Chapter Text
Having two Elvhen gods conversing in Rook’s mind fell well outside what someone would consider ideal. Especially when that someone was tasked with saving the damned world. Rather, it was a bit like holding your ear to the ground while a stampede of druffalo ran by.
In other words, loud.
She paused, trembling, gritting her teeth, as Solas's voice taunted Elgar'nan.
“The cruelty is nothing new, but what has happened to the vaunted brilliant mind of Elgar'nan the mighty?"
There had always been an eloquence to his speech. When he talked, he did so with certainty. Each word was selected with care, with purpose. He was never rattled, never perturbed, even when he raised his voice, even when his plans went awry. In many ways, she supposed, he was a mirror.
Those who spoke to him with kindness, received kindness in return. Those who did not...
"The blight has left you blunt and slow, a monster, not a mastermind. You used to be a challenging opponent."
Rook's hand flew to her temple, her next step stumbling as Elgar'nan's voice echoed.
“You saw me as an opponent. To me, you were an irritation. A fly buzzing ceaselessly."
Rook groaned as a monstrosity of metal rose and the venatori redoubled their efforts. She nearly snorted as Solas's voice dropped into a sneering taunt.
“I must speak with you in this tongue, it seems elvhen is beyond your grasp.”
Her next attack was quick, following up on the swollen ego of her patron with several attacks that hit their mark mercilessly.
“As much as she is now beyond yours.”
The words seemed to echo, hitting some mark inside of Solas that forced him into silence for a moment, as Rook rolled beneath the swing of the next attack. Her orb crackled with lightning, slicing through the last of the opposition in this area. She moved on with her team, her breath coming in quick bursts.
"There, the Dalish!" Davrin was already moving, his blade lifted.
"Rook?"
Neve said the word, but it took her several moments to realize it was her name.
"What? were you talking to—" She cursed under her breath, dodging to the side as another blast zipped past her. "Sorry, they're... they're very loud."
She extended her palm, a burst of pure mana igniting, aimed at the man standing on the cliff she couldn't remember leaping down from moments ago.
Solas's voice bloomed in her mind, blurring the edges of her vision once more. “What you did to Mythal—”
“I speak not of Mythal.”
The Dread Wolf went silent. She could not see the old Wolf, but she could almost feel a shift in posture, as though he stood before her as he straightened his spine. She had never felt true emotion from him, even when they had first met and she'd tried to rip him from her mind. There was no mistaking it now, though.
An unspoken horror shifted through Rook’s mind.
“What have you done?”
The tremor in the Wolf’s voice was barely perceptible—but Rook heard it.
“The fabled Fen’Harel prepared a ritual, years in the making, intent on raining destruction down on the mortals." Elgar'nan's tone had changed, too. It dripped now, saccharine sweet. "You planned to imperil thousands—and yet you reserved a contingent of spirits for one purpose. One alone.”
There again, swift as the wind, Rook felt... fear?
That couldn't be right, Solas wasn't afraid of anything. He was pompous, arrogant—
“No.”
The word was whispered in her mind, so low that she thought she'd imagined it.
Her next attack missed.
“They were to prevent more chaos, that is all,” Solas said, reasonable. And that was odd, too.
Solas never explained himself. He left details like breadcrumbs, expecting his opponents and allies both to catch up. Those that didn't, were not worthy of following in the first place.
Yet there was a desperation in his tone now, as he hurriedly added, "they had no other purpose."
Elgar’nan laughed, his voice shrill like fingernails dragging across stone. Rook grasped her head, the noise competing with the rising tide of emotions—Solas’s emotions.
“Your friends revealed the truth. Your regrets are a reflection in the Fade.” Another laugh. “To think, for all your claimed morals, that you would fall in love with a child.”
A spike pushed Rook off her feet. She landed hard, glancing up just in time to see Davrin dispatch the last of the venatori.
”Elgar’nan!”
Rook gasped, clutching her head as Solas's voice roared the name.
The, the Tyrant King’s laughter spilled like stones over marble.
“Fear not, Dread Wolf, we will hold your Heart until this farce is done.”
Rook could feel an echo of pain in her mind, a fear so deep that she flinched. She knew it wasn't her own, knew it came from only one place. The barrier between her team and the Dalish finally fell as she forced herself to her feet.
"Are you alright?" Davrin asked, but she just shook her head.
The gods had gone silent in her mind.
"Help them," she replied, gesturing to the elves.
She ushered them forward, her mind already turning to the ways to get her people out.
When Solas’s voice returned, it was quieter. Subdued in a way that she'd never heard before.
“I will guide you to one of my old hideouts. You can use it to make your escape. Then, we must talk.”
***
Trapped in a cage of his own making, Solas paced ceaselessly across the floor.
Everything he had done up to this point had been for Mythal, for his people. He had worked tirelessly to prepare the ritual, to build a prison strong enough to hold the last two remaining gods and contain the horrors of the blight. The last step, the most important one, had been for his old prison, the one that separated dreams from the waking, to come crashing down.
He had prepared for the loss of life. A calculated loss. One he had agonized over for years. His friends among the spirits would have sheltered the weak, drawn first to elves and then to any other innocent life.
But he had saved one contingent and given them a singular purpose: to protect the life of one person above all else until he could get to her himself.
He’d given them her name, had explained her importance.
He’d been so sure his plan would go right, that there would be nothing to fear because the gods would be gone and the world would at last be right. So sure he could keep her safe. Once, long ago, he’d been sure Mythal would be safe too.
Solas laughed at himself somewhere deep in his mind.
He who hunts alone, Elgar’nan had taunted him, just after he’d found Mythal, her blood soaking the ground, her dying breath slipping between cold lips. That’s what the histories will call you.
It was those words that had shaped Solas’s fears for ages beyond counting.
Silence had been a luxury when he’d been among the rebellion, and before that he’d stolen moments apart from the others simply to exist as he once had—in the Dreaming.
Mythal had been the exception for a long time. Though the relationship between them had been strained when he rebelled, it had never broken—until Elgar’nan had plunged a dagger through her chest. He’d found the silence unbearable then, the sudden absence a horrific reminder of what he’d lost. Her mana had lingered in their shared spaces, and Solas had gone mad with grief seeking out the last traces of her aura, if only to feel the searing heat of it against his skin. In that wild madness, he had made a grave error, failing to cleave to Wisdom and instead giving in to the rush of rage that made him form the veil and simultaneously destroy his people.
Felassan had tried to fill the void, to offer friendship and calm assurance, but it had never been enough. Especially when his friend had betrayed him in the end.
And then he’d met Ellana.
Her kindness, her unwavering determination, and her fierce sense of justice had rekindled a spark of hope within him. She’d shown him an enduring form of love, beyond anything he’d experienced with Mythal. She saw through his masks, understanding the weight of his burdens without judgment. In her presence, he found solace and a sense of purpose that had long eluded him.
Being alone hadn’t bothered him until he realized it meant being alone forever—without her.
“Did you ever love me back?” Her voice echoed across the expansive prison, the ephemeral scent of her clinging to him. “You left me, just like she left you.”
“I have never loved anyone as I love you,” he whispered, watching as the prison formed stone visages of her. Her beside the breach, her kneeling on the ground clutching her arm, her reaching for him across an endless space. The images of her that haunted him.
“What I feel for you will never change,” his own words echoed. The thought of losing her, of failing to protect her as he had failed Mythal, was more than he could bear. There was so much left to say between them.
He reached out to the stone that held her form, only to watch it shatter before his very eyes. “Liar,” she whispered in his ear, the warmth of her breath soft across his skin. “You left me all alone. Vulnerable. You wanted him you find me, didn’t you?”
“No,” he denied. “I had spirits ready to protect you—”
“Even in that, you betrayed me, vhenan.” He spun around, searching for her, only to see her across a gaping distance. The stone she had been formed from had shattered, leaving only fragments like puzzle pieces floating in the air.
“You led him to me.”
“No!” He screamed the word, losing every scrap of control he’d clung to. “Ellana!”
But she was gone, no more than shattered dust in the air as her voice murmured, “It’s your fault that everyone you ever cared for is dead.”
He snarled, turning to see Varric holding the dagger in his chest. Behind him, he saw Mythal and Felassan, the spirits and men and women he’d sacrificed throughout his rebellion—and beyond them, he saw Ellana’s eyes staring back at him.
“Like you killed us.”
“No, no.” Solas shook his head, pressing the heel of his palms to his eyelids. “I did what I had to, what honor and duty demanded of me!”
The voices went silent for half a heartbeat before redoubling. Felassan appeared to his right, his voice strained as he said, “we’re supposed to be better.”
“I did what I had to,” Solas repeated, opening his eyes and crying out as the prison showed him horrific images of death and torture.
“Do you know what Elgar’nan does to his slaves?” Ellana’s voice came from somewhere to his left.
“Do you know what he’ll do to me?”
Solas did.
He knew, and his stomach twisted at the thought of the men and women he’d liberated. He knew the cruel, horrific tortures that the god of tyranny had inflicted. Knowing that Ellana could be facing that right now, alone, afraid, tore away at his heart. “Vhenan, please. Hold on.”
“For what?”
In the blink of an eye, Ellana reappeared—but this time, she was bleeding on the ground, his lyrium dagger piercing her heart. She gasped, staring up at him with wide, terrified eyes as blood poured from her mouth. Another blink and it was Mythal. A third, it was Felassan. A fourth, it was Varric.
“Please. Hold on.”
“For you to kill me yourself?” she asked, snapping back into focus. “How much will Fen’Harel sacrifice for his goals?”
“Not you,” he said, approaching her, his hand outstretched. “Vhenan—”
He who hunts alone, came the cacophony.
Solas clutched at his chest, his fingers digging into the metal plate. His knees slammed into the stone a moment later and he reached for the body. It was Ellana again. He needed to hold her, the way a starving man needed food, he needed to touch her. Her eyes blinked back at him, and she whispered, blood pouring from her mouth, “Vhenan?”
“Solas?”
He startled badly, his heart threatening to beat out of his chest as he found Rook standing across the distance as before. Her eyes darted between him and the stone visages behind him—only they were gone now. A gray staircase rose behind him and there was no sign of the friends he’d killed. He struggled to regain the composure the Crow would expect.
Slowly, he rose, straightening the panic from his spine. He folded his hands behind his back, if only to stop her from seeing the tremor running through them. His voice was uneven as he asked, “Have you any news?”
The woman nodded, and he watched her swallow her nerves as she said, “We’ve been able to confirm it.”
Solas felt the breath rush out of him as he stared in horror at the elf. “Confirm what?”
“The South is in chaos. Darkspawn have swallowed city after city. Inquisitor Lavellan was leading the resistance. . . until she vanished one night, just under two weeks ago. Her chambers were blighted the next morning. There’s no sign of where she went or if she survived.”
Solas turned from her, his mind going brilliantly blank. Two weeks. He felt a phantom weight on his shoulder and smelled the delicate floral aroma he’d always associated with her. You led him to me, she whispered in his ear.
This prison had been built from regret, but all Solas felt now was despair.
That despair ate away at him, gnawing at the edges of his sanity with relentless ferocity. He had borne the weight of countless failures, but this was a wound that festered deeper than any before. The world he had sought to change, to mend with his own hands, was crumbling further into darkness.
He closed his eyes, feeling the ghost of Ellana’s presence, her voice a haunting echo in his mind. The South was burning, cities consumed by the relentless march of the Darkspawn, and yet, she was nowhere to be found. His breath hitched as he fought back the rising tide of hopelessness.
Elgar’nan murdered Mythal. Solas had watched, unable to breach the distance, as the tyrant plunged that lyrium dagger into her heart.
Now, behind Rook, he could see a shadowed apparition of himself holding Ellana as she died. His mind returned him to that moment before the Eluvian eight long years ago, the pain he’d felt, a physical weight, as she’d cried out, his magic splitting her apart. It had been unbearable then, to see her there frightened and looking to him for help.
Her voice spoke directly into his mind, “where were you when he took me, vhenan?”
He exhaled a shaky breath, the blood draining from his features.
He could not go through it again. He would die first, rather than see another woman he’d vowed to protect struck down for his actions.
“Where were you?” He couldn’t look away as that damning question was spoke aloud. She was right there. He just needed to reach her. Without thinking he took a step closer, nearly toppling off the ledge in his frenzied need to be near her.
Rook followed his eyes, turning to look behind her and then raising an eyebrow at him. “You. . . uh. . . you good?”
Solas shook himself, pressing the darkness at the edges of his mind back.
“You must find her,” he whispered, more to himself than to Rook. The words were a fragile plea, a desperate grasp at the fraying threads of his resolve.
Solas knew that without Ellana, the resistance would falter. She had been the beacon, the one who rallied the hearts of the downtrodden. Her disappearance was a gaping wound in the fabric of their fight. He would not—could not—let her be lost to the void. Rook had to understand that too.
The Crow observed him, her gaze unwavering. She could see the fracture lines in his façade, the cracks that revealed the fragile core of his being. But she also saw the unyielding resolve that had carried him through countless trials.
“Why should I?” Her head tilted to the side. “You said yourself, our focus must be on stopping the gods.”
Solas turned sharply, facing off against the stern-faced woman who had thus far garnered his begrudging respect. “The Inquisitor is important to the safety and stability of the South.”
“There are other heroes. Morrigan’s partner is the hero of Ferelden, he saved the world from the blight. I’ve heard the Champion of Kirkwall has also entered the fray. The Inquisitor’s loss is hard, but it’s not something we need to allocate resources to. Not with the blighted gods ready to turn on us.”
Solas straightened. Her pale eyes bored into him. She intended to use the Inquisitor’s life as a bargaining chip, one she knew Solas would pay a high cost for.
If the Fade were weakened, if they had taken down Ghilan’nain, he would be able to slip through, leave Rook trapped for all eternity as he went after Elgar’nan himself. He would act now, he would let her sink into a mire of regret—
You led him to me.
Solas closed his eyes, each breath less steady than the last. He could feel blood dripping between his fingers from where his nails still dug into his palms. The pain didn’t even register.
Solas opened his eyes, staring at Rook like she was a fly in the ointment. “What do you want?”
The woman smiled. “The Crows live their lives by the words of contracts. Every action comes at a price. Every debt must be paid. Do you agree with that?”
He didn’t have time for this. Ellana didn’t have time for it.
“What. Do. You. Want.” He ground out.
Her hands went to her waist. “I want your word that you will leave the veil untroubled. That you will actively assist me and my companions. That you will work alongside us, and never against us. I also want you to provide information about how to access your network of spies and ensure that network can assist me in our fight against the gods. I know there’s more to it than the Caretaker and its network. Elves from all over Thedas have been disappearing for years. I want to know where they are and how to properly utilize them. Promise me those things, and the Inquisitor will become my top priority.”
Solas turned the words over in his mind. Access to his network was perhaps the most difficult aspect of the bargain. The vow meant nothing, it was something he would provide willingly. For her.
For Ellana’s life.
Before he could answer, the woman spoke again.
“She spoke once of what you were to one another,” Rook murmured, almost to herself more than him. “I’ve seen your memories, Solas. You’ve betrayed others you cared for, as easily as breathing. Without hesitation,” the Crow said. “Does she still even mean something to you?”
Heart pounding, blood pumping. Her canted, lilac eyes staring up at him. The mischievous slant of her mouth as she slotted it over his. The brightness of a spirit undiminished by time and circumstance.
Then, the memories darkened. His back turned, facing the eluvian, but he knew tears streamed down her face as she called his name.
You led him to me.
“Yes,” he affirmed shakily. “Something.”
“Then swear it to me. Give us something we can use. I want an advance on access to your network, otherwise I’m afraid I’ll need to focus on Ghilain’nan.”
Solas turned, walking away into shadow as he vowed, “Find her, and you have my word.”