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At Mythal’s words, Solas curls in on himself, his hand reaching reflexively for his chest and a pained gasp rising from his bloodied lips. Athera watches his shoulders shake, sees the tears course through the blood and blight on his cheeks, and with an apologetic glance at Rook which the Antivan crow doesn’t see, she kneels carefully at his side.
In this moment, she finally understands what it means to betray an ally in pursuit of a greater cause.
“You are free, ma lath,” she tells him, as pained, frightened eyes meet hers and the wild magic around them grows stronger. “But is it truly the end?”
He straightens, slow and agonised; every inch of his broken spirit seeming to bleed through the cracks of his expression.
When he speaks, his voice is ragged, torn open like the breaking of his ancient heart.
“What…” He swallows a sob. “What do you mean?”
She can hear the word vhenan although he doesn’t speak it. Feels its light hiding beneath every word. She doesn’t want to oppose him.
“The veil is falling,” she says. “It’s already begun. So I want you to answer me truthfully, ma fen, now that you’re free. Do you still believe that your new world is worth it?”
She sees understanding alight in his eyes, at the same time that Rook and her team let out an outraged cry. But she only has eyes for him. She holds her hand up to waylay them, calm with a certainty that she’s never had before.
“You told me yourself that the veil’s fall may cost only hundreds of lives,” she says to them. “Perhaps, now that it is falling in a place already destroyed, that number might be even fewer.”
She draws her gaze away from Solas and looks down into Rook's face.
“When you and Varric interrupted his ritual — on orders that I had given to him — the blighted gods were set free and it cost one of my dearest friends his life. Because of our interruption, we have caused more death than the hundreds that were originally at risk. We are responsible for what has happened to the world since.”
A stark pain — a brutal guilt — chases its way across Rook’s face, and Athera draws in a breath and turns her gaze back to her heart.
“So I am asking you, Solas,” she says gently. “To make a choice as yourself. Free from the guilt, free from the duty that you felt you owed to Mythal. And I am asking you to be honest with me. What do you believe should happen now, for the good of all of our worlds? What will the cost be if we allow this to continue?”
She hadn’t expected her words to bring him comfort, but the blistering agony that collapses his expression makes her heart twist as though strangled. He curls into himself again, pressing the dagger tight to his chest and holding onto it like a lifeline as his eyes fall closed.
For long seconds he remains this way, his brow furrowed in thought while the tears in the veil bleed brighter. Then, with a release of breath as though he’s been punched, he opens his eyes again.
“The spirits stand ready to aid us,” he says, and in that moment there is a new certainty in his voice. “When the veil is thin enough they will cross over to shepherd the demons away and protect the people caught up in the fall.”
She nods slowly, never once breaking his gaze.
“And then?” She asks. “What happens then?”
“The Fade and the Waking will be one, as they were once before. The magic will quieten. The ancient Elvhen will be able to awake and the elves of this age will cease to be mortal. The spirits will flock to the living and learn, as Cole once learnt from us. It will be a new beginning, and a chance for something more.”
Athera turns her gaze to the rippling veil, the green now brightening like a blazing star, and feels the heat of the magic flow through her. It feels like breathing again.
“And is this what you believe to be right?” She asks him, without turning away from the veil. “Will this be worth the cost?”
There are long moments of silence that follow. She can hear the Fade singing around them. And then a single breathless word meets her ears.
“Yes.”
At this, she turns — but not towards Solas yet.
She looks instead to Rook — one of their people — and she can tell that she’s experiencing the rightness of the magic’s return too.
“But…” She stammers weakly. “Do we deserve to be the ones that make that choice?”
“No one deserves to make this choice,” Athera replies. “It’s a burden that no-one should ever have had to bear.”
She meets Solas’s eyes briefly, and there is such a sharp hurt in his gaze that she has to fight back tears.
“But we are the ones who are here,” she continues, her attention returning to Rook, Emmrich, and to Harding — who has tears in her eyes as well. “We caused devastation by disrupting his ritual. We stand in the same place that he once did, bearing the burden of the catastrophe we caused while we fought with the best of intentions.”
She frowns, feeling the magic swell, and understanding that they are nearly past the point of no return.
“I’ve opposed him for a decade, even though he is my heart,” she says shakily. “I have fought to stop Corypheus, fought to free the southern mages, fought to better this world for my people and fought to maintain the veil. Now that we’re here, I see something clearly for the first time. If we oppose him now, then all that we’ve fought for will have been for nothing. Nothing in this world will ever change. We will return to the status quo which has beaten and bloodied us all for so long. We will condemn an ancient people to their sleeping deaths, the thousands of mortal elves to continue to die, the mages to continued oppression and the spirits to constant pain.”
Here, she draws in a breath and turns to face him once again.
“That isn’t the world that any of us have battled so hard for all of this time,” she says. “My love. My heart. If you truly believe that the spirits will protect us, if you truly believe a new world is possible, then I will fight for it at your side.”
He swallows convulsively, his eyes shining, and nods his head stiffly once.
“I do,” he rasps, his throat thick. “Vhenan, I truly do. I must finish what I have started.”
Her expression gentles, and she steps up beside him and places her hand over his, where it still grips tight to the hilt of the dagger.
“I understand,” she murmurs. “But you do not have to do it alone. Not this time. I’m with you, ma fen. We will do this together.”
It’s with a great, rasping sob that Solas levels the dagger at the growing tear, and the veil between the two worlds splits. Athera clings to him, their hands clasped together on the weapon as the magic sings and surges through them, and everything becomes a blaze of green light.
She can’t see, caught up in the maelstrom of a returning world, but she can hear him weeping through the incantations he mutters; hear his sobs catch on the edge of archaic spells, and feel the strength of his love for her brimming through the raw Fade.
She doesn’t know how long it lasts for. Time warps, collapses, splits and remakes itself while they stand in the eye of the storm.
But when she can finally see again, the world is bright and coursing like a current around her.
Solas sinks to his knees, and she sways and reaches out a hand to steady herself on his bowed back, unable to look away from the flecks of sparkling magic that hum through the very fabric of the air.
She feels light. Freer than she has in her entire life. And where she had once expected to meet a burning and desolate world in the wake of Solas’ plans, instead she sees something that she can only describe as a wonder.
There are demons prowling through the streets below, but they are vastly outnumbered by the hordes of shining spirits that ebb and flow through the lanes like a wave. Even as she watches, these glowing creatures seem to direct the demons away from the startled people, and she can see their emotions like colours to the naked eye.
Wisdom and Valour, Compassion and Joy, Purpose and Guidance and Hope.
Even the Blight itself seems to be withering, the sheer influx of pure magic pushing back against the twisted dreams of the Titans. She doesn’t think that will hold true forever — if the Blight could be counteracted by raw magic, then the gods could never have commanded it in the world that came before.
For now though, everything around her is a feeling and a brightness that she could never have conceived of in the depths of her wildest dreams.
She turns, still half-dazed, to see Rook gazing up at her in awe, Emmrich staring at the spirits with pure joy, and Harding slumping to the ground heavily, her eyes shining with wonder.
Then, she finally becomes aware of the desperate, heaving sound of a god shattering like broken glass at her feet.
Solas is on his knees, his forehead pressed to the ground, and his shoulders are shaking with agonising sobs.
Athera’s eyes fill with tears, and she slips down next to him and draws him, shaking, into her arms.
“It’s done,” he weeps. “It’s finally done. Vhenan, sathan. Ma halani. I can’t-”
She hushes him, holding him tightly as his hands scrabble at her back and the weight of the world finally falls from his shoulders.
“You did it, ma lath,” she murmurs. “It’s over. We are finally, truly free.”