Chapter Text
After all this time, the orb was still a mystery.
Lavellan ran a hand over the artifact’s crumbled remains, laid out on a workbench in the Undercroft. He called upon his gift, and tendrils of frost flowed through his fingertips and seeped into the orb’s fragments. The bits of debris remained stubbornly inert. If any magic was lying dormant within, it refused to yield to his touch.
The sphere, or, rather, what was left of it, was a puzzle not even Dagna could solve. After months of research, the arcanist had not been able to identify the material the orb had been forged from. It was neither metal nor stone. She had hypothesized that it could be some undiscovered form of lyrium, but if that were the case, then Lavellan should have been able to detect some trace of magic from within it. But he couldn't.
Nor could the rest of Inquisition’s mages. Cole had offered his opinion, in that cryptic, unsettling way of his: “It used to hold, used to sing, but now, it’s empty. Quiet. It can’t remember what it was. Doesn’t want to.”
And that was that. In the wake of Corypheus’s defeat, the Inquisition was stretched thin. Between dealing with leftover Venatori outposts, wiping out Red Templar stragglers, and repairing scattered veil rifts, there was no time to waste investigating a defunct magical object.
And yet, Lavellan couldn’t help but wonder. If only they could find a way to repair the orb, to restore its unknowable and extraordinary magic, then perhaps - he hardly dared to let himself think it - perhaps Solas would return.
During these last two years, despite utilizing every last resource at the Inquisition’s disposal, they had not learned so much as a scrap of information about Solas’s origins or whereabouts. Leliana’s network of spies, Josephine’s political connections, and Sera’s friends among the Red Jennys hadn’t heard so much as a whisper. Even Morrigan, with the wealth of knowledge from the Well of Sorrows at her fingertips, could not tell Lavellan a single useful detail about Solas.
The elf had vanished. He was untraceable. It was as if he’d just up and walked into the Fade. Knowing Solas, he probably had.
In the aftermath of that final battle against the Archdemon, in the midst of the Inquisition's victory celebration, Lavellan had felt so unbearably alone. Though he’d been surrounded by people congratulating him, offering him drinks, and clapping him on the back, Lavellan couldn’t bring himself to enjoy the tase of success. As the entire Inquisition rejoiced around him, all he could think of was the fact that the one person he wanted to enjoy the moment with most was the one person who wasn’t there.
A few days later, when the festivities had died down and the nobility had finally cleared out of Skyhold, the Inquisition’s finest took to the Herald’s Rest for a quiet evening. During a particularly heated drinking match between Dorian and the Iron Bull, Sera slipped a dash of Aquae Lucidius into Bull’s ale. Thanks to the liquor’s hallucinogenic properties, Bull promptly became convinced that Dorian had transformed into a purple dragonling.
The Qunari had chased the indignant mage in circles around the garden, trying to maul him with a sledgehammer. It had taken Lavellan, Krem, Blackwall, and Cassandra ten minutes to wrangle Bull and hold him back long enough for Dorian to escape. By the end of it, Varric was crying with laughter, Harding was doubled over in stitches, and Sera had guffawed so hard that she’d vomited into the bushes. Even Vivienne had cracked a smile.
Dorian had been spitting mad. He’d threatened to set the Chargers’ entire armory ablaze with an immolation spell in retribution for his wounded pride. Josephine had been forced to bribe him with two bottles of West Hill Brandy to convince him to forgive Bull (who was thoroughly embarrassed after sobering up the next day.)
Lavellan had wanted so badly to tell Solas all about the ordeal. So, he sat down wrote a letter. Not that he’d had any clue where to address the damn thing.
It became something of a habit, the letter writing.
He wrote to Solas each time one of the Inquisition’s core members parted ways, scattering to the winds: Leliana to take up the mantle as Divine at the Grand Cathedral in Val Royeaux, Varric back to Kirkwall, Cassandra to round up the Seekers, Vivienne to the College of Enchanters, Blackwall off to rebuild the Wardens, and Sera to, well, wherever it was the Red Jennys needed her. Morrigan left without so much as a goodbye, surprising no one.
Dorian had been the last to leave. Surprisingly, he’d offered to stay in Skyhold to help translate some Venatori research notes. Perhaps Lord Pavus had been reluctant to face his father again, after the ordeal the man had put him through. Or perhaps he was just dreading the ship ride back to Tevinter. Either way, it was obvious that he’d do more good back home at the Imperium than he would squinting at scribbles in the darkened Skyhold library. Lavellan had wished Dorian well on his journey home.
Lavellan wrote still more letters when the Anchor was troubling him. It was more often now that his mark would flare with green lightning, sending searing pain radiating through his hand and scorching his skin like boiling oil. Try as he might to cool the burning with a whisper of ice magic, it was no use. Solas was the only one who had ever been able to soothe the cursed thing. Writing to Solas did little to ease the pain, but it did provide a welcome distraction.
So too did he write Solas on long, cold nights, when Lavellan’s quarters were empty and the silence felt to lonely to bear. When Solas’ company – his soft voice, his feather-light touch – was the only thing Lavellan desired. In such moments of solitude, his thoughts turned to the past. To clan Lavellan. The family he could never return to. The family he’d failed. He had never felt more useless or alone than in the moment he’d learned he was the sole survivor of his clan. Some nights, he wished he’d died with them. Solas had once helped banish that loneliness, at least temporarily. Now, Lavellan endured in the only way he knew how: he crammed those thoughts of guilt and sorrow into the blackest part of his mind, and left them there to fester.
It was like a ritual. Whenever Lavellan had the urge to speak with Solas, he’d go somewhere quiet, waste a roll of parchment or ten, then sign and seal the message. Having nowhere to send them, he stuffed the sealed letters in the back of his wardrobe, where he hoped no unsuspecting maid would find them and announce to the rest of the servants that the leader of the Inquisition was a pathetic, obsessive lunatic writing letters to no one.
Sighing, Lavellan picked up a scrap of the shattered orb. The shard was no larger than a pebble. It weighed almost nothing.
Cole was right about the orb. It might have been something important once. A vessel, a magical focus, a key to the Fade and the secrets that lay beyond it. But none of that mattered anymore. Because now, the damn thing was nothing but a hunk of charred debris.
Solas wasn’t coming back. It hurt to know that. But what stung even more than that was not knowing why he had left in the first place.
“Inquisitor?” Josephine cleared her throat. She was standing in the doorway of the Undercroft, writing tablet in hand. She must have been there for a while, judging by the look on her face. Tactful though she was, the diplomat’s expression was easy to read. Her brow was furrowed with concern.
“What is it?” Lavellan straightened and did his best to look like he had been examining the orb for some important, Inquisitorial reason, and not because he’d been pining over his lost lover like an abandoned puppy. He stifled a grimace, regretting the slip-up.
Lately, he’d done so well keeping it together. He’d cracked jokes with the Chargers, smiled and nodded his way through pompous Orlesian parties, and led expeditions through Venatori-infested wilderness, all the while refusing to let on that the gaping wound in his heart was still just as raw and aching as it had been on the night Solas departed. He was the face of the Inquisition. He had to be strong, decisive, and capable. Not some feeble lovesick loon brought to the brink of tears by a bit of broken rock.
Well, not a rock. Whatever in Dirthamen’s name the blasted orb was.
“It’s time to depart,” Josephine said politely. “We should arrive at the Winter Palace a few days before negotiations, to give us time to strategize before the Exalted Council begins.” She paused for a breath. “Perhaps…if you need a moment, we could delay -”
“No,” Lavellan shook his head. “I’ll be right there.”
Josephine, satisfied with his response, dropped a curtsy and left the room.
Lavellan turned, about to set down the bit of the orb he’d been clutching, but the thought of leaving it behind was somehow painful. As if in agreement, his left hand crackled and hummed with magical energy.
Lavellan gave in and deposited the pebble into his tunic pocket. He’d never been very good at letting things go.