A/N: I just want to say thank you again to all the reviewers and supporters of this story! I hope it's as much fun to read as it is to write! :)
The mages had let fear rule their decision. Allying with Tevinter, no matter how much false protection their magister offered, did nothing but make them slaves. Which was precisely what Solas was trying to avoid. More slaves, more Tranquil wandering the world with no knowledge or understanding. Everything about it was wrong.
How could they have let themselves be so blind?
He shook his head, considering the irony of having to deal with another magister. Granted, this Alexius was significantly less intimidating than the one that had ruined it all, but he had a madness in his eyes that set Solas' old memories flaring.
Standing in the throne room, facing him again, Solas saw it. The raw desperation flickering in his gaze, hidden beneath the mask of a man who wielded power and knew it. In a state like this, he was dangerous, volatile, and unpredictable. But it was not outwardly obvious, Solas knew. He allowed his eyes to narrow in suspicion as Alexius conducted conversation with Ilona. He went ignored, as usual; Alexius' gaze lingered on Ilona's hand, where the curling scars of the Anchor were visible.
Solas appraised the magister's stance and tone of voice. He had no staff within range, and the guards he had brought to oversee the group wielded nothing more than small daggers. Yet, the rift in the chantry and the information from Dorian indicated Alexius was prepared. What was his plan? The way he eyed the Anchor, there surely was a plan buried behind the calm demeanor and the soothing tone.
Nothing was ever this simple. The fragments of his initial plan, in addition to the current situation with the mages, proved as much. So Solas waited. Something was certain to go wrong.
The son—Felix—had turned to his father, revealing that the group of them were aware of his dabbling in time magic. Another thing Solas found completely confounding. Who could possibly hope to control time itself? He restrained himself from shaking his head again as Alexius' eyebrows narrowed at his son. His calm persona splintered at the edges; a note of the hidden desperation crept into his voice. At Solas' side, Ilona shifted her wrists the way she did when she expected a fight. Solas caught the tiny sparks between her fingers.
Pushing away the notion that he had retained such a small observation of her, his attention returned to Alexius, who had grown tense in his chair. Ilona tried to soothe him, her voice soft and unintimidating against the growing rage of his. "Felix is worried about you. He fears you have stepped into dangerous waters."
She lifted her unmarked hand in a gesture of peace, carefully angling the Anchor out of Alexius' line of sight. So she had noticed he was watching it. He shouldn't have doubted she would.
Alexius scoffed, a sound that echoed in the cavernous room. His voice was like venom now, all complacency and cooperation fading like the sun at dusk. "So says the thief. You want to turn my son against me?"
Ilona's eyebrows lifted slightly, but her voice remained calm. Deathly so. "I did not mean it as an accusation, Ale—"
The magister cut her off, rising from his chair and glaring at her. Solas marveled at how calm she remained in the face of his open distaste and anger. "Silence. You walk into my stronghold with your stolen mark, a gift you don't even understand, and you think you're in control?"
Solas wanted to laugh. What the magister thought he knew was enough to send the desire curling through him, but he crushed it beneath a heel, instead gauging Ilona's reaction to the scalding words. Quickly, this conversation had deteriorated, and the already volatile man was teetering on an edge. The madness was clear in his eyes.
"I made no such claim. However, since you seem to know what side you stand on, what was supposed to happen? What was this supposed to do?" She lifted the Anchor for Alexius to see, that furrow appearing between her eyebrows as she demanded answers. Solas expected no less. She had started this quest wanting to understand it.
But Alexius laughed coldly, shaking his head. "The answers would be wasted on you. You're nothing but a mistake. You stole the Elder One's prize, though you were unworthy."
Prize? Is that what the magister considered the Anchor? Some kind of trophy for all he would accomplish? Solas locked his jaw, and Ilona dropped her hand. Clearly Alexius was not going to be the most forthcoming.
Felix's lips had turned down in a frown, and he took a step closer. "Father, listen to yourself. Do you know what you sound like?" Solas had the feeling his pleading would fall on deaf ears. The man in front of them did not seem keen to listen to reason.
"He sounds exactly like the sort of villainous cliché everyone expects us to be." Dorian materialized seemingly from thin air to Ilona's left, a veritable walking firework with all that unnecessary embellishment. Solas was unsure where he had managed to hide.
"Dorian." Alexius regarded his former pupil with thinly veiled disappointment, though he didn't look the slightest bit surprised. "I gave you a chance to be a part of this. You turned me down, though the Elder One has power you wouldn't believe."
Ilona leapt into the conversation, drawing Alexius' gaze away from Dorian and back to her. "Who is the Elder One? Is he a mage?" More questions, that desire to understand burning in her eyes.
Alexius smirked, and the gesture looked sharp as a dagger. "Soon he will become a god." There was such certainty in the statement, like the victory was inevitable. Solas repressed the urge to scoff. As long as the Anchor endured, that would never come to pass. The magister, "The Elder One", was undeserving of that kind of power. He would wield it with malice.
"Stop it, Father. Give up the Venatori. Let the Southern mages fight the Breach, and let's go home." Felix was honestly pleading now, one hand on Alexius' arm.
His father shook his head vigorously. "No. It is the only way. He can save you, he promised. If I undo the mistake at the Temple…"
And there it was, the desperation. It was the only emotion that colored Alexius' voice now, and it made everything make sense. Solas saw him now not as a man with too much power, but one who did not believe he had enough. Something was threatening to take his son from him, and he had turned to the only thing that had promised salvation.
Desperate times called for desperate measures.
The sounds of throats being slit caused Alexius' gaze to flick to his surroundings at last, where Inquisition scouts had just dropped his men. The silence, for a moment, was heavy with his defeat. But Solas knew he wasn't done yet. There was still something…
"You… are a mistake! You never should have existed!" Alexius' voice contorted with rage, and he lifted a glowing amulet in his right hand, extending it towards Ilona with hatred in his eyes. The amulet sparked and crackled with an eerie green glow, and worry formed in the pit of Solas' stomach. The magic felt wrong, old and twisted and tangled, like it was forced into existence instead of formed naturally.
Dorian reacted before Solas did, aiming his staff at the glowing amulet and sending a wave of sparks into Alexius' face. "No!"
Everything fell into chaos. The magister recoiled, the amulet flashed, and a sickly jade portal formed in the middle of the room. Dorian vanished with a cry of surprise, and Ilona, closest to him, was dragged in as well. She struggled against the pull, reaching in a panic for anything to hold on to. Solas extended a hand, knowing that if they lost her it was all over. But she was too far away, and the magic was too strong. He held her for a moment before she was snatched from his grasp. The memory of her eyes, wide with shock, seared itself into his mind.
The amulet rattled to the stone floor with a sound that rang with finality. Solas felt hollow. She was gone, the Anchor along with her, Void only knew where. The very high possibility that she was dead sealed all of their fates. He had failed. Without the Anchor, there was no way to stop the magister's bleed over the world. Everything he had worked for, everything he had sacrificed… gone. All in vain.
Silence pressed in from every direction before a horde of Venatori appeared and circled him and Bull, blocking escape routes. The Inquisition scouts, quiet with apparent shock, let their weapons clang to the floor. Their Herald was gone, no more than a wisp of smoke. Solas gave Bull the smallest shake of his head. Resistance at this point was useless. The Qunari tensed and glared at him, but after a lengthy staredown seemed to accept that this was a battle he could not win.
There were simply too many of them, and neither he nor Bull had a reason to fight any longer.
Weapons were taken and vanished, likely never to be seen again. The last thing Solas heard before allowing himself to be escorted away was Felix making a soft noise like a wounded animal. "Father… what have you done?"
What, indeed.
How many days had it been? They were starting to blur together. The red lyrium in his cell sang an echoing, fragmented melody, dredging into the deepest, hidden corners of his mind.
It whispered of his failures, his mistakes.
It promised power, and salvation, and success.
Solas shook his head, trying to block it out.
It never worked.
Elgar'nan arrived without ceremony, outlined in red. He rested an unscarred hand on the cell and shook his head.
"Look at you, Dread Wolf. So low. It's sad."
Solas did not give him the pleasure of a reply.
Falon'Din watched him with sad, wide eyes. Red smoke framed his dark hair, braided in rows as it always had been.
"You are quiet, Wolf. Dying like an animal."
He did not receive words, either.
Andruil ran the tip of one of her arrows along the bars. The high, ringing melody set his nerves on edge.
"I don't see the point of it all. You failed in the end."
The smoke distorted her face. Her smile looked wicked, broken like that.
Dirthamen sat quiet and stoic across the room, never coming near. He did not move save to tip his head slightly.
"You thought you understood. You did not."
He was so calm for one trapped in this place.
Ghilan'nain paced in front of the bars, her footsteps silent. She shot glances at him occasionally, out of the corner of her eye.
"You were misguided, Wolf. Naïve. And this is where your path lead."
Her words made less sense the longer he thought about them.
June lifted the lock and examined it, his hand rippling when he touched it. His fingers fiddled with the mechanisms, but he left it locked.
"You did this to yourself. This is what you wanted, is it not?"
Was it? For a moment, he couldn't remember.
Sylaise played with fire, letting it dance between her fingertips. She looked at him with pity over the twitching flames.
"You're forgetting, Fen'Harel. You'd be sad to see how far your mind has gone."
What did it matter? He was dying, regardless.
They stopped coming. The lyrium had run out of memories to scrape across his eyes. The area outside his cell was blissfully empty, but the whispers had grown louder.
When had it become so difficult to move?
Solas shifted on his feet, each limb feeling heavy. His vision was tinted crimson at the edges, and no amount of blinking cleared it. He was dying, but he had been for a long time.
However many days it had been, however many months; he was ready for it to end. For the whispers to cease. The events of the past had been replayed by the lyrium seeking weaknesses, but he could not be broken so easily. Days were missing from his memory, however, replaced with a hazy cloud.
He could no longer summon the ability to care. Some days were clear as crystal, others lost to the whispers. Pacing the length of his cell, he forced himself to move, at the very least. What remained of his pride did not want to die sitting down.
Vaguely, he wondered how many of the Inquisition's members still lived, if any at all. He wondered if they had lasted long against the tide of power the magister had wielded. The presence of demons in the halls of the castle boded ill. An army of them had been raised; the Venatori whispered about it where they thought he could not hear.
Any hope of success had died with Ilona. Solas could still faintly recall the way her voice sounded, and how her eyes had reflected the stars. He allowed himself these moments of clarity because she was gone. For a time, they had kept the whispers at bay, but memories were no longer enough.
He continued pacing, back and forth. Back and forth. A monotonous pattern, over and over. It kept the heavy feeling sated, but did little to alleviate the weight in his mind. His end would come soon. It was only a matter of how benevolent the lyrium decided to be.
The creaking of the door halted him in the middle of his cell, his back to the bars. His usual ghosts made no sound upon their entry; they simply faded into existence. A Venatori, then, coming to gloat? None had done that in such a long time. Still facing the wall, he tested his voice. It grated between his lips from months of silence.
"Is someone there?" He wasn't entirely sure what reply he expected. A throaty laugh, perhaps. The snarl of a wandering demon. The ring of steel as a soldier walked by.
Not her.
"Solas?" Her voice was exactly the same, layered accents tripping over one another as they left her lips. His name quivered with relief.
Slowly, he turned to face the sound, not entirely trusting she was real. But upon seeing her, his eyes widened. He couldn't stop them. She was not outlined in red. Her form did not ripple. Bright, gold-ringed sapphires flickered over him, clouding with concern. "…I found you." Her voice did not echo and scrape.
She was real. And he felt some of the whispers flee in terror. "…We saw you die." He could, at the moment, think of nothing else to say.
Dorian spoke from behind her; he too appeared to be real. "The spell Alexius cast displaced us in time. We… just got here, so to speak." The mage reached around and unlocked the door of his cell, letting the mechanism June had so carefully admired fall to the ground with a clink.
Solas stepped away from the lyrium for the first time in months, and even the slight distance seemed to clear his head a little. He processed Dorian's words. "Can you reverse the process? You could… return and obviate the events of the last… year." It had been a year. By the Void. He gave his head another shake, clearing more of the whispers. It was not a permanent fix by any means, but it would do for now. "It may not be too late."
The other mage blinked, his eyes flicking between Solas and the lyrium. He appeared surprised that Solas had understood his explanation. Ilona was the one to speak; her eyes had not left Solas' face since finding him. "What happened to you, Solas? You look… ill." There was honest concern in her voice.
A faint smile—the first one in recent memory—tugged the corners of his lips. It was very like her to be first concerned over the well-being of others. Let the threat of this future wait for a moment. He returned her stare. "I am dying. But it is not something that can be prevented any longer." June's words bounced around his mind, suddenly. "This is what you wanted, is it not?" His head clearer, he tipped it thoughtfully. "You would think the threat of death would prevent me from making such terrible mistakes. You would be wrong."
Perhaps the lyrium made his tongue looser, as well. Ilona blinked twice at the words, but said nothing. He did not have the time to worry over what he had just hinted to. Recovering, he let his eyes shift between the two of them. "Regardless, this world is far worse than you already know. The Elder One rules, unchallenged. He commands an army of demons, and has assassinated Empress Celene, using the chaos to invade the south. If you defeat Alexius, you must be prepared for it all."
Ilona nodded slowly, glancing quickly to Dorian before returning her gaze to him. "We can't do this without you." She seemed almost reluctant to ask for his help. It likely had something to do with his condition.
"If there is any hope left, any way to save them… my life is yours." She did not understand the weight he placed on "them", but voicing it aloud gave him purpose. That, and he felt, perhaps more than necessarily, confident in placing his life in her hands. He still wasn't entirely sure why, even with so long to reflect on it. She had proven herself capable so far, beyond capable. With her alive, this future had a large chance of fading. "This future is an abomination. It must never come to pass."
Her eyes were lined with worry, but she nodded. "You are right, of course." If the worry was for his safety, she should not be concerned. He was already dying; he would much rather die fighting. She located his coat and staff, which were still in the dungeon by some miracle. Armed for battle, Solas followed her out of the room and back up the stairs. Iron Bull was leaning against the doorframe farther up the hallway, red dancing around his head and shoulders.
He nodded at Solas, once. They had both endured pain and memories in these cells; he could see it in Bull's remaining eye. But it did not need to be discussed. They did not have time. This future, mangled and distorted beyond recognition, had to be stopped.
So the pain and the memories went unspoken, locked away in the cells with the lyrium that had slowly stolen what remained of their lives. The ghosts and the regrets were pushed to a corner of his mind. Solas knew his time was limited; he could feel it in the weak pulses of his heart. He trusted Ilona to succeed, though, no matter the fate that befell him. He wasn't sure when he'd started trusting her, and it didn't matter at the moment. If she cleared this future from existence, it wouldn't matter again.
But behind him, faded and soft, he thought he heard Sylaise laugh.
