Chapter Text
Rook – though she wasn’t yet called that – was born with her Marks already blackening the creases of her tiny palms. No one noticed at first; her fists were clenched, clutching at the air as she wailed at the shock of being born.
That, in itself, wasn’t unusual. It only meant that both her soulmate and her greatest enemy were already alive.
What was unusual was the name stamped into the soft skin of her right palm, long enough to almost spill past it, letters carved deep like a brand: Fen’Harel.
Her painfully human father saw it first, but no matter how many times he blinked or brushed his thumb across the dark letters, the name refused to fade, to change, to disappear. He showed it to his Dalish wife in disbelief, and she muttered under her breath in a tongue he barely knew, though the rhythm told him enough – a curse sounds like a curse in any language.
She tried to rise from the birthing bed at once, moving like a woman on a mission rather than one who had just spent nine months shaping life and fifteen hours pushing it out. Only exhaustion, and his quiet, desperate pleading kept her still. They made a deal: she would sleep tonight, and they would act in the morning. Though neither of them knew what acting meant in the face of an enemy like this.
There were no instructions for what to do when your daughter bore the name of a god you barely believed in until now. But there was no doubt anymore: he must exist, in some shape or form, if his name had found its way onto her skin.
By morning, her mother was dead. Fever, they said.
Grief smothered her father’s memory of their bargain until his wife’s ashes were already scattered in the places she had loved. And what could a human man do, alone, with a scrap of a girl crying in his arms, to find the Dalish?
So he did what he could on his own. A strong piece of twine was tied above her cradle, and one by one, talismans gathered on it like knights guarding a sleeping princess: a wooden tree for the tale her mother once told of Andruil binding the Wolf to one; a patchwork dog sewn from scraps and stuffed with cotton for a fable in a worn, handwritten Dalish book; and a small scroll of parchment inked with every Dalish blessing he could find.
He hoped it was enough. He feared it wasn’t.
When she was six, the Circle took her, and she was orphaned all over again. The talismans were gone, their meaning forgotten, the fierce love they carried erased by time and stone walls. Only the strange name remained on her right palm, stranger still for a human.
But she was a bright child with a brighter smile. She shrugged it off and looked on the bright side: Fen’Harel was evil. Everyone knew that. Therefore, he must be her enemy.
That left the name on her left palm to be her soulmate. Not many could say they knew their soulmate’s name from birth, could sort love from hate at a glance, and she counted herself lucky for that gift.
One day, she would marry this Solas from her left palm, and they would laugh at the name on her other. They would keep dogs. Many dogs. Dogs stand guard to keep the Wolf away.
Or so she thought.
Rook grew. She laughed and cried, caused trouble and paid the price, learned to behave, and earned praise for it.
Like all mages in the Circle, she wore gloves. Not by rule – the Templars simply preferred not to be reminded that mages bore Marks too, that the Maker might guide them beyond the Chantry’s grasp. But even if two soulmates were unlucky enough to share the same Circle, everyone knew what would happen: one would be sent away. The Circles existed for control, not love.
She would have hidden hers regardless. The few times she’d shown them, the reaction to Fen’Harel had been enough to make her stop. Dalish or not, no one liked the thought of a god – a god other than the Maker, at that – being real enough to appear on mortal skin. So she kept it close to her heart: her secret at night, her promise of more to come, her proof that something in her life was hers, and hers alone.
She excelled at practical magic, fumbled through theory, and endured lectures as her Harrowing crept closer.
It never came. The Mage-Templar War did.
Their Circle dissolved, splitting their Templars in two – one faction claiming the only good mage was a dead one, the other clinging to their oaths of protection. The first had to die for the second to live, but the survivors wanted little to do with each other after washing their siblings’ blood from their hands.
The mages were let go. But after years locked away, freedom felt more like a stranger than the tower ever had.
Some joined the rebels heading south. Others slipped away under the cover of night, chasing dreams of quiet lives.
Rook weighed both options, but she felt too scared to fight. Running was safer, so she ran back to the place she was from but no longer remembered: Treviso.
Only years later would she learn that if she’d joined the rebels, and survived long enough to step inside Skyhold, she might have met the man she once thought her soulmate.
In Treviso, the Crows swooped down fast; it didn’t take long before someone noticed the young girl with no family, too much naivety, and magic poorly hidden – magic they always lacked.
She was given a choice. Even now, she wasn’t sure if she’d made the right one.
Sometimes, when training turned brutal and guilt weighed heavy, she wished for another path. Other times, gratitude for this murderous little found family overwhelmed her, and she wanted to kick herself for ever regretting them.
And this was the road leading to her destiny – she could feel it, deep down, as the years went by.
Rook grew. She laughed and cried, caused trouble and paid steeper prices, learned to behave, and in turn, Viago didn’t poison her dinner. Or if he did, it was for practicality, to build her immunity.
She learned to kill fast and mercifully, in ways many begged for – and vastly preferred it over the torturous drift of a soul slowly seeping from a body. She gathered a patchwork of experiences, like the ache of sleepless days, the burn of adrenaline, the soft fur of a cat beneath her fingertips, and the rare sight of a Mark meeting its match.
Nothing she’d ever experienced compared to that. A man offered his hand to another for a shake, and when Mark met skin, black light flared between them, brief enough to miss if you blinked. But no one did. The pair's eyes locked on the glow, and so did the whole market’s.
Enemies. The black light marked them as such.
The world felt too small days later, when one hired House de Riva to kill the other. Viago’s rules allowed no bidding wars – he assigned the contracts, and he expected them done, and done well.
He gave this one to Rook.
She never wanted to use a garrote again.
Sometimes she thought about showing her palms to Viago. He’d hidden his for years – odd for a free man with no need for an advantageous marriage – but she’d learned quickly that it was just another shade of his paranoia. When he finally let her glimpse the elegant curve of Teia on one hand, she knew it was only because he allowed it. It became a mark between them – this one not of fate, but of trust. Of belonging.
Still, fear of disappointing the one person she couldn’t bear to lose kept her gloves on. If it bothered him, he never said. He never showed his enemy’s name either. Rook wondered if it was his father.
Years later, closer to thirty than twenty, courage finally stirred in her and refused to leave. She set out to right some wrongs by striking at the Antaam and freeing their captives. That’s when she met a mouthy dwarf offering her a new name and a new choice.
Varric was hunting an old friend making the worst mistake of his life, or so he said. A friend named Solas.
Solas. Sometimes called the Dread Wolf. Fen’Harel. Yes, yes, that ancient elven god, Varric said, waving it off like it was nothing – completely missing the way her face drained of color.
Fen’Harel. Solas. Fen’Harel. Solas.
One… and the same.
Her Marks weren't as simple as she thought them to be.
No one – no one – had ever borne two enemy Marks and no soulmate. No one had carried two names of danger for the same person, stealing the space meant for something pure.
Rook knew bad luck, but this cut deeper than every other misfortune combined. Why her? What had she done? Could she undo it?
Killing in cold blood always left her feeling dirty, but for this… for this, she’d kill gladly, if that was the price fate demanded.
Maybe that was why she had no soulmate – because her soul was so blackened by her deeds that destiny had spared someone the curse of being bound to her.
At least now she had a target. If life denied her the blessing of a soulmate, she could still chase peace by ridding herself of the burden of an enemy.
Varric’s plan was objectively shit. Every reasonable part of Rook sided with Harding – there was no talking Solas down now, not if he’d already come this far.
She should have said so. Harding’s eyes searched hers, pleading for backup against the madness, but her gloved left palm buzzed with stubborn hope, and she couldn’t help wondering if even shit plans were worth trying when they offered the faintest chance at a happy ending.
Maybe this was why she was here – to stand by Varric, to help him reach her so-called soulmate. Maybe he was still that; maybe she’d been wrong about fate. Maybe fate knew better, and questioning it only made her a fool.
Rook looked away from Harding, and with that, away from reason.
“We’ve got your back,” she said, mouth dry. “If anyone can get through to him, it’s you.”
Minutes later, she regretted every word. Varric was failing, Solas wasn’t budging, and the ritual continued on.
Crashing it with a statue might’ve been overkill, but if Solas wanted to end the world in a ruin, he could deal with the consequences.
Even then, she clung to hope for a miracle; the impossible kind from bedtime stories, the ones she used to read to herself by the glow of her first spell.
That hope died when Solas drove a dagger into Varric’s chest.
Varric slid down the stone steps, groaning weakly, his blood blooming beneath her hands as she fell to her knees. Her palms pressed hard against the wound, desperate to keep what belonged inside from spilling out. In that moment, she swore never again to doubt what she and Solas were.
Enemies.
Her gaze snapped up with fury, the kind born not just of loss, but of betrayal by the universe itself.
And in Solas’ eyes, she saw her rage reflected back.
This time, her right palm tingled.
One day, I’ll be the one holding the knife. And you’ll be the one bleeding.
Solas' right hand twitched visibly.
Sharing a mind connection with her greatest enemy ranked somewhere below ideal. Accidentally releasing two ancient elven gods? Somehow worse.
She tried focusing on silver linings: Solas was insuffarable. Surely she wouldn’t have wanted him as a soulmate anyway.
(She’d repeat that lie until the day she died, if that was what it took to believe it.)
Their common cause should’ve occupied her fully, but her eyes kept drifting to his hands – gesturing, hanging loose, clasping behind his back. Did he bear her name too? Not all Marks were mutual.
Maybe he was her great nemesis, the challenge that would define her life, while to him she was just dirt under his boots.
Being unloved was one thing. Being unremarkable was unbearable.
Fine, she decided. I’ll make myself impossible to forget.
One way or another, Solas would remember her.
“Thanks to you, though, I am now trapped, and the blighted ‘elven gods’ walk free.”
She rolled her eyes. "Riiiight. You were innocently doing nothing when we showed up. That lightshow was just party decor for the demons. My bad."
"The prison in which I had trapped them was beginning to crumble," Solas said, jaw tight. "I was moving them to another–"
“So you weren’t tearing down the Veil and drowning the world in demons and wild magic?” she shot back, head tilted.
His expression shuttered. “I had a plan.”
“Says the man who won’t explain it. You know, Varric always said you’d have some grand speech ready about how none of this was your fault. So go on, let’s hear it: how exactly have you made peace with his blood on your hands?”
“Varric–” Something flickered across his face, something too close to remorse. It only made her angrier.
How dare you?
She wanted to slap him, left hand, right hand, again and again, until the air between them burned black with the light of her Marks.
But would it be black? Would the Solas on her left palm blaze the same darkness as Fen’Harel on her right?
Hope fluttered in her chest like a candle’s last gasp. She pinched the wick between her fingers, letting the sting remind her why dreams were dangerous.
He’s my enemy. He wants to destroy the world. He stabbed Varric.
But I dreamed of him for so long, whispered a smaller, traitorous voice. I can’t just let go of what he meant to me.
But she had to.
There was no soft ending here. Only the hard jolt of waking after a fall.
Varric lived. A miracle, considering. The last thing she needed was his murder added to her growing list of grievances against the man whose place in her life she was still mourning.
When she explained their predicament, Varric sighed and rubbed his forehead, the name Bartrand stark across his palm. He rarely bothered to hide it, though she never asked why. Some questions were too heavy to ask without warning.
There was no doubt which Mark Bartrand was – not when his other palm bore Hawke.
That hand stayed constantly wrapped in layers of cloth, today in bandages. That wasn’t always the case; there was a time when only the oblivious could’ve missed the story of Varric and Hawke, the world’s most famous platonic soulbond.
Then Hawke stepped into the Fade and never stepped out. From that day on, the Hawke mark stayed hidden.
Rook had been changed into soft clothes instead of her battered armor, except for her gloves; someone had respected her privacy enough not to remove them – a small mercy that meant more than they’d know.
She flexed her fingers as Varric tried to convince them both she could take the wheel of the ship while he healed. In another life, one with different Marks, she might have believed him. But in the one she actually got, letting her lead when her feelings for their target were a tangled mess of knots was… unwise, to say the least.
She’d still try. She always did. But when was the last time her best had been enough?
“Rook.” Varric’s voice carried a suspicious gentleness that snapped her out of her reverie. His hand closed around her left wrist. She wished it had been the right. “You want to tell me what’s wrong? You’re not usually this gloomy, kid.”
A wry smile ghosted her lips. “Aren’t I?”
During their year together, sharing quiet moments and intimate truths alongside adventures, she'd considered telling him almost daily. Not that she was lying explicitly – a reasoning worthy of an ancient god of lies – but the secret had grown heavier for never being spoken.
If someone were to ask outright, she’d probably spill everything and bask in the relief. But no one was taking that first step, and Rook found she wasn’t as reckless with her heart as she liked to pretend.
It wasn’t fear of judgment. Varric wouldn't fault her for something beyond her control, wouldn't look at her misfortune with derision or anger. He wasn't that kind of man.
And that was the problem. He’d pity her. He’d feel guilty. Pity for her rotten luck, guilt for dragging her into this mess and now leaving her to handle it on her own.
Why should she make him carry that too? The Marks were hers, and hers alone.
She patted his hand with a grin as thin as parchment. “Sorry, Varric. Your old-age sentimentality must be catching. Next thing I know, I’ll be going grey too.”
He looked like he might call out the deflection. But he just snorted.
“Let’s hope not. Grey doesn’t suit you like it does me.”
“Sure, grandpa. Back to bed with you.”
Rook had never seen a first touch between soulmates, but everyone thought they knew how it went.
The legendary love stories always started the same way: eyes meeting and holding too long, something rare, something ancient stirring beneath the surface, a spark crawling up from the marrow to whisper, don’t let this go. Then, skin met skin. Lightning raced through veins faster than air through lungs, hearts stumbling into the same rhythm.
The feelings changed depending on who told it – wild joy, quiet relief, that aching sense of homecoming that smelled like everything you’ve ever loved.
And then came the light. Not darkness swallowing all things, but molten gold: brighter than daylight, warmer than any earthly metal dared dream of being.
Those were the happy endings. But people liked their tragedies, too. Some stories lingered on meeting too late, with youth spent, and death closer than birth. On inconvenient love: an indulgent spouse waiting at home, children laughing in the doorway, while golden light flared between your hand and a stranger’s, whispering the cruelest truth – this is where you belong.
Most people understood that reality was duller. Soulmarks were warnings whispered early, a guidance offered, not shackles forced; a promise of potential, not prophecies set in stone. Plenty of soulmate Marks proved platonic; plenty of enemy Marks fizzled into petty disagreements.
But the quiet stories never made it into song.
Rook liked the happy clichés best, but she considered herself a realist at heart. She’d never expected life to play out like the tales.
Which was why watching Neve and Lucanis unfold like one left her unsteady.
They met Lucanis, and his gaze skimmed past Rook, found Neve – and stayed right there. They talked, flirted, slaughtered Venatori together with the ease of old partners instead of the strangers they were. They made it look fun, as if the blood and death around them was only background noise to something far more electric. Rook caught herself wondering if she was the odd one out for not enjoying an underwater prison full of cultists and demons.
They didn’t touch until they were back at the Cantori Diamond, until the grief at the news of his grandmother's fate cracked Lucanis open. But even in that dark moment, when his hand finally met Neve’s, and gold erupted between them, the despair vanished from his face like smoke, if only for a moment.
And he had the audacity to look surprised.
Rook’s emotions bled together until they were unrecognizable from one another. The first to surface from the chaos was curiosity. Questions pounded in her chest with every beat: how did it feel? Why were they surprised? Had they expected to be enemies? Did Neve arrive at the Ossuary thinking she might leave with someone capable of ruining her life? Was the demon part of the Mark, too?
Not that she could ask. Neve was a friend, but new; Lucanis, a stranger still.
Next came happiness – tentative and careful, like coaxing a skittish animal closer. She was glad for them, glad that they could have this moment. They made a striking pair: all dark elegance and immaculate style, majestic but not cold, beautiful in a way that didn’t scare.
But underneath that, to her shame, a bitter envy simmered. It sat in her throat like a lodged stone she was unable to swallow. She would never have this. She’d wanted it her whole life, only to learn too late it was never meant for her. All she could do now was watch others receive what she’d been promised and denied.
An invisible scar above her heart pulsed, the memory of the night she met Varric. She reached to rub it, then hesitated – unsure which hand to use.
Which reminder would hurt less?
Her hand fell before she found out.
This is normal, she told herself, turning away from the glow. It’ll pass. Give it time.
It didn’t help.
Back at the Lighthouse, Neve and Lucanis disappeared almost at once. Fair enough; they had a lifetime to catch up on.
Rook drifted through the halls like a misplaced puzzle piece that has fallen under the furniture. She was safe, she was fed, she was sheltered – but safety wasn’t comfort, and having what she needed didn't put a stop to wanting what she couldn’t have.
And she wanted. Maker, how she wanted.
After tracing her circuit for the third time – from her room to the library, skirting the infirmary and the music room to avoid Varric and the sharper reminders of Solas, through the courtyard and into the kitchen – Harding took pity and set her to work tending the little garden in her quarters.
Harding worked barehanded. Rook kept her gloves on. Neither excelled at silence.
“Crazy times, huh?” Harding said at last, pressing soil around a seedling. “Never thought I’d end up working with an abomination. Or see one as a friend’s soulmate.”
“According to Lucanis, ‘it’s complicated,’” Rook murmured, smiling faintly before it slipped away. “I hope we can help. Right now, the situation’s a little… well. Dangerous.”
Harding nodded. “Last thing we need is a demon-assassin cutting our throats in our sleep.”
“Would make saving the world a tad harder, yeah.”
Harding snorted. “Already at the saving the world stage? Ambitious.”
“You know how it is,” Rook said, spreading her arms, dirt-streaked gloves catching the light. “Go big or go home.”
Maker, how she’d like to go home. To leave behind her enemy’s lair. To stop tripping over proof that under all that arrogance, he’d painted, played the piano, read books he’d probably deny ever touching. She’d give anything to knock her head hard enough to forget this whole cursed year.
If I’d just stayed put that night, I’d never have learned I don’t have a soulmate. She could’ve lived believing. Died believing. Devastated that she never met them, maybe – but never doubting their existence.
Ignorance, as it turned out, was bliss.
“Notions worthy of the Inquisition,” Harding hummed. “Andraste help me, sometimes I miss those days. Sounds mad, right? But it was simpler then. Being just one cog in a great machine, knowing it wasn’t all on you. That most of it wasn’t on you. The world might end, but not because of you. There was… comfort in that.”
Rook huffed a laugh, brushing soil from her gloves. “Please. You’d curse me to the Void and back if I told you not to worry about this mess, because it's 'not on you.' And for a ‘replaceable cog,’ you were their lead scout. Doesn’t sound very replaceable to me.”
“But it was!” Harding protested. “Scouts were a copper a dozen. We were needed, sure, but we weren't personally indispensable. That doesn’t cheapen the work; if anything, it makes it all the more admirable. But only a few were truly irreplaceable. The advisors, maybe. Leliana, definitely. The Inquisitor, without question. And…”
“Solas,” Rook finished, feeling something cold cinching around her ribs.
Life had never pretended to be fair, but lately it seemed to take offense at her specifically. To grow up pressing kisses to a name she thought a soulmate’s, only to learn it belonged to her enemy. To meet him, only to see him drive a blade into someone she loved. To sleep under his roof, and suddenly found herself bound to him – again and again and again – mind to mind, against her will.
There was no escaping him. No corner she could turn without finding his shadow waiting, no mirror she could glance at without his eyes staring back before her own. He haunted her – both the man he was, and the ghost of what could’ve been.
What if, what if, what if–
“And Solas,” Harding agreed softly. “He always had all the answers. Looking back, it’s funny how easy it was to trust him. And how foolish we were to take him at his word.”
“The world was ending. You needed help. You don’t question the hand that pulls you from the fire. You just… take it.”
She meant it, and yet a splinter of her – small, sharp, and inexplicably resentful – agreed with Harding. Maybe because she’d known the truth from the start. Maybe because she couldn’t imagine anyone meeting him and still believing he was just a man.
“I guess you’re right,” Harding sighed. “Not many can stand against a trickster god’s lie. Or worse, his truths.”
Something twitched in Rook, reckless and unwise. Obsession, maybe. The need to fixate on the one man she shouldn’t, the pull of dangerous waters. She wanted to wade in anyway.
She couldn’t even swim.
“What do you mean?” she asked, aiming for nonchalance. The effort crumbled the moment she met Harding’s scrutinizing gaze already on her. Rook looked away quickly.
Harding studied her a beat longer, then turned back to the flowerbed.
“It’s… hard to explain. But he felt real. Solas the hedgemage; that wasn’t an act for our benefit. He was human. Strong opinions, loved a good argument. Funny, when he wanted to be. Harsh, sometimes, but never with me. I remember him as kind. Distant, sure, but kind. And…”
“And?”
“Lonely. He always seemed lonely. And I don’t think that part of it – or most of it – was a lie. He puts himself above everyone because it’s easier, that way, but deep down? I don’t think he believes it. Like I said: human, same as the rest of us.”
She patted the soil smooth, dust clinging to her palms until she clapped them together, revealing the name Taash black against her skin.
The earth drank greedily from Rook’s watering can – as greedily as she drank Harding’s words. She didn’t know what to do with them, only that she wanted more.
To understand my enemy, she told herself. Even in her own mind, it sounded hollow.
No. You just want to feed your delusions a little longer.
Rook bit her lip. “As smart as he’s supposed to be, there’s just… things he doesn’t get. At all.”
Harding was quiet for so long that Rook had to look up. Those too-knowing eyes met hers again, heavy with something unsaid.
“Maybe one day he will,” Harding said. “Maybe if you help him.”
Rook doubted her help would be welcome.
Davrin was flirting with her.
The realization arrived shamefully late, like a bellman being the last to hear the news he’s meant to announce. One moment they were talking about something she could no longer recall, and the next, Davrin was leaning in, braced on his worktable, with Rook perched atop it, close enough for his breath to graze her skin.
“What am I doing wrong, Rook?” His smirk was all mischief. “I’m not usually called subtle.”
Rook blinked. “What?”
He gestured between them, utterly unbothered and still very much inside her space. “This flirting business. I’d have stopped if I thought you were uncomfortable, but I don’t think you even realized I was trying.”
“Trying? To flirt?” She nearly choked. “With me?”
And then the pieces began to click, one by one, like a rusted lock finally giving way beneath a key jammed into it for too long.
The spark of amusement in his eyes whenever she missed the double meanings in his words. The side-eyes Neve and Lucanis shared whenever Davrin’s name came up. Emmrich pressing a book on courting into her hands with suspicious insistence – and she, the fool, assuming he thought her illiterate and wanted her to start with something simple.
… Fuck. Was that why Assan had been keeping his distance from her pets?
Davrin chuckled, smugly satisfied – no doubt at the look on her face. “I’m not saying I was too successful with it.”
“No, I’m just apparently the last one in Thedas to figure this out.” She shook her head, as if she could fling off her own surprise. “Sorry. I swear I’m not usually this slow.”
“It’s alright.” He eased back, but only just – staying close enough that his presence lingered, a quiet gravity. “We’ve all been a bit preoccupied.”
She nodded, though her thoughts still stumbled over themselves. Without thinking, she blurted out the first question that leapt to her tongue:
“But… what about your soulmate?”
One brow rose, sharp, but not yet cutting. “What about them? Don’t tell me you’re one of those who thinks life isn’t worth living until you’ve met yours. Or that no one has meaningful relationships in the meantime.”
“No, of course not, it’s just–” she winced. “That was a terrible way of asking if you’ve met them, right?”
“No. And I never will.”
He lifted his right hand, palm open. She took it as though it were glass, and understood immediately: the name Calen was hollow. The outlines of the letters were still dark as night, but the centers had faded back into his skin, as though the ink had been drained out.
A Mark already fading.
A Mark belonging to someone no longer alive.
“Oh,” Rook managed, heart hammering. At least she didn’t gasp. “Davrin, I’m so sorry.”
He only shrugged, lighter than the words deserved. “Don’t be. I never knew them. Would’ve liked the chance, sure, but… it is what it is.”
“That’s… an admirable way of handling it. I don’t think I could be that calm about it.”
She didn’t want to imagine her own reaction. She bit her tongue before more questions could slip, though she was nowhere near as smooth as she hoped, apparent in the way Davrin rolled his eyes with a crooked smile.
“You can ask, you know.”
Permission granted, she fidgeted on the table a moment longer before speaking. “Did it… hurt? When it happened?”
There was no consensus. Some swore it was agony – like something tearing loose inside you, the body shocked and gutted before grief rushed in to claim the hollow. Others said it was no more than a sting, an itch beneath the skin – easy to miss, and all the crueler for it. Either way, you always looked down expecting the Mark to steady your soul, only to find it emptied.
A person of importance gone, just like that.
“I have no idea. I was already hurt then; slammed into a wall, cracked a rib or two.” He glanced away toward the horizon, squinting as if searching for details dulled by time. “Maybe there was a moment it felt different. Like a beat skipped in my chest. But I can’t tell anymore if that was real, or just me trying to fill in the gaps after I saw the Mark.”
Wordlessly, she traced the curve of the C with her thumb, avoiding its empty middle. He didn’t move or flinch, only let his palm rest in her hands. The warmth of his skin felt too alive for the emptiness written there.
“How did you know this was the one that belonged to them?” she asked softly. “To your soulmate?”
“I didn’t. I just assumed. Pessimist, remember?” His voice dipped. “But I was sure a few days ago.”
He turned his left palm up.
Unlike Calen, Isseya was an utter, absolute black.
“Fuck.” The word ripped out before she could stop it.
“Fuck’s about right,” Davrin agreed. The grin he forced trembled before setting. He shifted his weight toward her. “So. Flirting.”
“Flirting,” she echoed, just as dumbly as before.
He stood nearly between her parted knees, and she snapped them closed as quickly – and inconspicuously – as she could. Not because she thought he’d ever move without her say-so, but because she didn’t want her body sending signals she hadn’t meant.
If the flicker in Davrin’s warm eyes was anything to go by, he caught the motion. And its weight.
Rook released his hand and rubbed her face, suddenly exhausted. She dropped her own gloved hand into her lap – the left one. Of course it was the left.
His gaze followed, and something in his expression sharpened. “Ah,” he said. “That’s why you asked about my soulmate. You’ve already met yours.”
She wished it were that simple.
“It’s not what you think,” Rook said quickly, harsher than she intended. Explaining was a door she couldn’t open, not yet. Spoken words carried their own kind of power, and she wasn’t ready to face them.
She hadn’t lied earlier. Once, she’d been in love with the idea of a soulmate – someone cut to her measure, destined to fit her life like skin. But she wasn’t drifting through life half-lived without them.
There was never a guarantee of meeting. To cling too tightly to a dream as slippery and unreliable as a night’s fantasy – tempting though it was – had always been dangerous. She’d loved others, lost others, let them go knowing it wasn’t the end of the road. She’d told herself that if the years kept passing by without her soulmate's arrival, she would move on. Grow old beside someone else; someone she chose, and someone who chose her.
It would hurt, of course, to mourn something that had never truly existed, yet had been raised onto a pedestal of her own making. To admit the soulmate she’d imagined was exactly that: imagined. But she could have lived with it. Her heart was big enough to hold a person as much as an idea. That was never the problem.
But all of that – the hesitation to commit, the cautious hope, the whispered bargains she’d made with herself – had disintegrated a year ago. Blown apart, reduced to dust, scattering like motes in sunlight the moment she learned the truth.
If there was ever a time to move forward, it was now. And Davrin – so close, eyes warm, steady, kind – was everything she should want and more than she deserved.
He respected her command. Accepted her whole. He was brave, generous, decent – everything she valued. He’d never push her faster than she was willing to go. She knew that.
And Maker, wasn’t he beautiful? Easily the most handsome man she’d ever met. If he wanted, he could sweep her off her feet without breaking a sweat.
They could have had a future together: a quiet cottage, then noisy years filled with griffon-wrangling children. Laughter carved into every line on their faces, as silver slowly crowned their heads. Ordinary joy in a world that stayed whole. They could have died in the same bed, side by side, peaceful and smiling, never regretting the steps that led them there.
The kind of future impossible with one’s fated enemy.
It should have been perfect.
So why did the picture fall apart the moment she reached for it? Why did it vanish like ash the instant she tried to hold it?
Davrin’s sad smile brought her back to reality, though she hadn’t spoken a word. Shame burned hot across her cheeks.
“I’m sorry, but–”
His hand settled on her shoulder, steady as an anchor. “Hey. It’s alright. I get it. I’d only regret not trying.”
She nodded, eyes darting anywhere but his. “Thank you.”
“There’s nothing to thank. We’ll never talk about it again. I just hope they know,” he said, glancing at her twisting hands, “how damn lucky they are.”
Lucky.
Solas’ face flashed in her mind's eye: condescending and merciless, colder than all those nights she’d spent curled in on herself, wishing he were there, and wishing even harder that she’d never wished that at all.
Lucky was that he didn’t seem to carry her name on his hands.
That was all.
Despite knowing better, Rook had started to like Solas.
Not trust him – never that – but like him. The way one might be entranced by fire: the flickering dance of orange folding into red, red into orange, a hypnotic pulse daring her closer even as it whispered, don’t touch.
That beautiful compulsion wasn’t worth throwing herself on the pyre.
It started the first night she couldn’t wake from meditation. Nothing had been different, no break in the usual rhythm, but when she pressed her eyes shut and tried to wrench herself awake, bracing for the bluish glow of her aquarium, she opened them to Solas instead; smirking, one brow arched.
“Performance issues?” he asked, voice like silk.
“Familiar with those, are you?” she snapped, twisting away, willing herself back.
Come on, come on, come on…
She cracked one eye open. The Fade prison stretched before her with all its grey wasteland, broken architecture, and rocks drifting in endless, dead air.
“What the fuck?” she muttered, shoving a hand through her hair.
“Fatigue catches us all. You probably fell asleep mid-meditation.”
Fuck him and his constant need to hear his own voice.
She. Hadn’t. Asked.
“Thank you, Lord Obvious. Without your wisdom, I might’ve assumed I started waltzing in the middle of my room. I know I’m asleep. What I don’t know is why the fuck I can’t wake up!”
She was supposed to be good at this. Always had been. Her teachers had called her an aware dreamer – slipping in and out as easily as twitching a finger. Until now.
Solas remained maddeningly calm. “Exhaustion makes poor bedfellows of us all. Get comfortable. You may be here a while.”
His tone brushed close to sympathy, which made her hate it all the more. If he could pity, he could damn well see the ruin he was working toward.
Stuff your advice where the sun doesn’t shine.
She plopped to the ground, humming tunelessly to drown him out, to pretend like he wasn't even there. He said nothing further, only watched her with that slow-blinking calm that made her feel like a child throwing tantrums.
So when she began softly singing Sera was never an agreeable girl and his expression froze, she counted it as victory, even if she was only winning a game neither admitted playing, because both despised losing.
It happened three more times. Always after some draining quest. Always the same trap: unable to wake. Which meant – fine, yes, fuck you – he’d probably been right.
The second time, she tried to walk. But the further she went, the more the Fade resisted – her steps growing too heavy too fast, invisible walls slamming into her ribs, and in the end, something yanking her back and dropping her off where she’d begun: across the chasm from Solas, his smile small but gloating.
She rolled her eyes and tried again. And again. And again. And again–
The third time, they talked.
At first only out of necessity – tallying failures, sketching plans, actions motivated by grudging pragmatism. But silence thinned faster than time, and silence was no longer welcome the way it might’ve been months ago.
Conversation shifted. First to her companions – though she offered only scraps, impersonal details – then to a safer, common ground: Varric.
“I wonder if he hides the Hawke because it’s not actually a fading Mark,” she murmured, unsure why the thought escaped at all.
She lay sprawled on the ground, head pillowed on a boot, one socked foot wiggling idly in Harding’s embroidered gift: a field of dandelions stitched with yellow thread.
“I mean, they didn’t die in the Fade, did they? Not in front of you. Maybe they never did. Maybe they’re still there.”
Across the void, Solas sat straight as a drawn blade, hands on his knees. He wasn’t one to avert his gaze; normally, if he wanted her silence, his glare alone would suffice. But this time, he only stared into nothing.
“Perhaps,” he said at last, though the word carried no conviction. “But for what reason?”
Rook shrugged as best she could. “Any reason. So no one questions someone surviving ten years in the Fade. Or because he doesn't want to face it every day and think he had failed them. Use your imagination.”
Solas only hummed. By now, after a handful of exchanges, that was more irritating than any retort would have been.
If she’d been known more for her brains than her brawls, she might’ve noticed the pattern: that the rare times he chose silence were always when Varric’s name came up.
But she didn’t. Not in time.
“Did ancient elves have Marks?” she asked, half-expecting silence.
His gloved hands flexed, then stilled.
“They did.”
“Did you choose to have them? Did it just… spread to everyone else, after you raised the Veil?”
He shook his head. “No. They were older than us. In certain ways, stronger than us. Many spent centuries seeking their origin, though they uncovered little; theories, never whole truths. The most they found was that removal is impossible.”
Her brows shot up. “You tried to remove them?”
Solas shrugged, elegant in its simplicity. “Surely you’ve met people dissatisfied with their Marks. Such people always existed.”
Her palms tingled. She turned her face to the blank sky. “Guess so. Ever seen Elgar’nan’s?”
“No. He guarded them carefully, kept them covered at all times. Trying to glimpse them usually resulted in death.”
She wondered how many agents he’d lost chasing that precious intel. Still, it made sense. Tyrants didn’t parade weaknesses.
“I think his soulmate might be His Own Ass,” Rook muttered.
Solas chuckled, surprisingly loud, and startlingly human. A shame it vanished so fast, like a door slammed on a glimpse of sunlight.
“Fitting,” he allowed. “And his greatest enemy?”
“Everyone Else’s Ass, maybe.”
“A bit crass,” he said, though his lips twitched.
“So sorry. Everyone Else’s Arse, then.”
The fourth and final time came after the mission in Arlathan Crater.
After he’d helped them freely – unasked, without riddles, bargains, or the endless trades of questions for questions, promises for promises, all angled toward gathering more.
After he’d said, with a smile almost soft enough to believe: and I suppose I had you.
Rook should have known things had gotten out of hand when her knees nearly buckled at the sound of his voice.
She should have also known something was coming when later, as she lay trapped in sleep, he turned from her, refusing not only her questions but her company altogether. When he walked away without an explanation, the Fade allowed him to.
There was no leash to keep him tethered. Unsurprisingly, the only thing binding him to her was always under his control.
Looking back, she would cradle his sudden distance with a bitter sort of reverence: that even as he raised the knife meant for her back, he did it with the sorrow of someone cutting into his own flesh.
But sorrow had never stopped him before.
And it wouldn’t stop him now.
Ghilan’nain was dead.
Harding was dead.
And Lucanis might be too.
And it was all her fault.
Rook lunged forward, screaming his name, tears ripped backward by her speed. She tore down a glove with her teeth, trembling fingers clawing for a pulse. He couldn’t be gone. Not him too. Not now. She couldn’t have failed this spectacularly–
She rolled him onto his back, reaching for his throat–
And the world fractured.
Lucanis vanished. Varric lay in his place, glassy eyes fixed on nothing.
Rook reeled away with a horrified gasp. Her back struck cold metal. A clang split the air.
Fingers seized her wrist, bruising the tender vein where blood surged too fast. Thud, thud, thud, frantic as a bird trapped in a cage.
“And so,” Solas breathed against her ear, “you have your victory. You live… and Ghilan’nain does not.”
Even through the haze of grief and terror – Maker, not Harding, please – his voice shot a shiver down her spine.
“Tell me, enemy of mine,” he murmured, “are you not proud to have reached this moment?”
Something in her snapped, the thread between thought and flesh severed. Her body went rigid, her voice stripped away.
Thud, thud, thud.
He knows. He knows. He knows.
Solas lifted her hand toward the dim grey light filtering through the open roof and the torn canopy of trees. His gaze lingered on the Fen’Harel etched black and angry into her skin, careful not to touch it.
“Your courage is laudable, but mortals cannot win this battle.”
He released her as suddenly as he had seized her, shoving her forward, and though stone had been solid beneath her feet a breath ago, she was now falling. Air slashed at her cheeks as she tumbled weightlessly into a bottomless pit.
The hand clutching the lyrium dagger moved of its own accord, driving the blade into a jagged stone jutting from the void. Someone else must have taken the reins of her body – because she sure as hell wasn't able to pull off a move like that. Not now.
Above her, Solas appeared, striding along the shard like it was solid earth, regal and untouchable, a ruler surveying the subjects beneath him. The chasm yawning under her did nothing to him; it seemed carved for her humiliation alone.
“I am sorry. It is what must be.” For a heartbeat, the shadows veiling his face almost let her imagine regret lingering beneath them. But Rook knew better than to trust in things imagined but never lived. Her Marks had taught her that.
“You must have expected it,” he went on, gesturing vaguely. “Considering… everything.”
The difference between them was laughable – him, poised and divine, playing at pity while turning his face away to soften the blow; her, trembling, dangling from a blade’s edge above the dark he wished on her. A pawn discarded after use, and a king pretending to care.
“Stop monologuing, you sanctimonious bastard!” Rook shouted, her voice cracking as she kicked upward, hunting for purchase in the stone, but every fissure slipped away beneath her boots. There is no way out for you, the void seemed to say.
“How long have you known?” she spat. “Do you wear my name?”
Could he? Could she claim this hollow, worthless piece of triumph, that this ancient being, older than empires, now bore her Mark, the pair of her own? Did he still belong to her, in some grotesque, twisted reflection of her childhood dreams?
It shouldn’t have mattered anymore. And yet, she had never hungered for anything more.
He no longer deemed her worthy to look at. He simply raised his hand, and the dagger sputtered with magic, thrashing in her grip despite the white-knuckled strain of her fingers.
“Answer me!” she screamed, throat raw.
“Your work here is done,” was all he said.
The blade tore itself free. His hand closed around the hilt.
And Rook was falling. Again.
Always.
When she struck the ground, she was alone.
She wasn’t. Not truly. But she wished she were.
Loneliness was easy. Regret was not.
Varric was dead. Had been, for a long time. She was only the last to learn it.
For a fleeting, cowardly moment, she wished she could follow him.