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Voices and images filled Ellana’s mind:
Cities of glowing crystal spires.
Elven children running around, laughing.
Elven mages, enslaving tens of thousands, making arrogant proclamations of godhood.
Children sitting in a dark corner, crying, fresh vallaslin carved into their faces.
Elvhen running in a dark forest, terrified, being hunted by a wickedly laughing woman with a bow.
A single name echoed through her mind: Andruil.
A tall, regal looking woman lying lifeless in a pool of her own blood.
A young man, crying out in pain as he burns his vallaslin off his face.
Slaves pouring into the valley surrounding the fortress. Other elves greeting them and tending to their wounds.
Fen’Harel bids you welcome. Rest, knowing that the Dread Wolf guards you and his people guard this valley. In this place, you are free.
A man clad in wolfskin, the same from before, clasping one slave’s arm in friendship.
I have been falsely named a god, but I am as mortal as any of you. I take no divine mantle, nor do I wish one to be bestowed upon me. I will lead only those who would help willingly. Let none be beholden but by choice.
The gods, our Evanuris, claim divinity, yet are naught but mortals powerful in magic who can die as you or I can. In this place, we teach those who join us to unravel their lies.
The man – Fen’Harel – standing at the head of an army of former slaves, their skin clear, their vallaslin gone.
The brand of the Evanuris can be lifted from you, that all may know you oppose their cruelties. None here are slaves. All are under our protection. All may choose to fight.
Suddenly, the Dread Wolf turned to face her. And Ellana was terrified to learn that she knew both the face and the voice.
And then, just like that, she was back. Her left palm was still pressed against the weathered mural, its green glow slowly waning. The stone floor of the fortress was cold beneath her bare feet.
She did not hear him, yet knew he was there, did not turn around yet knew it was him. But where his mere presence once brought her comfort and warmth was now a cold expanse of grey nothingness. She was not afraid, though she told herself she should be. Some primal part of her still could not separate the man she had known from the one who stood behind her now.
“Dirth ma, Fen’Harel,” she said in a low voice, “Ma melana harel lasa? Ma banal mir melana lath?”
Tell me, Dread Wolf: Was it all a lie? You never loved me?
“Ellana…” came the answer.
One word. One mention of her name from his lips was all it took to put a big, jagged dent in all that she had told herself – that he was a liar. A proud, selfish bastard who had used her as a means to an end. The sound of his voice brought her back into a simpler time, when they would fall asleep in each other’s arms, only to meet again in dreams. Ellana. Hope.
She spun around, half expecting – hoping – that she would find him standing there as he had been, all simple linen clothing and knowing smiles.
That wish was not granted. Before her stood instead a tall, ominous figure, clad in a fur-lined black cloak over a suit of beautifully crafted armour of aurum and everite. It was as though he himself wanted to put a wall between whom she had known and who he truly was. To let her know that the shy hedge mage was gone. That all pretence was over. That before her stood a god.
Ellana clenched her fists and drew herself up. Fine, if this was how he wished to play this. She wasn’t the woman he had met at Haven anymore, either. She was the Herald of Andraste and the Vessel of the Vir Abelasan.
So she bit back her tears and spoke with a voice she usually reserved for passing judgement.
“Why have you brought me here?,” she demanded, “You clearly wanted me to follow. Had you truly wished to escape, no-one would ever find a trace of you, that much I know.”
The Dread Wolf closed his eyes, and lowered his head slightly.
“I promised you everything would be made clear once Corypheus fell. Whatever my crimes, I would not break that promise. You have seen the memories of this place. Still, I suspect you have questions.”
The sad smile that accompanied the last sentence belied the rigid dignity with which he carried himself. Just for a moment, Ellana suspected he was thinking the same as her, that he too was hiding a storm of emotions beneath the calm, cold shell of a seasoned leader.
“Are you like Mythal, then? A fragment of what Fen’Harel once was?” she asked.
“No. This is all I ever was. I was Solas first. Fen’harel came later. An insult I took as a badge of pride.”
He joined her over by the mural with measured steps, careful not to get too close. He rested his armoured hand against the wall, on the shoulder of one of the former slaves.
“The Dread wolf inspired hope in my friends and fear in my enemies,” he continued, “Not unlike Inquisitor, I suppose.”
“We are not the same,” Ellana bit out.
“Are we not? We both bear the burden of a title that has all but replaced our names.”
She wanted to argue that she was not like him, that her title had brought hope and peace, whereas his had given their people only grief and despair. But then she recalled Val Royeaux. Nobles and commoners alike, terrified of her. She recalled Haven. All those people that had died, because they followed the Herald of Andraste. And she recalled the visions of elven slaves, hope written over their faces instead of markings, looking up at the Dread Wolf.
“What I’ve seen,” Ellana said instead, gesturing at the mural, “Is it true?”
“Do you still trust me enough for my answer to matter?”
“Are you still worthy of my trust?”
Still leaning against his own past, he turned his gaze to the woman beside him and gave a mirthless smile:
“Was I ever?”
He sighed, and his body suddenly relaxed. Not as though a weight was lifted off him, but rather as if he gave up on bearing it, and resigned himself to letting it crush him.
“What you have seen is the truth.”
Despite everything she knew, Ellana felt like she had just heard the truest sentence she had ever witnessed him utter.
“Then…” she swallowed, “My people got everything wrong? Again?” a pained edge crept into her voice, “The Creators were nothing more than tyrants? And you… you were…”
“The Rebel God,” he finished.
“And now you know,” he said softly after a while, “What is the old Dalish curse? ‘May the Dread Wolf take you’?”
His voice broke ever so slightly with the last sentence. Ellana found she could not keep up the façade of detachment. Not when he was like this. Because the man she had fallen for was not gone.
“If you had just told me…” she managed, “I loved you. Don’t you realize I would have understood?”
“And what would you have had me tell you? That I was the great adversary from your people’s mythology?”
“Well, our mythology is wrong, isn’t it?” Ellana raised her voice, gesturing around at the murals.
“No. Whatever I may have done, or sought to do for my people, all the hatred the Dalish have for me I deserve.”
“You cannot know that,” she said, “You have not told them the whole truth.“
He scoffed. “They would have never believed me.”
“You could have told me!"
For a second he looked as though he would argue, but then realization seemed to hit him. He could have, couldn’t he? She would have understood. He looked away.
“Ir abelas, vhenan,” he murmured.
Ellana’s breath hitched in her throat at the last word.
Slowly, carefully, she reached out and put one slender hand on his shoulder. He tensed at first, but then seemed to lean into her touch.
“Then tell me now,” she said, her voice a plea rather than a command, “Ma ghilana, vhenan.”
Solas left his hand slide down the mural and fall against his side. Gently, he took Ellana’s wrist. He lingered for a moment, before shaking his head and removing her hand from his body.
He looked up at his own likeness looming over them.
“I sought to set my people free from slavery to would-be gods. I broke the chains of all who wished to join me. The false gods called me Fen’Harel, and when they finally went too far, I formed the Veil and banished them forever.”
He took a deep breath.
“Thus I freed the elven people, and in so doing, destroyed their world.”
Ellana started at his choice of words. He had never been one for hyperbole.
“Solas, I realise you blame yourself, but the fall of an empire cannot be the doing of one man alone.”
“Don’t you understand? Elvhenan was built with World and Fade. When they sundered…”
He trailed off and turned away. Hands clasped behind his back, he started slowly walking towards the balcony at the head of the hall.
“The Fade was tied to the very essence of the land and its people in a way you cannot imagine now. Your legends are half-right. We were immortal. It was not the appearance of humans that caused us to begin aging.”
He rested his hands on the marble railing, gripping it tightly.
“It was me. The Veil took everything from the elves. Even themselves.”
Ellana stopped a few steps away from him, shocked:
“Why would you do something like that?”
“Because every alternative was worse.”
She slowly joined him in looking over the fair green valley below.
“Meaning?”
“Had I not intervened, the Evanuris would have destroyed the entire world. They had already killed Mythal in their lust for power.”
Solas chuckled bitterly:
“A crime for which an eternity of torment was the only fitting punishment.”
“Was Mythal not one of them?”
“She was the best of them,” he smiled, “She cared for her people. She protected them. She was a voice of reason.”
His face hardened and he ground through gritted teeth:
“And the false gods killed her.”
They fell into silence.
“What happened to you?” she asked after a while, “After the fall.”
“I lay in dark and dreaming sleep while countless years and ages passed. I awoke still weak a year before I joined you. I knew I had caused my people’s fall. But still I held out some hope for restoration.”
He sounded remorseful beyond measure.
“The orb Corypheus used? It was mine. I was too weak to open it and claim its power. So I gave it to him.”
Ellana’s eyes went wide:
“What?”
“He was not supposed to survive,” Solas explained, “The orb had built up a massive amount of energy while I slept. The explosion should have killed him. I had not anticipated a Tevinter magister discovering the secret of effective immortality.”
“What was supposed to happen, then?”
“I would have searched Corypheus’ charred bones, and reclaimed the orb,” he said, “Then, I would have used it to tear down the Veil, and restore the world of my time.”
Ellana took an unwitting step back.
“But… tearing down the Veil now would cause untold destruction!” she managed, “Millions would die!”
He looked away:
“Yes.”
She could scarcely believe what she was hearing.
“You would destroy this world to restore Elvhenan?” she asked, her voice pleading for him to answer ‘no’.
Her pleas would once again fall on deaf ears.
“That was my plan, yes,” Solas said, “One I was determined to carry out no matter what happened. I needed to take back what I had done to the People.”
He closed his eyes, and murmured in a broken voice:
“But… I cannot anymore.”
“Why?” she asked.
Solas turned to her, and for the first time in a while looked her straight in the eye.
“Because of you,” he said, his voice low and earnest, “You have shown me that there is value in this world. I am no longer capable of doing what is necessary to save the elvhen. I have failed them, again and again. I… I dare not ask for forgiveness. Not theirs, and not yours.”
They stood there in silence for what felt like an eternity. Tears stung Ellana’s eyes. She lowered her head and let them fall.
They hit the mosaic beneath their feet, and the simple sound echoed throughout the vast hall.
When she finally looked up at Solas, she was surprised to find that there were tears in his eyes as well, glistening in the light of the setting sun. He turned away.
In a familiar motion, she reached up to cup his cheek and brought his gaze gently back to her.
Lost.
He looked as lost now as she had felt after Haven fell. And it was him who had been there for her then. Perhaps it was not too late.
“Solas,” she smiled, “You have not failed. Not them, and not me. Come back. We will find a way to restore our people. Together.”
He slowly reached to place his hand over hers, as if worried that this was all a dream, an illusion.
“You would have me back?” he asked, and shook his head slightly, “After all I-“
Ellana stood up on her tiptoes and kissed him. He tensed for a heartbeat, but then melted into her.
The kiss was both sweet and bitter. It contained every moment they had spent together, all the pain they had shared, all the hope they felt now and all the grief they feared was yet to come. But all their fears faded away in the light of the simple truth, that neither of them had to face them alone.
Neither had any idea how much time passed, only that once the reluctantly separated it was Solas who spoke first:
“I do not deserve you.”
“For better or worse, I’m afraid I am exactly what you deserve,” Ellana chuckled.