Chapter Text
He ushered her in like the wind, her lifeless body swept up in his stoic arms like a coveted artifact.
The pelting rain tapered off like the stern pull of a tourniquet as Solas stepped through the eluvian.
The persistent arrows, the relentless fire, the assault ceased into silent oblivion behind his back.
She still bled.
It trailed his footsteps like his guilt. Haemal splatter that colored his vision crimson at the edges.
He gasped and rushed forward, bending light and time to his will, a blurred shadow piercing through rippling mirrors in the matter of heartbeats.
Her heart was still.
As still as the crumbling stone infrastructure that had outlived millennia.
The god known as Fen’Harel reached his destination.
A cold room greeted him, nearly the same temperature as the fear gripping him.
He placed her upon an ornamented alter, her arms draped over the sides carelessly and his hands hovered over her body while his mind twisted and churned.
Was it too late?
He knew somewhere down deep it was futile, she was already lost, spirit departed from her body, but her flesh was still warm, remnants of life fueling false hope.
No.
He would not give her up, he would compel her back to him if he must.
“Live!” He commanded with furious azure eyes; voice forced between gritted teeth. His dripping hands trembled over her, panic rippling through his chest, there were so many arrows, so many…she had lost so much blood. Solas maneuvered her to rest on her side, he had healed her before, yes, and he could do it again. He would locate her spirit, and guide it back to her. Tie the strings back together, forge her back into whole like iron. Solas grasped her left arm to hold her steady. The arrows needed to be broken off--
The rest of her arm disintegrated before him, precious bits of her chaffing off like damp sand.
Solas breathed in sharply, the air stinging his lungs, and his stomach churning unbearably tight.
But he couldn’t stop.
In a feverous ferocity, he yanked the arrows from her chest, clawing out what he failed to retrieve.
Blood poured over the ridges of the imposing altar, dripping upon the cracked mosaic tile, blending green to red.
Solas tossed the last arrow over his shoulder and drew his hands together, the room pulsed in emerald, and the impact bounced off the walls as it drummed from his palms like a stone deliberately thrown into a tranquil pond. It took everything he had, he twisted the fade around his fingers until every pore of his body glowed a freakish blue and then green, straining and tripping on the edge of control.
Wincing, he slammed his hands down, shoving all he could into her torso, her head and shoulders flailed upwards before plummeting back onto the pedestal.
Sweat shimmied down the planes of his face as he willed her flesh to knit and her heart to beat, for it had no choice.
But, when he withdrew he found her just as lifeless as before, her heart would not beat on its own. For she was out of breath and out of heartbeats.
He tried again.
And again .
And again.
Again —until--
Solas thrust his fists onto the surface of the pedestal and the stone splintered.
With a thud, his knees gave out, his cloak pooling around him as his failure consumed him, all candles but one snuffed out, and an icy reality gripped him by the throat. “How could you die so readily?” His hands fashioned into fists.
After all, he had done to ensure her life, how could she give up? She was the last he depended on to end him, and she failed. The small dagger still stationed in his beating heart, it wasn’t enough, not for him. Now he would live out his days as a monster, feasting upon the world, with no end in sight.
The elven man leaned his head against the cool and bloody surface while his back trembled and convulsed, tears mixing into the blood-stained floor.
In the decaying room, the stagnant air shifted, and its weight became oppressive. Something large but intangible pinned the very breath in his lungs.
A shimmering orb suspended in the heated air made its way to the figure lying on the altar.
The Dreadwolf did not bother to lift his head to acknowledge it, his fists coiled around his knees and he bit into his lip.
Her head raised and her eyes opened, once purple irises now eclipsed by a ring of bright gold. She sat up as if alive, but it was not her voice that spoke.
“Her spirit needs direction. It wonders to and fro…you should escort her journey. She belongs with the rest of them.”
Solas rubbed at his face with bloody hands and only offered a slight nod in response but did not move from his spot.
“Ah, you delay. You don’t want her to end up like the rest?”
“I want her to be free. Like myself.” The god raised his head, but immediately averted his eyes as if the sight scalded him.
The body caressed her bleeding side, “But what is this? A small wisp trapped between rib and arrow.”
Careful fingers dug into chaffing flesh, and retrieved a lodged arrowhead, and a tiny white flame flickered upwards before the right hand caught it, coiling it around her knuckles.
“There is a kernel of life still wallowing here….shall I harness it for you?” Her husky voice tempted.
Solas flexed his left palm and the Anchor briefly flared, “No.” He swallowed roughly. “I have what I need.”
The body cradled the wisp in her palm, “She defied you even in death, but,” The voice paused, her eyes narrowing as she studied it, “she loved you until the end.”
Her shoulders shook as she cackled sharply, “What fools. The both of you.”
Solas watched the wisp with great anxiety but did not comment on what was said. The vision disturbed him, her tiny flailing spirit pinched between bruised and flaking peaks, it was enough to spark an epiphany.
In the sanctuary of ribs and deflated organs, she had been no more than a trapped moth bound to a decaying chrysalis.
What right did he have to keep her there? What right did he have to put her back ?
He had chained her to life and chained her to himself against her will. For he had believed so deeply that he knew better.
“What shall you do with her?” The voice intruded into his thoughts without a care for his inner struggle.
Solas sighed and closed his eyes, the path ahead was clear, and the rhythmic words bounced from his lips. (She will go free) “ En judara revas. ”
“You are aware she cannot be free without an exchange. A pity you were unable to lift Lavellan’s curse before she died.”
Solas attempted to swallow, a knot forming in his throat, he leveled with the hollowed eyes of the body before him.
“I offer myself in her stead.”
"Then it shall be you who stands in her place when your end comes. Do you wish for such a dismal fate? To guard the crossroads for all eternity?" She asked, a touch of gentleness smoothing over her words.
“ Let her be free.” He repeated a bit stronger as if it were a mantra, a prayer spoken to a god that refused to listen.
Her body shrugged her shoulders and a smile crawled from her lips. Solas quickly lowered his eyes to the base of the stone pedestal, the knot in his throat thickening.
“I could make use of her…of this body.” She offered; her voice soothed into a whisper. “I could preserve her for a time.”
He did not dare gaze upon the mockery again for it gave him too much hope. Hope that he didn’t deserve. Hope that he had already buried. Hope was an insult to her suffering.
“No,” Solas answered stiffly. “I decline your offer.”
She nodded, seemingly solemn, and opened her palm. The tiny spirit, now swathed in an aureole of blue, drifted upwards and away, wiggling through cracks in the ceiling until she was no longer in sight. The last piece of her, now fully divorced from her body, from him, from the waking world, was gone for good.
The Dreadwolf allowed himself to watch and whispered, “Dareth Shiral, ma Vhenan.”
“She has ascended.” She commented morosely, but Solas could not decipher if she felt regret for him or for herself. In the end, he didn’t much care.
She clapped her hand on her thigh, “What about that little daughter of yours, old friend?” and the body batted her eyelids flirtatiously at the grieving god. “Perhaps her stone-afflicted leg can be corrected with my help.”
“You will not touch her.”
The body trembled as she laughed, blood oozing down her matted robes as the Dreadwolf’s fists radiated in crimson heat.
Solas reclaimed his composure with a shaky breath and he released his fists, “There will be no need. My agents have located the Circulum, and the promise I made to you will be fulfilled.”
“Are you so sure? Can you surpass the temptation to bring her back?” The body pointed to herself, a knowing smirk twitching at the corners of her mouth.
“You have my word.” His eyes rose to her golden-framed ones, “The people need us .”
“ She was one of the people.” She countered coyly as she stood on borrowed feet, and wobbled for a bit. Her balance was off kilter with the loss of the left arm. “Grief humbles the artery that supplies pride to the heart. Has grief not yet humbled you, Wolf?”
Solas set his jaw with a tick and a clench.
“What will you do with those that remain?” Mythal pondered as she observed the body’s right arm, inspecting it against the faltering light of the one surviving candlestick. Her fingers greedily curled around the struggling flame.
The mourning man’s eyes glazed over as they trailed her hand, “ They–,” he gritted out, “ –are fated to burn.”
Her fist enclosed around the flame, its light snuffed out and the body collapsed, and Mythal's faint laughter punctuated the darkness as it encircled him.
"They will curse my name when I come for them."
The Heretic
The Agents of the Dreadwolf say there's a section of the crossroads where no one is permitted, all except for Fen’Harel himself. An important access point, a gateway crucial to his plan, though none of his agents are allowed to trespass in that sacred place. For he goes alone, the lone wolf secludes himself there to mourn and to observe what he is to become, who is lost, and to remember someone he speaks no more of. For her name is a thorn under his tongue, violet fresco leeching off his hands, and a stab in his heart.
Some say they have caught glimpses, with every surface prepped for her likeness, jars of pigments scattered from wall to wall. The Dreadwolf, however, is rarely seen, for he has dedicated himself to enshrining her portrait. His physical wounds were long scarred over, but the knife he cherishes as a keepsake was still lodged in flesh, a testimony to her effort, to her will, to her life.
The survivors say he decimated more than half of the Inquisition's standing army. Scattering their bodies to the wind and narrating the others into stone. They say he carried the fallen Inquisitor into the eluvian, her blood caking his arms and torso, and his eyes a bright greenish rage.
Dal'Nim who was in the Inquisition's custody also disappeared, along with a multitude of elven workers and soldiers alike. Though some believe him to be weakened, The Dreadwolf is still at large.
Thedas awaits his next strike.
Divine Victoria, aligned with Ferelden, and the city-states of Kirkwall and Ostwick forcibly disbanded the Inquisition. Culling the Spymaster from her self-made position.Though some have rumored that her crusade isn’t finished, and she continues to pull strings from the shadows of her iron-clad prison. Hawke and Gaurd-Captain Aveline were freed from her custody and along with Viscount Tethras, they have begun heading the clean-up effort in the wake of the rogue Inquisition’s destruction.
As for the Inquisitor, or rather, "The Heretic" as she was known after, was never seen again. Most assume her to be dead.
But unbeknownst to the Inquisition, to the world, to Fen’Harel himself, the wolf that seethes behind the fragile curtain of the fade had gained an additional eye.
There are rumors among his followers that believe they see her in their dreams, seven eyes and all.
FIN