She opened her eyes. The ceiling above her was familiar. Neat stone blocks resting on massive ancient timbers. High above in the shadows early dawn light gleamed on cobwebs.
She began the morning as she did each morning, reminding herself that the arm was gone. Cleaved neatly off just above the elbow. Melted away in magic. A last kiss, a last betrayal wrapped around the gift of an extended life.
This morning she didn't rage or sob as she had other mornings. Weeks had passed since the Exalted Council's dramatic conclusion and the dissolution of the Inquisition. It had been necessary. For weeks prior to the diplomatic meeting Mother Giselle's old words about the strength needed to walk away from power had played through her mind and heart. As she rode her magnificent stallion through the gates of the winter palace her heart had whispered to her to step down, to abdicate the title to another, to return to what was left of her people or find another clan that would have her.
Of course that was impossible. She could not abdicate while she yet lived, then again at the time, her life was borrowed and short. The anchor was chewing her up. Never easy to live with in the months before the meeting it had grown to a daily nuisance then a debilitating distraction. She knew riding into the gates that this was her last chance to set the future of the Inquisition on the right path.
Chaos, blood, betrayal, lies and grief later…
She sat up. Forced her thoughts to the present. Skyhold was still hers. Lelliana had used her clout as Divine to ensure it was deeded to her and her descendants and acknowledge by Orlais and Ferelden. It was the least the kingdoms could do.
She had her title in Kirkwall and an estate though she had never visited it and doubted she ever would. She had asked Varric to put it to good use. His last letter had said it was used to shelter slaves fleeing Tevinter and acted as a safe house for mages and elves, all the dispossessed and victimized peoples of Thedas could find shelter there under the aegis of the dwarven viscount.
She grinned thinking of Varric holding court. Gingerly she slipped out of her warm bedclothes and into the chill air of her too-large room. With the dissolution of the Inquisition she had worked with Cullen to ensure every single member of their retinue and forces were issued a substantial severance with titles and lands as able and hard coin for all. It had left Skyhold's coffers diminished and her staff denuded but it had been just and fair.
The Inquisition was a symptom of crises and while a new crises brewed in Thedas, greater perhaps than even the Blight, she owed her people her life and more. Gone were the days of heated rocks at the foot of her bed before lights out, of breakfast magically appearing in her chambers as she bathed. She didn't mind.
At the time such extravagances had initially puzzled her. However, as the war raged on she found the conveniences to be necessities. Too exhausted after a day of battle, travel, planning and practicing to take the time to warm her own bed she might simply keep working instead of sleeping. Too crazed with duties to make or seek her own meals she would have simply skipped eating.
Lavellan took the lack of servants and controlled chaos in Skyhold as a sign of peace and normality. Her time in the fortress was drawing to an end anyway. She had sent Varric a letter asking for his assistance in hiring and supporting a maintenance staff for the beautiful refuge, she had left it up to him to assume the unspoken, that Skyhold could be repurposed to the same causes as her Kirkwall estate. True it had spent centuries forgotten in its isolation but the years of the Inquisition had built up trade and ensured the roads to and from Skyhold winding through the Frostbacks to Orlais and Ferelden were not only rarely plagued with bandits but well maintained. Eventually the grand structure would be reclaimed by the mountains again, if the world as it now stood lasted that long, but for now it was still of use.
She dressed quickly not looking at the stump and made her way down to the Herald's rest. Most of the chairs and tables in the tavern had been stored away. Likely to rot away in silence before enough forces returned to the fortress to justify their use. A handful lingered near the bar though the dance floor by Myrden's perch remained clear.
Lavellan entered the back room and helped herself to a portion of aged cheese and middling strength ale. As she ate Lace Harding entered.
"Hey Inq – uh Lavellan." Harding said with a wry smile.
Lavellan smiled warmly and gestured for the lieutenant to join her.
"It's eerie here now." Lace sighed and broke off a portion of cheese. She chewed it morosely as she glanced around the empty room.
"We'll all be leaving soon. Will you return to the Hinterlands?"
Lace laughed. "No Ma'am. The Divine has offered me a place but I think I might give Charter's offer a try."
Lavellan smiled. Charter was one of Lelliana's most gifted protégés.
"I'm glad to hear it. But, I have to ask, are you certain?"
"We already accomplished the impossible. Killed an ancient magister and stopped a Qunari invasion –"
"Delayed." Lavellan clarified.
Harding sighed and nodded then continued, "But none of that will matter if we don't keep going."
"Keep going?" Lavellan prompted.
She knew the rumors swirled and the Council had not believed her tale. They believed the records and evidence of corruption within the Inquisition ranks but not the sources.
"Is…I mean…Solas an ancient god? It seems so impossible."
Lavellan didn't reply for a long time. Her gaze drifted around the sad and dusty interior of the Herald's Rest, seeing Bull and his Chargers, Krem giving his commander grief, Varric and Vivien trading barbs with Dorian. Sera flinging insults at dignitaries. Cole flashing in and around the crowd soothing and aiding… but never Solas.
"He's not a god. Honestly Harding I don't think there are any such things, at least, not anymore. He is, was an extraordinarily powerful mage. He made a decision once, perhaps it was the only humane option left…but it changed his world forever, irrevocably. Now he has to live with the consequences or…or try to get it right this time."
"Right?" Harding asked bitterly.
Lavellan smiled sadly and put her calloused hand on Harding's as the scout clutched a tankard of ale.
"When we killed Corypheus we did it mostly because we had no other option for closing the Breach, nothing safer."
"Also he was an asshole." Harding pointed out.
"What if instead of closing the Breach killing him had torn the veil away?"
Harding was frowning.
"What if killing Corypheus had erased the veil and the fade and our realities had collapsed in on each other? Wouldn't we do everything in our power to reverse that?"
Harding shuddered.
Lavellan nodded and picked up her tankard.
"This isn't going to be easy." Harding sighed.
"Nothing worth doing ever is." Lavellan agreed.
They continued their breakfast in companionable silence for a few minutes. Harding slowly grew thoughtfully quiet.
"Lace?"
"You love him?"
"Yes." She said thinking of the kiss and the cold almost itchy burn that had taken her arm and saved her life.
"If it comes down to it –"
"I'll kill him." Every time someone asked her she answered the same way. Most of the time she meant it, sometimes it was hard to say but in this moment she meant it.
"I'm sorry." Harding said.
Lavellan's hand trembled slightly as she reached for the tankard again.
What she never told anyone, every time they asked that same question, was that she had offered to join him, to help him. She closed her eyes and saw the grief and isolation in his face as he denied her. He was taking up the mantle of Fen'Harel in earnest and would not see her become a villain at his side.
She took a deep breath and opened her eyes. Harding had slipped away content to let the fallen Inquisitor have her solitude. Fallen, is that what she was? Time would tell, if enough were allowed to pass. Would her heroic deeds last in songs and tales or would she be twisted and turned into a caricature of herself? With luck she would be dead before it was decided.
She had never wanted any of this. Of course no one except Corypheus had wanted the conclave destroyed. But it was more than that, she had not even wished to attend. Her friendship with and respect for her Keeper had compelled her to attend. Really all she had wished for was a quiet life of service to her people. Her dry wit and sharp eye had served them and her nearly as well as her deadly aim and strong draw. Now she was an armless archer saddled with useless titles, scattered forces, and an unthinkable task. Her lack of ambition and damnable luck had conspired to lead her on a path of breathtaking power and influence. All of which she had fled and avoided as soon as possible.
Losing her appetite as her dark train of thoughts overwhelmed her she abandoned her meal and went in search of Cullen. He lingered yet, just long enough to see to the fate of Skyhold and escort his friend to whatever new life she might choose.
As she walked she massaged the stump and tried not to feel the arm. It was still there like someone standing just out of her line of sight, always just barely present. She didn't mind the feel of the arm it was what the arm felt that bothered her. Him, it felt him, his embrace, the solid warmth of him in her arms as they kissed.
Every night she fell asleep with his name on her heart and every morning she woke from dreamless sleep and tried to pretend her life wasn't spiraling into irrelevancy.
"I will kill him if I must." She whispered and this time knew it was a lie. The bare honest truth of it all was she didn't know if she would…if she could. What if, what if he accepted her offer? What if by the time she saw his beloved face again he had labored alone for so long that the sight of her, coming to him with love, wore him down at last?
What was that saying living too long and becoming a villain? Her clan lay dead in a far off land or scattered to the winds. Her friends were drawn away by circumstance and duty. Her army disbanded. She had Charter and Lelliana's spies but at the end of the day she stood alone in a world that only knew her title.
"Letter for you Ma'am." A young human said breathlessly. She paused in the throne room and regarded him. He was unfamiliar and young enough that it was unlikely Cullen would have chosen to recruit him, not that they had been given much choice in the early days.
"You are?" She asked.
Before the boy could answer Charter seemed to materialize from shadow and nodded at the letter.
"One of mine." The elf said with a smile.
Lavellan smiled, recruiting the Black Hart had been one of Lelliana's masterstrokes, retaining her and positioning her as Lelliana's heir apparent had been another.
Lavellan accepted the letter. It was covered in lewd and amusing sketches. She read it twice then smiled and returned it to Charter, not the boy.
"Sera."
"Yes Ma'am."
"I'll be leaving …seems there's red work to be done."
Charter nodded, pleased. The boy looked confused but stayed quiet. He might turn out alright with a bit more training.
Maybe that was the answer, to let the experts take over. She was technically retired after all. Certainly she had earned a reprieve, if only a brief one. She would meet Sera and work by her side as a Red Jenny. Together they could affect chaotic change and use Varric and Charter's resources to hunt for Solas.
One day they would meet again and decide the fate of more than just their own lives. Maybe she would kill him and sheathe the murder weapon in her own heart's blood, maybe he would take her life as he had taken her arm, gently, almost unnoticeably until the was done, or maybe they would embrace and together return Thedas to what I had once been and could be again.
She didn't know, and for the first time in weeks she didn't care. As she made her way back to her too-large room she wondered if she had any armor or garments that were appropriately crimson…