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Three weeks ago, the Veil fell, tearing the sky open. Three weeks ago, humanity began to perish, like a purged disease. Three weeks ago, Fen’Harel righted his wrong with a triumphant grin. Three weeks ago, Fen’Harel celebrated with those who kept close about the coming rise of the Elvhenan.
Two weeks ago, Fen’Harel’s agents failed to return his letters from Tarasyl’an Te’las. Two weeks ago, only one week after his triumph, the feeling began to fade. Two weeks ago, dread started to fill the Dread Wolf’s heart. Two weeks ago, Solas started his journey back to Athelle’s fortress.
Solas stayed under Skyhold for three days, watching the main road in and out. It was quiet as the grave, not a soul crossed the road. The dread had morphed into fear by the time dusk fell on the third day. He watched as the moon moved across the sky and the stars that followed, hoping that it would help calm the fear clawing at him.
It didn’t.
Athelle should have been safe there. He had raised the Veil here, it should have withstood its fall. Maybe he had been mistaken. It wouldn’t be the first time.
Dawn broke on the fourth day and he snuffed his fire with a twitch of his fingers. He pulled his furs over his shoulders and set out for the gates of Tarasly’an Te’las, heart heavier than it had ever been.
The doors to Skyhold opened under his touch, the wood still coarse under his fingers. The fortress looked untouched from the world. The same as he had left it five years previous, his vhenan angry but determined at his side. The infirmary tents were all but ash, surrounded by burned corpses. The barn Thom had claimed for his own still stood, miraculously.
He climbed the stairs, his wrapped feet silent on the stone. It was too quiet. He could feel a scream perched on his tongue, he was afraid if he opened his mouth it would escape and never end. The clearing was nothing but still smouldering cinders. The bar, the blacksmith, all of it ashes. He turned and ran up the stairs into the foyer.
The doors flew open at Solas’s command, slamming back against the stone and echoing in the chamber. He took in the space with wide eyes; a thick layer of dust coated everything except for a path. A path that lead back to her quarters. He passed by the table that held many Inquisition meetings and Grace games. He passed the door to their, his, rotunda without a glance. All that mattered was to reach her. The only sound in the chamber was his armor. Hit heart raced, sweat formed on his clean brow.
The door that lead to her chambers was cold and harsh under his warm fingers. It should have been alive. It held many memories of stolen moments of time. The time it took to climb up the stairs was too long, many a tryst held against the backside of the door. Hushed gasps and giggles and moans muffled into shoulders and necks. The door should have felt alive, warm, welcoming.
Solas ran up the stairs, but paused at the final door. He wasn’t sure if he would be welcome. Two years is a long time, for Athelle. She could have changed her mind in that time. Should have. Athelle might finally hate him for what he’s done – to the world, to her. No longer Solas but the Dread Wolf, Bringer of her Nightmares.
He took a deep breath and knocked on the door, the sound echoing back hollowly within the chamber. “Athelle,” he tried to say, but his throat had closed. He cleared it and tried again, this time her name echoed like it does within his heart.
Solas was met with silence.
He knocked again and pushed the door open. “Vhenan?” He climbed the stairs, letting his feet make noise against the stone. He didn’t want to startle her.
Her room looked as it had five years ago. Her bed was slept in, unmade. She never had picked up the Shemlen habit of making it. Solas would make it while she was out. Her face always lit up at the sight of a fresh bed in the evenings. He continued after he broke her heart, knowing he could spare her this one kindness. Her desk was still in the same order of disarray, papers littering the top in no particular order. Until she decided they looked better on the floor, the bed was too far away that night. Her staff sat propped in the corner next to the stairs down, shining in the dawn light peeking through her windows.
The memories that swept over him made his heart ache. The emptiness made it break.
Solas fell to his knees, the armor cracking against the stone. Tears fell down his face and he struggled to hold back a scream. “Ma vhenan. What have I done?”
A breeze rustled the papers on her desk, some of them drifting to the floor. The balcony door was open.
Solas stood once more and opened the door further. On the floor of the balcony, laid Athelle. Her hair was burned to scalp, only red fuzz left on her head. Her lips were turned up into a sad smile, her green eyes unseeing at the sky. Her hands clutched a wooden likeness of a wolf, his alter.
He had watched her carve it from a dead branch found during her time in the Graves. It had taken her weeks before she was satisfied with it. She was going to leave it at one of the statues, but she liked it too much to let it go. The irony was not missed at the time. Now it only breaks Solas more.
Solas fell once more to his knees, his scream echoing off the stone around them. He pulled Athella into his lap, burying his face into her neck. His tears wet her clothes, darkening the blue fabric to black.
“What have I done? Ir abelas, ma vhenan.” Was it worth it? He righted his wrong, but was the price worth it? He had lost the only bright light in his long existence. He tried so hard to ensure her safety. Leading her back to his fortress, telling her to stay in until the world stops burning. Why hadn’t she listened? Why hadn’t he come with her? Why hadn’t he come with her?
Solas held her tighter against him, as if he could will her back to life. “Ir abelas, ma vhenan,” he said over and over, until it sounding like a prayer. A plea. The words of a dying man. “Ir abelas.”
He held her until the sky began to lose its light. Then he stood, Athelle in his arms, and placed her in her, their bed, tucking the blankets around her. She almost looked as if she were asleep, the smile still on her face. Solas kissed her forehead and set her token on the stand next to the bed. He kissed her once more, straightened his shoulders and walked out without a glance back at the scene he had made.
Solas marched back out the way he came, sealing Solas away with every step he took away from Athelle. Once he reached the front gate, Solas was locked away and Fen’Harel remained. Without a glance back at the fortress that had been his home for so long, he lit it ablaze and walked away.
The stone that held so many memories, both good and bad, melted away. Tarasyl’an Te’las melted back into the mountains that bore it. All that remained was a little wooden idol of Fen’Harel encased in glass on a stone pedestal.