Archive of Our Own ^beta

Chapter Text

In Uthenera, one did not dream. One traveled.

The labyrinthine paths of the Fade, ever shifting to reflect the waking world, could not be mapped, only walked. Just as he could no longer directly influence the world - only watch it change.

He had sown the seeds. Now, he would walk through the garden and watch them grow.

For thousands of years, Fen’Harel did just that.

Or was it only for a moment? Space and time both easily grew muddled and distorted in the Fade.

At first, he would count each week’s passing by the taste of honey and herbs which lingered on his tongue - sustenance provided by his attendants in the waking world, easing his body into stasis. But as farther and farther reaches of the Fade called to him, such grounding reminders became distractions. He began drawing on the Fade itself to sustain him.

From beyond the Veil he had created - the Veil which had torn his wicked world apart - Fen'Harel watched a new world stir and take shape. Generations were born and lived, untainted by the influence of his fellow Evanuris. Though in their absence, the People's lives grew shorter and they scattered to the winds like the ashes of their Empire, for a time, they were free and at peace.

Fen'Harel took solace in that. He found some measure of peace himself, in the thought that something good had come out of Mythal's death and his rebellion. Of all the blood that had been shed and all the wonders sacrificed to ruin.

If only that peace had lasted.

In his desperation to contain the evil of his brethren to save the People, something had escaped Fen’Harel’s notice. He had not taken into account the shemlen.

In the fall of Elvhenan, they rose. While the People drew apart, the tribes of men united. And where he had seen a chance for freedom for his people, the shemlen saw opportunity.

Before he knew it, Fen'Harel saw his dream of peace turn nightmare as the human race turned against the elves like an unstoppable tide, forcing them into submission by the thousands - back into the chains he had fought to free them from.

For the first time since tearing the world apart, doubt crept into Fen’Harel’s heart.

The elves stood against their oppressors and fell. For each one who died, dozens were enslaved. And as thousands of his people screamed in anguish, rattling their chains and cursing his name, Fen’Harel howled mournfully and drank the bitter draught of regret.

He was trapped behind the Veil, too weak after its creation to awaken. He could not help them.

All Fen'Harel could do was watch as Tevinter rose from the ashes of Elvhenan, from the blood and bones of his people. He guarded the broken pieces of his heart and stalked the Fade, bereft, restless and haunted. Even the spirits who had once sought his company began to shun him.

For ages, he languished, adrift.

But shemlen greed knew no bounds.

The Veil rippled when they tore through it. Fen'Harel stirred then, torn from his apathy, forced away from boundless grief. Wrath coursed through him when he realized what the shemlen had done.

He rushed through the Fade - a blur of dark fur and growls - to the place he had thought safely contained and which they had dared breach. The blood of the thousands they had spilled to get there would be nothing compared to the horror they could unleash if they opened the gates to the city - if they stumbled upon the corruption he had sealed within.

Fen'Harel ran until his fur matted with sweat, until his pulse thrummed in his ears and he frothed at the mouth.

Only to find Arlathan's gates swung wide open.

He shuddered.

In the shadowed, soundless streets beyond, the corruption he had sealed along with his fellow Evanuris pulsed a bright, glowing red. Ghostly whispers caressed his ears, indiscernible.

The still air smelled like trespassers, but a more careful sniff ascertained they were already gone.

Too late. He had been too late.

He had been foolish, too proud to think the shemlen capable of such a feat. Had sorely underestimated them.

The whispers were growing more insistent, tugging at his senses. A persistent humming sound arose from the shadows beyond the gates. No. He could not linger here, lest he be corrupted like his brethren.

What the shemlen had unwittingly taken back with them would be enough to throw the waking world into chaos. That would at least hold them back - they would not return to this forsaken place again. But that did not mean he would allow anything more of what was inside to spill out through those gates.

The Dread Wolf turned and howled, summoning his strength. The Fade obeyed and Arlathan’s gates slammed shut, the woven metal twisting against itself, winding in knots which he sealed with magic. Fen’Harel then padded away, head hanging so low his muzzle almost brushed against the shifting grounds.

One mistake after another. Failure after failure.

He had thought to build a better future. And instead... what if everything he had done, everything he had sacrificed, had only delayed the inevitable and set the world on a worse path?

He took those thoughts with him back into apathy.

After all, all he could do was watch. Watch and wait. Hope. He still had a shred of hope.

But as the First Blight nearly devoured the world, Fen’Harel again howled mournfully, echoing the screams of death and fear. He bit his own tail to stifle the pain and guilt that tore him apart from within.

By the Fifth Blight, only one thought remained to him - a hollow echo that hounded him wherever he went, never giving him a moment’s peace.

... what have I done?

Fen’Harel watched the massive tree burn, an unseen pair of eyes among the hundreds present.

The vhenadahl crackled and groaned, ready to topple under its own weight as the flames fed upon it like a famished beast. The air filled with thick, black smoke. The onlookers choked on it, but dared not move because of the weapons pointed at their backs. The city guard gleamed in their armor behind the crowd of ragged elves quietly wiping their faces of tears and soot with the backs of their hands.

In those hundreds, he noticed only a handful of furtive, almost tentative glares. Disappointing. Perhaps the pain was still too fresh.

He would have rather believed that. But evidence pointed to the contrary and this was not the first such display he had witnessed.

No, their spirit was almost broken. It was burning away along with their cherished tree, reduced to ashes before their eyes.

This was what the ages had distilled. What time and shemlen had done to their once great civilization.

Guilt flared in his chest at that last thought.

...have I had nothing to do with it?

Melava inan enansal
ir su aravel tu elvaral
u na emma abelas

Fen’Harel’s ears cocked. The wolf rose from its haunches and turned away to sniff at the air as the scene behind him dissolved into the greens and nothingness of the Fade. He thought he smelled something almost familiar. Distant, but familiar. Yet as he prowled around to trace it, the scent vanished. Just as the echo of those few verses had faded into silence. He listened for a time, waiting, but no more came. So, he left.

He left the city, with its Alienage’s burning vhenadahl. Crossed the fields which stretched around it under the starry sky and stalked into the woods, unseen, unheard. The Fade shifted as he padded among the trees, shaping itself to mirror what lay on the other side of the Veil. He passed by Dalish scouts hidden in the underbrush. Even in the faint moonlight, their markings were a bold testament against their skin. A slap in his face.

After all his efforts to free them from it, the elves clung to a misbegotten understanding of their past. What little knowledge had trickled down through generations was a corrupted, twisted version of the truth.

If his fellow Evanuris could see how everything had turned against him, they would laugh themselves mad with glee.

Fen’Harel came upon his own likeness at the edge of the Dalish camp and stopped. The statue of the wolf stared at him with sightless eyes.

Whatever their beliefs of him, at least they had not struck him from the pantheon altogether. A mirthless thought.

“Leave this place,” a voice commanded.

The wolf turned his head to regard the wizened woman brandishing her staff. Her baleful gaze pinned him in place. A Keeper, protecting her clan even in her sleep. From him.

It struck something within him, though anger rose closer to the surface.

“I only mean to talk,” he said, keeping it down. It was rare to come across someone from the waking world he could interact with in the Fade. He had not had much hope coming here.

The staff’s end glowed with magic in the night, illuminating the Keeper’s vallaslin. “I will not listen to anything you have to say, trickster. Begone.”

in elgar sa vir mana
in tu setheneran din emma na

She was not the first to turn him away. Fen’Harel ducked his head and left the pitiful dozen aravels behind. He padded until he could no longer feel the Keeper’s gaze burning holes in his hide, then broke into a run. The forest dispersed, green mist rising all around him, the familiar pull of the Fade whispering all around him as it struggled to keep up with him. But Fen’Harel wanted to see no more, so he ran.

He had almost forgotten the taste of herbs and honey, but it ghosted on his tongue again. It permeated the Veil and drew his attention from his woes.

lath sulevin
lath araval ena
arla ven tu vir mahvir
melana ‘nehn
enasal ir sa lethalin 

The song echoed again and this time he listened and caught the thread of it. This time, he decided he would follow it.

Spirits darted out of his way as he rushed along, headfirst into a breathless sprint.

He might have run for years; he would not know. The bitter-sweetness lingered in his mouth, only growing stronger along the way. Grounding. More real.

The paths which now formed and shifted under his paws he had not treaded in ages beyond counting.

He slowed as he realized, hesitating short of a full stop - if he awoke now, everything would change. Because he would not suffer the world in its current state.

But if he were to undo what he had done, the world would be thrown into chaos once more.

Fen’Harel padded in through a vaulted archway. The echo of his footsteps lingered in the stillness of an old Elvhen temple.

The Fade danced around him, shifting to accommodate the place he had come to. Beyond the row of stone columns supporting the ceiling, laid out on a slab of stone padded with heaps of luxurious furs, there was a man. It had been so long, his form was unfamiliar at first. But there was no mistaking the pulling sensation in his belly, the tugging at his core.

The Dread Wolf bowed his head and nuzzled his old body's forehead.

Chapter Text

The waking world met Fen’Harel’s eyes with near-confounding clarity.

When he blinked away the haze blurring his vision, the vaulted ceiling arched over his resting place remained solid, immutable. It did not fray and open into the Fade's green sky nor allowed him to glimpse Arlathan's blackened husk in the distance.

Only firelight danced across it. He caught the whisper of several torches burning along the walls of the chamber and a trace of smoke hanging in the air, along with the stronger aroma of incense.

His senses were recalibrating quickly. The rest of his body, however, did not so easily accommodate him.

Fen’Harel found he could not move.

After millennia of disuse, even breathing and moving his eyes felt straining, bordering on painful.

He had spent too long in the Fade. It would take time for him to recover his strength.

Something shifted in the shadows – a rustle of fabric, followed by almost inaudible footsteps. Fen’Harel could not even turn his head to look, but thankfully, he didn’t have to.

A figure stepped into his field of vision. Her face was pale and unmarked – one of his attendants. Golden braids adorned with pieces of intricately carved bone hanged over her shoulders, some pinned at the top of her head. Her tired eyes met his as she bent over his prone form.

“You’re awake,” she whispered.

He was grateful she kept her voice low. It did not grate against his overly-sensitive ears.

She seemed distantly familiar, as if from an old dream, but try as he may, Fen’Harel could not remember her name, only-

“You were singing,” he croaked, voice whittled down to barely even a whisper.

The woman nodded, then sat beside him.

“Forgive me, Fen’Revas,” she said. “I had to wake you.”

Fen’Revas – now that was a name he had not heard in a long time. It brought back some of the few fond memories he had from before Uthenera. Yet the undercurrent of sorrow he had detected in the woman’s flowing cadence pulled them from his mind.

He strained his vocal cords again.

“What happened?”

Instead of replying, the woman first leaned over to pick up something from next to his bed. Something smooth and warm pressed against his lower lip a moment later. The smell of broth filled his nose and he accepted the food without hesitation – he had to recover his strength as soon as possible.

His attendant gently dabbed a silken handkerchief against his lips. As she bent down, Fen’Harel saw himself reflected in the pools of her eyes: thin, pale, helpless - a truly pitiful sight. But those mournful blue depths finally jogged his memory.

Serathi – that was her name.

Ar lasa mala revas, he had once told her as she knelt before him, face cleared of her slave marks, Andruil’s chains shattered at her feet.

Serathi was one among the two dozen of his most trusted – those who had bled alongside him as he waged his rebellion against the Evanuris, who had carried his broken body here from Tarasyl'an Te'las after he created the Veil, who had safeguarded his sleep throughout the ages.

That she was here, still tending to him, was a testament of her loyalty. Yet her lack of response to his question made something twist like a knife in his gut. He forced his throat to form sounds once more.

“Where are the others?”

The silver spoon clinked against the bowl. She took it to his lips again.

“I am the last,” she said quietly.

Fen’Harel’s heart twinged. He had failed them, too. 

He pursed his lips, refusing the food.

“How?” he demanded as she pulled back. His voice shook over the question not from weakness, but from an emotion almost primal in its intensity.

“We’ve had many trespassers. Our numbers dwindled in time. I woke you because I would not risk leaving you unattended.”

You should have woken me sooner! his pained heart cried out, enraged. But he was no longer his old, foolish self. He let the fury wash over him, knowing it was not her fault for allowing him to rest until the very last moment. It was his, for not deciding to return sooner.

It was he who should beg for forgiveness. From Serathi. From the People.

It took almost all of his current strength, but he managed to raise his arm. His fingers brushed against Serathi’s cheek, drawing her from her sorrow.

“Forgive me, Serathi,” he said. “I will need your help for a while longer.”

Her eyes glistened with unshed tears when she met his gaze.

“My life is already yours, Fen’Revas.”

It was a slow recovery.

Fen’Harel lay in bed for another week. When he forced himself to try to walk, he only managed a meager five wobbly steps to the nearest chair, while leaning heavily on Serathi.

The first time he regarded himself in a mirror again, a month after waking, he looked away from himself in shame. He saw no more than a wisp in solid form, a shadow of his former self. Though some color had returned to his face, he remained gaunt, his cheeks sunken.

He looked haunted, most of all – the weight of guilt pressing down on his shoulders.

His hair was the one thing about him which remained unchanged. His attendants had taken great care to maintain its original style, and most of it hanged down his back. It had once been a symbol of his status, a source of great pride and the subject of much preening and care.

He could no longer stand the sight of it.

Whatever her feelings on the matter, Serathi obeyed him without question when he asked her to take a blade to it. He felt much lighter afterwards.

Not that the change made time flow by faster. A whole season passed before he was able to move about unattended. To bathe himself without feeling the strain. To cast minor spells without immediately collapsing in the nearest seat.

As the color of the leaves in the temple’s courtyard turned to rust, Fen’Harel came to the disheartening conclusion that it might take years before he regained his full power.

He could not afford to wait so long, knowing from his dream travels how the world had recently been thrown in turmoil by a war between mages and templars, how the People suffered more than ever.

He had stranded them when he had raised the Veil. Then he had abandoned them. He needed to right those wrongs.

He thought to use his focus to regain his power sooner, so one day he went into the inner sanctum for it.

Fen'Harel reached out for the artifact, fingers hovering as if over the skin of a lover. The orb pulsed faintly, a heartbeat he remembered, a promise of infinite will contained in fragile form. His hand closed around it at last, and for an instant he felt the Fade lean toward him, as it had in ages past. Then nothing. A hollow stillness. The silence of a severed tether. His breath caught, not in awe now but in fury.

His focus had accumulated much power while he had slumbered, yet he remained too weak to even unlock it.

The passing of time tormented him with each day in which he did nothing. With each night in which he watched the world unravel from beyond the Veil.

The helplessness drove him mad. His mind turned in circles. His inward debates wore him down.

After so many centuries, what difference would a few years make?

Yet how many more would suffer and perish needlessly in those few years?

Serathi could not help him with this dilemma. She was not Mythal. Nor a spirit of Wisdom. She was not even a mage. Loyal to a fault and deadly with a bow or daggers, yes. A decent chess player, certainly. He enjoyed her quiet company – it served to stave off loneliness over the long winter.

It was enough that she kept him fed and tended to his well-being, but he could not rely on her to assuage his concerns on the matters which tormented him the most.

“Would that I could unlock the orb for you, Fen’Revas,” she told him one evening.

She had just brought his supper to the garden, where he liked to spend time every day. He was cradling the focus in his hands, his thumb brushing idly over its grooves. It remained cold and unresponsive.

“Would that you could,” he echoed despondently.

Although even if she were a mage, the attempt would kill her. He would grieve her, but it would be a price he would willing to pay – one life sacrificed to save so many more. Halam’shivanas – the sweet sacrifice of duty. She would jump at the chance and he would endure.

But such thoughts were pointless. He doubted there was any mage left in the world who could even make such an attempt.

As he sat there, pondering that problem, it occurred to him that he had not yet thought to ask any of the spirits in the Fade about it.

And with that simple realization, the Dread Wolf redoubled his efforts.

Night after night, he took to wandering the shifting viridian paths beyond the Veil, searching out his old companions – spirits of Wisdom, spirits of Knowledge. For days he overslept, then had Serathi prepare him sleeping draughts in the evenings so he could resume his search sooner.

At long last, in the ruin of a library not far from the Tevinter city of Minrathous, a spirit of Observation gave him a lead.

“A group calling themselves the Venatori came searching for ancient magicks pertaining to the Veil and the Fade,” the spirit told him. “They thought to bind me for answers, but I noticed them preparing the ritual and I fled.”

“Did they find what they were looking for?”

“Obviously not,” it replied, gesturing toward the piles of rubble and ash around them.

Of course, Fen’Harel thought drily. How un-observant of him.

But the knowledge gave him direction. He focused his nightly efforts on learning more about the Venatori. Various spirits fed him bits of information he put together to paint a larger picture.

He learned that they answered to someone they almost reverently called ‘the Elder One’. That the had scoured ruins of elvhen temples and libraries as far south as the Free Marches. That what they sought was knowledge and artifacts, nearly always related to the Veil and the Fade.

After much deliberation, he surmised this ‘Elder One’ was a mage, perhaps one of Tevinter’s magisters. It was a long shot, but he might just be powerful enough to unlock his orb.

He sounded like just the person Fen’Harel needed.

Unlocking the orb would kill this ‘Elder One’ and thus, he would be removing one threat to the world as well as paving his way along the path he had set his mind to.

All that was left was to set his plan in motion.

That was as easy as entering a few Venatori’s dreams under the guise of a spirit and showing them visions of his temple, its location, and the orb.

Then began the waiting game.

On the morning after he had ensured the Venatori had taken his bait and were mobilizing to come find the orb, Serathi found him in the courtyard, washing himself in the spouting fountain. Summer was nearly over, but the weather remained warm. The water had a pleasant bite of cold against his skin.

“You’re up early today, Fen’Revas,” she noted, politely averting her eyes from his naked form.

The Dread Wolf did not shy from her. She and the others had washed his body countless times while he was in Uthenera.

“We will be leaving soon,” he informed her, dragging the washcloth over his chest and noticing, for the first time, that his regular training sessions with Serathi and a proper diet had finally put some flesh on his bones.

“Where to?”

“Into the wilderness, for now.”

Fen’Harel would have traveled to the Crossroads through the eluvian in this temple, and from there to a safer nearby location – but Felassan had failed to secure the eluvian network. Anger had gotten the better of him that day and he still had not made his peace with it.

“I will make preparations at once."

 “That will not be necessary,” Fen’Harel told her. He doused himself with clean water to wash away the suds. “We will take nothing with us. Go remove the wards around the temple instead. Leave only the ones protecting the inner sanctum.”

Her brows furrowed. His order had taken her aback.

“But- but that will leave the temple defenseless against-” she sputtered.

Serathi had always been taciturn and pliant, yet he could hardly expect her to follow him blindly. In truth, he would have been disappointed if she did. The Dread Wolf stepped out of the fountain and walked up to her, water dripping from him onto the ornate pavement stones. He slipped a knuckle under her chin and gently tipped her head up.

“Fear not,” he told her softly. “I have set a plan in motion – for my focus to be found and unlocked. I will then use it to tear down the Veil and restore our world.”

Serathi’s startled eyes filled with tears. Her frown deepened.

“The Evanuris-” she breathed.

He recognized the old dread within her rising to the surface.

The ones he had imprisoned in the Fade would be set free once he removed the Veil. Among them was also Andruil, at whose hands Serathi and many others had suffered unspeakable horrors. The whole of Elvhenan had bled under the rule of his brethren, the Evanuris.

He would not allow that to happen again.

“I will deal with them,” he said.

Serathi closed her eyes and bowed her head in quiet acquiescence.

“I am ready, Fen’Revas. Whatever you ask of me, it will be done.”

A smile graced his lips. “Thank you, old friend.”

He then placed his hand on the back of her head and bent to press his forehead against hers. His magic flared as he cast the spell. Serathi remained still while he focused on the knowledge he wished to pour into her mind.

“A gift,” he told her. “I have imparted to you my knowledge of the Common language spoken in this age. We will both need it in the days to come.”

Serathi smiled and hope eased Fen'Harel's heart for the first time in ages. He let himself rejoice for the time being, in the fact that everything was going according to his plan.

He should soon be able bring back Elvhenan and remake it into the wonder it could have been without corruption of his fellow Evanuris.

He did not consider for a single moment that he may be setting himself up for disappointment.

And so, it tasted all the more bitter in his mouth - on the day the sky tore, and demons poured from rifts all around them.

An outcome he had not foreseen. A mistake he could not yet mend.

Chapter Text

The ground shook under their feet. A rumble rose into the air and birds took flight from the foliage all over the forest, blocking out the sun as they rushed to the east.

Then the sky roared to the west.

Static buzzed against Fen’Harel’s skin as he looked up.

It was tearing.

A spindly green funnel rose from the mountains looming ahead, connecting to the churning clouds above the Frostbacks.

A fierce gust of wind swept through the forest, knocking both him and Serathi off their feet in the middle of the beaten path. Trees thrashed as the blast ripped through the woods.

Fen’Harel felt the Fade pressing more insistently against his skin, felt the Veil giving way close behind them. He pushed himself to his feet and turned to see reality warping around a small tear on the forest path. The Fade’s undulating magical energy gushed out through it.

There was no time to think. They were no longer alone.

“Behind you!” Fen’Harel shouted at Serathi, immediately weaving magic around her to form a barrier.

Serathi ducked around nimbly and plunged her curved daggers into a shade’s back. It convulsed with an unearthly shriek before collapsing into a heap of dust.

Fen’Harel dispatched the remaining shades with a single chain lightning.

He was too distraught by the unforeseen turn of events to even notice the strain of casting spells. He leaned some of his weight against the crude staff he had crafted to help him focus his magic.

He took a moment to think. His mind raced, frantic.

The shades had come through the rift in front of them. Likely, more than one such rift had opened across the land. The Veil had frayed all over.

The damage had rippled through it from the largest tear, the one rising all the way to the sky – and only his orb could have done something like that. At a guess, it had been unlocked.

But something had gone terribly wrong.

“More demons coming!” Serathi warned, shifting into stance.

Fen’Harel bared his teeth. He spun his staff and slammed it into the ground, freezing the first wraith to come through the tear in the Veil.

Spirits in this forest came through the rift, curious about the physical world, drawn by his and Serathi’s presence. Others were dragged unwillingly by sheer proximity to the rift and its pull. The shock of crossing over twisted them all into demons.

What a tragic waste.

“We should not linger here,” Fen’Harel said as soon as they had cleared the area of demons once more. “I cannot close this rift and only more spirits will be drawn through it.”

“Did your focus cause this?” Serathi asked, following him as he strode ahead, bent on putting some distance between them and the rift.

“I suspect something went wrong when it was unlocked,” he admitted, gritting his teeth in frustration. “This was not supposed to happen.”

“Shall we go retrieve it, then?”

Once the rift was out of sight, Fen’Harel came to a halt. He sighed, and his gaze drifted upwards, to the gaping wound in the sky. It churned like a monstrous storm. Lighting crackled around the edges and it boomed as it slowly inched wider.

The orb would not be so easily destroyed and yes, he should retrieve it, but there were other things to consider beforehand.

This event would inevitably garner the attention of the current powers in this world.

He was an elf in a nation currently dominated by shemlen, and an apostate in the middle of a large-scale war between mages and templars. Moreover, he did not have a clear picture of what exactly had happened.

He would have to consider his approach very carefully.

After some deliberation, the Dread Wolf turned to Serathi.

“Return to the temple and remain hidden. I will learn what has happened - and find a way to mend it.”

Serathi, who had been scraping demon remains off her daggers, bristled at that.

“It is not safe for you to go alone, Fen’Revas! You have not fully recovered yet. Let me come with you!”

Fen’Harel shook his head. “You are ill-equipped for this kind of work. But I may have need of you later.”

Her shoulders slumped and she pressed her lips together, but held back further protests.

“I am not entirely helpless, Serathi,” he reminded her, to ease her mind. But he did not dull the warning edge in his tone, regardless.

Serathi dipped her head in submission. “Of course not. Forgive me.”

“If you find any Venatori stragglers still at the temple, kill them. Reactivate the temple’s defenses and remain there until I contact you again.”

“As you command, Fen’Revas.”

Once she left, Fen’Harel continued on his way toward the mountains. The wound in the sky loomed ahead and he wondered what activity he might find in its proximity – what manner of response the quicklings might have to a calamity far beyond their understanding.

That night he set wards and camped alone in the woods. He scouted ahead in his sleep, bounding through the Fade in wolf-shape, following the pull of familiar magic thrumming in his bones. His own magic, woven around the tears the Veil.

It led him to the Fade reflection of a village named Haven. He sniffed out the local spirits – there were many old ones, to be sure, but also plenty of new spirits who were not even aware they had died during the day, having fallen prey to demons.

They called the large tear in the sky the Breach. They spoke of the explosion which had preceded its formation, and of the Temple of Sacred Ashes, where it had occurred. They mourned the loss of the Chantry’s leader and the many who had perished along with her.

Fen’Harel learned that the Divine had called for a Conclave to settle the dispute between mages and templars. Why the Elder One would attempt to unlock his focus here, of all places, eluded him.

In retrospect, perhaps he should have investigated this magister’s intentions more thoroughly before leading him to the orb.

Upon waking, Fen’Harel’s mind was made up.

The echoes he had witnessed in the Fade warranted further investigation. He needed to uncover exactly what had gone wrong in order to find a way to fix it under the quicklings’ noses.

He would have to infiltrate under a new identity.

Thus, an elven apostate by the name of Solas walked into Haven on that crisp, late autumn morning.

Two soldiers escorted him through the snow-dusted village. One of them carried his staff, which Solas had agreed to surrender – so that he may be given the chance to talk to the leaders of this movement.

They led him to the Chantry up the hill and to a chamber across the building.

“Seeker Pentaghast, Sister Leliana,” the soldier called through the cracked door, “I have an elven apostate here who claims he may be able to help.”

“Let him in,” a deep female voice replied, in a heavy Nevarran accent.

Solas walked in, hands at his side rather than tucked behind his back, chin slightly dipped.

Two women regarded him – one, a short-haired brunette who was still leaning over the map spread on a table in front of her. The second, a hooded redhead, leaning against the back wall with her arms crossed.

Their eyes swept over his modest garb, his pointed ears, the lack of vallaslin on his face and his mien – which he had carefully put together into something mild and unassuming.

The dark-haired woman straightened up and faced him. He noticed the symbol painted on the front of her breastplate – the all-seeing eye of the Seekers of Truth, if he remembered correctly. Much of his knowledge of present-day organizations he had gained while still in Uthenera.

“I am Seeker Cassandra Pentaghast,” she said in the same accent he had heard earlier. “This is Sister Leliana. You wished to speak to us?”

“My name is Solas,” he said, inclining his head politely. “I study the Fade and thought my knowledge might be of some use.”

The Seeker’s eyes narrowed, sharp, considering him carefully. She appeared suspicious of his intent.

“You are an apostate, yet you surrender your staff to Chantry forces and offer us your help.”

“The Breach threatens us all,” he said simply.

In truth, he believed the Seeker was keener to enlist his help than she liked to let on. Sister Leliana was the one around whom he should tread carefully. She had not said a word, but she watched him like a mountain lion stalking its prey – deathly quiet, entirely absorbed and ready to pounce at any moment.

“So you are not originally from a Circle,” the Seeker surmised.

“No. My studies are of a nature that requires me to travel much.”

She sighed. “I suppose it does not matter much, anyway. All mages are now considered apostates.”

“Have you seen any rifts up close?” Sister Leliana finally spoke in a musical Orlesian lilt. “What can you tell us about them?”

“They are tears in the Veil that separates our world from the Fade. I suspect the Breach is the first, and largest such tear. It also appears to be expanding. Unless it is stopped, it may grow until it swallows the world.”

“Do you know what might have caused it?” the Seeker asked.

“I am afraid not. Normal magic seems to have no effect even on the small rifts. The demons coming out of them can be killed, but the rifts themselves cannot be closed. I can only venture to assume that whatever magic caused the Breach and subsequent rifts may also be the only means to effectively seal them.”

The women exchanged a single look, heavy with implication.

They knew something he did not. Had they found his orb in the ruins of their destroyed temple?

He waited with bated breath for one of them to speak, brimming with anticipation and careful not to let any of it show.

At long last, his patience was rewarded. The Seeker turned her attention to him once more.

“There is something you may be able to help us figure out.” 

She spoke slowly, as if choosing her words carefully.

“After the explosion at the Conclave, a single woman walked… out of the Fade.”

The Seeker's last words dripped with a mixture of disbelief and horror.

Under Solas’s skin, dread coiled like snakes as well. His magic buzzed like static, barely suppressed.

His reasons, however, were entirely different. He had an inkling as to what may have enabled such a feat.

The Anchor. My Anchor!

“The woman bears a glowing mark on her right hand. It seems magical in nature. It also appears to react to the Breach somehow,” Cassandra said, then sighed, oblivious to Solas's trepidation. “Perhaps you could study it and offer us more insight. We have the woman… in custody. She has been unconscious ever since she stepped out of the Fade.”

His orb had been unlocked.

Yet instead of its magic razing everything around it to the ground, the focus had bestowed his Anchor upon a quickling.

For one fractured heartbeat, Solas nearly laughed at the absurdity of this predicament. The next, despair coiled in his chest, a howl barely bitten back.

As it was, he could only dip his head in agreement.

“Of course,” he said. “Anything to help.”

Chapter Text

The Seeker and Sister Leliana returned his staff and led Solas down into the chantry’s bowels. The damp cellars reeked of dust, old parchment and mildew. They passed from one pool of torchlight to the next, shadows clinging to the walls. Cassandra slowed her step somewhat and frowned.

“You are not Dalish, are you, Solas?” she finally asked after a short deliberation.

A curious question, given the absence of vallaslin from his face. He suspected an ulterior motive behind it.

“I’ve interacted with Dalish tribes in my travels, but you are correct, Seeker. I am not Dalish.”

“I thought as much. Still, perhaps I should warn you – the prisoner is.”

Ah. Fate had a cruel sense of humor.

“It is rare for the Dalish to take an interest in human affairs,” he remarked.

“Indeed,” Leliana interjected. “Only a single Dalish clan was interested enough to send a small delegation to the Conclave – clan Lavellan of the Free Marches. Perhaps you’ve heard of it?”

“My travels have only taken me through the Free Marches in passing. The name does not sound familiar.”

The woman sighed. “From what I’ve gathered, the prisoner wasn’t even the Keeper’s First. Only a hunter.”

“Not a mage then,” Solas surmised.

“This is why I find this all so strange.”

They arrived at the chantry’s holding cells, where two templars saluted and promptly stepped aside to reveal the prisoner they were guarding.

The woman had been laid on a thin layer of straw scattered on the prison floor. She lay curled on the side, left hand balled into a fist and pulled tightly against her chest. She was shivering. Her lips were moving frantically, but no sound came out.

“Open the cell,” the Seeker ordered.

“Yes, Lady Cassandra.”

Solas stepped inside the cell and knelt by the prisoner.

The moment of truth.

He took her left hand and pried open her fingers –

Green light burst through the cell as the Anchor snarled to life.

Solas’s heart sank. His breath caught in his chest.

“Well?” Cassandra asked, pausing from her pacing outside the cell. “What is it, Solas?”

Her harsh accent grated on his ears as it bounced off the cellar’s walls. When he did not immediately answer, her footsteps filled the silence, after a huff of annoyance – but at least she refrained from asking a second time.

The Seeker was merely annoyed at a delay.

His own blood, however, was boiling. He was seething, trembling with rage.

The Anchor flickered at his touch. He cradled the fine-boned hand which held it and gently pinned the fingers to inspect the calloused palm where it nestled.

His Anchor. Bound to another.

The prisoner yelped and thrashed as it flared, crackling and sputtering wildly.

Had the Veil torn further – or had the Anchor resonated with his wrath?

That question poured ice-cold clarity over the fire burning within him.

Not the time. Not the place. He could not allow his mask to slip even for a moment.

The Anchor dimmed like dying embers as he calmed. The prisoner stilled. She did not wake.

Solas’s heart bowed beneath the weight of misery. This was not the way things should have gone.

The gazes pinned to his back were sharp as daggers. He could feel them sink in deeper by the minute.

Their kind was always in such a rush, on account of their short lives. But they were also the ones in power here. And he was at their mercy.

He should provide some answers – and soon.

However distraught he was that his Anchor now belonged to another, he forced himself to focus on the facts.

It remained unstable. Dangerously so.

That the woman had survived receiving it was miraculous in itself.  It would not be long before that miracle turned into tragedy.

“Apostate!” Cassandra demanded, her patience and restraint worn out.

“This magic is unlike any I have ever seen, but I do believe it may be connected to the Breach,” he offered to appease her.

The Seeker naturally rushed headfirst into the wrong conclusion.

“Then she is responsible!”

“That is not what I said.” The calm he had managed to regain rose like an implacable barrier against her ire. “I should also add that the mark is dangerously unstable and bound to kill her soon.”

The Seeker threw her arms in the air and resumed pacing. Leliana rubbed her chin in thought.

“He’s right, Cassandra. We have no way of knowing for certain at the moment.”

“Then you must find a way to keep that mark from killing her. At least until we find out what happened at the Temple of Sacred Ashes,” Cassandra conceded, mercifully lowering her voice.

Solas’s eyes returned to the glowing mark of his mistake. They traveled upwards along a slender arm and rested for a moment on the woman’s shoulder, hesitating. He did not wish to look upon her face and see her vallaslin – more evidence of his past mistakes.

But he did, anyway.

Pain distorted her features, but she looked young, even for a quickling. Beads of sweat glistened along her hairline and made the golden lines of ink shimmer on her skin.

Mythal’s vallaslin crowned her forehead - an incomplete echo of the mark he had once borne with pride.

“I will do what I can,” Solas agreed under his breath, unable to tear his eyes away. “I believe I can stabilize the mark for now. I would need to be alone with her, however.”

“Absolutely not!” Cassandra bristled.

“Have I given you any reason to doubt my intentions, Seeker? I offered my help. You are of course entitled to refuse it, but…”

Solas peered at her over his shoulder. The concern that showed on his face was a genuine expression, for once.

"This is dangerous and unstable magic,” he insisted. “I need to focus. And I must ensure no one gets hurt if something goes wrong.”

Cassandra huffed, bracing her hands on her hips and shaking her head.

“Everything has already gone wrong,” she murmured. After she mulled over it however, she sighed in defeat. “Alright, Solas. You will not be disturbed – I will make sure of it. Just… give us something.”

Solas waited as they filed out of the room: Leliana, then the Seeker, followed by the templars – whose abilities had proven useless in suppressing the Anchor.

Its magic was far from the stunted practices of this world, after all. He doubted anyone besides him could grasp the notion of such power, let alone be able to utilize it to its full extent. Even the fool who had managed to unlock it had failed to obtain its power.

The question of how this woman had come to claim it remained. But regardless, their blundering about would benefit him, while he sought for a way to mend the Veil and resume his plan.

The slow, rhythmic dripping of water, amplified by the largely empty cellar, punctuated his thoughts like a metronome. Without the Seeker pacing around, it was all too quiet.

Solas remembered the reason for that.

She lay beside him – a slip of a woman, splayed on a makeshift bedding of soggy straws. The Anchor was currently calm and her face, pale in the shifting torchlight, looked almost serene. Yet she smelled like fear. And herbs. Embrium most of all.

A crease formed between her eyebrows. Her lips moved again and this time, the silence was loud enough for him to catch a fractured string of whispers.

“…can’t be sleeping… haven’t prepared the…”

Was she in the Fade at this very moment? Dreaming while the Anchor threatened to claim her life?

Solas left her side to set wards around the cellar – sound-dampening, protective, reinforcing. Just a precaution, really. Even with the weight of a millennia-long slumber leaden in his bones and congealed in his mana pool, Solas weaved magic like he breathed. He could pacify the Anchor for now.

His intricate designs glowed blue against the stone walls before sinking in, fading from sight.

He then returned to the cell and knelt by the prisoner. Set his staff aside. Took her left hand in his.

The Anchor glowed softly.

It only took the smallest prod of tentative magic to make it burst into wild energy again.

The woman screamed in pain and flailed weakly in Solas’s grasp.

He cursed under his breath. His eyes darted to her face, but she remained unconscious. A small mercy. This process would not be pleasant.

He drew energy from the Fade and poured his magic into the Anchor.

Somehow, the agonized scream that tore from her throat racked his soul more than the Anchor lashing out at him.

She was Dalish, yes. Her kind had mocked him or turned him away or attacked him when he had approached them – true.

But she was still descended from the elvhen.

However diluted or polluted her blood was – he could not disavow her lineage.

The Anchor eventually gorged on enough of his magic to be sated and subside.

Cassandra and Leliana were waiting for him atop the stairs, in the chantry. Their eyes turned to him with more expectation than words could have conveyed.

“It is done,” Solas said, leaning some of his weight on his staff. Calming the Anchor had drained him more than he had expected. “I have bought her some time. However, I expect the mark will remain unstable. Closing the Breach may be the only way to stop it from consuming her.”

Cassandra sighed so angrily it came out sounding like a growl. Then she turned to Leliana.

“You may be right. Who in their right mind would do this to themselves? Unless something took an unexpected turn and-”

“Right now, speculation is pointless. Let us wait until she wakes up. How long do you think that will take, Solas?”

“A day or two, perhaps.”

Before the Seeker could bemoan having to wait more, Solas continued.

“I need to rest now. But tomorrow I would like to venture into the valley and study another rift. Hopefully I can learn more about them.”

Leliana nodded. “That would be most helpful. Come, I will introduce you to our quartermaster. She will find you a place to rest.”

They were about to go when Cassandra spoke again.

“Introduce him to Varric, while you’re at it,” she told Leliana. “Solas, take the dwarf to help you with the demons when you go into the valley. He’s been giving me a headache.”

Leliana chuckled as they walked out of the chantry.

“It probably won’t be the last headache he gives her, either. Don’t worry, I will introduce you to him tomorrow. Let’s find you a place to sleep first.”

The quartermaster assigned Solas a small house - all to himself. He had succeeded. He had gained their trust and perhaps even earned a modicum of respect – at least for the time being.

He refused to dwell on it, however. His thoughts were consumed by a more pressing interest.

He summoned a crackling flame in the fireplace to warm the cottage and promptly lay down to sleep. This time, his quarry would not be hard to find in the Fade.

She was still unconscious, in the chantry’s cellar.

Chapter Text

When Fen’Harel opened his eyes, it was to the green mists of the Fade. He shifted into the form in which he preferred to navigate its treacherous paths, then raised his muzzle to sniff at the air and orient himself.

This part of the Fade reflected Haven due to him being there physically. However, the village’s long history caused both old and new aspects of itself to be amalgamated in this plane.

Here, a bloody altar hidden in a nook. There, a modern siege machine rising toward the viridian sky.

The one constant in the Fade floated on an island in the distance – the dark skyline of Elvhenan's heart. A second one, more recent, whirled closer - the Breach was as unsettling to behold from this side of the Veil as from the other.

The wolf turned as he picked up on a trace of campfire smoke. It led him to a replica of the chantry atop Haven’s hill.

The vision of a dragon circled and roared above it before veering toward the mountains and vanishing from sight.

Spirits stood outside the building, holding their hands over ghostly flames. Fen’Harel quietly padded past them. They did not bother him. Spirits often minded their own business unless approached.

He slipped inside the chantry and stopped just past the large, wooden doors.

Something did not feel quite right here. The air felt unusually cold and condensed.

…I can numb the pain…

His ears pricked up.

…is that… all you can do?...

Two voices. Distant. And they echoed eerily in this place. He had trouble finding direction they were coming from.

While he was pacing around, another echo reached him.

…it is killing you, plaything…

Fen’Harel bared his teeth in distaste.

Demon. Desire. He would recognize that saccharine tone anywhere.

He imagined the Seeker might find the notion of a Desire demon in the chantry sacrilegious, but its presence here neither vexed nor even surprised him. It merely stirred his curiosity.

What poor soul was it tormenting? One of the soldiers? Or perhaps an older spirit, from before the Chantry had made Haven into a beacon for the faithful?

…and you can’t stop it?... what is-…

Fen’Harel cringed, but the second voice, also feminine, stopped before unwittingly asking the demon for knowledge.

When it answered, the demon’s enthusiasm animated its languid drawl.

…go on. Finish your question… you do so wish to know, don’t you? If it’s knowledge you want, my pet, I can give it to you... you need only ask…

The sound was coming from the cellar.

Fen’Harel shook with sudden dread. The demon’s target, could it be…?

The thought had not even fully formed in his mind when he burst through the cellar door-

-into a forest.

No. Not a forest. The demon’s domain.

The sudden change in scenery caught him unprepared, made him hesitate, but he quickly snapped out of it and bounded down the stairs.

…where do you think you’re going, plaything?...

…just because you won’t leave, doesn’t mean I’ll stay…

Closer now.

Faster. He needed to run faster.

But the path kept twisting, winding around trees and back into itself. Desire was one of the more powerful kind of demons in the Fade.

He caught a whiff of embrium just as a bright green light flashed through the thick underbrush to his right.

…you can’t get away… what is it you Dalish say? May the Dread Wolf never catch your scent?... he already has…

No! Fen’Harel’s blood curdled. If the demon let slip a single word about the Anchor, about him-

…trying to frighten me isn’t really your style…

…make of it what you will, plaything… there’s nothing you can do about it anyway…

Fen’Harel growled in frustration and leaped off the path to bound straight through the bushes toward the Anchor’s light. Brambles tore at his flesh and roots attempted to trip him, but this form was agile, and his will was stronger than any demon’s.

The scent of embrium grew stronger, along with that of surging dread.

One final leap and he barreled through the remaining bushes into a clearing. He sank his claws into the ground and skidded to a stop.

The Dread Wolf snapped at Desire.

The demon dissipated in a cloud of smoke.

His eyes turned to the other person in the clearing.

The prisoner – on her feet, glaring at him and very much alert.

Before he could even blink, a blade flashed in the air.

The Dalish woman plunged a dagger into her forearm and vanished.

Fen’Harel froze.

The forest faded away around him, blending back into the Fade’s amorphous impression of the chantry’s cellar.

Solas awoke with a jolt. His hands shot up to his throbbing head. Sunlight beamed in through the window and a ray near blinded him, but it did not feel warm against his cheek. The air itself burned with a deep chill as he inhaled slowly, trying to settle his pounding heart.

What had just happened?

His mind continued to race long after his pulse calmed.

The fire in his hearth had died overnight. Instead of bothering to light another, he stepped out into the frosty morning and rubbed freshly fallen snow on his face.

He kept poring over what he had witnessed in the Fade and he could make neither head nor tail of it.

A Desire demon conversing with the Seeker’s prisoner. Tempting her with information about the Anchor. Warning her about his presence.

It was not what bothered him, truly. Powerful demons knew him - enough to avoid him. They were wary of the Dread Wolf who wondered through the Fade. A few clever demons were even able to recognize his magic.

But the prisoner, that Dalish woman – she had carried the conversation as one very much lucid.

Then she had hurt herself at the sight of him and disappeared from right under his nose. Not a trace. Not another whiff of embrium.

A secret blood mage?

Impossible. He would have smelled that sort of taint hanging about her body like a miasma.

In fact, he had not sensed any magic about her at all. Only the Anchor’s hint of ozone and petrichor, reminiscent of the charged air before a storm.

A Fade walker?

Equally impossible, since she was not a mage.

Unless the Anchor had somehow made it possible.

He mused on that. It was not something he had designed it to do, since he had no need for it. But then again, no one other than him was supposed to bear it.

“If you’re looking for Sister Leliana, she rushed into the chantry about a half hour ago.”

Solas looked up. The vaguely familiar voice pulled him out of the mire of his thoughts. He realized he had unwittingly ambled to Leliana’s tent. Threnn the quartermaster was looking at him, head tilted slightly, as if she was uncertain what to make of his demeanor.

Fenedhis.

He schooled his expression into something softer, even as he realized what she had just said.

Had the prisoner woken up? After their strange encounter in the Fade? Uncanny coincidence or something more?

“Forgive me, I was lost in thought,” he told the quartermaster, easing his lips into a sheepish smile and inclining his head politely. “Do you know where I might find Varric?”

“Master Tethras? Down the stairs by the firepit.”

“Thank you.”

He found the child of the stone holding his hands near the flames while balancing from one foot to the other. Yet his shirt was half undone and his ample chest hair on display. It made for a strange image.

“Master Tethras?”

The dwarf glanced up. A lopsided smile followed.

“And you must be Solas. Red said you’d be hard to miss. You’ve got that ‘I’ve played this out ten times in my head already’ kind of look. Don’t worry, I can keep up.”

Varric’s remark caught Solas off-guard. A soft chuckle escaped him.

“I take it you know many overthinkers?”

Varric quirked a brow, grin widening.

“Never ask a writer for stories, Chuckles. You never know when you’ll end up in one yourself.”

“Then I hope you paint me in a kind light.”

Though by the time the truth would come out, Solas doubted anyone would paint him as anything but a traitor. A madman. A villain.

His smile lingered as his gaze drifted to the Breach. Whatever sorrow Varric glimpsed in his eyes, he could attribute to that alone.

Chapter Text

Assana Lavellan was a curious creature.

Bright red hair, sharp daggers and an even sharper tongue. In battle, she had flanked and weaved around demons with feline grace – yet she had also quickly turned out to be a feral cat.

After graciously thanking him for having stabilized the Anchor, she had turned her claws on him over his opinion of the Dalish. That had only served to confirm his point – that they clung to misbegotten beliefs and were too proud to notice their own shortcomings.

She may have proven her usefulness by successfully wielding his Anchor and sealing rifts. But in light of what he had seen so far, Solas wondered how this ‘Herald of Andraste’ might navigate the treacherous waters the newly-formed Inquisition found itself in.

This organization was no ship yet, only a makeshift raft – and she, ill-suited to steer it.

More curious than her behavior, however, was the fact that he had been unable to locate her in the Fade a second time.

Aside from Varric, who was a child of the stone, the other members of the Inquisition were easy for him to trace. He enjoyed observing them in the Fade every now and again.

Cullen was often surrounded by abominations in his dreams. The Spymaster dreamed of encroaching darkspawn and piles of dainty shoes. The Seeker sometimes cried out for an Anthony.

Yet Solas had spent every night searching for the Herald around Haven – to no avail.

He had found traces of her in the cottage where she rested. A whiff of herbs clinging to her bedsheets. A glimpse of her in the mirror with her hair undone. The whisper of a thought, audible as he neared the bookshelves.

…can’t wait to read this one…

Excitement, followed by a flicker of regret.

…don’t have time right now…

Echoes of her, but not her.

She was like a spirit haunting the wrong side of the Veil.

And he could not make sense of her.

In the waking world, he had caught glimpse of Assana several times as she explored Haven’s nooks and crannies. He had seen her talk with Varric by his campfire. And with others.

Yet she had not come to talk to him since their quarrel in the valley.

The day after he had first failed to find her in the Fade, Solas had overheard what was supposed to be a private conversation resounding throughout the whole chantry. He had joined the crowd of people pretending not to listen.

“You are the Herald of Andraste!” Josephine had bemoaned, her voice muffled by the closed door of her office, but the words clear. “You most certainly cannot vanish in the night to sleep ‘under the stars’! Imagine what the people will think! What would they say about you? About us? We must all be careful how we present ourselves at all times.”

“Especially you,” Cassandra had added, as if any emphasis was necessary.

“I… apologize. It won’t happen again.”

Solas had entirely forgotten why he had come to the chantry by the time Assana had burst through the door. He had merely drawn to the side as she passed. Yet his gaze had lingered on her. The slope of her back suggested defeat. The color in her cheeks, embarrassment.

Her eyes had flitted to him then.

“Andaran atish’an,” she had murmured.

So formal. Distant, even, if the coldness in her eyes were an accurate indicator that this was personal, and she was not merely upset about having been reprimanded for everyone to hear.

“Hello,” he had said simply.

So far, she had met his expectations as unerringly as she found weak spots for her daggers to sink into.

A lone Dalish elf in a shemlen camp. Stuffed in a house, as opposed to a breezy aravel or the starry ceiling of a midsummer sky. Herald of an important figure in a faith she did not share. Expected to do things outside the range of skills she possessed. To think and speak in a manner beyond her years or upbringing.

It embittered him to witness firsthand what the once proud elvhen had been reduced to.

He took solace in the thought that soon, all this will have been no more than a dream he had endured through the night. He reminded himself it was not real.

Whatever pity he felt was misplaced and unnecessary – because he would make it right.

A knock at the door interrupted his musing by the fireplace. A darkening sky lay outside the window. He must have been contemplating for some hours, so engrossed in his thoughts that he had not noticed the passing of time. Otherwise, he would have slipped into the Fade by now.

He got up, thinking it might be a servant come to deliver the book he had asked Josephine to procure for his ‘study’ of the rifts.

Instead, he found the Herald of Andraste standing on his doorstep, holding the clean carcass of a large rodent.

A jarring apparition. Yet it stirred neither surprise nor revulsion. He felt nothing.

Still, Solas put on a smile as he took the nug.

She had probably caught it herself. It would be in bad taste not to accept a gift, albeit a testament to habits she refused to let go and likely an attempt to ingratiate herself to him after their disagreement.

“A practical gift,” he said. “Many here would starve without your resourcefulness. Thank you.”

It came out perhaps a bit harsher than he had intended. He expected her to bristle at it.

She did not.

“It’s also a peace offering,” Assana said. Then she drew a deep breath. “Ir abelas, hahren. I shouldn’t have made that remark about you being allergic to halla. It was out of turn.”

Solas felt his not-quite smile slip.

What had it cost this proud, obstinate woman to admit that truth to herself and come say these words to him?

Was this mere cunning or something more? Something he had perhaps missed by too-quickly dismissing her as a child?

Because her apology rang genuine. Heartfelt. It showed a level of maturity he had assumed she did not possess.

"If the Dalish have done you a disservice, I would like to make that right," she added.

Solas let a long breath slip out of his lungs. If she was capable of taking the high road, he would rise to the occasion. It would help their cause, and ultimately his cause, if the two of them ‘played along like nice elves’, as Varric had uncouthly put it in the valley.

“You are right, of course. The fault is mine, for expecting what the Dalish could never accomplish.”

That did not sound right either, he realized as a crease formed between Assana's brows.

He reluctantly gave up more ground. Dipped his head lower.

“Ir abelas… da’len. If I can offer any understanding, you have but to ask.”

Then he remembered the nug she had given him. It served as a means to a purpose, but he had to at least acknowledge the hard work it had involved. He decided to offer something more in return.

“But for now, come in,” he said. “Let us enjoy the fruit of your labor together.”

Whether it was the promise of knowledge or a longing for companionship that drew her, Solas did not know. His sense in this regard was not as intrinsic as a Desire demon’s, but rather a result of careful observation.

Other than while fighting their way together through the valley and their one, brief encounter in the Fade, Solas had not had the time to observe the woman more closely.

He realized he was watching her with a near-predatory intensity as she pulled up a second chair by the fireplace. He quickly slipped his mask back into place before joining her.

Assana watched him just as intently while he made quick work of the nug. He had seen campers do it in the Fade before and there was not much to it. He skewered it, set it on the spit and poked the logs so the flame would not rise high enough to carbonize the tender flesh.

She did not speak until he had finished and settled in the chair beside hers.

“So… Cassandra mentioned you study the Fade.”

A clever opening move. People often enjoyed talking about their interests and he was no exception.

But then again, he did not question her intelligence, merely her ability to utilize it efficiently.

“To put it very plainly.”

She showed enough interest to tug at his tongue when he deliberately held it.

“How do you do that, exactly?”

“I sleep in ancient ruins and battlefields. When I dream, I am able to enter the Fade consciously. I search for memories of past events that occurred at the site, be they famous or forgotten. Every place has a history. Echoes of it linger in the Fade long after walls have crumbled to dust.”

She surprised him a second time.

“You’re a somniari.”

It was not even a question. And she was correct.

Solas caught himself lingering on the freckles dusting her nose and cheeks. They had slipped his notice. He found them more pleasant to look at than her vallaslin.

He cleared his throat.

“Yes. Although that is the Tevene term for it. The ancient elven word for it would be i’ve’an’virelan – Fade walker. Or, more simply put, dreamer.” He smiled and pulled her tongue in turn. “This is not common knowledge. How did you come by it?”

“I read about it in a book about ancient Tevinter history,” she answered, seemingly pleased with herself. “I traded a wolf pelt for it.”

Had she now? The irony which eluded her amused him, for some unfathomable reason. So too, did the concept of a Dalish bookworm slinking around under the unassuming guise of a hunter. The two notions were not mutually exclusive, of course, but it was an unlikely enough combination to pique his interest.

The fire crackled. Assana leaned over to turn the nug. A delicate trace of embrium wafted in the air as she moved. It was all-too-quickly overpowered by the smell of roasting meat.

“The book also mentioned that dreamers attract demons in the Fade,” she said as she pulled back.

Another question not shaped like one. It sounded as if she were circling around to avoid asking directly - like she almost had, in the Fade.

For a brief moment, it nearly prompted him to reconsider… but no. She couldn’t be.

“That is true,” he said. “Dreamers attract the attention of the Fade’s denizens like a flame draws moths. Most spirits are content to leave one be, or to offer guidance or knowledge if prompted. Demons are craftier. They might test a dreamer, try to tempt them and ensnare them. But the result of such encounters ultimately depends on the dreamer and the choices they make.”

Assana leaned forward, like one interested in the subject of a conversation might.

“Doesn’t that frighten you? How do you trust yourself to make the right choices, night after night?”

“How do you trust the water to keep you afloat when you swim in a lake?”

Assana shook her head. A coppery lock slipped from her braid and fell against her temple.

“But swimming is something you learn. And if you don’t trust the water, you drown, yes. But you don’t risk turning into an abomination and hurting others.”

Disapproval must have written itself on his face, because she quickly changed her tune.

“I’m not saying I expect you to turn into an abomination. You’ve been doing this for what, years? And you clearly seem to know what to expect and how to avoid it. So… to rephrase my question: how did you learn to trust the water?”

Ah. A slightly different matter. Semantics lost in syntax. He could forgive that.

Especially since her particular curiosity veered in a most interesting direction.

Solas did not let the opportunity slip by.

“If I were to go into the Fade fearing possession as if it were inevitable, I would certainly attract a Fear demon.” He shifted his gaze to her from the dancing flames. “The same would be true for anger, or desire.”

She appeared thoughtful for a moment, but otherwise not a flicker of emotion crossed her face at the mention of desire.

Was she better at keeping appearances than she let on? Or did she truly not remember conversing with Desire in the Fade?

That anomaly had been on his mind like an itch on an amputated limb. Even more so since she was nowhere in the Fade to be found at night.

“I can see how one might go to sleep angry or afraid, but… desire?”

She did remember.

That certainty sank in his stomach like a stone, though he was unable to put his finger on what had given the Herald away. Beyond the question itself, had her voice changed in the slightest over that final word? Had the incredulous arch of her brow gone a hairsbreadth too high?

It did not matter. He had obtained something.

This small victory distracted Solas enough for the answer to spill from his lips unchecked.

“Have you never gone to sleep yearning for another’s touch?”

He realized what he had just said when her eyes widened, no longer dark, but a deep shade of amber in the firelight. As her cheeks began to turn pink, Solas inwardly cursed himself for his carelessness and seamlessly steered his idea in a more appropriate direction.

“That is perhaps the oldest aspect of Desire. But in truth, it can take many forms. One can desire riches, knowledge or power just as easily. It is one of the more cunning demons, to be sure. But they all wield only as much power as they are given.”

For a while, the crackling flames alone kept silence from engulfing the room completely.

Then Assana shifted. A rustle of fabric. Another whiff of shade-loving blooms hidden in the underbrush.

“The nug’s done,” she announced softly.

It felt like waking from a thousand-year-old dream.

It had been a long time since Solas had partaken in a conversation like this. The kind that left him both satisfied and craving more at the same time.

Yet this one also left him wondering why.

The subjects discussed hadn’t been the most challenging. Nor had it provided him with any morsel of precious knowledge, save for what she had unwittingly confirmed - a piece of information which only raised more questions.

At the end of the day, Solas still did not know what to make of Assana Lavellan.

But the Dread Wolf had caught her scent.

Chapter Text

Solas lit the campfire with a wave of his hand and sat on the log next to it.

He would never admit it, but his whole body was sore from having run around the Hinterlands from dawn until dusk. Again.

In the five days they had spent in the countryside near Redcliffe they had procured supplies for the refugees at the Crossroads to fend off starvation and cold, helped around wherever the Inquisition was needed and fought demons, mages, templars and outlaws in a relentless struggle to stabilize the area.

It was more taxing on his body and magic than he had originally thought it would be.

Still, the exercise would ultimately benefit him and the scenery was pleasant if one could look past the corpses and burning shacks.

As for the company…

His gaze shifted.

Assana was sitting on an adjacent log, absorbed by her task. Her small hunting knife scraped down in rhythmic strokes, raining fish scales upon the grass. She was cleaning the last of the four fat trout she had caught for their supper.

“And yet you claim you are no good with a bow,” Cassandra said, quirking a brow at Assana from the log she shared with Varric.

There was a loud squelch as the Herald expertly scooped the fish’s innards and chucked them into a nearby bucket.

The Seeker wrinkled her nose.

“I’m a decent shot as long as my target doesn’t move. Which isn’t the case with our enemies.”

“Truth be told,” Cassandra said, “I worry that you take too many risks fighting on the front-line with me. You are pivotal to our cause.”

“Then it’s a good thing I mostly fight in the back-line,” Assana said with a smirk.

The Seeker remained unconvinced.

“Even so.”

Their opponents did tend to overlook Assana, perhaps due to her unassuming stature. She was nimble enough to avoid blows and picked her enemies carefully. They almost never paid her any mind until one of her daggers sank deep into an exposed flank. By then, of course, it was too late.

“I appreciate the sentiment, Cassandra,” Assana said as she skewered a trout. The amount of force she used might have been an attempt to prove a point. “But I know what I’m doing. At least in this.”

True enough. Solas had noticed a change in her since their arrival.

Out in the field, she gained a more confident spring to her step. She appeared calmer and more focused. She often ventured ahead of Cassandra, rather than beside her and, more recently, had begun planning their movements.

Solas wondered if Assana herself realized she was instinctively taking over command.

“You do seem to have a talent for slipping by unobserved and emerging from battle mostly unharmed.” A good-natured smile accompanied his praise.

“The guards back in Haven can attest to that,” Cassandra agreed morosely.

Solas had never followed Assana during her frequent forays into the woods near Haven. He had, however, heard plenty of gossip about them in the village.

Some had even veered toward the absurd – that she sneaked into the woods to dance naked under the moon, that she sacrificed animals in rituals to her heathen gods, or gathered herbs to concoct poisons.

But then she had started providing the tavern with a rather steady supply of ram meat. She regularly asked the soldiers at the gate to help her haul one over. Warm ram stew had filled enough bellies to shut most malicious mouths.

“Oh, come on Seeker,” Varric interjected. “It’s a prerequisite for the job.”

Bianca snapped back in one piece. Varric had been busy fiddling with its mechanism since they had settled down for the evening.

“Freckles is more than capable of handling herself out there. You saw her. Just don’t throw politics at her and we’ll all be fine.”

“I am afraid that is also a ‘prerequisite’ for being the Herald of Andraste,” Cassandra retorted, scowling at him.

Assana chuckled as she finished placing the fish by the fire to cook.

“Right. While you two settle that, I’m going down to the stream to wash my hands.”

The Seeker sighed in frustration as she watched Assana cutting it short through the nearby bushes rather than use the roundabout footpath going down the hill.

Solas chuckled. “Her name contains the elven word for ‘arrow’. It seems she does fly straight.”

“I only worry she will fly straight into trouble one of these days,” she said. An undercurrent of concern rang clear in her tone. Then it hardened again. “She has this terrible habit of running off on her own. And we have not secured the Hinterlands yet.”

Laughter bubbled in Varric's chest.

“You know, for a moment there, your concern sounded almost... maternal. Now I can’t get that picture out of my head.”

“My concern, dwarf, is that if something happens to her, there will be no one to close the rifts.”

The dwarf waved his hand dismissively.

“No one's stopping you from going after her.”

Cassandra grabbed her head as she bent over. She shook it slowly.

“I… have blisters,” she admitted. Then she looked up, into the flames. “I will admit – I don’t know how she does it.”

“She is Dalish,” Solas said. “She is most in her element in the wilderness.”

“Strange, however, that when Josephine asked her about her clan, Assana mentioned they would probably not miss her.” She turned to Solas. “I always assumed the Dalish lived in small, but close communities.”

“Every pack of wolves has an underdog,” he said.

Though he could not guess why she might have been one among her own people. Hunters were respected members within Dalish clans. Skilled ones, even more so. And whatever difficulty she had adjusting to her present circumstances, her skills in that area could not be denied.

Cassandra let out a loud sigh. Her index ceased tapping against her thigh and she pushed herself to her feet.

“You are injured, Seeker,” Solas reminded her, grabbing his staff. “I will go look for the Herald.”

“Thank you, Solas.” She then glared at Varric, who merely smirked and shook his head.

Solas followed in Assana’s footsteps and pushed through the bushes at the edge of their camp. The slope leaned at a much sharper angle than he had thought. He slowed his steps to keep from sliding down.

He found her kneeling by the gurgling brook in the valley below.

The haze of dusk cast a lilac veil over the treetops. Fireflies swirled on the opposite bank, glowing like beacons against the shadowy backdrop formed by an aspen grove.

She had undone her braids and was wringing water out of her hair.

She did not turn to acknowledge him until he was within ten feet of her.

“I had some templar blood in my hair,” she said, glancing up at him before turning her gaze to the water. “Is the mother bear beside herself with concern?”

His throat felt dry.

“Quite.”

Assana huffed in amusement.

“I’m almost done.”

She bowed down to the water and splashed more on her head. Long, red tresses swelled like banners in the current.

“Perhaps she is right to worry,” Solas said. “You did not seem to notice me until I came near. If I were an enemy, you would be dead.”

She pulled away from the brook and rose to her feet. Squeezed the last of the water from her hair. Spread it on her shoulders.

It hung in coppery waves down to her midriff, still dripping.

For a fleeting moment she looked like something older than flesh.

“Did I make you worry, Solas?”

That smile. The warm flicker in her eyes.

Danger.

Solas blinked to dispel the vision and lowered his gaze. He shifted his weight from one leg to the other. His voice echoed the Seeker’s words, because his own eluded him at the moment.

“You have the mark. We would not be able to close the rifts without you.”

She had only tested the water, dipping her toes to see how deep it ran. It fell to him to make clear that it was far too cold to swim in.

Her smile widened, even as it sharpened.

“Your steps are quiet, for a mage. But I would recognize them anywhere by now, hahren.”

Payback for denying her perilous move? Solas could live with that.

Before he could say anything, the huntress strode past him, heading back toward their camp.

Chapter Text

The first time Solas noticed something unusual about one of his barriers, they were pushing through the templar encampment tucked in a gorge along the riverbank.

He had shaped it to shield Assana while she stalked one of two templar archers. When the barrier formed, he immediately sensed its uneven weave around her. Stabilizing it drained far more mana than it should have. A single arrow glanced off before the spell unraveled.

Solas gritted his teeth and drove his staff into the ground. Frustration laced the ice that burst from underneath the second archer, freezing him where he stood. Varric shattered the unfortunate recipient of his anger with a single bolt.

He blamed that mishap on exhaustion.

The second time it happened was in a dark alley in Val Royeaux.

Solas wrapped his magic around both Cassandra and Assana a moment before the huntress’s path diverged toward the flank.

The Fade energy around the Seeker flowed smoothly, anchoring itself to her spirit and life force. It was a living current – warm, vibrant and responsive.

The current around Assana met resistance.

It was like trying to write on oiled paper. The spell clung unevenly, as if it could not find proper purchase. His magic skimmed her, rather than sink in.

This time, Solas was unable to write it off as a mere coincidence or blame circumstance.

It perplexed him.

For a few moments, he forgot to cast as he pressed his lips into a thin line.

“Bored already, Chuckles?” Varric quipped as Bianca fired several bolts in quick succession.

Solas rejoined the fight at that, but his mind whirred furiously.

Her absence from the Fade. Now, magical resistance.

He was gripped by a sinking suspicion that the two were connected, though he failed to see how, in the context of what he knew about the Herald. It was not enough to go on.

It did not help that Assana had seemingly resolved to keep him at arm’s length.

When she left to recruit some mercenary company in the Storm Coast, she left him behind in Haven and took Vivienne with her instead.

Solas told himself he did not mind.

He quietly returned to his studies and spent more time in the Fade. Anything to keep himself occupied. To not think about what else might lie under the huntress’s skin, beyond an unruly bookworm.

To not see her standing by that brook behind closed eyelids.

The trip to the Storm Coast should not have taken more than a week. Yet one week passed and Assana did not return.

Haven somehow felt dull. Colorless. The days dragged on more slowly than they had in the Hinterlands. The lack of activity made him restless. The silence he had once enjoyed weighed heavier.

He told himself it had nothing to do with her absence.

One night, Solas decided to visit an old friend in the Fade.

He had not spoken to Leilani since Uthenera and he dearly missed having someone to talk to. He found her drifting among the roots of an elven ruin in the Dales, perusing the ancient threads of memory lingering there.

“You seem troubled,” the spirit of Wisdom immediately noted.

A tired smile touched his lips. Even the joy of seeing her again was muted by the weight of the questions that had clouded his mind. He found himself dwelling on Assana as one might on a thread, tugging at it endlessly, unable to let it be.

He confided in Leilani, both to ease the weight pressing on his thoughts and in the hope that she might perceive what had eluded him.

She appeared pensive as he finished relaying what he knew.

“You ask yourself why,” she eventually said. “Why does she not come to the Fade anymore? Why is she resistant to magical energy? And you are right to suspect they are connected, for all magic is tied to the Fade. But you have omitted another question – how?”

His brow tensed as he thought about it. Then he shook his head. “Are they not the same question, to some extent?”

Leilani shifted and a wisp of her form pressed against his cheek in a tender caress.

“My friend, they are as different as – how does a bird fly? And – why does a bird fly? Of the two, the former question is much simpler to answer: the bird flaps its wings and pushes at the air underneath them to soar. But the answers to the latter are many, and some may even take a philosophical form. Perhaps it sees a predator. Or perhaps it wishes to admire the world from a higher branch.”

Ah... That made perfect sense.

How had he not thought about it before?

The echoes of Assana he had found in the Fade suggested she was not entirely cut off from it. She was not Tranquil, after all. Her connection to the Fade was merely dimmed, her tether so weak it did not bring her into the Fade when she dreamed, nor allowed magic to affect her at full strength.

Except for the children of the stone - mage or no - one's connection to the Fade was innate. It could only be changed by outward means and not subject to chance. Someone had taught her how to do it, or she had taught herself.

He thought about the possibilities.

Armor could be made using certain materials which possessed that magic-dampening effect and lent it to the finished piece. But Assana wore no such thing. Nug leather was merely soft and comfortable, allowing her a wide range of movement. And surely she did not sleep in her equipment, in any case.

Enchanted trinkets? She wore no amulets or rings either.

Something chemical in nature, then?

Aside from healing potions, Assana carried a few vials of tonic in her belt. He had never thought much about them. Varric carried his own set. And so did that…

…Sera. Her name was Sera, he reminded himself.

He knew of herbs which could preclude sleep or even block one from the Fade, but he had never cared to study them.

Over the next days, he buried himself in the few tomes on plants that he managed to find in Haven. Minaeve lent him one. Adan had three, and the alchemist even offered some guidance when Solas pulled at his knotted tongue.

“A potion to block someone from the Fade? Remind me not to get on your bad side.”

“This is purely for research purposes.”

“Right,” Adan said. His brow twitched, but he talked.

“Well, several combinations could work. In theory. I wouldn't test any on myself. Or… anyone, really. They'd basically all double as poison. For example, a mix of embrium, vandal aria and deathroot would have the effect you want, but you’d also need elfroot to stay alive after ingesting it.”

Solas thought about the scent of embrium that trailed behind Assana and shuddered. How could he have overlooked the answer when it had been under his nose from the very beginning?

The tomes confirmed what Adan had told him.

Embrium was related to dreams, often used in teas or potions. Depending on the accompanying ingredients, it could strengthen one’s connection to the Fade and induce more vivid dreams, or it could dull it.

Vandal aria’s properties brought mental clarity, but also sedation when steeped too long. Spindleroot was a weaker alternative to deathroot, but they both slowed magic and reflexes.

He felt confident this answered the question of ‘how’. But the satisfaction it gave him was short-lived.

The puzzle was still incomplete.

The more he thought about it, the more the reason Assana did this - on a regular basis, on purpose - eluded him. The one thread of logic he could follow led to the same impossible conclusion he had dismissed twice already.

Assana’s presence in the Fade after the explosion made sense now. It had occurred unexpectedly and she likely had not dosed herself with anything beforehand. Such a concoction would be used before going to sleep, for a stronger effect. Then she had started taking it again, which explained her absence since.

Yet all this still did not explain why she had been conscious in the Fade.

Such awareness was the mark of a dreamer. Who could only be a mage.

Solas rubbed his chin in thought.

He did not dismiss the idea a third time.

Chapter Text

Two weeks after the Herald’s departure for the Storm Coast, hurried footsteps and a chorus of voices drew Solas’s attention from his sketchbook.

He emerged from the solitary warmth of his cottage into the evening’s biting cold.

A small crowd had gathered and rows of people lined the sides of the road leading up to the chantry. Their greetings reached him like echoes, their warmth meant for someone else. He searched past the crowd until a flicker of red caught his eye.

Assana was coming up the road, smiling and murmuring inaudible words in response to the people’s greetings.

“Welcome back, Herald of Andraste!”

“… thank the Maker for your safe return, Herald!”

The reception was decidedly warmer than the one they had received upon their return from the Hinterlands and Val Royeaux. The Inquisition’s propaganda machine had been hard at work spreading word of the Herald’s tireless efforts to restore order, even in her absence. The Antivan diplomat should be commended for this success.

As she approached the bend, Assana noticed him standing on the hillock by the road. The distance between them was too great to carry words over the clamor, but her head dipped in greeting. Solas inclined his head in turn.

He watched her until she disappeared into the chantry, likely to confer with her advisors. The crowd then began to disperse and he, too, returned inside.

The charcoal impression of her stared back at him, forgotten on the table.

He had drawn her likeness, standing by that brook in the Hinterlands – wet tresses framing her face, clear of vallaslin, her eyes beckoning, bright.

A quiet shame stirred in his chest at the sight of it – unbecoming of him, and yet impossible to quell.

He had drawn that image hoping it would somehow transfer onto the paper and remain there – a failed attempt to clear his mind.

It remained burned into his retina, etched on the back of his eyelids. As if he had gazed upon the sun itself.

Solas stared at the sketch for a long time. Then he took it to the fireplace and cast it into the flames. He watched the parchment curl and blacken, its edges glowing like dying stars.

As it turned to ash, he told himself it was only curiosity that had caught him – the mystery of her link to the Fade, not the pull of her smile. Beauty was fleeting, after all.

He sank into the chair by the fireplace, head in one hand, gaze lost in the flames.

He had lost track of time when a knock came at the door. His legs had gone slightly numb.

“Herald,” he murmured, surprised to find her standing on his doorstep – this time without a nug.

Haven had fallen quiet under the blanket of darkness.

“Hello, Solas,” she said.

Her voice sounded warm, but the dark circles under her eyes confirmed the tiredness he had heard beneath it. Her head tilted as she tried to catch his gaze.

“May I please come in for a moment? It’s freezing cold out here.”

His legs moved before her words even made sense.

“Of course. Forgive me, I was not expecting visitors.”

She shuddered as she stepped inside, and kept her heavy coat on.

“I could make you some…” His eyes darted around. “…tea, if you would like,” he finished as he remembered where he had put the tea leaves. They had been a gift from Ambassador Montilyet - a token of appreciation for a ‘valued member of the Inquisition’.

“Ma serannas. I wouldn’t have troubled you at this hour, but I’m leaving for the Hinterlands tomorrow and I… could use your help. If you’d like to join me, that is. I know this is on short notice.”

Her roundabout means of asking questions or making demands never failed to slip his notice. Yet he was more intrigued by the request itself – had Lady Vivienne claimed some indisposition after she was faced with a lack of proper décor in the great outdoors?

“You have only just returned,” Solas pointed out instead.

Assana sighed, pacing around the room and rubbing her gloved hands together. Another shiver coursed through her.

“We’ve dealt with the templars, but not the apostates. And reports say they’ve only grown bolder with the templars gone. I’ve wasted enough time as it is. I can rest on the way there.”

She paused as she drew near the table, where he had left his sketchbook open.

“Did you draw all these?”

He smiled, grateful for his own good sense in burning that one drawing.

“I find it to be a pleasant pastime.”

She sat in the chair by the table and began slowly sifting through the sketches of rifts, places he had seen in the Fade, demons and ancient ruins.

“They’re… remarkable,” she breathed, unable to tear her eyes away from them.

He spilled a little water on the floor as he filled the pot for tea. A pleasant warmth suffused his flesh.

“Thank you.”

Solas wished he could ask the Herald about her own secrets in turn – but he could not. Assana would no doubt wonder how he knew anything at all, when she had succeeded in keeping everyone else in the dark.

It was not him she had seen in the Fade after all, but his wolf-form. In hindsight, perhaps it had not been wise of him to track down a Dalish elf in that shape, but how could he have known she would be lucid?

Solas cleared his throat and busied himself putting tea leaves in a cup.

“What delayed you in the Storm Coast?”

She replied after a slight pause.

“Leliana didn’t tell you? Some of our people had gone missing in the area shortly before we arrived… we went to look for them and... it turned out a group called the Blades of Hessarian had killed them.”

Another pause.

“I challenged their leader… to a fight and… recruited them…”

An interesting choice.

The Dalish tended to turn outsiders away rather than negotiate – and they often met resistance to that choice with swift violence. After ages of oppression and self-imposed isolation, mistrust ran in their blood.

That Assana would even consider another option, that she had ended up making that unlikely choice, prompted him to once again reconsider his initial opinion of her.

A sheet slipped from her lap and hit the floor with a sound that felt too loud for the quiet of the room.

Solas turned – then stilled.

Assana had fallen asleep, head pillowed on her arm, breath soft against the table. He hesitated, caught between thought and feeling, uncertain what to do.

His eyes drifted to the vials secured to her belt. Had she drunk her poison for the night or was there a chance he might finally find her in the Fade?

A sigh slipped past Solas’s lips.

He picked up the fallen sketch and slid it back between the pages. Then he gently draped a blanket over Assana.

She did not stir once throughout the night.

The first light of dawn found Solas drawing in the light cast by dying embers in the hearth.

At the first rustle of fabric, he closed his sketchbook and placed it out of sight.

The Herald groaned as she straightened up, eyes groggy - until she saw him. She froze. Contrition wrote itself all over her face as she remembered where she was.

“Did you even sleep?” she asked softly.

“I could hardly claim the bed while you slept in a chair,” Solas said, a tired smile playing on his lips. “And I did not wish to wake you. You were sleeping so peacefully.”

“Oh,” she said, a faint blush blooming on her cheeks. “Thank you. But you shouldn’t have let me keep you from your bed. Now I feel terrible.”

“I can rest on our way to the Hinterlands.”

That caught her off guard.

“Then… you’re coming?”

Solas chuckled. “Was that in doubt?”

“No,” she said quickly. Too quickly. She followed it with a sigh. “Well… yes.” She raised her eyes to meet his, peering at him from under long lashes. “We haven’t had the best communication. And that’s… mostly my fault. I sometimes speak without thinking. Forgive me, hahren.”

There she went again. Bowing her head. Admitting her mistakes. Learning from them. Slowly dismantling all of his preconceptions about her, proving to him she was more than her Dalish blood and bones.

“One can always make amends when given another chance… lethallan.”

The appellation seemed to please her a great deal. The smile it coaxed from her lips was like none she had ever shown him before – bright, warm and... endearing.

She fascinated him as much as she unsettled him.

Because if he had been wrong about her…

What else might he be wrong about?

Chapter Text

The Hinterlands lay within two days’ worth of hard riding from Haven, if the weather held – three, if the mountains decided otherwise. Thankfully, the skies remained peaceful and the road clear of landslides or snow.

Assana spent the better part of that time pelleting the Iron Bull with a myriad questions – about the Qun, about the Ben Hassrath, about the Chargers and how he had ended up in this part of the world.

Solas rode quietly behind, alongside Blackwall.

The Herald had recruited the man during their first incursion into the Hinterlands. So far, he had proven himself to be blessedly taciturn company, if not entirely honest about his past.

Solas had seen the memories that haunted this ‘Grey Warden’ within the first few nights of him joining the Inquisition. Not that he held any bias toward the man.

In fact, it felt strangely comforting to find himself in a party formed entirely of liars.

And to think that, of the four of them, the Ben Hassrath was proving to be the most forthcoming.

“Qunari don’t have… sex?” Solas overheard Assana asking. Her voice wavered ever so slightly over the last word, as if afraid someone might overhear.

The Iron Bull had no such qualms. His baritone boomed in the quiet of the forest as if he were remarking upon the weather.

“Oh, we definitely have sex. There are tamassrans who pop your cork whenever you need it.”

“Seriously?!”

Solas was not certain what was more delectable – her flustered fumbling over the topic, or the fact that her boundless curiosity had led her there in the first place.

Iron Bull proceeded to inform her about what it was like, but Solas was only half-listening. He was more interested in watching Assana fidget in the saddle.

“So… you’ve never really made love?” she asked. “Connected with someone in both body and soul?”

When the Qunari mentioned a leather-wrapped implement and more than two people involved, Assana cleared her throat and changed the topic in a heartbeat.

Solas coughed to mask the chuckle which inadvertently threatened to bubble in his throat.

It was the way she faltered – not at the Iron Bull’s answer, but at the thought of pressing him further. She had certainly gathered by now that he would give that kind of information without reservation.

It was the kind of hesitation that spoke of innocence, of restraint, of something untouched by the world’s trappings.

Solas told himself he had listened through that inappropriate conversation only to gauge her composure. Yet the sound of her fumbling for her words, startled, unguarded – it caught at something he had long forgotten how to name.

Even if the Iron Bull’s stories did tug at an ancient memory. Or two.

The sound he made must have been unusual, for Blackwall cast him a sidelong glance before finally engaging.

“So, do you have any advice for fighting demons, Solas?”

“Survive the first thirty heartbeats and you will have already won,” he responded good-naturedly.

They used the Inquisition camp nestled on a hill southeast of the Crossroads and set out to find the apostates’ hideout the very next morning. Later that day, while searching through the belongings of some harriers who had been stalking the road to Redcliffe, they found a note.

It pointed them to the Witchwood.

Assana followed the footprints embedded in the soft mud along dark pools of stagnant water. Broken twigs hinted at careless passage. They found trails of frost that did not melt even in places where the sun filtered through the canopy.

The tracks led them to a lake. Its surface glistened, frozen solid. Crisp, unnaturally cool air hung about the unusual landmark. To their left, a magical barrier rippled over the mouth of a cave entrance.

Solas brought it down with a whirl of his staff.

Chaos ensued.

A flurry of magical bolts cut through the air.

Blackwall inched forward, ducking behind his shield to deflect them.

The Iron Bull charged toward the nearest cluster of mages with a roar that made some of them fadestep to a safer distance.

Only for them to fall to Assana’s daggers before they could cast a single spell.

She then used the dark environment and general chaos to her advantage, sneaking toward the back of the cave. One of the older apostates had claimed the high ground and was flinging fireballs at the two warriors below. Solas kept a barrier on them to shield them from his relentless attacks and an eye on Assana as she scaled the stony rise to get to him.

It just so happened that the apostate had been smart enough to place a fire trap behind himself.

Its glow caught Solas’s eye a moment before Assana’s foot landed on the glyph.

No!

He threw a hasty barrier on her. Felt it slip.

The blast shook the cavern a heartbeat later, pelleting them with pebbles from the ceiling. Solas rushed past the two warriors hacking left and right.

He stepped into the cloud of dust swallowing the far end of the cave, heart slamming against his ribcage like a frantic bird.

His faulty barrier. An instant of blistering heat. Then, nothing.

“Herald!” he called out, only to choke on the dust.

He nearly lost his balance as he tripped over a dead body – the fire-mage. Relief fluttered through his bloodstream. It was not her.

The apostate’s robes were horribly charred; the fabric fused to his flesh by the flames of his own spell. He had not had time to step away.

Solas’s heart sank.

“Herald!”

A weak cough from up ahead. A flicker of hope. Then-

“I’m alright!”

Assana’s voice. Shaking, but strong.

Solas expelled a quick sigh of relief and picked up the pace. He found her slowly pushing herself up from the cavern floor, brushing stray locks from her soot-streaked face. Her legs trembled as they took her weight, but she appeared to be in one piece.

Until he noticed her right forearm.

It hung limp at her side.

“You’re hurt,” he murmured, dropping his staff to reach out for it.

“It’s not so bad,” she said.

The skin on her forearm was already blistering where she had raised it to shield her face from the blast.

It was not as bad as it could have been. Solas felt his blood begin to boil.

At full strength, his barrier would have fully absorbed that blast. Her magical resistance had only minimized whatever damage his spell failed to soak up before collapsing.

Now his healing magic would not work properly, either.

“You look so serious. Am I in mortal danger?”

The lightness in her tone plucked at the chords of his anger, made it sing in his veins.

There she was, jesting about it. And he could not even tell her how foolish she was.

Solas looked up at her, burying every trace of rage under the guise of mild concern and confusion.

“You are… lucky to have escaped that trap with only a minor burn,” he said, forcing his jaw to unclench.

Assana hissed under her breath as he turned her arm to inspect the full extent of that burn, but she quickly covered it with a peal of laughter. Beads of sweat glimmered along her hairline.

“I’ve survived worse. Though I’m still not sure if whatever happened at the Conclave was a blessing or a curse.”

She leaned back against the cavern’s wall, gaze adrift. Exhaustion flickered across her face. She closed her eyes, dust-powdered lashes settling on her cheek.

Solas nearly cursed the Conclave and the Elder One. The cruel failings of his design had brought her to this point. His own foolishness.

Instead, he dipped his head and buried those thoughts even deeper than the nameless dread that coiled within him.

His lips were sealed by the weight of secrets. He could hardly begin dismantling hers without giving up some of his own.

“Hold still,” he breathed, gingerly supporting the unhurt side of her forearm with trembling fingers.

The faintest smile lingered on Assana’s lips as Solas burned through nearly all of his magic to mend her stubborn flesh.

“Hey, thanks for all the support back there, nice teamwork,” the Qunari muttered, his heavy steps drawing near.

“Sorry, Iron Bull, that was my mistake,” Assana said. “I stepped on a fire glyph.”

“You’re lucky to be alive, then,” Blackwall said.

“Solas’s barrier saved my life,” she said softly.

Her gaze lingered on him, soft with gratitude.

The sudden urge to kiss that lie off her lips struck him like a betrayal of every boundary he had sworn to keep.

Solas crushed it at once, sealing it behind a mask of composure.