Chapter Text
Skyhold - 9:42 Dragon
While Josephine was working to quell the talk about the Inquisitor’s absence, Solas returned to Skyhold alone.
He rode through the gates with his shoulders squared, chin high, and eyes askance. He knew the mostly human guards would likely not question the comings and goings of a member of the Inquisition’s inner circle, at most running off to Cullen to bring word of his return. For the briefest moment, he wondered if he might have misjudged Briseis’s nature—if he would be turned away at the gates by order of the vindictive Inquisitor, clapped in irons, perhaps. At times, he almost wished for her to fail him, to give him a reason to believe her kindness and temperance were mere illusions.
He passed through the gates without incident.
Solas had meticulously planned his return to ensure she would reach Skyhold from Crestwood first. He had taken winding, out-of-the-way roads, avoiding every Inquisition camp he knew she would pass through, adjusting the horse’s pace to keep at least three days behind her. Now he thought of her passing through these same gates, exhausted and alone, immediately set upon by questions about her journey, his absence, her bare face. He had thought of how she would explain things, what she would have told the others. Yet again, despite his best intentions, he had found a way to thrust another burden on her and relied on her ability to shoulder it. Ir abelas, vhenan.
It was dark now, and the light and warmth of the Herald’s Rest tavern had tempted away many a prying eye, allowing him to make his way to the stables without notice to return the horse he had borrowed. Relief washed over him as he saw Vayas, her horse, safe in its stall. She was home. Yet that relief twisted into something heavier - a memory of her voice still too raw to ignore.
“Solas, don’t leave me, not now. I love you.”
He took to the battlements and made his way back to the rotunda, preferring the risk of a run-in with Cullen over a potential spectacle in the main hall. Even as he closed the heavy door behind him, he could feel the oppressive silence in his once-familiar quarters. The murals he had painted looming over him, the half-completed work at his desk - now reduced to remnants of the time before. A previous life on a trajectory far removed from the one he was now on.
“In another world…”
“Why not this one?”
The last few months had seen him grow from strength to strength, not yet fully recovered from his long slumber but vastly changed. He felt more attuned to this body of his than any time in recent memory that he could recall, his muscles singing from use in battle and from being tangled in her limbs. He finally had the strength to walk away, to smear the soft shapes starting to form which told of another way, a happier way - a way to remain by her side as Solas, nothing more.
He had to shatter every fragile possibility so they could not command his attention further.
Solas had not had this determination when he asked her to join him in Crestwood. He had not planned to end things as they loaded their horses to leave Skyhold and camped under the stars. What he had wanted was to lay his burdens at her feet and tell her everything, finally filling the gaps he knew she noticed but loved him too much to fixate on. After all, she had now been to the temple of Mythal, met Albelas, and seen the elvhen sentinels with her own eyes. She had been conflicted as she stood before the Vir'abelasan , the Well of Sorrows, but trusted him and refused to drink from it. If there was ever a time to tell her, it was now.
But he had faltered.
His instinct to protect his secrets got the better of him, and he turned to her vallasslin instead. He had still intended to tell her after that, had he not?
“So this is…what? Just one more thing the Dalish got wrong?”
She trusted him again, even as her tears betrayed the sting of his words. Briseis, solemn and beautiful, took his every word to heart. When she asked him to cast the spell, her voice steady but her hands trembling, he obeyed. His fingers tracing the blood writing, lifting it away with his hands to reveal her bare face. Despite the earlier tears, her face was peaceful now, the whisper of a smile on her lips. Her eyes shy in a way only he was privy to, downcast, unsure of her new face. A bride waiting for her veil to be lifted and to be kissed.
“You are so beautiful.”
Though the miserable ride back had drained him, he knew there would be no sleep to be found tonight. She was within these walls, only paces away, and soon he would have to face her and see this final trial through. If he had been able to leave and never return to Skyhold, spare her, he would have. Instead, he would have to bide his time a little longer. At least he would be fighting by her side when she faced Corypheus. Another burden placed on her shoulders she had not asked for.
When he saw her bare face in the moonlight, the love in her eyes, he knew he could not tell her everything. Removing her vallasslin had been an act of love, a gift meant to erase Andruil’s cruel brand from the face he cherished above all others. Yet the ritual had been too familiar, too tied to his promise to his people, to let him pretend his duty could reconcile with his love for her. Straying from his plans would betray the thousands of other faces that had sat before him, waiting for the marks of their servitude to be lifted. His purpose was clear: to mend this broken world. But at least, before the end, he had been able to give her this.
If he stayed, he would always find a way to push his plans aside and never rectify his mistakes. He would lay his head in her lap, bathed in her light, seeking solace he did not deserve. How could he move then, lulled by whispered devotions as she tended to wounds he forgot he still bore? Solas, Solas. Ar lath ma, Solas. So, as her vallasslin had lifted, so did the illusion that he could tell her the truth and trust that she would understand what he had to do.
He had kissed her even as he worked to smother the part of himself that clawed and fought to stay. He felt her strong body soften against his own, her hand stroking his face, still soothing him as his conscience roiled. One last drink of her while preparing himself for the raw ache of their parting.
Now, he sat under the scaffolding she had arranged for him to paint his murals, wanting to be cloistered as the circular room started to feel too large and exposed. He tried to meditate, focusing on how his awakening mana thrummed through him, impatient to be let loose. His thoughts would not stray so much if he could just get some rest.
Solas reflected on a life bound to duty, this singular focus the rope he clung to from age to age. This time spent amongst the shemlen had made him soft, but soon the Dread Wolf would throw his head back to bay his call and rally his people.
As for Briseis… Briseis would remain his heart, his vhenan, but left here in Skyhold for safekeeping. One day all would be revealed to her, and with time, she might be able to understand. She always managed to surprise him.
After all, he had no need for his heart where he was going, and he would not have her know anything of who he would soon become.
“I’m not giving up on you, Solas.”
“You truly should.”