tip-toes to peer over Solas’ shoulder, since he’s still braced like a guard-wolf between them.

“Do you think we might start this again?” She asks tentatively.

“I think it’s your mage you need to clear that with, Little Red,” Bull says warily. “That was a hell of a display.”

She takes in the watchful way Bull’s staring at Solas, and has to suppress a wince. More than anyone else, Bull hasn’t taken the news of his ancient origins well, and this is the first time they’ve been in the field together since the secret came out. She probably should have given them a chance to talk before they travelled here, but there’s nothing she can do about it now.

She touches Solas lightly instead, curling her hand around his elbow and moving him carefully out of the way. He goes willingly, but up close, she can still feel the magic crackling beneath his skin, and he doesn’t take his eyes off Stroud.

“No harm done,” she says. “It’s good of you to meet with us, Warden Stroud.”

The man, older and gruffer than she’d expected, eyes Solas nervously and then turns his gaze back to her.

“I’m at your service, Inquisitor. Hawke’s told me a lot about you.”

She inclines her head in acknowledgement.

“Help me to add this up then. Most of the Wardens disappear, then I run into a darkspawn magister named Corypheus. Do you think that one might have something to do with the other?”

“I fear that’s correct. When Hawke killed Corypheus, Weisshaupt was happy to put the matter to rest. But an archdemon can survive wounds that seem fatal, and I feared that the magister might possess the same power. My investigation uncovered clues, but no proof. Then, not long after, every Warden in Orlais began to hear the Calling.”

Athera’s blood runs cold, and she scrubs a hand over her face.

“Fenedhis lasa,” she curses. “So the Wardens all think that they’re dying?

“Exactly that,” Stroud says. “But we are the only ones who can slay archdemons, and without us the next Blight will consume the world. Warden-Commander Clarel has grown panicked. She spoke of a blood magic ritual to prevent future Blights before we all perished. When I protested this plan as madness, my own comrades turned on me.”

She curses again, and Stroud leads her to tattered map laid out on the table nearby.

“The Grey Wardens are gathering here in the Western Approach,” he tells her. “It’s an ancient ritual tower, but from everything I’ve seen, I don’t believe that they’ll be ready to begin whatever magic they’re testing for another few weeks.”

She frowns down at the markings, and then heaves a heavy sigh.

“I can’t stay here for that long,” she tells him. “But we can’t let this go unchecked. Hawke?”

“Here, Starfire.”

“What do you say about you, Varric, and Fen keeping an eye on things with Stroud here for a while?”

“Great,” Fenris grunts. “More sand.”

She gives him an apologetic look, and holds her hands out helplessly.

“If I could stay, I would,” she says honestly. “The elves in Val Royeaux have requested help bargaining with the nobles. I can’t leave them unsupported.”

Fenris leans an elbow against the wall and observes her consideringly.

“That’s the makeshift city state you’ve had built for them, right?”

She nods, and he huffs out a wry breath.

“As far as excuses go, it’s a good one U’venise. I’ll give you that.”

“So, what’s the plan then, Little Red?” Bull asks.

He’s still keeping his eye on Solas, but she counts it as a win that he hasn’t left the room.

“I think that Hawke’s team should stay behind and monitor the ritual site. Stay in regular contact with Leliana, and if anything changes let us know. Engage if you need to, but be careful. We don’t know what this ritual might be.”

“And you?” Hawke asks her.

“We’ll stick around for a couple of days and see if we can clear out some of these Venatori. Then Solas and I will travel overland to Val Royeaux, and Bull and D can head back to Skyhold and report in person. That way, Varric can head back with them if he likes as well.”

Bull heaves a wistful sigh and shakes his head ruefully.

“You’re really not gonna let me fight that dragon, are you?”

She gives him a sympathetic smile and shakes her head.

“Sorry Bull, not this time.”

“Figures.”

***

They part ways with Stroud and Hawke’s company again outside the tunnel, deciding that too many of them camping in one place would draw too much attention to the Warden. When night falls, Athera finds herself sitting by a campfire skinning fennecs for dinner, and wondering where Solas has got to. Dorian is chatting incessantly about how much sand has infiltrated every bodily crevice, and she’s grateful that he’s attempting to defuse the tension she can feel emanating from Bull.

The Qunari hasn’t said much since Solas’ threat in the cave, but she can tell his magic’s unsettled him. She suspects that the Dread Wolf has made himself scarce, both to put his own mask back in place, and to give the Ben-Hassrath some time to calm down. Right now, she thinks that was probably a good idea. She keeps half an eye on Bull while she arranges the meat over the fire, noting the tightly-held power in his body as he cleans his axe methodically. She isn’t naïve enough to ignore that he’s making an obvious threat.

“Honestly, dear one, you do bring me to the most terrible places,” Dorian says as he flings himself down next to her. “The Hinterlands, a dying world, the snowiest little backwards town in Thedas, and now a place where the sand gets into one’s undergarments and sets up its own little home there. It just won’t do, you know.”

She smiles at him gratefully while she rinses her hands.

“Technically, D, you sent yourself to the Hinterlands. I just met you there.”

“A mere triviality,” he says. “What excuse do you have for everywhere else, then?”

She shrugs and drapes a blanket over her shoulders to guard against the night’s chill.

“I don’t know. Variety is the spice of life?”

He snorts, and she grins back at him slyly.

“Besides, I did bring you to Skyhold as well. Don’t you like your little library?”

“I’d like it more if it was better stocked and less stuffed with egregious propaganda.”

“Sorry, not my department. That’s something you’ll have to take up with Josie.”

Bull doesn’t acknowledge their conversation, but across the fire she sees him stiffen, and a moment later Solas arrives from behind her and sits gracefully at her side. At once, she feels the worst of her nerves dissolve, and she leans into him and accepts the kiss he brushes gently against her lips.

“Are you okay?” She asks him softly.

“I ought to be the one asking you that, vhenan.”

His thumb brushes lightly over the place where Stroud’s dagger had been, and his eyes search her face in concern.

“He didn’t hurt me, ma lath. You saw to that.”

The sound of the whetstone scraping against Bull’s axe meets her ears, and she sighs long-sufferingly and turns to face him.

“I know you have something to say, Iron Bull. Let me serve up dinner first, alright?”

He studies her shrewdly, and then sets his weapon down at his side. A peace-offering of sorts, she thinks, and is grateful for small mercies. Dorian helps her to portion out the roasted fennec along with mugs of ale, and then they settle down around the flames.

“So,” she says, looking between Solas and Bull. “Where do you want to start?”

To her surprise, it’s Dorian who takes the initiative first.

“Is it true that all elves used to be mages, Solas? Before my country… You know?”

Solas chews his mouthful thoughtfully and regards him with a smirk.

“No-one was a mage before Elvhenan fell,” he says. “There was no such thing as a mage, precisely because there was no such thing as a non-mage. To be without magic was unheard of, and as such, we had no need to name something that was, to us, as natural as breathing.”

“And you think that’s normal?” Bull asks sharply. “To mess with the fabric of things like you did in the cave?”

Solas sips his drink and considers the Qunari through the flames.

“Magic is as natural as a breath of spring air or a storm out at sea, The Iron Bull,” he says calmly. “It can be beautiful, powerful, dangerous or playful. What matters is how it’s used, and to what purpose the caster manipulates it. To wield magic for me is no more unnatural than wielding that axe is for you — except, of course, that you were not born with an axe already in your hand.”

Athera watches the interplay between them for signs of violence, but she sees nothing more than a weighted tension, while they search for where to draw the line between each other’s experiences.

“Was Elvhenan very much different from societies today?” Dorian asks then. “Before Tevinter… Well?”

At this, Solas does smile, and turns fully to face him.

“Let us get this out of the way now, Dorian,” he says, not unkindly. “Your ancestors may have conquered the Elvhen, but our empire had already fallen long before humans came to our shores. Our immortality was already waning and magic had fled from the world. Your countrymen certainly have much to answer for, but the destruction of Elvhenan was not of their doing. They merely picked over the carcass of a once mighty foe. They were not what brought it to its knees.”

Athera is surprised to see that Dorian is unsettled by this. But then, she supposes, the conquering of Elvhenan is a supporting pillar of Tevinter’s identity, as well as the proof of its strength. Even if, morally, the altus might object to it, their status as Conqueror is an important part of their mythos.

“What did cause the collapse of the empire then?” Bull asks, and this time he sounds more curious than combative.

Beside her, Solas’ shoulders fall, and she shoots a worried glance at him while he gathers his thoughts.

“You asked, Dorian, about whether Elvhenan was much different to the societies of today, and to that I must answer both yes and no. Yes, in regards to many things that matter greatly, and no in regards to many others that matter just as much.”

His voice has become soft and lilting, nostalgic in a way that tells her he’s hurting. Athera resists the impulse to reach out for his hand, knowing that this conversation is important to them all.

“In a world of immortals, where magic was simply a state of nature, so much more was possible,” he says wistfully. “People hear stories about elves living in trees, and they think of wooden ramps or of Dalish aravels. Instead, imagine spires of crystal twining through the branches, palaces floating among the clouds. Imagine beings who lived forever, who studied and built some of the greatest works of art or feats of engineering ever known. Imagine a place where the only limit to creation was imagination, and all of the world was a song being sung at the same pitch.”

His eyes are shadowed, and Athera aches for him while he draws in a careful breath.

“As to what caused the collapse of the empire, Bull, the simple answer is greed. For all of the Elvhen’s knowledge and all of our understanding, there have always been tyrants in the world. For immortals, power could be gathered over many thousands of years, and boredom wasn’t something we were immune to.”

“The ancients got bored?” Dorian asks incredulously, and Solas offers him a small smile.

“Once you have everything, what else is there to attain?” He asks. “Our rulers were remarkable, but also arrogant, and supremely concerned with elevating themselves above all others. Petty squabbles between them could become vicious wars that lasted for centuries. Imagine, for instance, the Imperium’s worst back-stabbing and political machinations elevated over millennia, and you may have some idea of how the collapse came about.”

Dorian frowns thoughtfully towards the fire, and Bull grunts in begrudging understanding.

“So your perfect world of magic wasn’t so perfect after all.”

Solas’ mouth twists in displeasure, and he shoots the Qunari an unimpressed look that he meets head on.

“I have never claimed that Elvhenan was perfect,” he replies. “Far from it. But it was remarkable. And…” He swallows and lowers his eyes. “It was my home.”

There’s silence after that, and Athera gives into the urge to comfort him and takes his hand in hers. He doesn’t look up, but he does smile sadly and twine their fingers together, and she brushes a kiss to his temple and leans against his side.

“And where did you fit into that society?” Bull asks at last. “What role did you play?”

Solas sighs quietly and presses closer against her.

“I was… Caught up in events,” he says softly.

She squeezes his hand in silent support, and the logs spit sparks into the sky. Solas stares into the fire in silence for a moment longer, and his gaze grows distant and pained.

“I have fought in many wars, The Iron Bull,” he says heavily at last. “And each one was more devastating than this.”

Chapter Text

Their rooms in Val Royeaux are different from the last time the Inquisition had passed through the city. Then, the new Herald and her company had paid their own coin for space at an inn, but when Athera and Solas arrive in the capital together, they’re met by an Orlesian noblewoman in a gaudy mask, and taken to a villa in the High Quarter. The building is grand, white marble and gilt, with flowing water features and decorative sculptures scattered in every corner.

Normally, she’d hate anything so ostentatious, but after nearly two weeks of riding hard from the Western Approach to get there, Athera is happy to be anywhere that will offer them a bath and a bed.

“Inquisitor, you’ve arrived just in time.”

Josie is waiting for them on the stairway, flanked by Cassandra and Revas. All three of them are clean, composed, and look as though they’ve been taking advantage of the Orlesian luxury for days. By contrast, Athera and Solas are ragged, sweaty, and caked with dust and dirt from the road.

“Josie, it’s good to see you, but please tell me we have time to wash before anyone wants something from us?”

“Hard ride, lethallan?”

“Awful,” she says with feeling. “You look like you’ve made yourself right at home here though.”

Revas smirks and shrugs lightly, the flowing grey robes he’s wearing doing little to hide his ancestry.

“When in Orlais, do as the Orlesians do.”

“I’d rather not,” Cassandra replies. “I had to threaten to punch my attendant before they’d let me leave this morning.”

Josie’s eyes widen comically, and Athera has to hide her smile.

“Cassandra, you didn’t?”

“She wanted to put make-up on me.”

“Andraste preserve us, we’re meant to be making a good impression!” Josie frets, and Solas clears his throat delicately to draw her attention.

“Our rooms, ambassador?” He asks dryly. “Like the Inquisitor, I too would appreciate a chance to wash before these talks begin.”

***

An hour later, Athera finally hauls herself out of the bath and dresses in a pair of brown leggings and a loose white shirt. It’s only mid-afternoon, but the hot water can only do so much for the fatigue and riding pains that come from being on the road for so long. More than anything, she’d like to crawl into bed with Solas and sleep until morning, but that isn’t going to happen.

They’ve been housed in separate but adjoining rooms to avoid rumours about their relationship reaching the shems, and she crosses the floor wearily and knocks on the closed door to his suite. A moment later, it opens, and she has to double-take at the man standing in front of her. Like Revas, Solas has taken advantage of the humans’ finery, and he’s wearing a pair of black linen trousers and a silver tunic, swathed by flowing midnight robes.

Athera finds herself blushing, and the Dread Wolf quirks an eyebrow at her and smirks knowingly.

“You approve then, vhenan?”

“Very much so, except for one thing.”

“Oh?”

“I’m not allowed to take those very grand clothes off you until we’ve done some work.”

He chuckles warmly and draws her in for a gentle kiss, and she lets her fingers play over the soft fabric at his neck.

“As tempting as that is, my star, I believe your ambassador might have something to say about it.”

Right on cue, there’s a knock at the door, and she groans and nuzzles at Solas’ cheek before turning away to answer it. As soon as it opens, Josie strides inside looking both harried and determined, and clutching a teetering stack of papers that make Athera nervous.

“Inquisitor Lavellan, may I present ambassador Lucian Abbott? A diplomat with the Inquisition and one of the finest negotiators at our disposal. Lucian, this is Athera Lavellan and her… Fade expert, Messer Solas.”

Solas bows deferentially while Athera hides her smile, but the man that follows Josie inside looks nothing like she’d expected. He’s tall, wide, with a build more like a warrior — or a boulder — than a politician. His skin is tanned, and his dark hair and beard are neatly trimmed around strong features and a set of storm grey eyes. He looks like he should be standing toe-to-toe in battle with Bull, not sitting down at a small table on the balcony and shaking her by the hand.

“A pleasure,” Athera says, as they take their seats outside. “Abbott’s a Ferelden name, isn’t it?”

“Aye, on my father’s side. I grew up in Tevinter with my mother, but I didn’t much like the politics there, so I came south when I was of age and started work in Orlais.”

He gives her a significant look, and a warm smile that makes his eyes crinkle at the corners, and Athera decides that she likes him at once.

“I’m sure that’s quite a story,” she says. “I’d like to hear it some time.”

“There’ll be plenty of time for that. For now, the talks start tomorrow, and Ambassador Montilyet tells me that you don’t have much experience in these matters?”

She shakes her head, her brow furrowed.

“No,” she admits. “I know how to lead, but negotiation’s a dark art I haven’t been inducted into yet.”

Lucian chuckles good-naturedly and rifles through the papers, before handing her a stack filled with cramped writing.

“Not to worry, we’ll have you up to speed soon enough. The first thing you need to know is that there’s an etiquette to these things. The second, is who you’ll be dealing with.”

“Do we know who that is yet?”

“Aye, we’ll be meeting with Lady Velise Thibault and Lord Pierren desRosiers. At present, they’re the heads of the two main noble houses in Val Royeaux, and they won’t be pushovers, but you have them at a disadvantage.”

“We do?”

He hums thoughtfully and sets out his ledger between them.

“The nobles need their workforce, and Starfire Keep has them. What we need to decide today is how much you want to push for, and how much you’re willing to concede in order to get it.”

***

A few hours later, Athera closes the door behind Lucian and Josie, and leans back against the wood with her eyes closed and a headache thrumming in her temples.

“Solas?” She asks wearily.

“Yes?”

“Never let me be talked into attending diplomatic negotiations again.”

She hears him chuckle, and opens her eyes to find him stretching out the kinks in his neck on the other side of the room.

“Diplomacy is long, dull, and fraught with frustration,” he says. “It’s also frequently better than the alternative I’m afraid.”

“Burning the city down would be quicker.”

She crosses the floor towards him and he gives her a wry and unimpressed look as he slips his arms around her waist.

“You would never do that, vhenan.”

He says it with such quiet conviction that she stills, searching his face for uncertainty and finding none.

“No,” she concedes. “But sometimes I wish that I would.”

His brow furrows, and he brings his hand to her neck and smooths his thumb over her throat.

“You are not destructive, my star,” he murmurs quietly. “After so long mired in war, it is one of the qualities in you that I find myself cherishing the most.” He presses a soft kiss to her temple and rests his cheek against her. “I hope it’s a quality that you manage to hold onto when all of this is over.”

She slips her arms around him and holds him close in return.

“Ma serannas, ma fen,” she says softly. “I trust you to remind me if I ever let it slip.”

They undress each other slowly and carefully, both too exhausted to do much more than fall into bed together and sleep. Solas slips into the Fade quickly, but Athera lies awake for a long time, her ear pressed to his chest to listen to the steady beat of his heart, while she stares at the open balcony doors and the white-net curtains drifting in the breeze. On the road she’d had little time to worry, but here in the peace and quiet of Val Royeaux, she knows that these talks will set the tone for whatever comes next.

She can’t guarantee her people freedom or a home. She can’t even guarantee them safety or support without declaring war on human society — and right now, it isn’t a war they can win. In light of all that the elves have lost, and how long they’ve suffered for it, the Inquisition’s negotiations feel like too little, at the same time that they also feel too good to be true. To have a seat at the table in Orlesian society isn’t something she’d ever dared to hope for, but now that they have it, she wants to wring as many promises out of the nobles as she can.

In the dark, she tightens her hold on Solas and breathes deeply to stem the dull panic that’s threatening to overwhelm her. Whatever’s decided in Val Royeaux over the next few days will have repercussions for every elf across Thedas.

She can’t afford to fail.

***

The next morning, Solas slips back to his own room to ready himself for the day, and Athera stands quietly in the sun-drenched space and allows Josie and an attendant to fuss over her appearance. They’ve dressed her in a flowing dark green robe over a high-necked white shirt and dark leggings, her hair drawn back from her face and held up in a complicated array of twists and curls that she’d never have bothered with herself. In front of the mirror, she looks noble and imposing; the sharp neckline and deep contrast between her red hair and the forest green doing little to hide her Dalish heritage.

When Solas returns they’re putting the finishing touches to her, and she meets his eye in the mirror and finds him giving her a dark and hungry look that makes desire sink low in her stomach. She cocks an eyebrow at him suggestively, and he meets her eyes in the reflection and bites his lip, his own outfit from the day before having a similar effect on her.

“Perfect!” Josie exclaims at last, stepping back from her with a proud smile and her hands clasped beneath her chin. “We must make sure you make the right impression. You’re an elf, yes, but you are also a leader, and the nobles are meeting with you in your capacity as both. There must be no attempt to hide.”

Privately, Athera agrees with her, although it feels strange to look into the glass and see this new person looking back. Her leadership until the Inquisition had been given over to the revas’shiral, sculpted in the forests and between the walls of ramshackle safehouses. She knows how to dress herself for battle and covert operations across the border, but this new style of war — conducted over the negotiator’s table — necessitates a new veneer of strength and poise that she isn’t so used to performing.

A knock at the door makes her stand up straighter, and a then a loud wolf-whistle and a familiar cackle of laughter brings a relieved smile to her lips.

“There she is!” Taralin crows. “There’s our Starfire, ready to kick some noble ass.”

“You look well, lethallan,” Nellas adds, a touch more demurely. “And I have to thank you for the spices you sent with the latest convoy. There’s a good meal waiting at Café Revas for you when all of this is over.”

Athera hugs both of them hard and grins at him widely.

“Café Revas? Are you sure you even need me here if you’re already setting up businesses?”

He smiles and fixes her with a warm look.

“Business in the Keep for a few of us is one thing,” he says seriously. “Today is about making sure that every elf gets the chance to have the same opportunities, no matter where they’re from.”

A shard of anxiety swoops low in Athera’s chest, but she smiles and ushers them across the room to talk. These are the people she’s standing for. She only hopes that she’s strong enough to stand for them without falling.

***

Late in the morning, their carriage pulls up outside another grand villa perched high on the outcrop of the other side of the city. From their new vantage point, the White Spire looms large over the cityscape, and she spares it a distasteful glance as she’s led into a grand entrance hall, flanked by Josie, Lucian, and Taralin. Despite its grandeur, the space is almost oppressively empty, and bears a faint tinge of disuse without its elven servants to maintain it. She wonders how some of the other houses are faring across the capital, and how desperate the shems might already be.

“Inquisitor Lavellan,” a rich voice intones from the stairway. “It’s a pleasure to see you in the flesh at last. So much of your deeds are known to us that it’s a relief to confirm you’re more than mere myth.”

The words carry a hint of irony, and Athera straightens her back as Lord Pierren desRosiers descends the few steps towards her. He’s an older man, close to fifty she would guess, although he dyes his beard deep black and carries the air of a viper.

“Lord desRosiers,” she says smoothly. “The pleasure is all mine. Your home is very beautiful, although a touch under-staffed for its size.”

The woman behind him — Lady Thibault, she presumes — lets out a shocked little gasp, and she can almost feel Josie vibrate with disapproval beside her. Lord Pierren, however, regards her with ill-disguised hunger, and as they take their seats around a mahogany table she feels a dangerous energy in the air.

As they’d planned, she remains silent for the early introductions, allowing Josie and Lucian to review why they’re there, and lay out the terms of the meeting. After much talk over the previous weeks, they’ve decided to present a dossier of elven worker’s rights, the limits of which are to be codified over the coming days. The new dossier includes protections from abuse by employers or chevaliers, termination clauses and references for new work, a minimum wage on a par to that offered to human workers, and a number of finer details to ensure social mobility and the integration of elves into the wider city.

She isn’t naïve enough to assume the nobles will agree to it all, but the protections against abuse and the eradication of the alienage slums are two points that Athera doesn’t intend to let fall by the wayside. It soon becomes clear, however, that Lord desRosiers has no intention of negotiating.

At every suggestion, he refuses, circling around arguments and keeping his dark eyes fixed on Athera. At his side, Lady Thibault sits primly, a smug smile on her lips while even Lucian begins to flounder at their unyielding denials. Athera can feel her jaw becoming tight, her teeth grinding, and she knows that something is wrong.

By the time they call a recess for drinks, Josie and Lucian both look grim, and she sends Taralin outside to cool off before the younger woman can leap across the table with her daggers aimed at the nobles’ necks.

“Lady Thibault,” Josie says from across the room. “Surely you see the value in brokering a deal that is equitable to all parties?”

Athera doesn’t hear whatever the woman’s reply is, because Pierren steps too close to her with his viper’s look, and hands her a glass of wine.

“Are you enjoying these talks, Inquisitor Lavellan?” He asks slyly. “It must make quite a change for you, being able to sit at a table among such company.”

She sips from her glass and keeps her face carefully blank, rolling the wine around her mouth and allowing the flavour to permeate.

“The wine is certainly fine,” she agrees. “Although I can’t say that I care much for the company.”

Lord desRosiers’ arm slips around her waist, his hand drifting dangerously low and his expression oily. She tenses and meets Lucian’s furious expression from the doorway, shaking her head subtly before their boulder of a negotiator can stalk across the room and lay the noble out flat.

“I’m certain we can come to some form of agreement, if you wish to see your kin’s standing similarly improved,” he purrs.

She swallows a wave of nausea and tilts her head to look at him, his face so close that she can smell the funk of tobacco and wine on his breath.

“It was my understanding that this was the purpose of these talks,” she says calmly. “I see no reason to offer you anything more than the concessions my ambassadors have already approved.”

“Oh, I think that you might start to see things my way, little rabbit,” he whispers. “Shall I tell you why?”

She holds herself stiffly while he brushes his lips to her ear.

“I know,” he murmurs dangerously. “About your revas’shiral.”

Chapter Text

“He said what?”

They’re back in her rooms, slumped across sofas and chairs, but the outraged words haven’t come from Solas. Instead, Revas is on his feet behind an armchair, his hands gripping so tightly to its back that his knuckles are white with the effort.

“That snake,” he hisses, his voice brittle with disgust. “There are no words for men like him that I can repeat in polite company.”

“Is this polite company?” She asks, but the joke comes out tired and weak.

The adrenaline of the day has left her, and so has the swelling nausea Lord desRosiers had triggered low in the pit of her stomach. In its place there’s only a deep exhaustion, and a fragile feeling of having already failed. The revas’shiral is precious to her. It’s her family, her passion and her hope, all rolled into one ragged organisation she’d do anything to protect.

The noble’s threat is not so easily ignored when he holds the key to destroying everything she’s ever worked for. In the darkest corners of her mind, she’s already locking her feelings away just as she’d done in Tevinter.

What is her body worth, really, when set against the freedom of the elves?

“Stop that right now.”

The conversation has been drifting around her — Taralin and Cassandra swearing death and destruction, Josie and Lucian placating, and Revas and Nellas spitting curses — but at Solas’ words they fall silent, and Athera looks towards the fireplace where the Dread Wolf has suddenly awakened from behind the apostate’s mask.

In the light of the flames, his eyes are furious and intent on hers, and when he stalks towards her and across the polished floorboards she feels an almost primal unease. He comes to a stop in front of her, cupping her chin gently but firmly in his hand and tilting her head up to face him.

“You will never think that again,” he growls, low, dangerous, and powerful. “You are not an acceptable sacrifice in these negotiations my star, and I would see every noble in Orlais dead and hanging as carrion from Skyhold’s walls before I would send you into his bed.”

Athera feels a hot ball of shame alight in her stomach and rush to colour her cheeks, and she drops her eyes away from him and swallows thickly.

“If it’s the only way-”

“No!”

The cry comes from everyone in the room, and she looks up to find them all staring at her in abject horror.

“Lethallan,” Revas says fiercely. “That isn’t even an option.”

“Never,” Cassandra agrees. “I would duel him in the public square before we ever came to that.”

“Fuck a duel!” Taralin spits. “Give me two daggers and two minutes alone with him in a room, and let’s see how powerful he feels then.”

Athera looks between them all, and suddenly feels vulnerable and small beneath the weight of their staring. She pulls away from Solas’ hold and he releases her and strides back to the fireplace, leaving her feeling vaguely off-balance. She shakes herself internally, and offers them a weak smile as she settles herself more deeply into a corner of the sofa.

“What do we do, then?” She asks the room. “What options do we have?”

To her relief, Josie and Lucian take charge and the attention of the others falls away.

“Our most potent weapon right now is information,” Josie says. “Leliana still has agents in the city and we have members of the revas’shiral working with Starfire Keep already.”

“The next few days will be crucial in collecting things we can hold as leverage,” Lucian adds.

Athera raises a wry eyebrow.

“That’s a polite way of saying that you’re searching for scandals you can blackmail him with, right?”

Both ambassadors turn matching smirks in her direction.

“This is the Grand Game, Inquisitor,” Josie says. “In Orlais, we play to the death.”

“And if there aren’t any scandals to uncover?” She asks. “What happens if desRosiers is clean?”

At that, Lucian lets out a booming laugh, and even Cassandra smothers a chuckle into the back of her hand.

“This is Val Royeaux,” he tells her kindly. “Nobody here is clean.”

The meeting breaks up soon after that and her friends take their leave. But not before Revas has held her face in his hands and called her a felasil, and Taralin promised to search through Starfire Keep until she’s found something that will help.

Throughout the evening, Solas has remained standing by the fireplace, and when Athera closes the door and turns back to face the room, she finds that he’s still as silent and motionless as before. The only difference is that he’s moved to stare out of the high patio windows, his strong features silhouetted in moonlight and the quality of his silence almost oppressive.

She draws in a deep breath and takes a tentative step into the room, but still he doesn’t turn to face her.

“Are you angry at me?” She asks, and the sound he makes in response is somewhere between a laugh and a curse.

“Angry?” He repeats softly. “No, my star. Anger is the very least of what I feel for you right now.”

He trails off, his gaze still fixed on a point outside the window, and Athera waits.

“Disappointment?” He asks, as if to himself. “Certainly. Frustration? Without a doubt. But in order to be angry I would have to have expected anything different from you, and unfortunately, in this I understand you only too well.”

He still hasn’t turned to look at her, and she feels shame curdle deep in her stomach but doesn’t know why.

“I don’t understand,” she says, and his shoulders rise and fall with a bitter sigh.

“No,” he whispers. “I know you don’t.”

With another deep breath that seems to cost him dearly, he turns to face her — and she immediately wishes that he hadn’t. The expression on his face is almost beyond her ability to describe. Fierce yet pained; compassionate yet furious. She feels as though she could wither beneath the strength of its heat.

He takes a measured step towards her, every inch a wolf.

“Do you really have so little care for yourself?” He demands. “So small a conception of just what it is you are worth?”

Another step, and she finds herself retreating instinctively, unable to look away from the fire in his eyes.

“I do not know what it was that made you believe you were so unworthy of care.”

She opens her mouth to protest, but no sound comes out.

“I do not know whether I should blame Ellana, blame Tevinter, blame the magister who bought you or the world that suffocated you. I do not know how far back in your life I would have to travel in order to unpick this scar from within the depths of your spirit.”

She has backed herself up against the door, and at last he comes to a stop in front of her, one palm raised to her cheek.

“I do not know how to undo this falsehood, vhenan,” he murmurs, his eyes softening until they look like liquid silver in the dim glow of the fire. “I do not know how you came to believe so deeply that you are unworthy of protection. I do not know what was done to you that has made this terrible lie seem like a fact.”

Athera’s breath is coming quickly, a sharp pain in her chest rising as though slivers of glass are being pushed into her heart from between the cage of her ribs. She wants to open the door and run; hide like a child until everyone forgets just how broken she really is. But Solas holds her fast, his gaze burning and his thumb impossibly gentle where it strokes along her jaw.

“But I swear to you, my star, I will spend whatever is left of my life undoing what was done to you. Every moment I possess showing you how precious you really are.”

He lets out another sigh, his expression so sad that she would give anything to go back and change the course of the night.

“You are under my protection, vhenan,” he says fiercely. “And I will never let that kind of harm come to you again. In this, you have my word.”

Athera’s chest feels as though it’s splitting. There are hot tears spilling down her cheeks and she wants to run, run, run; but she can’t. Instead, she lets out a choked sob and crushes her lips to his, her hands scrabbling at his back as though she might pull his very soul inside her.

He holds her gently, a staying counterpoint to her desperation, and she makes a frustrated sound against his mouth as he holds her close against him.

“Tell me what you’re feeling,” he whispers against her ear. “Help me to understand.”

It is a plea, soft and sincere, but what can she possibly tell him? How can she tell him of the teenager — the child —who’d been forced from her clan by the fear of the sister she’d loved, only to fall so suddenly into the hands of slavers? How can she explain that the first time she’d ever been touched like an adult, it was not with kindness but with greed?

How can she tell him that a part of her she’d hardly had the time to know yet, had died in the bedrooms of Tevinter, and that the scent of incense and sweat still has the power to make something inside of her shrivel up and hide? She had survived because she’d detached herself from her body. The body was a vessel, so what was done to it couldn’t hurt her.

Except — except of course that it did. Except, of course, that it had and does and keeps on doing, even though she pretends that it doesn’t.

Except she has never had the time to fall apart and she certainly doesn’t have the time now, when so much of the world rests on her shoulders and Thedas teeters on a knife-edge.

“Please,” she entreats him instead. “Please, make me forget.”

And he looks at her — truly, looks at her — and whatever he sees in her face makes his expression fall in grief.

“Please, ma fen. Sathan. Please.”

She knows that she’s begging. That when this episode has passed she will feel ashamed. But whether he knows it or not, desRosiers has split the seal over one of the darkest parts of her psyche, and she needs Solas to help her close it again.

“I will,” he tells her, his voice cracking. “I promise I will keep you safe.”

Then his lips are on hers, softer and more tender than she’s ever known them; but it isn’t nearly enough. She pushes him back towards the bed, her nails scratching beneath his tunic and her teeth drawing blood on his lips.

“Hurt me,” she whispers. “I need you to hurt me.”

The back of his knees hit the bed and he twists and bears her down into the mattress, his body looming over her and his face caught in shadows. She arches up into him, tugging at his hands until they’re pressed around her neck, but he falls still and pins her gently beneath him and draws her gaze to his.

“There are certainly times when such games might prove to be a cathartic release,” he tells her softly. “But they are something to be explored in the future. Not tonight, and not like this.”

She makes a frustrated noise in the back of her throat and pulls at him more viciously.

“You promised,” she cries out, betrayed and wounded in one. “You promised you’d make me forget.”

He covers her more completely, his touch still as tender as his voice.

“And I will, my star. Of that you may have no fear. But I will not hurt you tonight, nor on any other when you are so far past the point of consent. Do not ask it of me again.”

Before she can protest, his lips are on hers, mothwing kisses that hurt her more deeply than true pain ever could. She gasps, tears spilling from her eyes, as with unerring care he takes her apart and puts her back together again despite how loudly she begs.

His hands brush featherlight down her back, his lips trail softly down her stomach, and soon all she can feel is pleasure and the sure certainty that this will be her end. When she comes for the third time with nothing but his mouth on her, he finally draws them both down to rest beneath the sheets, and she weeps like a child on his chest.

Afterwards, she will be certain that despite her attempts to reciprocate, that night is one in which Solas never came. Instead, he’d held her tightly in the dark, murmuring of love and safety and peace, until she slipped into a restless sleep.

When she wakes the next morning, she has a vague memory of a dream about rough hands and teeth and the smell of incense stuck in the back of her throat. Then a white light, a sense of enshrouding peace, and a gigantic wolf who patrolled the borders of her dreams and held the nightmares at bay.

***

The next few days pass in a haze of work and waiting. The Inquisition can’t afford to lose face at the negotiations, and so every afternoon Athera finds herself sitting across the table from Lord desRosiers and Lady Thibault, while Josie and Lucian buy them time. In the evenings she comes back to her rooms, where they discuss the information they’ve gathered and accept that it isn’t enough; and every night she falls into Solas’ arms and wonders why she feels so sick.

It’s obvious, of course. She understands why, but what she doesn’t understand is why right now. She has lived with this knowledge of herself for over a decade. She knows what was done to her, and knows that the Inquisition has no intention of letting it be done to her again. So why now, after everything, has her mind chosen this moment to fall apart?

She is furious with herself, frustrated by her weakness, and terrified of failing simply because she can’t pull herself back together again quickly enough for what needs to be done.

On the fourth night after desRosiers had first levied his threat, she sinks down into bed with Solas and buries her face in his shoulder.

“What’s wrong with me?” She asks him plaintively. “Why can’t I just move on?”

He is quiet for a long time, his fingertips trailing lightly up and down her bare arm and his breath soft in her hair.

“Do you remember the days after Revas first kidnapped you, when I refused to let you leave my sight?”

Whatever else she might have expected him to say, it wasn’t that, and she grows still against him with her brow furrowed in confusion.

“I was beside myself with fear,” he continues softly. “The moment I returned to that tavern and discovered that you were gone, will be engraved in my memory for as long as I live.”

She squeezes him gently, and feels him tighten his hold on her in response, his tone turning contemplative.

“Afterwards, you asked me to talk to you. To tell you what it was that had made me so afraid. Do you remember what I told you?”

She nods, because of course she does. If the memory of her loss will be held in Solas’ memory forever, then the memory of his terror will always be captured in hers.

“You said that you’d once returned to a place you’d always thought to be safe, only to find your dearest friend dead and for the whole of your world to come crashing down around you.”

“The day that Mythal was murdered, and the war with the Evanuris began,” he confirms, his voice thoughtful and distant. “I had known, of course, that I’d suffered during that time. I’d wept bitter tears over every loss that those events had wrought. But until the moment you were stolen away as well, I don’t believe I’d ever truly felt safe enough to examine the depths of my loss.”

He lets out another long breath into her hair, and Athera moulds herself against him and nuzzles into his neck.

“Losing Mythal altered me in ways I could scarcely have imagined, yet there was no time to pause, no space for healing, no person I might turn to who would help me to reckon with my pain.”

A lump forms in Athera’s throat, and she suddenly sees where he’s leading her.

“You’re saying, that until desRosiers threatened me with a similar fate, I hadn’t stopped for long enough to reckon with what the magister did to me.”

Solas nods, his hold on her tightening still further.

“I am,” he confirms softly. “And more than that, my star, I’m saying that much like myself, you have never had someone who could bear the burden of a confession. Who would be there when you finally came to terms with just how much had been taken from you.”

She closes her eyes against a wave of tears and presses herself against him, and he brushes a kiss to her forehead that nearly rips a sob from her mouth.

“For different reasons and in different ways, you and I have often been alone. But if there is one thing you’ve taught me since I awoke in this world, it is that it is not a weakness to feel.”

Gently, he tilts her face up to his, and when she looks up she finds that he’s smiling gently down at her.

“I no longer believe that my feelings are a weakness, my star. In fact, you’ve shown me that burying my feelings is often what has been responsible for my mistakes.”

He drops a playful kiss onto her nose, and she laughs wetly and feels a blush rise to the tips of her ears.

“Well, I am incredibly wise,” she jokes weakly, and a smile breaks across Solas’ face

“I do not disagree,” he says. “But you miss an important point. If it is not a weakness for me to feel, then it is also not a weakness for you to feel. What was done to you was terrible, vhenan, and it is no great shame to grieve it.”

She tries to hide her face again, but he catches her by the chin and pulls her attention back to him.

“You are not weak for being wounded,” he says seriously. “You are not made lesser by being afraid. And no matter how hurt, or scared, or alone you feel, I will always be here.”

***

Afterwards, she doesn’t find herself suddenly healed. The scars of her time in Tevinter and the revulsion she feels in desRosiers’ presence don’t simply disappear. But something else appears alongside them — the fragile and tentative belief that she is strong enough to bear it, and if she ever discovers that she isn’t, then Solas will be there to help bear it alongside her.

With this new certainty, she settles into the sofa in her rooms for their usual meeting two nights later, with Solas by her side and Josie and Lucian poring over reports. Taralin and Nellas are late, and Cassandra and Revas ensconced in a corner discussing the latest letters from Skyhold. Despite her outwardly calm exterior, Athera is frustrated.

They are so close to doing something so good. Within touching distance of giving the elves just a taste of the freedom they’ve been denied. For a man like desRosiers to be the last barrier to that dream is nothing short of maddening.

When a knock at the door sounds and Taralin comes rushing into the room, her face flushed and her eyes sparking, Athera fears the worst.

“What is it?” She asks, climbing to her feet. “What’s happened?”

“You need to hear this, Starfire.”

“What? What’s going on?”

“Nellas? Bring him in.”

There’s a moment’s pause as Solas comes to stand by her side, and then Nellas enters the room with his hand on a young city elf’s shoulder. The boy is probably nearly twenty, but he has the look of someone who’s rarely had access to regular meals, and beneath his dark hair his cheeks are hollow and thin.

“Don’t be nervous, lad,” Nellas says. “You won’t get into any trouble for telling the truth.”

He looks up and meets Athera’s eyes.

“Inquisitor Lavellan, this is Drynne. He has something to tell you about Lord Pierren desRosiers that I think you’re going to find useful.”

Drynne is nervous and afraid, but she recognises the determination in his eyes. It’s the same determination she’s seen time and time again in slaves crossing over the Nevarran border with nothing but the clothes on their backs. It’s a determination to survive.

“Andaran atish’an, lethallin,” she says sincerely. “You can speak freely here. You have my word.”

The young man squares his shoulders and looks her in the eye.

“They told me he’s the reason the Inquisition can’t help us yet,” he says. “Is that true?”

She inclines her head.

“Yes, it’s true.”

“Why?”

She hesitates, and feels Solas stiffen at her side and place a warning palm to the small of her back. But whatever this strange elf has to tell them, it’s clear to her that it is costing him courage to be here. The least she can offer him is the truth.

“He’s blackmailing me with a threat against my people,” she tells him honestly. “He hopes I will join him in his bed.”

Drynne pales before her, and then his jaw sets and his eyes seem to blaze with fury.

“Then this will help you,” he says. “Lord desRosiers is a slaver, and me and some of the others at Starfire Keep have the proof.”

Chapter Text

Things move quickly after that. Leliana’s agents infiltrate the Lord’s estate, and under cover of darkness they retrieve documents relating to the slave trade that runs along the Nevarran border. Drynne and three others who were held in desRosiers’ service are willing to swear signed affidavits testifying to his involvement, and with a few favours called in by Josie from a number of the lower noble houses, a damning wall of evidence is built.

The next time Athera walks into the negotiations and sits opposite the leaders of Val Royeaux’ gentry, her rage is held back behind an icy mask, and the cool certainty that although the Inquisition can’t punish him for his crimes, they can buy his signature. She will take what satisfaction she can from that, and from watching his hold over her crumble into dust.

“So, here we are again,” he says smoothly, as they take their seats on opposite sides of the table. “You know, Inquisitor, they say that the definition of madness is doing the same thing over and over again and expecting a different result. Does that make you the mad one, or me?”

Next to him, Lady Thibault titters girlishly, and Athera bares her teeth in a feral smile.

“My Lord, you mistake me,” she replies. “I think you’ll find that today is altogether different. Ambassadors?”

She looks left and right, signalling for Josie and Lucian to take up their roles, and in perfect silence, they lay the stolen documents on the table. Lord desRosiers lowers his gaze to the ledgers, and all semblance of colour drains from his cheeks.

“What is it?” Lady Thibault asks. “What is it?”

He swallows thickly, and when he raises his gaze to Athera’s she sees a wild kind of fear in the place that cruelty had once been. It makes her feel powerful — and it should.

These few sheets of paper are enough to have him cast out of high society. Not because he’s the only slaver in it, she’s certain, but because he’s the one to have been discovered. A single word from the Inquisition, and the Empress will have no choice but to strip him of his title, his home, his lands, and any standing that he holds in Orlesian politics. He would be ruined, and he knows it.

“So, my Lord,” she says sweetly. “Should we speak now about the charter for Elven Rights in the city? I’m sure that we’ll find you far more amenable to our aims today.”

And just like that, they’ve won.

Over the course of the next few hours, contracts and a writ of rights are signed and stamped with the seal of the Orlesian nobility. In his desperation to secure his position, Lord desRosiers doesn’t just agree to a compromise. He agrees to everything. For all intents and purposes, the elves of Val Royeaux will now have equal political standing to the shems.

It is a silent coup, and Athera has never felt more astounded in the whole of her life.

When they leave, sweeping from the estate with all of the poise and conviction of rulers who know they’re in control, Athera turns to face him one last time. He is lingering in the grandiose doorway, his face as pale as driven snow and true hatred burning in the dark of his eyes. She smiles.

“I’m sure this doesn’t need to be said, my Lord, but should there be any more evidence of your involvement in such distasteful matters along the border, or in the city, or anywhere else for that matter, then these documents will be delivered to the Empress and their existence known across the land.”

Even a few steps away, she can hear his teeth grinding together, and she knows that he would like nothing more than to kill her where she stands.

“Suffice it to say, my Lord, that the Inquisition will be watching,” she tells him, her eyes flashing dangerously. “And so will I.”

***

That night, Starfire Keep is glorious in celebration. Magelights hover over what has become a loosely-constructed town square. Tables laden with food from Café Revas groan under the weight of platters, and flagons of home-brewed ale flow freely. A troupe of musicians bearing fiddles and drums plays from the front of one of the dilapidated shacks, and it seems as though all ten thousand elves — and the Inquisition’s retinue — have turned out to celebrate.

Athera stands at the edge of the merriment, a cup of Orlesian wine pilfered from their estate held loosely in her hand, and for once, she doesn’t think there’s anywhere else she’d rather be. Their ravens took flight a few hours ago, carrying news of the fledgling charter to all of the major cities in the south, and she feels as though she’s standing on the crest of a tidal wave that will either lead the elves safely to shore, or drown them all beneath it.

For the first time in as long as she can remember, she has hope that they won’t fail. This is a beginning, not an end, and she will fight for every inch of freedom her people deserve.

As she watches, Taralin climbs onto one of the tables, a mug of ale in her hand and her face flushed with drink. The musicians fall quiet, and she raises the glass above her head as the crowd turns to face her.

“Friends, family, and others!” She calls with a grin. “We all know why we’re here. What began as an attempted bloodbath has turned into a home!”

There are roars of approval all around her, and she sways slightly where she stands and gestures for quiet.

“I’m not going to bore you with how we made it here-”

“-Aye, that’ll cut into drinking time!” Someone shouts, to a round of raucous laughter and another grin from Taralin.

“Instead, I’d like to propose a toast,” she says. “To the Inquisition!”

There’s another shout of approval as everyone echoes the words, and across the way Athera sees Cassandra and Josie smiling, a touch uncomfortably, while glasses are raised in their direction.

“And,” Taralin calls. “To Athera Lavellan, the Rebel Duchess!”

Athera’s eyes widen, as the crowd turns as one to face her and raises their drinks into the air.

“To Athera Lavellan,” they echo. “The Rebel Duchess!”

The toast breaks up into a deafening roar, and she stands in delighted shock as ten thousand of her people cheer for her, their voices raised to the sky. The musicians strike up a jig, and soon it seems as though the whole of Starfire Keep is dancing, the air ringing with the sound of laughter and their stamping feet across the hard-packed ground.

“To the Rebel Duchess indeed,” a low voice murmurs behind her. “This is no small accomplishment, vhenan.”

Solas’ arms come around her waist from behind, and an exhausted smile pulls at her lips as she leans back into him.

“I know,” she whispers. “I can hardly believe it. It doesn’t seem real.”

His body is warm against hers, and she feels him smile against her ear.

“It is real, my star. You made it so. I am so very proud of you.”

Her heart does a somersault in her chest, and she turns in the circle of his arms to find him smiling warmly down at her. Elegantly, he steps away and bows low, offering his hand as an impish smile spreads across his lips.

“Come, tonight is a night for celebration,” he says. “Dance with me, my Rebel Star.”

His cheeks are tinged pink in the soft glow of the magelights, and Athera places her glass down and laughs as she accepts his offer.

“Have you been drinking by any chance, ma fen?”

“I may have liberated a rather excellent bottle of Tevinter Red from our host’s kitchens before we left,” he demurs, and she laughs delightedly as he draws her into the throng of warm bodies and begins to lead her in a dance.

The beat is rolling and frenetic, a strange amalgamation of Dalish and city music which pitches and falls around them. It isn’t the kind of dance she’d have expected Solas to know, coming as he does from crystal spires and palaces rather than the spring green of forests or the dark corners of alienages.

But there is no hesitation to the way he guides them, weaving through the crowd of spinning bodies with one palm light on her waist and the other clasping her hand. He follows the steps easily, spinning her away into the arms of others when they switch partners, and then catching her back against him again. His face is wide in a proud smile, his eyes sparking happily, and for a moment she sees him as he must once have been; young, carefree, with his greatest concerns the beat of the music and the joyful roll of the dance.

It makes her heart swell, and she beams up at him as they finish the jig and pass into a line dance instead, hands clasped beside each other while they mirror the steps of the people opposite.

At last, the tempo slows, and Solas draws her against him until there’s barely a breath of air between them.

“If there’s one thing I am glad about in all of this, ma fen,” she murmurs against his ear. “Then it’s this.”

He snorts and nuzzles at her temple.

“The party, vhenan, and not the world-changing law?”

She giggles and shakes her head, turning slowly in a circle with his hands on her hips.

“Not the party, this. You, happy and dancing and without that shadow in your eyes. I want you to be happy.”

His grip tightens on her and he huffs a soft laugh above her head, and she can almost feel his smile growing.

“I am happy, my star,” he says softly. “You have made me happy. A feat that was perhaps even more impossible than attaining equal rights for the elves.”

She laughs and looks up into his face, taking in the pleased smile and the flush in his cheeks, and she thinks that if she could control the Fade like he does, she’d preserve this moment inside it somewhere so that it would never disappear.

“My crowning achievement,” she smiles, and brushes his lips with hers.

He hums against her and presses a kiss to her cheek.

“I would give you a crown if I could. A crown and jewels and whatever else your heart desired.”

She laughs and shakes her head, her smile still pulling wide.

“I don’t need a crown or jewels, Solas,” she says fondly. “What would I even do with them? All I need is this. You, right here, with me, on a night when everything is good.”

He buries his face in her hair and she can feel that he’s blushing happily.

“That, vhenan, I can certainly give you. For as long as you still want it.”

Always, she thinks fiercely. I will always want this.

She holds him closer, and as the music drifts around them, she says a silent thanks that she’d been lucky enough to find him so long ago, and that he’s decided to stay. Eventually, the song ends and they share a soft kiss, and when she pulls back she feels someone watching nearby and turns her head to see.

Revas is standing to the side of the dancefloor, an uncertain smile on his lips, and after sharing a nod with Solas he makes a gesture with his hand that suggests he wants her to join him. She looks up into Solas’ face, but finds nothing other than quiet acceptance in his expression.

“It seems that my former general would like a word with you, my star. I’m sure I can spare you for a while.”

With a smile, he plants another gentle kiss on her lips, and she squeezes his hand once and follows Revas into the Keep’s quieter streets. He leads them far enough away that the lanes become shadowed and the music drifts into little more than a distant echo on the breeze. Then, beside a stall with protective sheets thrown over it, he stops and turns to face her.

Athera meets his gaze, and tries and fails to read his mood. He is relaxed, smiling slightly, his Orlesian finery making him look almost ethereal beneath the moon’s glow. But there is a contemplative air about him as well, and when she cocks her head in question he lets out a chuckle and then shakes his head ruefully.

“I suppose, lethallan, that first I ought to say congratulations. No-one would ever have been able to predict that the elves would make it this far.”

She accepts his thanks with a nod, and walks the few steps towards him.

“Ma serannas, falon,” she says. “But I doubt you’d have led me all the way out here simply to say well done.”

He shakes his head, and considers her in the silence for some moments longer.

“I suppose…” He begins, and then trails off. “I suppose the truth is that I’ve been thinking.”

“Oh dear,” she replies wryly. “Try not to hurt yourself, won’t you?”

He gives her an unimpressed look and she smiles and motions for him to continue.

“What were you thinking, lethallin?”

“I was thinking that… I was thinking that you remind me of him.”

“Of Solas?”

He nods, and Athera shifts beneath his scrutiny.

“Coming from you, I’m not really sure how to take that,” she tells him honestly.

“I don’t mean that you remind me of who he is today. The man he became. I mean that you remind me of him as he was before, in Elvhenan, when the rebellion first began.”

He sighs and looks away, his brow furrowed pensively.

“I may deride him, lethallan. I may tell him that I am disappointed, that I expected better, that Felassan and this world both deserved better from him. But you must understand that in many ways I do so because…” He hesitates, and then heaves a heavy sigh. “I do so because, just like Felassan, I once loved him too.”

He is leaning against the stall, his head tilted to some point in the middle distance, and she still can’t interpret the look on his face.

“Fen’Harel, the Rebel Wolf, was once the hope of every enslaved elf in Elvhenan,” he says quietly. “But, more than that, he was also the kind of leader who not only inspired hope, but was worthy of true loyalty. After Mythal died, Elgar’nan became mad. He burnt down vast swathes of Arlathan in his anger and grief, no matter who was caught in the crossfire. I was down there, in one of the lower districts one night when he struck. The flames were unquenchable. Thousands of us were trapped. Noble, common, and enslaved alike.”

He falls silent again, and takes a slow breath.

“It seemed impossible that any of us would survive. Who could stand against such carnage?”

“But you did,” Athera says. “You did survive.”

He nods, and a slow smile spreads across his face.

“We survived because of him,” he says softly. “There we were, thousands of us trapped in the twisting lower streets, flames raining down from on high. No way out, no hope, and no escape. And then — there he was. He was wearing golden armour and a wolf pelt, and while Elgar’nan rampaged in his dragon form, this single man stood on top of one of the burning buildings, raised his staff into the sky, and refused to move out of the way.”

Revas’ gaze has grown distant, a look of awe in the depths of his eyes.

“He stood, and he shouted so loudly that all of us could hear. You shame Mythal’s memory by this act. I will not let you destroy our people. Then, from every free space there appeared Eluvians, and Fen’Harel’s followers burst from within them to shepherd us through the Crossroads to safety. To this day I don’t know how he managed it, but as we fled, the Great Wolf transformed and drew the All Father’s ire.”

Athera is silent, almost able to see the story unfold before her eyes as Revas turns to face her.

“Later that same day, Felassan found me. At that time we’d already been together for many years, but I was only a minor stable hand in Fen’Harel’s employ while Felassan had been with him from the very first. He took me to Tarasyl’an Te’las where Solas had just arrived. I stood there, star-struck, having narrowly escaped death, while my rescuer strode through the halls directing more missions and barking orders for the healers.”

Revas shakes his head wryly.

“The only sign that he’d spent the last few hours battling the most powerful Evanuris above the spires of Arlathan, were the scorchmarks on the edge of his robes.”

Athera smiles weakly, and Revas’ expression falls.

“Felassan, of course, kept trying to get his attention, and I couldn’t understand why until finally he succeeded in bullying Solas into his rooms. I came with him at his request, and the Rebel Wolf looked between us and raised a single eyebrow. It’s alright, Solas, Felassan said. I would trust Revas with my life.”

Athera swallows, and takes a step towards him in the moonlight.

“What happened then?”

Revas lets out a long breath.

“Then, Solas took one look at Felassan, heaved a gigantic sigh, and collapsed like a puppet with his strings cut right by the side of the bed.”

Athera’s eyes widen, and Revas runs an agitated hand through his hair.

“He wasn’t fine at all, you see. He was incredibly far from fine, and of course Felassan had known it. There were healing supplies already prepared, and over the rest of the night we poured magic and potions into him until he was finally out of the woods. I understood that night that I had witnessed a living legend at work, and peeked behind the curtain at how painfully it was maintained.”

He sighs, and shakes his head again.

“The People needed hope, da’len, and he was cast into that role. Yet to maintain that hope he had to become bigger than an elf, bigger than a man — bigger, even, than an Evanuris — if he was to have any chance of saving them. In the end, the only way he could maintain it was to isolate himself from everyone. Even me, and even Felassan. Do you understand what I’m saying?”

She shakes her head, and Revas offers her a small smile.

“His greatest mistake wasn’t in starting the war. It wasn’t the Veil, it wasn’t the Conclave. It wasn’t even what he did to Felassan. It was that he began to believe that he had to do everything alone, because that was what everyone made him believe.”

Revas sighs, and steps towards her until she has to look up into his face.

“I saw the same hope kindled in the eyes of the elves tonight when they looked upon you,” he murmurs softly. “You inspire them in the same way he once did, and if you aren’t careful, you will be broken by their hope in the same way that he was.”

He takes a step backwards, and Athera sees with a jolt of surprise that Solas is standing in the shadows nearby. She’s so startled by his appearance that she almost misses what Revas says next.

“You’ve been kind enough not to suggest that I pay proper penance for what I did to you in Kirkwall,” he says seriously. “But that doesn’t mean that penance shouldn’t be paid.”

Revas-”

“-No, lethallan. Let me say this.”

He draws another deep breath, while behind him, Solas becomes as still as a marble statue in the dark.

“I punished you for Solas’ mistake, but you have proven to be a far better person than either he or I. I have watched you raise ten thousand elves to their own home state. I have seen you stand toe-to-toe with a monster and refuse to yield. I have also seen you prepare to sacrifice your body to a snake in order to save those who are under your protection.”

Athera swallows and tries to look away, but Revas tilts her face back to his and stares down at her seriously.

“I would not see you make the same mistake that Fen’Harel did, in believing that you stand alone. So, Athera Lavellan, I must offer you this.”

To her complete shock, Revas draws a slim dagger from his belt and lowers himself to his knees, his eyes fixed on hers.

“I offer you my services as your Champion, for as long as you may need them.”

Carefully, he draws the blade across his palm, leaving a thin red line behind.

“I pledge to stand by your side in battle. To protect you in times of danger and give wise counsel in times of hardship. From this night forward, your cause is my cause. Your life, my life. And may the bond only be broken by your command, or by my own failure to serve it. Will you accept me as your Champion?”

Athera is dumbfounded. There is a strange feeling of magic in the air, and Revas’ eyes are intent upon hers. She raises her head to find Solas’ hiding place in the shadows, but he makes no move to stop whatever it is that’s happening.

“Revas-” She begins hesitantly.

“Do you accept?”

She draws a deep breath in. Whatever this is, it can’t be something terrible or else Solas would have put a stop to it, and there is such a deep sincerity in Revas’ eyes that she can hardly look away. Slowly, she nods, and feels the weight of the magic around them intensify.

“I accept you as my Champion.”

As if by its own accord, her hand reaches out and clasps Revas’, and she lets out a gasp as she feels both his blood and his magic begin to seep through her skin. The sensation is — astounding. For a moment, she feels as though she could flee through the very Fade; she can feel the threads of magic that bind the whole world together and hear it crash against the Veil.

Then, it is over, and both she and Revas are breathing heavily, a sheen of sweat on their skin. He takes a moment to steady himself, and when he climbs back to his feet his legs are shaking. The cut on his hand has healed and left a thin white scar behind, and when she looks down at her own palm there’s the same mark nestled there.

“Okay, not that this wasn’t grand and dramatic or anything, but do you want to tell me what just happened?”

It isn’t Revas who replies. Solas finally breaks cover from the shadows, walking sedately across the path to join them in the deserted market.

“You have just entered into a Champion’s Bond with Revas, my star,” he says. “It is… An honourable and sacred pledge.”

If Revas is surprised to see him there, he doesn’t deign to show it.

“Do you disapprove?” He asks, and Solas shakes his head.

“Not at all. It was well done, and I am… Relieved she has someone at her side.”

Athera has the sense that something between the two of them, some wound that she’s never quite been able to see the shape of, has just taken its first step towards closing.

“Well, I’m glad you’re happy, but if one of you ancient elves would like to tell me more about what I just agreed to that would be great as well.”

Both of them turn to smile at her, and if she isn’t very much mistaken Revas almost looks embarrassed.

“A Champion’s Bond is one of the deepest bonds between friends or allies in war,” Solas tells her. “It joins two people via blood magic in a temporary alliance which sees one sworn to defend the life and cause of the other.”

Athera swallows nervously.

“Blood magic? Isn’t that… Illegal?”

“Like all magic, lethallan, blood magic can be used for great evil or for great good,” Revas says. “When using your own blood, or the blood of a willing donor, such magic carries no intrinsic moral stain. In this instance, I made the pledge with my blood and my magic to protect you and follow your cause. If I’d been insincere in my offer then the bond would have rebounded and harmed me, but in this instance, it has joined the two of us together as Leader and Champion until you choose to end it.”

Athera shifts and runs her thumb thoughtfully over the scar on her palm.

“Joined in what way, exactly? What does this mean?”

“It means, my star, that Revas will always know where to find you and you will always know where to find him. If you are in danger, you need only think his name and he will be able to respond. A Champion’s duty, at all times, is to protect the one he has pledged to. The bond further ensures that the Champion can never harm the person they are sworn to protect.”

Ah, Athera thinks. That explains why Solas is so pleased.

“In fact, in Elvhenan a Champion’s Bond was one of the most respected bonds outside of romantic or familial joinings, as well as one of the rarest,” Solas says seriously. “To pledge in such a way… It is a mark of great respect and devotion. A great honour was done to you tonight, my star, although you may not know it.”

Revas rolls his eyes heavenward and rubs at the mark on his hand.

“Trust the old wolf to get overly sentimental about it,” he complains.

But Athera can tell by the quality of Solas’ sudden respect that Revas is downplaying the action. She catches him by the hand, and he looks down into her face and offers her a small smile.

“Ma serannas, falon,” she says softly. “I might not understand it completely, but I know you’ve given me a gift.”

“Yes, well, I am very generous that way,” he sniffs.

“If you wouldn’t mind, vhenan,” Solas cuts in. “I would like a moment or two with Revas. Do not worry, I would no more harm your Champion than I would harm you in his stead.”

She looks between the two of them suspiciously, but for once, there’s nothing more than a gentle calmness in the way they regard one another. She thinks, again, that the wound between them has been partially healed tonight, although she couldn’t possibly say for sure how. When she leaves, she can still feel the tingle of Revas’ presence somewhere in the palm of her hand.

“Will you tell her?” Revas asks, when she’s passed far enough away.

“I will, but not tonight,” Solas replies. “Tonight is a time for celebration.”

Revas nods, accepting, both of their gazes trained on the place Athera had left.

“She is too like you, you know. Yet she doesn’t have your sense of self-preservation.”

“I know,” Solas says sadly. “She is far more selfless than I ever was. I know that you don’t need my thanks, Revas, but you have it and far more besides. After everything she’s been through in this city, what you’ve offered is a noble thing.”

Revas regards him out of the corner of his eye.

“And after everything she’s been through in this city, do you know what you must do, Old Wolf, in order to rebalance the scales?”

A gathering blanket of magic begins to crackle around them, and power like a forest fire glints in Solas’ eyes.

“Oh yes,” he says darkly. “I know what it is I must do.”

Chapter Text

After so many weeks away and so much pain on her journey, Skyhold has never looked so good. As soon as they cross the bridge, the castle’s magic wraps around them as though welcoming them home, and Athera feels her shoulders relax for the first time since they left. On either side of her, astride their own harts, Solas and Revas have the same reaction, and she smiles to think that this place is a home for them too, even though they might see this world as broken.

No sooner has she dismounted than Leliana is by her side, and she falls into step with her as they walk into the castle.

“The reaction to your success in Val Royeaux has begun, Inquisitor. I’ve been receiving reports from various cities across the south since the news was shared.”

“And what’s the reaction been?”

“The nobles are, of course, up in arms at the mere thought of elves being given equal rights in the capital city of Orlais. However, it’s fortunate for us that they do not yet dare say so explicitly.”

“Oh?”

They’ve moved into the hall while they’ve walked, and Varric catches her eye from his position by the fire and raises a mug in her direction.

“As we discussed before you left, in polite company at least, across southern Thedas it is said that elves are valued in the same way as humans, their unfortunate position merely a side-effect of their nature,” Leliana says with a sharp smile, and Athera thins her lips in displeasure. “Of course, we know that this is no more true than a mage having equal standing to a Templar, but the nobility can hardly raise an outcry without admitting the truth of the matter first.”

“Where does that leave us?”

“In a precarious but manageable position, for the time being. There will be no official move to challenge the Inquisition’s diplomacy on behalf of the elves, at least while Corypheus still poses a threat. And your actions have finally brought us to the attention of the royal court.”

They walk by Josie’s desk, and although the ambassador had set out only a day ahead of their main party, she already seems to have accumulated more paperwork than her work surface can contain.

She jumps up as they pass, and follows them towards the war room.

“Inquisitor, I’m glad you’re here,” she says. “We’ve received an invitation to the peace talks at the Winter Palace, although it’s come from the Grand Duke Gaspard.”

“What does that mean?”

“It means that we are taking centre stage, and that we must put our best foot forward.”

When they enter the war room, Cullen and Cassandra are already there, and after a round of greetings Athera rests her palms on the side of the table and spares a glance for the map. She’d hoped to rest for a few hours before beginning the meeting, but it seems as though a thousand different issues have come into play in the time she’s been away.

“Okay,” she says at last. “Let’s work through this in stages. Leliana, you’ve told me about the nobles’ response to Starfire Keep, but not of the elves’. Have we heard from the Dalish or any of the alienages?”

“It will come as no surprise to you that none of the Dalish clans have reached out to us directly so far,” the Nightingale replies. “But the Dalish the Herald encountered in the Exalted Plains are eager to support us. Your friend Loranil sent me a missive only a few days ago saying that a number of their clan have joined with them, and that they’re working to stabilise the area in our absence. As it stands, the Herald and her party returned to Skyhold last week and are awaiting further instruction.”

She nods in acknowledgement and brushes a stray lock of hair away from her face.

“And the alienages?”

“Since your coup in Val Royeaux, no less than seven different requests for diplomatic aid have come through from alienages across the country. The most pressing one at present seems to be located in Kirkwall.”

Athera’s breath catches as Leliana passes a folded piece of parchment into her hands, and she recognises her friend’s writing at once. The tone is more formal than she’s ever heard her use before, but there’s no doubt about it. The request for help has come from Merrill.

“Is something wrong, Inquisitor?” Cassandra asks, and she realises she’s fallen still.

Slowly, she shakes her head.

“No, not wrong, exactly,” she sighs. “I know Merrill well, that’s all. She’s been working to help the alienage for years already. If we could send aid to her now then it would do so much for the city elves there.”

The advisors look between each other and Josie turns to face her.

“We will, of course, send diplomats to the city,” she begins delicately. “But with the way events stand at the moment, we won’t be able to spare you to go with them as you did to Val Royeaux.”

The nervous way she’s looking at her makes Athera smile, and she shakes her head lightly and waves the suggestion away.

“You needn’t look so worried,” she chides them. “I may not always be comfortable with this role, but I do know that I don’t have the time to go on a grand alienage tour of Thedas right now. Even so, you should let Varric know that you’re sending people to Kirkwall to meet with Merrill. He might want to tag along with them in my stead.”

Josie makes a note on her clipboard and Cullen steps towards the table.

“Aside from Gaspard and the alienages,” he begins. “We’ve received a number of reports from Hawke while you’ve been away. It seems that Grey Wardens are beginning to mass at the ritual tower in the Western Approach, but for the moment it appears that they may be waiting for someone else to arrive.”

“Do we have any idea who?”

“No, but we’re monitoring the situation closely and should have word within a few hours if anything changes.”

She nods thoughtfully, and then Cassandra clears her throat and steps forward with an air of nervousness that she’s never seen from the warrior before.

“If I may, Inquisitor,” she says hesitantly. “I have a personal favour to ask, although I do believe that it will aid our cause as well.’

Athera nods for her to continue.

“If I can help, Cassandra, I will. What do you need?”

“We saw so many Red Templars at the assault on Haven. Perhaps all that was left of the Order. What we didn’t see was Lord Seeker Lucius,” Cassandra says grimly. “Indeed, I’ve seen no hint of any Seekers among the Red Templars, or anywhere at all. I have a growing suspicion that Corypheus has imprisoned them.”

Athera frowns and looks down, weighing the question carefully.

“You say that they may be imprisoned. Is it possible they could be dead?”

“It is possible,” Cassandra replies. “But the Seekers began this war against the mages, they cannot simply have vanished. Leliana has sent out her agents and we’ve discovered hints of them at Caer Oswin. I fear for their safety, and for their involvement with this magister.”

“You want us to send a team in to investigate?”

“I do.”

Athera nods slowly. It’s rare that Cassandra asks for anything for herself, and this is certainly something she can give her.

“For the moment, we can’t make a move in the Graves or the Emprise anyway,” she says. “Put a team together with Ellana and head out tomorrow. We can spare you for this.”

The relief on Cassandra’s face is plain.

“Thank you, Inquisitor. I truly appreciate it.”

Another hour in the war room sees most of the more pressing matters attended to — although Athera shudders at Josie’s insistence that dressmakers and dance instructors will have to be called on soon to prepare them all for the Winter Palace. If Val Royeaux was out of her comfort zone, then palaces and peace talks fall firmly into the realms of Hateful and Nausea-inducing, in her opinion.

Before they break up for the day, Leliana waylays her with a hand on her arm, and a quirked eyebrow that says she’s enjoying herself.

“Inquisitor, before you leave, there is one more thing that needs your attention,” she says. “The arcanist you requested when we first arrived? She’s now here, and I suspect that she’s not what you imagined.”

***

Athera has rarely set foot in the Undercroft since they arrived in Skyhold. The memory of the first time she was there, during the lost future as the castle fell around them, still comes with a primal sense of dread whenever she thinks of it. Truth be told, she’s grateful that Dagna is such a fascinating distraction as soon as she walks into the space.

“Inquisitor!” The dwarf greets her enthusiastically. “It’s an honour. Are you as mechanically-minded as your sister? I certainly hope so, that would be neat!”

Athera tells her truthfully that she isn’t, and across the room Ellana looks up from a crafting table, where she’s surrounded by swathes of leather and what looks to be a form of dawnstone.

“The fever didn’t get you, then?” She asks, by way of a greeting, and Athera shakes her head.

“Neither did the White Claw raiders, the bandits, or the Orlesian nobles,” she smiles. “How were the Plains?”

“Oh, you know. Necromancy, shem soldiers, a golden halla and more arcane horrors than I’d like to see in a lifetime.”

“All in a day’s work, then?”

She snorts.

“Of course. Why would anything here be easy?”

It’s the friendliest interaction they’ve had in years, and Athera hopes it isn’t just because Dagna is around to listen. She makes an effort to focus on what the arcanist is saying — because she is fascinating — but after their conversation is over she can remember little of what they’d talked about, given that Ellana had spent the whole time watching her.

When she takes her leave, her sister follows, and she struggles with the familiar churn of hope and anxiety that brings panic to the pit of her stomach. When the door to the Undercroft closes behind them, she steels herself while Ellana observes her. After a long moment, her sister frowns, and then tilts her chin to the side.

“I think it’s about time we talked, don’t you?” The Herald asks. “Come on, let’s get a drink.”

Without waiting for a response, she turns on her heel and begins to walk across the great hall, and after a moment’s hesitation Athera follows. Her heart is already trying to crawl its way up her throat, and she finds herself frustrated that Ellana has always been able to have this effect on her. Athera may be the older sister, but it’s Ellana who’s always had control.

Late in the afternoon, the Herald’s Rest is still mercifully quiet, and Ellana buys them both an ale and leads them to a quiet corner far away from the main tables. There, they sit on opposite sides, and Athera takes a large sip of her drink and makes a valiant effort to calm her racing heart.

Ellana doesn’t speak at first, her hands cupped around her mug while she stares pensively into it. Then, she frowns and looks up, and Athera swallows and braces herself for what’s to come.

“I heard what you did in Val Royeaux,” she tells her. “This has always been the plan, hasn’t it? Right from when we were kids, you were heading towards something like this.”

She can’t read the tone of her voice, and she takes another large gulp of ale before replying. The truth is that until recently she’d had nothing but a fierce conviction that what had been done to the elves was wrong. She’d fought in small ways to undo what she could, but she could never have imagined that the path from the revas’shiral would lead her here.

“I always thought we deserved better,” she says at last. “But no, I never thought we’d get this far. I haven’t ever had some kind of over-arching plan, da’mi. I just went where I was needed.”

“And that wasn’t with us?”

The sharpness is back in her mouth again, and Athera’s hands go rigid around her cup.

“If you’ve brought me here to argue about that, then I’m sorry but I’m not going to do it,” she replies, more coolly than she ever has before. “There are bigger things at work here, Ellana, and they’re more important than either you or me.”

“Or Solas?” She shoots back, and the ball of sickness in Athera’s stomach climbs higher.

“Solas has been fighting for the elves’ freedom for longer than anyone.”

“How much longer?”

She regards her closely.

“Thirty-thousand years, give or take.”

It’s less satisfying to see Ellana unsettled by this than it had been when she’d told Varric. Her sister’s forehead furrows, and she stares down into her mug again and shakes her head.

“All of that history,’ she whispers. “All of that time. And you think that he’s happy just to be the helper hiding in your shadow?”

She raises her head again and looks Athera in the eye.

“How can you love a man who’s older than human history? How can you believe that he loves you? Do you even know that you can trust him? How would you be able to tell?”

The questions land like hammer blows against her ribs, and Athera feels her expression grow hard.

“It doesn’t matter how I know,” she says coldly. “I just do.”

Ellana’s lips curl into a sneer.

“You just do,” she repeats, a dark undertone to her voice. “And we’re all just supposed to trust you, are we?”

“That depends. Are you worried about my love life or my leadership?”

“Both.”

“Then don’t be. Solas is…”

She trails off, and feels her expression soften in spite of herself. She can never think of him without such a fierce rush of love that it takes her breath away, and this time is no different.

“Solas is remarkable,” she says honestly. “And so is Revas. Starfire Keep wouldn’t have existed without him, and without Solas we’d never have had Skyhold to call a home.”

“And so this is your life now, is it? Standing alongside these ancient elves to… What? Build a whole new world?”

Athera takes another sip of her ale and regards her sister closely. There’s the usual animosity she’s come to expect, but beneath it there’s something else she can’t quite place. Something fragile and frustrated that she doesn’t know whether to push at or to keep at arm’s length.

“Are you unhappy about what happened in Val Royeaux?” She asks her curiously. “Would you have done something different?”

“Of course I wouldn’t!” Ellana cries out, and Athera is shocked by her vehemence.

“Then what’s the problem?” She asks, bewildered. “Why are you so angry?”

For a long time, Ellana doesn’t reply. Instead, she stares into the mug in her hand as though the answers to everything might be found at the bottom.

“You’ve always been bigger than me, haven’t you?” She says at last. “Always the bigger sister, with bigger ambitions, bigger priorities, and bigger friends.”

She looks up, and for a second Athera almost believes that she’s looking into the eyes of Envy itself.

“We were never enough for you, were we?” She continues. “I was never enough for you. That’s why you left us, and that’s why you’re here now.”

The statement is so wrong — so completely outside of reality — that Athera is struck dumb by it. That Ellana could ever believe that she’d left her clan to find glory, is the clearest proof yet that her younger sister simply doesn’t know her. That she has never, perhaps, seen her for who she truly is.

She wonders, for the first time, whether the Athera in Ellana’s mind and the Athera sitting across the table from her could ever become the same person. Whatever phantom exists in her sister’s thoughts is so selfish and grasping, so hurtful and malign, that she doesn’t recognise the shape of herself in it at all.

She swallows around the lump in her throat and shakes her head.

“I don’t know what went wrong inside you when we were children, da’mi,” she says, her voice hoarse. “I don’t know whether it was the child who was possessed, Mamae’s death, or simply the loss of where you felt safe.”

Across the table, Ellana is frowning as though she’d never expected to hear those words come out of her sister’s mouth.

“But the person you think I am and the person who really exists aren’t the same thing,” Athera continues quietly. “I thought for a long time that you were making excuses for your anger in order to cover up your hurt. That I was just a convenient target so that you didn’t have to face the truth. I thought that we both knew, on some level, that this was what you were doing, but I see now that you don’t believe that at all.”

Ellana’s expression now shows nothing but total confusion, and Athera wishes she had the skills to help her to understand.

“You truly do think I’m a monster, don’t you?” She asks sadly. “You’ve believed it for so long that you’ve convinced yourself it’s the truth.”

She draws in a heavy breath. It feels like something inside her is breaking, but it also feels as though something important is healing as well. She’s blamed herself for Ellana’s fears for far too long. For the first time, she finally sees that she isn’t the one who caused them. The knowledge is freeing, in the same way that flinging herself from a mountaintop would be freeing. She won’t be the same person by the end of the conversation, but she doesn’t think she’ll grieve for her either.

“I am not what you see in me,” she says at last. “And I won’t let myself be hurt by you anymore. You’ll either become brave enough to look truthfully at the world as it is, or you’ll keep hiding inside yourself and turning all of your anger outwards. Whatever you choose, I can’t force you there. I’m not going to hurt myself trying anymore.”

Her voice has remained steady throughout, and when she stands Ellana’s mouth is gaping open, as though she’s never heard anything so strange in her life. She supposes that makes an unusual kind of sense. Ellana has created a version of reality in which she is the hero and Athera the monster; to have it challenged must be both painful and seem like a lie.

When Athera leaves, she feels as though a weight has lifted from her shoulders. It hurts, too, but for once she understands that there’s nothing she can do. Ellana’s beliefs about her aren’t hers to change. Only her sister can do that. This isn’t a problem she can solve.

She walks around Skyhold for a long time, waiting for the pain to come, but although there is a kind of grief in accepting her own lack of power, there’s also an overwhelming relief. She can’t change Ellana’s mind. She isn’t responsible for her hatred.

An astounding thought rises, one that she’s rarely ever allowed herself before.

It isn’t my fault after all.

She thinks this new realisation will take a long time to get used to.

Eventually, the daylight starts to fade, and the itching in Athera’s palm becomes impossible to ignore. Since Revas pledged himself as her Champion, she’s been intrigued by the connection that now exists between them. At all times, she’s aware of his presence nearby. Like humming a song within your own thoughts, she’s become attuned to knowing where he is without consciously having to think about it.

They’ve also both had to contend with the fact that they can feel each other’s emotions — but only at their strongest and only if they choose to look. It’s become second-nature to block each other out until needed, but if a message is ignored then it manifests as a tingle in the scar on each of their palms.

She tunes back into the connection now, feeling a hint of anxiety and identifying that he’s waiting in her quarters. If Revas is in her quarters then Solas is too, and she doesn’t think that can mean anything good, even allowing for their recent tentative truce.

With a heavy sigh, she breaks off her aimless walk to return to the castle, and sure enough, when she arrives at her rooms both of the ancients are waiting for her.

Revas is lounging on her sofa with a glass of wine in his hand, while Solas has his back to the door and is staring out of the balcony windows in thought. They both look up with a smile when she enters, but she can sense an undercurrent of tension still flowing between them.

“Okay, what is it now?” She says wearily. “And I warn you that I’ve had a very long day, so my patience is thin.”

Revas smirks at her, but Solas tilts his head in question and she sighs.

“Ellana,” she explains. “I’ll tell you about it later.”

“Ah,” Revas says. “Then you probably aren’t going to like this, either.”

She sighs again and rubs a hand over her eyes.

“Great. So, what’s going on?”

Solas has turned away again, and this time even Revas looks grim. He looks down into his glass of wine, and she’s rarely seen him look more uncomfortable.

“I hoped we’d have more time before we got to this point,” he says at last. “A lot more time than this, in fact. But it seems that time is something we’re far thinner on than even I realised, lethallan, and a decision has to be made.”

Solas still has his back turned determinedly towards them, and Athera frowns and looks between the two of them in confusion.

“I told Solas I would entrust this decision to you, and I stand by it,” Revas continues. “It’s time for you to choose whether or not to give him the orb.”

All of the air leaves Athera’s body, and she sits down heavily on the sofa opposite.

“Why?” She asks in a whisper. “Why now?”

“Mythal has called a meeting for midnight tonight,” Revas says grimly. “And all three of us have been summoned to attend.”

Chapter Text

“This is insane,” Athera says, for the second time that night. “If what you’re saying is true, then we’re adding an unknown variable of catastrophic power into this situation, when we don’t even know what their designs are. We may as well flip the entire chessboard upside-down and get the whole thing over with.”

“Are you talking about Mythal, or about me?” Solas asks quietly, and Athera shoots him a warning glare.

“Mythal, of course. Tell me the truth this time, both of you. Why, if we meet with her, are we going to have to restore her to strength?”

The two ancient elves shares a look laden with significance, and Athera folds her arms and stares them down from where she’s standing by the fireplace. After a tense few seconds, the line of Solas’ shoulders falls, and he meets her with an uncertain expression and a touch of wariness in his eyes.

“Before Mythal’s murder, you know that I was her general, her most trusted advisor,” he says softly. “What you don’t know, is that I was her Champion as well.”

Athera’s eyes widen, and she looks between the two of them to find Revas looking away, and Solas’ gaze trained on the floor. With a sigh, he steels himself and holds out his left palm towards her. A rush of magic tingles in the air, and a glamour falls away to reveal an ugly black scar that runs down the length of his palm.

Athera jolts in shock and crosses the distance between them, taking his hand in hers gently and running her fingers over the mark. It is a twisted, poisonous thing, its edges torn and jagged where hers is slim and neat. When she touches it, Solas flinches, and she snatches her hand away and stares up at him in horror.

“What happened to it?” She whispers. “Does it hurt?”

He swallows thickly.

“Every day.”

Another wash of magic conceals the brutal thing again, and Athera runs her hand agitatedly through her hair.

“This is to do with the Champion’s Bond, isn’t it? How did the mark get like this? What aren’t you both telling me?”

They share another glance, and Solas takes her hand and guides them both to sit down on the sofa opposite Revas.

“I told you that this bond is one of the rarest and the most sacred,” Solas begins. “That is, at least in part, to do with how it is formed and the way it operates afterwards.”

“In the forming of the bond,” Revas tells her. “The intent of the Champion is measured by the magic. If I’d had any doubts about my commitment to you or to your cause, then the bond would have rebounded against me and caused me great injury, perhaps even death.”

Athera stares at him in silence for a long moment.

“And you took that risk to bind yourself to me, even knowing what it might do?”

“I had no fears of the bond,” Revas says seriously. “I knew that my intent was pure.”

“Beyond that, my star, the bond is the measure of the Champion,” Solas says quietly. “Its purpose is to ensure that he keeps to his task. That he will follow his course to the very end, protecting the person he’s pledged to even and above his own life.”

There’s a deep regret in the lines of his face, and Athera takes his unmarked hand in hers as his gaze falls down again.

“If the person under protection should die before the bond has been broken, if the Champion fails in his duty, then the magic will make them pay penance. It should-”

Here, he breaks off, and shame brings his shoulders low.

“When Mythal was murdered, it should have killed me for my failure,” he admits in a low voice. “It was no less than I deserved. But the People, they needed me. I couldn’t simply abandon them.”

He looks up again, a potent fierceness in his eyes.

“I fought the magic,” he tells her. “If I couldn’t protect Mythal, then at least I could live for long enough to protect her people. The battle to outlast it was… Difficult.”

Athera has gone cold all over, and she feels as though there’s a lifetime of torment bound up in that single word.

“In the end, I prevailed, but at a cost. Until Mythal releases me, the bondmark will never fully heal. My magic keeps it stable, and with the glamour in place the touch of another no longer burns me, but the pain will never truly end until my duty is done.”

In the ensuing silence, both of the ancients watch closely for her reaction. For a long time, she doesn’t move.

All at once, so much about Solas suddenly makes sense. She already knew that he’d been driven to complete his duty to the point of self-harm, but now she understands that he’s never been allowed to forget it. The pain of the bondmark is a permanent reminder of his failure. A constant injury that will never let him rest.

More than that, with the bond now formed between her and Revas, she’s beginning to understand how devoted Solas must have been to Mythal. Athera is already becoming used to Revas’ constant presence in her thoughts. She’s comfortable with knowing where he is at all times, and — yes — knowing that he’s sworn to protect her is comforting in a similar way to the forgotten comfort of childhood; the deeply held belief that a parent or guardian will always be there to help.

How many thousands of years must Solas have been bound to Mythal in this way? How attuned to feeling his leader’s emotions and reliant on her constant presence did he become? Athera has been considering Mythal and her wolf to be like friends, perhaps even like family, but she could never have imagined they were this closely tied. To lose her must have been like having a whole piece of himself torn away. Pride’s greatest failure and his ultimate shame made real.

And if he were meant to have died-

-Her thoughts stutter on that sentence, her entire body going cold as she turns her head in dawning horror towards Revas. He meets her gaze, and his spine straightens incrementally. He knows what she’s just realised.

“You-, you…”

Her breath is stuttering, her hands shaking, and when he inclines his head calmly, she surges out of her seat and across the room so quickly that she isn’t sure she didn’t fadestep. She pulls her fist back and swings it hard at his face, but he stands in one fluid movement and catches both of her wrists in his hands.

“You felasil!” She screams at him. “What have you done?”

“What I had to do.”

She is still clawing at him, trying to beat some sense into him as her voice grows ragged.

“You’ll die!” She wails. “You bound yourself to me knowing that you would die!”

Revas’ eyes are soft, aching with sorrow, and he releases her with one hand only so that he can cup her cheek with it.

“I will only die, lethallan, if you die,” he says very softly. “I hope that you aren’t intending to do that.”

His voice is gentle, knowing, and she falls still as her eyes fill with tears, and the full realisation of why he’d pledged to her suddenly becomes clear.

“You did it on purpose,” she breathes. “You wanted me to find out, because if I found out-”

“-Then you might just, for once, stop being so dismissive of the value of your own life,” Revas says. “It is not within my power to give you back the life that was stolen from you in Tevinter. I cannot force you to value yourself in the way that you should have been valued. But I hope that, until you learn to care for yourself as you should always have been cared for, in the meantime, you may have a care for my life in its stead.”

She can’t stop shaking, tears rolling silently down her face as she stares up into his. It was a dirty trick — one worthy of the Dread Wolf himself — but the result is that she will be forced to be careful. She cannot offer her body or her freedom up to anyone again, because to do so would harm Revas as well.

He has given her a reason to look after herself, and risked his life to do it.

A sob breaks from her mouth, and all at once she feels Solas at her back. She keens as he turns her gently away and draws her into his chest.

“You knew!” She accuses him plaintively. “You knew what it meant and you didn’t stop him!”

Her voice comes out muffled against the fabric of his tunic, and he breathes out a soft breath into her hair.

“Yes, my star, I knew what it meant,” he admits. “And I will say again that I am not unhappy with what was done. You have long needed someone to stand for you, to remind you of your own worth. I am… Not unfamiliar with having such a need. But while I may stand by your side as a partner, I cannot pledge to be your Champion as well.”

He huffs wryly into her hair, and draws her closer against him.

“Only a few months ago, I would have chosen near enough anyone else to stand in that place. But despite all of my suspicions to the contrary, it seems there is no one better placed than Revas to step into the role.”

She hears her Champion snort behind her, and surreptitiously wipes her tears.

“That, Fen’Harel, was rather a back-handed compliment,” Revas says. “But I’ll take it in the spirit it was intended.”

With a shuddering breath, Athera pulls away from Solas and turns to face him again.

“You should have told me,” she says weakly. “I’d never have agreed if I’d known.”

“That, da’len, is exactly why I didn’t tell you,” Revas replies. “But I cannot bind you against your will. If it disturbs you, you may of course release me, though I would urge you not to do so just yet. There will be hard times ahead for both of us before this is over, and it is an honour to stand as your Champion.”

She considers him carefully, and hesitates over what she needs to say.

“I understand that you see it as an honour, and I can even appreciate why you did it. It’s just…”

She trails off and glances nervously at Solas, before looking back to Revas again.

“I don’t want to do to you what Mythal did to Solas,” she admits. “I don’t want that kind of power.”

Beside her, her wolf sucks in a harsh breath, and she can almost feel the blow she just dealt to his chest. Like a coward, she refuses to look back at him, keeping her attention fixed on Revas who is suddenly scowling darkly.

“Da’len,” he says, very dangerously. “If I believed that you were anything like Mythal in that respect, I would not have pledged myself in this way.”

She sees Solas turn away out of the corner of her eye, and wishes he wasn’t present for this.

“Let me ask you this,” Revas continues. “Would you ever refuse to release me, should I ask you to let me free?”

“Of course not!” She cries out, outraged, and then a terrible thought strikes her.

She turns back to Solas, where he is leaning with one hand braced against the mantlepiece as though winded, his back hunched towards the flames.

“Did that happen?” She whispers. “Did Mythal refuse to release you?”

He draws in a deep breath, his shoulders straightening as he turns towards her, and his features shadowed in the light of the fire.

“No, my star,” he says quietly. “She did not refuse to release me. The truth is that I have never asked to be free of my pledge. Until very recently, it wasn’t something I ever thought I might need.”

“But you do now?” She asks. “Why? What’s changed?”

A sad smile pulls at one side of Solas’ mouth.

“In a word, vhenan,” he answers. “You.”

“The All Mother was the best of the Evanuris,” Revas explains. “A beacon of reason who cared for and protected her People. But she was also capricious and fiercely jealous over those she considered her favourites. Since her murder, da’len, she has suffered greatly, and clawed herself back to a half-life through many trials and great pain. The problem is that we don’t know what that might have done to her mind.”

“It is possible…” Solas swallows and looks away. “It is possible that she will see you as a rival, my star, and we do not know what that would mean.”

Athera sits down heavily on the sofa and stares blankly across the room. In a day filled with surprising revelations, this one sits the most uncomfortably. She’s grown used to Solas’ nature by sheer exposure to him. She understands who he was and the power he’d wielded, just as she understands Revas’ age. She has never, until now, truly reckoned with what it will mean to stand toe-to-toe with Mythal, and all of a sudden she feels hopelessly out of her depth.

She draws a shaky breath in and tries to focus on the problem at hand.

“The Champion’s Bond is why you’ll have to restore her to strength,” she begins. “Explain to me why that is.”

“A Champion’s duty is the defence of his leader,” Revas replies. “Although she may not seem it, Mythal is currently wounded. Were Solas to have the power to heal her and refuse to do so, the bond would see that as a betrayal.”

She nods slowly, her thoughts racing.

“If Solas didn’t have access to the orb — if I and Skyhold refused to release it and he didn’t have the means to restore her — would the same rules still apply?”

There’s a heavy silence in the wake of her question, and when Revas speaks his voice is hesitant and pained.

“No, da’len, that would be entirely different,” he says haltingly. “Unfortunately, as we said, we do not know the All Mother’s mind. It is possible that…”

He trails off, and Athera looks to Solas. He is bent over the mantlepiece again, his jaw clenched, and in the flickering light of the flames he looks as though he might be sick.

“Although Mythal is wounded,” he says hoarsely. “She has been awake for far longer than either Revas or I. She is far more powerful right now than either of us, my star. And there is a chance that-, a chance that she will-”

“-That she’ll try to hurt me for changing your loyalties,” Athera finishes for him.

Solas closes his eyes, agonised, and her heart aches at how deeply the words have wounded him.

“Ir abelas, ma fen,” she whispers.

“Tel’abelas,” he bites back. “It is not your fault.”

It isn’t, but she still feels his pain as though it were her own. Thousands of years he has looked to Mythal as his guide. Thousands of years of pain and war and loyalty focused on a single person — and the burning of the bondmark to prove it — and tonight he may find out just what that devotion was worth.

She hopes, with a ferocity that makes her dizzy, that Mythal is even half as worthy of his love as he seems to think she is. She doesn’t want to see him cast aside; cannot imagine the pain he would feel if he discovers that his leader doesn’t care for him.

If Mythal does try to hurt him through her, Athera realises with a shock that she’d happily tear her to shreds — no matter that she wears the vallaslin on her face in her honour. It’s Solas she belongs to now.

She takes another deep breath.

“I need to think about this,” she says distantly. “Can you give me an hour to decide?”

“Ma nuvenin, da’len,” Revas replies. “But no longer than that. There will be preparations to make before we leave.”

***

After Solas and Revas have left, Athera draws open the balcony doors and steps outside into the cold. Night has fallen while they’ve been talking, and there is the taste of snow in the air. The Frostbacks are dark and distant in the half-moonlight, and beneath her the torches of Skyhold’s courtyard send a pale orange glow into the sky.

She rests her palms on the stone rail, the chill in the air bringing a semblance of calm to her thoughts. She still doesn’t know what to do.

She loves Solas more than she loves her own life, and she would happily die in his stead. If it were only herself she’d hurt by making the wrong decision, then she’d hand him the orb right now. The problem is that she’s the Inquisitor, and too many other people rely on her too. She can’t let her love for Solas distract her from the fact that he’s been led astray by the orb’s power before.

Even worse, is that it isn’t just about Solas. While Athera would be wary of giving anyone this kind of power, she trusts that he’s thinking more clearly now than he has since he first woke. But what Mythal’s designs for Thedas are she cannot possibly guess. To restore Solas to power is to restore the All Mother as well. If she chooses to give him the focus, she will be bringing two Elvhen gods onto the board with no way of knowing how one of them will behave.

She stands there for the full hour staring out over the mountains’ peaks. Her fingers grow red in the cold and her feet turn numb in her boots, and exactly an hour after they’d left, Revas and Solas return.

It doesn’t take them long to prepare. Both of the ancient elves join her in her quarters already dressed in astonishing golden armour, Solas’ with a white wolf pelt worn across one shoulder. For a moment, she’s rendered speechless by him. She remembers Revas’ story, of how he’d stood in armour just like this and challenged Elgar’nan as the flames rose around him and Arlathan burned. Tonight, she can believe it, because gone is the humble apostate. He looks just like a god.

Then, his expression softens, his storm blue eyes tentative and hopeful, and she reads the question in them without any words being needed.

Am I still your wolf like this as well?

There is a question buried more deeply beneath that one, she knows.

Can you really love all of me, just as I am?

Although it’s terrifying to even think about, she realises that yes, she can. She has loved him for near enough all of the time they’ve known each other; she can hardly put a stop to her foolish heart now.

He must read the answer in her eyes, because a look of pure relief changes his face in an instant, and she thinks that if the situation wasn’t so dire he would have walked across the room and kissed her. She hopes they have a chance for that later.

“Have you made a choice?” Revas asks.

She draws in a deep breath and looks towards Solas.

“Answer me one thing first,” she says.

Solas draws himself up to his full height, his hands clasped behind his back as he meets her gaze. She’s shocked by the realisation that it’s the stance of a soldier at parade rest, and wonders how she had never noticed that before. He’s always moved like a general, even when he hasn’t intended to. The habits of Ages of war can’t be broken so easily.

She steps up to him and runs her fingertips softly over his cheek, searching his face as delicately as she dares.

“Can you promise to stand by me?” She whispers at last. “Can you promise to stand by my side, no matter what may come?”

Chapter Text

Some moments can be held suspended, given more weight and form in their silence than any others that came before. She feels this single moment become as solid as amber; a set of scales slipping like a metronome from side to side, teetering along the path of fate and circumstance. The fire behind her crackles. She can hear the wind gusting beyond the balcony doors. Solas’ eyes are storm-grey in the glow of the flame-lit room, and the tension within him is a physical weight.

He holds her gaze but doesn’t move a muscle.

Until-

“Yes.”

The word is forced through his teeth on a hiss, and his eyes shine with pain as though he’s just pulled a dagger from his chest.

“Yes?” She asks, soft and tentative.

His whole body seems to subside, like sand slipping through the hole in an hour glass.

“You have my word.”

He shapes the sentence with his lips and makes barely a breath of sound, as though to bring resonance to the words will be the very end of all that he is and has been. She can almost feel the dual weights shifting like tectonic plates within him; the relief that lowers his shoulders and the horror that crushes his chest.

She cups his face with her palm and presses their foreheads together, never once breaking his gaze.

“Ma serannas, ma fen,” she whispers. “That’s all I needed to hear.”

His throat works convulsively, and she thinks for a moment that his legs might give out, but then he draws strength from some hidden well and holds himself rigid again.

Behind her, she hears Revas release a long and gusting breath, and she steps back and away and meets Solas as a leader. An equal.

“I will give you the orb, ma lath,” she says. “But I want to make something clear. I’m not giving it to you because I’ve been backed into a corner, and I’m not giving it to you for Mythal. I’m not giving it to you because I want or expect you to perform miracles with it, and I’m not giving it to you as part of some ill-thought out bid for power, either.”

He is pale and shell-shocked, his eyes intent on hers.

“I’m giving it to you because I trust you, ma fen,” she tells him softly. “And because I know you’re a good man.”

It’s these words that undo him. He has pledged to choose her over Mythal, and millennia of loyalty to the All Mother is breaking and crumbling away.

“Vhenan,” he croaks. “My star.”

He sounds terrified — as lost as a small child woken from a nightmare, still with the hope that the real world might be safe. She draws him into her arms, the golden armour cold and solid as he pulls her into his body and holds her far too tightly.

“I’m proud of you, ma fen,” she murmurs into his ear. “You’ve earned this trust, I promise.”

He buries his nose in her shoulder, and she feels small and overwhelmed beneath the bulk of his ancient goldplate. They stand there for a long moment while he absorbs what comfort he can, and when he pulls away there’s a strength and conviction in his eyes that she’s rarely seen there before.

She turns to face Revas, who’s been watching the exchange steadily.

“Do you think I’ve made the right choice?” She asks.

“You’ve made the choice that you were able to,” he replies. “I’ve said all along that the decision would be yours, da’len. I do not regret it yet.”

***

It isn’t long before they’re making their way into Skyhold’s hidden chambers and down the spiralling stairs. Athera is wearing her own set of Elvhen armour, a midnight colour that’s so dark it’s almost black, with a pale grey wolf pelt slung over her shoulder. She feels, privately, like a child playing dress-up with a parents’ clothes, but the way the two ancient elves observe her makes her think that she probably looks more impressive than she feels.

She carries no weapons herself, but both Solas and Revas hold their staffs at their side, and she can’t ignore the fact that it’s a deliberate choice the two of them have made. A ruler doesn’t carry their own blade; the soldiers at their side are protection enough. Both Solas and Revas are presenting her to Mythal as their leader. The thought is as reassuring as it is terrifying, and she can’t focus on it for too long without it threatening to overwhelm her.

When they come to the lyrium door she feels the spirits of Skyhold start to flutter around her anxiously, and she closes her eyes and reaches out with the anchor tentatively. The castle responds, a thousand different emotions — a thousand different personalities — licking against her will. She takes up all the love she has for Solas, all of the trust, all of the belief in who he really is, and lets Skyhold feel it all.

When the spirits retreat, they leave her with an overwhelming surge of a bright, hot, stark emotion that brings tears rushing hot to her eyes.

“Oh,” she breathes out, overwhelmed and overcome. “Oh, ma fen.”

She opens her eyes, swaying slightly as Solas catches her by the arm and both he and Revas observe her with worry.

“My star?” He asks. “What happened? Are you okay?”

She blinks up at him, beaming and light and nearly dizzy with the force of Skyhold’s feeling.

“Didn’t you feel it?” She whispers. “Didn’t you know?”

“No, da’len,” Revas says carefully. “Whatever just passed between you and Skyhold was meant for you alone.”

She shakes her head to clear it, and then smiles up at Solas and cups his face gently.

“Skyhold loves you, ma lath,” she says softly. “In fact, Skyhold adores you. I’ve never felt anything like it in all of my life.”

Solas’ eyes widen, a fierce uncertainty and hope in his eyes that almost makes her want to cry.

“Show him,” she tells the castle. “He should know it too.”

A moment later, she feels the spirits descend at a distance, and Solas makes a wounded noise low in the back of his throat. His eyes fall closed and his brow furrows, as if in pain, and this time it’s Athera who takes hold of his arm when he stumbles to the side and sways.

When the castle’s spirits retreat, a single tear leaks from beneath Solas’ eye, and she brushes it gently away with her thumb and presses her lips to the corner of his mouth.

“I told you when we first arrived here, remember?” She whispers. “I told you that we both loved you, ma fen.”

He draws in a breath that shakes, and when he opens his eyes again she isn’t sure she’s ever seen such pure emotion within them. She takes his hand, and Skyhold grants them entrance to the holding chamber as the great doors open themselves inwards.

At once, the tidal wave of magic overwhelms them, and Athera’s legs feel weak as they stride inside together. The focus is still on its carved plinth, floating above the stone behind a sharp blue barrier. A soft green glow hums at its centre, but when Solas crosses the threshold it lets out a burst of light like a solar flare. When it recedes, Athera is left lightheaded and blinking sun-spots from her eyes, while Solas’ grip on her hand becomes so tight it hurts.

“Last chance,” Revas says beside her. “Once this is done, there’s no going back.”

She swallows, hard. The focus is glowing fiercely, its power lashing out against the blue barrier as though trying to get to Solas. At her side, he is taut and trembling, his gaze fixed on the ancient artefact and his eyes reflecting the green of the Fade.

“Ma fen, look at me.”

With what appears to be great effort, he wrenches his attention away, and she stares up into his face and runs her fingers over his cheek.

“Promise me,” she says again. “Promise me you’ll still be you when it’s done.”

His expression, suddenly turned hard, begins to soften, and he bows his neck and rests their foreheads together.

“I will still be me, my star. I swear it.”

She draws a deep breath in and lets go of his hand.

“Go on then, ma lath. Take it. The orb is yours.”

He hesitates, searching her face, and then brushes a gentle kiss to her forehead and turns himself away. She steps to Revas’ side, and his hand slips silently into hers as they watch Solas cross the floor.

“Ir abelas, lethallin,” she whispers.

“Tel’abelas. Whatever comes next is not your fault.”

She squeezes his hand tightly as Solas reaches the barrier and it disintegrates. With a deep breath, he holds his palm out above the focus as though about to caress it, and when his skin meets the moulded metal a shockwave of heat fills the chamber like a wave. The song rises, swelling, reaching an almost unbearable pitch, and Revas pulls Athera into his chest to shelter her as the whole of the chamber begins to swirl with green.

She clings to him, her eyes screwed shut, the taste of lightning and dreams and burning sharp in her nose; and then as quickly as it came, the magic is gone.

When she looks up again, the focus is dark and silent on the pedestal. Beside it, Solas has his head down and is breathing heavily. Even from this distance, she can feel the power coursing through his veins as it struggles to settle inside him. Revas releases her carefully, and she makes a move forward as Solas finally raises his head and looks her in the eye.

She falls still mid-step, a primal panic rising into her throat. His eyes are glowing blue, the softness in them she so loves no longer anywhere to be found. The man standing in Solas’ place is eldritch, powerful, and strange.

The Dread Wolf from the legends of old.

She swallows.

“Solas?” She asks hesitantly. “Ma fen?”

For a moment, he doesn’t move. Then, he shakes his shoulders as though casting off a chill and the light in his eyes recedes.

“I am still myself, my star,” he says softly. “Please, do not be afraid.”

His expression has fallen, uncertain and sad in the face of her fear, and she feels her shoulders unwind in relief when it’s her wolf who reaches out his hand. She crosses the hall and flings herself into his arms, and he makes a relieved sound against her ear as he pulls her close against him.

“I promise, vhenan,” he murmurs. “I promise it’s still me. Please don’t be afraid of me. Not you, my star. I couldn’t bear it.”

He sounds so like Solas, so like himself, that she laughs wetly at his ear.

“I told you before, ma fen,” she replies. “You will always be my foolish wolf.”

She feels him smile against her ear, and when he pulls away again she can still sense the magic crackling beneath his skin.

“How do you feel, Fen’Harel?”

Solas looks over her shoulder at Revas and rolls his shoulders experimentally.

“I feel like the warrior I once was,” he says honestly. “It is strange to be strong once again, after so long feeling so weak.”

“Good,” Revas replies. “Because the midnight hour approaches and we had better be prepared when it does.”

No sooner has he finished the sentence than the entire wall behind the focus starts to glow. Every inch of it swells with blue-white light that swallows the frescos and makes Athera wince and shield her eyes.

“The wall is an eluvian?” She asks. “For Blight’s sake, why?”

“This was once an antechamber in the original castle, my star. These hallways were designed to move armies through the Crossroads at speed.”

She has little time to process that, as both Revas and Solas take their places at her side.

“It isn’t wise to keep the All Mother waiting,” Revas says. “Come, da’len. It is time.”

***

The last time Athera stepped through an eluvian it was into Merrill’s rooms in the alienage, only to come face-to-face with a traumatised Dread Wolf standing silent and cloaked in blood. This time, they emerge into a sweeping glen bordered by white trees, their sunburnt leaves scattering in a gentle breeze. On a black dais, veined with gold, is another imposing eluvian, and she catches sight of a wolf statue hidden somewhere at its side.

But Athera hardly has any time in which to appreciate these details — because as soon as they breach the threshold, a blistering arrow of howling magic, more potent than anything she’s ever felt, comes searing through the air towards her.

“No!”

The cry comes from both of the elves at her side, and she blinks in numb astonishment as Solas flings his hand out ahead of him, and conjures a crackling barrier that repels the attack. The magic rebounds against it, arcing up towards the sky and shattering against an invisible dome somewhere beneath the stars.

The entire action can have taken no more than five seconds, and when it’s over the magic is falling in harmless curtains of shooting stars overhead.

“I see,” rings out a woman’s voice. “So, this is where the pieces on the board now lie.”

With understated majesty, Mythal steps out from behind the eluvian and begins a slow walk across the blue grass towards them. Athera feels a sudden rush of emotion that’s almost too strong to identify. The All Mother is proud and impressive in this small pocket of the Fade; her face is weathered and regal, her golden eyes piercing and feline, and two great horns rise inexorably from her head. She wears a cloak of midnight and her pale feet are bare.

Athera feels awe, and the sudden heat of — anger.

Beside her, Revas has readied his staff and is staring with distrust at the Evanuris, while Solas-

Solas still has his hand raised and is feeding the barrier to protect her, but behind its thin blue shimmer his eyes are wide and wounded.

“Oh, do not look so stricken, Pride,” Mythal says. “I was merely testing the waters, as it were. You know as well as anybody that actions speak louder than words.”

She smiles, but it is sharp and dangerous, and Athera wishes she had a weapon of her own.

“Come,” Mythal encourages. “Lower your barrier my old friend. Your heart is in no danger from me now.”

To anyone watching, Solas would appear to be calm, but Athera can see the slight tremble in his fingers and hear the sound as he swallows.

“An Accord first,” he says. “You will grant us an Accord.”

In her head, the word carries a capital letter for reasons she doesn’t understand, but when Mythal tips her head back and laughs she knows that she’s heard the word right.

“An Accord is a binding promise between a Champion and their leader,” Revas murmurs to her. “It ensures the safety of a third-party, one dear to either one or both of them.”

“Your Champion is of course correct,” Mythal says, with that same sharp smile still on her lips. “Were an Accord to be invoked through the bond, I could no more harm you than Pride could harm me.”

“Will you do it?” Solas whispers. “Will you grant me this, at least?”

His voice is strained, and Athera wishes more than anything to chase the pain from his eyes. For a moment, Mythal’s expression softens, and she inclines her head regally from her position in the centre of the clearing.

“You take too much too deeply, my dear one,” she replies. “Your Inquisitor was never in any danger from me.”

In tandem, both she and Solas close their eyes, and Athera feels a rush of heat and a crackle of power pass between them, and he lets the barrier fade.

“Thank you,” he breathes.

Mythal tuts at him fondly.

“Always so grim and fatalistic, my Champion. Now, shall we get to the business at hand?”

Athera isn’t sure what she was expecting from the night, but the business-like nature of such a monumental moment as restoring to Mythal to power wasn’t it. Without ceremony or hesitation, Solas crosses the distance between them, and both Champion and leader link arms while they press their foreheads together.

The action is intimate — almost tender — and even from a distance Athera can see Solas’ shoulders start to relax. Their lips move, conversing quietly, and then he lets out a long breath and both of their eyes fall closed.

For a long time, nothing seems to happen, and then the whole of the Fade starts to warp.

“Hold tight to me,” Revas says. “You won’t have seen anything like this.”

She grabs hold of his hand as he drops a barrier over them; and then the pocket of the glen begins to melt.

First, the leaves on the trees become liquid and pour into the ground. The grass splits, cracks, and grows flowers that sparkle and fade. The stars drip down from above them like ice-melt roaring down a mountain — and all around them magic jumps and sparks in crackles of glowing green.

It’s like being inside a bolt of lightning, Athera thinks wildly. Like being caught within lightning born of the Fade.

Then, with a final burst of heat the moment passes, and the clearing reforms itself again.

In its centre, Solas and Mythal are still pressed together, both of their shoulders heaving with effort. When they pull back, he is pale and shaking with exhaustion, but she — she is magnificent.

She still carries Flemeth’s face, yet the skin beneath her age lines is absurdly, impossibly perfect. She is tall, taller even than Solas, and long silver hair trails down her back in a tightly coiled braid. Her horns have grown long, black-diamond whorls of darkness standing high against the foreground, and there are scales — deep green, horrifyingly beautiful scales — bleeding into the outline of her face.

This is the first time that Athera feels afraid. This woman, this creature, this Evanuris, is raw power and grace incarnate. She can imagine her, all of a sudden, standing in the crystal spires of old, speaking with authority to legions of armies spread out before the strength of her rule.

She turns to Solas with a smile.

“Ma serannas, my old friend,” Mythal says. “You have done me a great service today.”

Solas bows, but there is more pride in the motion than subservience.

“It is no more than you have deserved.”

Mythal laughs, the sound ringing out across the glen clearly, and Athera sees Solas smile.

“Come,” the All Mother says. “Won’t you introduce me to the Inquisitor at last?”

To Athera’s surprise, there is now no hesitation in the way he turns towards her. His expression is warm, almost jubilant, as he holds his hand out and beckons her to join them. She steels herself, pulling calm from somewhere deep. If this is the woman Solas once loved enough to pledge the whole of his life to, then the least she can do is be brave enough to try and understand why.

“Mythal, All Mother, Protector of the People and Deliverer of Justice” Solas says grandly. “May I present to you the Inquisitor Athera Lavellan, leader of the revas’shiral, Starfire to our People, and the Rebel Duchess of Starfire Keep.”

She approaches the gods with her head held high, never once breaking Mythal’s gaze as Solas takes her by the hand and draws her to stand at his side. Carefully — fighting the primal instinct that she is baring her neck to a predator — she bows.

“It is an honour, All Mother. Though I hope you won’t try to kill me again.”

It is a calculated statement; one designed both to acknowledge her power and familiarise their relationship. While Solas’ eyes widen in dismay, Mythal lets out a sharp cackle that echoes through the Fade.

“Ah, she has courage, Pride! Courage, and a little of the foolhardy, just like a young wolf I once knew.”

Athera straightens, though she struggles to hold Mythal’s gaze. It’s like looking into the eyes of a dragon and praying that it remains asleep.

“Well met, Fen’an,” the Evanuris says. “You have caused us a great deal of strife.”

“She has aided the People as well, Mythal,” Solas cuts in, and there is something young and uncertain in his voice. “She seeks justice for the elves just as much as we, and the Inquisition grows stronger by the day.”

Mythal rolls her shining eyes heavenward and shakes her magnificent head.