At the end of it all, there is no more anger, pleading, disappointment. Keela is slumped against a wall and unable to stand anymore after that last attack. Her indomitable will isn't strong enough for this final battle, so she watches him lift his device and bring down the sky. It is surprisingly quiet for an apocalypse, she thinks.
The spell drifts on the wind and settles on her skin. There is no pain, only a cold heaviness that she knows is inescapable. So she doesn't try. She is done trying. Let the world be changed and new fools start the same cycle all over again.
Solas comes to sit by her side, bloodied armor brushing against her arm. For a moment they do not speak but listen to the distant cry of Thedas being born anew. She doesn't say she's sorry for failing, nor he for succeeding. There is little left to say, their war of words long since over, and they've always known what lays within their hearts. It just wasn't enough.
The cold creeps up her legs and even though it's futile, a surge of panic grips her heart. "Will you stay with me?"
"Of course."
She shifts to face him and lays her head in his lap. A hand comes down to brush against her cheek, to run through her hair, as she gazes up at him. There are tears in his eyes and he does not feign indifference now. A lifetime ago, she would believe it a cruel irony to see him laid bare like this now, of all times, but she is only grateful. That at the end, they are not apart.
Keela reaches up to trace the chiseled line of his jaw, feels his trembling breath as her fingers run across his mouth. She wants to draw him closer, to kiss those lips for what might be the last time, but her body feels impossible to move. "I'm so tired."
"Then rest, vhenan."
A thumb brushes underneath her eye where once blood red branches marked her skin. He does not wonder if she would have preferred living that lie instead of facing death for the truth, but he questions if he ever gave her the choice. It is too late now.
"Solas, I…" Her eyes fall closed as the spell covers her completely. He watches her breathe in and out, hears her heartbeat beating slow but steady, witnesses his upheaval race across her in waves. Solas can feel the magic leaving his own bones, hardening them, taking what it needs to mend his mistakes.
He does not look away from her as it consumes him. Light glows like stars beneath her skin as his turns to stone. The price he had to pay to save her. She will wake to this new world after a long sleep, remade in his image, but never to make his mistakes. She will live, and as her image fades and the void comes to collect its wayward child, he hopes she will forgive him for it.