The quote at the beginning of this chapter is from Robin Hobb's Royal Assassin. I found it very fitting.
I'm very glad that I have gotten to this important part of the story, because the idea of the Dread Wolf's curse had been one of the first things I'd determined. Also Arlenna and Solas finally begin to really bond through the events now set in motion.
Have fun!


VII. Dread Wolf

Come, hunt with me, the invitation whispers in my heart. Leave the pain behind and let your life be your own again. There is a place where all time is now, and the choices are simple and always your own.
Wolves have no kings.


The dead of the night, reassuring gloom. Perfect if one wanted to calm down from a shattering experience, soothe the vortex of insult and confusion that tore the mind this way or that. I lay in bed, arms wrapped tightly around me, curled up in a childish gesture of seeking comfort. I couldn't believe what had happened.

He'd kissed me! Out of nowhere. Not a small peck on the cheek or a respectful brush to the forehead. A full-fledged kiss, nothing alike the innocent ones I had received from the occasional interested suitor. There had never been tongues involved. Oh Maker… That bastard… It had been my first real kiss. My thoughts resembled a very crowded crossroads, so jammed that they could neither move forward nor backward. And behind it, a small voice whispered that I was not so much angry at Solas that he had taken such an outrageous liberty, but more because of my own reaction to it. And the fact that he made a very truthful remark on it which I struggled to push off as a lie. But I had participated.

Not just participated. I'd enjoyed it. The giddy excitement, the thundering of my heartbeat, the sheer sensuality of his tongue on mine. So certain, inquisitive, wicked… No! Stop this nonsense at once, I yelled inwardly at myself. Why would he kiss me? Maybe he was hatching some evil plan to woo me, to make me more agreeable to his wishes. Yet… It hadn't felt deceptive. It had felt real. Real in a dream. I could have laughed at my naïve fancies.

Damn, damn, damn. Solas' motives seemed like a winding labyrinth, and I had a sinking trepidation that I'd already walked so far into it that I would not find the way out anymore. I wished desperately for someone to confide in about the whole mess. I was so wretchedly lonely in this place. Despite Vin's company, the boy was not the best focal point for – dare I say it? – romantic advice. He pretty much worshipped Solas, and would probably even encourage me. I let out a sound of bitter amusement.

My aimless musings could likely have gone on for hours, hadn't a sudden, strange feeling prodded my mage senses to alert. The barrier around my quarters usually dampened all magic, similar to an opaque veil hindering sight of things beyond. Only in my dreams could I truly pass it. But right now, there was something odd going on. I leapt out of bed and drew aside the curtains to find several elves – most bleary-eyed from having just awakened – running across the courtyard. They called to each other in their native language, agitated, fluent words I could not understand. But I saw where they headed.

Above the open space floated the Sphere of Mythal, as Solas had dubbed it. The spell inside was one of singular nature, although I knew not its exact purpose. I reckoned quite certainly that it served as a ward or protection, and at the same time it somehow burned with perpetual energy that Var'Thenerasan needed. Right now, something disrupted it. The miniature sun inside the sphere flickered in a frantic way, throwing out streaks of pure white light beyond its boundaries.

And as it struggled, the strength of my barriers waned too. I sensed it. Half a dozen elves formed a circle around the great orb and began chanting a spell – probably to pacify the angry eruptions. Then, within an instant, the thing sent a violent pulse across the whole courtyard, ripping the mages from their feet. The barrier shattered beneath that assault, vanishing with a faint hiss, while the spell inside the sphere seemed to diminish, grow smaller, until the sun was barely one third of its previous size.

But I did not watch further. My mind caught up with the events and realized… I was free. Everyone must have been knocked senseless for a moment by the eruption. Everyone except me, protected by the barrier. Which was gone now. I did not even think about it. I grabbed a cloak and ran. Through the curtains on the other side where the gazebo stood so closely to the Spire that nobody would see me in the gloom. What immense luck must have played into my hands to make the Sphere of Mythal act up like a fussy wench?

The walls of Solas' Spire gleamed white even in the sparse moonlight, but behind lay an utter and complete darkness created by towering trees. I fled into their embrace blindly. The sounds of anxious cries reached me from the settlement, growing fainter and fainter as I ran on. They were soon replaced by the noises of an old forest long past sundown. Rustles of leaves in the wind, the snaps of tiny twigs as some animal foraged the ground for food, the eerie hooting of owls. After a while, my steps slowed to a trot and I gulped deep breaths of the cool air, listening.

Maker, the woods were creepy at night. A shiver of fear slithered down my spine. The feeling of being watched by unseen eyes was like an icy touch on my nape. Maybe this hadn't been such a good idea after all. The darkness here was absolute. I could not see more than a few feet in front of me, and soon I was stumbling along, a burden to myself. I could have lighted a flame in my hand, but… The elves had likely noticed my absence by now and had gone looking for me.

Oh damn it all. Me and my stupid rashness all over again. Fool! What if I got lost? Or happened upon some large animal who saw their next meal in me? My mother's voice suddenly sounded in my head, as clearly as though she stood right beside me: The forest is not more dangerous than a city is, Arlenna. Even less so. Any predator will leave you alone if they think you are too much work. The same does not apply to humans. They are inherently foolish.

But her advice did not help against the paranoia that became stronger with ever step I took deeper into the wilds. My senses were wildly overstrung, each innocent sound magnified, each little crack making me jump. I could not shake the feeling that…

I stopped short, every instinct suddenly on edge. No mistaking it, I'd heard a growl. A deep, low, menacing growl. It was the point where I stopped caring if I'd give away my position. One trembling hand lifted and I conjured a flame. The flickering light danced over dark tree trunks, bushes with pointed leaves, mossy undergrowth. I didn't dare to breathe as my eyes strained to see… Another growl came, much closer now, from the depths between two primordial oaks. Something lurked in those abysmal shadows. Something that watched me hungrily, calculating, yearning to rip…

My heart dropped to my stomach when I saw the three pairs of eyes glint in the blackness. They glowed ghostly green, like graveyard flames. Or… Veilfire. And the next moment, the thing that stalked me stepped forth into the cone of light.

A wolf so huge it would have towered over any man. Pitch-black fur thick and bristling, the thuds of its giant, deadly paws near soundless. I could not move. Completely frozen in place at the sight of the razor-sharp white fangs, each of them the length of a dagger. The beast stepped closer, and if I did not flee soon, I would end up between those jaws. Snapped like a twig. But how could I even hope to run from a thing so big? And although my fear threatened to drown out everything else, I could… sense him.

An aura of confusion, terror, anger… A faint echo of a memory tried to make itself known to me. Where had I seen a six-eyed beast before…? In a dream… A vision… Right before –

The giant wolf snarled, so close now that his breath blew back my hair. Within arm's reach. He inhaled deeply, and I caught… Something in those unsettling green eyes, an emotion… Recognition. I would later not know why I did it. But in a streak of foolhardiness, I reached out a hand. He flinched back momentarily, a menace rising from his chest. Then, as though some puppet-master took over the strings to his body, he leaned towards my touch and pressed his great black forehead to my palm.

The onslaught of thought nearly wrecked me. It was a charging bull, a battering ram, an avalanche. A wild array of images flashed through my head – tumbling towers of breath-taking beauty, a sky torn apart by green lightning, countless spirits rushing by in a rainbow of colours. I saw glimpses of elves, but they were unlike any elves I had ever seen. So haunting that their perfection stunned me and I wanted to fall to my knees and weep.

And then cities, streets filled with slaves, enchained and broken – And me as I walked among them to break the shackles, to tear the markings from their faces. I saw terrifying beasts of shadow, monsters spawned by the Great Dark Beyond, standing sentinel beside a giant black throne. A woman sat on it, regal and unforgiving, a goddess whose ire knew no bounds.

The thoughts turned even more erratic – a darkened room and the sensation of an intruder. Attacked! A flood of pure evil, a curse to hit my heart – Falling, changing, void. Now I am this, I know nothing anymore where I had known so much. Savage, stunted, animal. Rip, kill, hunt, eat. Forget. Run. Fox. Gentle girl. Biting girl. Foxtail. Run away, flee!

The cacophony of visions, the chatter of those disconnected thoughts was too much for me. I fell to my knees, gasping as my battered mind struggled to understand it. He loomed above me. All of his six eyes bore into mine, piercing and… mysterious. This could not be real. It just couldn't be. Yet I knew in my heart that it was him. Because in that gaze, although distorted and ferocious now, dwelled the same vast spirit, the same knowledge of hundreds of years.

"Dread Wolf.", I whispered. Anger flashed in his eyes. The cruel irony of that name was upon him now. He jerked his head aggressively, as though telling me 'No! Wrong!'.

"Solas.", I amended. "Your name is Solas." In reaction to those words, he bent to me and I let out a little cry when the warm, bushy fur at the side of his face pressed to mine, muzzle resting on my shoulder. Maker's breath… My heart literally skipped a beat. Tentatively, I lifted a hand and let my fingers tangle into the soft pelt at his throat. It vibrated with the rumble he intoned. I felt the mad urge to laugh at this utterly bizarre situation.

"What happened? Who did this to you?" He huffed in frustration to my words. For my sake, he tempered the tumultuous vortex of emotions and attempted to communicate a cautious image to me. A presence he had felt after he'd woken this night, cloaked and seething with dark purpose – and the troubled tint to his thoughts… Betrayed. From the inside. Strangers could not find Var'Thenerasan, it was too well hidden and protected.

"You think one of your own did this?" The implication was shocking. If I knew one thing, then that his followers were absolutely loyal. The wolf bared his teeth, then seemed to rein himself in. I had a faint inkling what he was going through. He'd been cursed to take this form and the dark magic somehow affected his mind, turning him into an actual beast, a Dread Wolf. It must be horrifying for someone who valued their sane, intelligent mind above all else, to be reduced to think animal thoughts. He battled it with all his might, but it had weakened him greatly. The Sphere of Mythal… Had it acted so unsteadily because of Solas being attacked?

He suddenly leaned into me again, and in that touch one thought carried over so clearly, sharpened to the point of a needle: I need your help. I sensed how much it cost him to voice this plea. His pride lay in shambles, and he was a proud man if I'd ever met one. I wanted to be furious at him about the kiss, but that seemed so childish now that the situation had turned so dire.

Many would ask what madness inclined me to come to my captor's aid, after he'd mercilessly taken me from my home. But they never witnessed what I had. The effort he put into teaching me what he knew, despite my irritable behaviour. During these last weeks, he'd stayed patient and calm, even when I weathered at the annoying, endless meditation, the difficulty of his teachings. And… They had not come to know him. I doubted anyone had, not in a long time.

"How do I help you? I don't know anything about curses, and I have no idea who –"

Am… weakened., his thought cut me short. Var'The… Home. Home is vulnerable. Need your power, alshera. Conduit. I gulped. He wanted me to channel magic from the Fade for him. We had not even strayed close to training that and I knew next to nothing of the procedure. The general outlook frightened the wits out of me, to put it mildly. I had read one book that vaguely described the theory behind a Conduit's channelling, but… I'd started shaking my head in denial.

"I'm not even… I can't do it, I don't know how!" My protest was met by a resigned sigh. I will show you. Trust me. A pause. Then… the one word that broke my will to resist: Please. Nodding heavily, I startled at the strange whining noise he made. I interpreted it as gratitude.

Then I experienced the oddest sort of conversation yet, and that was saying something after telepathically speaking to a wolf. Solas let knowledge carry over to me, not in the form of images or words, but… much more complex than that. Like being given an exact, flawless explanation of what an apple is, without ever having seen, held or tasted one. I cannot properly describe it. To be honest, I did not quite comprehend most of it, but I got the general gist of what he meant to show me.

I needed to become a bridge on which people could only walk one way. Without becoming too wide or too narrow, too slanted or too winding. I kneeled on the moss-covered forest floor and lifted both my hands to bury inside the wolf's fur. Warm. Soft. Empty the mind of all hindrances. Become a leaf floating on the currents of energy, never delving too deep. The one time I had done this, it had happened on mere instinct and been fuelled by anger.

Now, I consciously drifted into the Fade, reaching out, a child trying to catch a butterfly. Power for Solas. At first, I grasped nothing. The Fade eluded me, slipped through my fingers as sand through tiny cracks. But then I began to sense patterns. Knitted tendrils of raw energy blanketing everything around me, like a very finely woven net. How could I explain what I did next? I pulled a loose thread through the eye of the needle that was me and began… stitching. Whatever was created by that act, I directed towards Solas and sensed as he drew strength from it. I made a bridge. A channel. I became a Conduit. Draping the fabric that spilled from my hands around him.

And the more I took, the stronger the current through me grew, the easier it was. Magic filled me as a gushing river fills a parched bank, and I could feel myself stretch wide, along the boundless, eternal net connecting everything. Why did anyone ever want to be confined to a body, a constricting heap of sinew and muscle, if they could be this grand instead?

Be careful, Fox. At my other… end, I sensed Solas' consciousness with such clarity it nearly blinded me. I saw not Dread Wolf, not the monster I had carelessly called him once. I saw Pride, a breaker of chains and seeker of knowledge. Shrewd and manipulative at times, yes. Mischievous, clever and so full of stories at others. He'd known joy and the deep bonds of love, but also great grief and guilt, so much guilt… Loneliness. Pure, pristine loneliness, permeating him down to the core. If I could scatter into the net of magic, I could take away some of that. I was sure of it –

Arlenna, enough. You are taking too much. His words rang with agitation, even fear. I did not know how to break the current. My soul frayed at the edges and unravelled. Agony, tearing me to pieces. But Solas was there. He reached out and… embraced me, so gently, keeping me contained in my own self, an individual. The channel broke off as he severed my connections to the Fade and erected a shield around us, so thorough that nothing could escape – or enter. The world went dark around me.


When I came into awareness again, the first thing that I noticed was the herbal scent of cloves and sage, enticing to my senses. My head rested against fabric saturated by body heat and strong arms held me. One around my shoulders. The other at the bend of my knees. I was being carried.

"Impetuous, Ren. Too much, too quickly." His voice came from somewhere above, just the slightest bit shaky and… angry? I forced my eyes open, but saw only the blurred fold of a robe and… pale, naked skin beneath. The black thread that held his wolf-jaw talisman, meandering down over a perfectly formed collarbone. Oh.

"What happened?", I managed to ask through my fuzzy thoughts. I felt as though my head had been stuffed with wool, while my body was a bag of stones. So heavy.

"Me almost losing you to the Fade happened.", Solas snapped. He sounded really angry, for his standards. Great way to show your gratitude, I grumbled inwardly. A long silence followed, before he spoke once more. "Never do that again."

"You're some… some hypocrite, you know that?" Venturing to be sarcastic, no easy feat in this state. "You asked me to do it, remember?" His chest expanded with a deep sigh.

"I know. And I will not ask you for it again before I have thoroughly, thoroughly prepared you.", Solas stated, his tone adamant. Could he be… worried about me? The notion made a silly giggle bubble up my throat. I really wasn't in a good state. He gazed down on me, a troubled knit in his brows, moonlight glancing off the bare top of his head.

"You are you again.", I noted to distract from the outburst. Yet the frown deepened.

"More or less. A curse like this is not broken so easily, but… You helped me return to my real self, for now. I wonder at what expense." You and me both. A persistent pounding had started inside my skull, drilling its way through the sockets of my eyes. Oh damnation, that hurt. Unable to contain it, a groan escaped me. Solas' hand around my shoulder flexed, stiffening.

"As I thought. I am taking you home. You need rest and I have to assess the damage you have done to yourself." I was too tired and in too much pain to comment on the very familiar, condescending phrasing of that remark. Somehow, I even found it a little funny.

"Alright.", I conceded, leaning against the warm, solid mass of his chest. The muscles rippled with a small shiver, but I already drifted off into a state of semi-consciousness.

Only minutes seemed to have passed when I was cautiously lowered to a soft mattress and draped with a nice blanket. A tender touch ghosted over my damp forehead, soon replaced by a wonderfully cool cloth. The fingers quested to the side of my neck where the pulse felt jittery and quick. I opened my eyes to an unfamiliar room. The dim, spectral light of a small veilfire brazier cast lively patterns upon the murals on the walls, very similar in style to the ones I had seen in Solas' dream. They blurred and veered dangerously as I tried to focus on them.

"Keep still.", his voice from beside me. He held a cup of water to my lips and I sipped in solemn obedience. "I have seen this happening to several alsheras before. The body and the mind are inseparably linked. You overtaxed yourself." I looked at him for a long moment.

"Thank you. For… for keeping me together." Surprise showed on his sharp features, in the depth of his enigmatic eyes. Then a small smile came to his lips. It did not make gathering my wits easier, on the contrary.

"It is me who should be thanking you. Without you, I might still be a beast. You made me remember myself.", Solas said severely. I battled the blush that must be blooming on my cheeks.

"Well, I have given you a lot of cr…. I mean, made things hard for you these last weeks. I should… Should be returning to my room." But he shook his head in a decided fashion.

"No. Not tonight you won't. I want to keep an eye on you."

"I can't stay here! It wouldn't be…", I protested, searching for a word. "… proper." Solas threw me an arch smile, the scoundrel.

"I think we passed proper when you fainted at the sight of me naked." Now I was blushing for real. I felt the heat race to my face. Now that he mentioned it, I noticed that he wore a robe around the shoulders, the open folds showing his bare chest. Once I saw, I couldn't really look away. My eyes would just not obey. The light revealed a formidable physique, lean and feline. One could see each individual muscle at work as he moved to sit at the bedside. He was not built for strength, but rather speed and grace, elusive like a stealthy hunter. At least he had put on some linen pants, otherwise I might have burst into flames from awkwardness.

"It seems when I was tuned into a wolf, I left all my clothing behind. A very inconvenient side-effect. I borrowed your cloak on the way back.", Solas elaborated matter-of-factly. "Do not worry, Ren. I will only sit by your side and go dreaming. Maybe I can find some clue…" He trailed away. Even though he did not voice it openly, I sensed that he was furious and… afraid. Or rather unsettled. I wanted to ask him why he hadn't alerted his people to what happened, yet at the same time as that question came to me I knew the answer: He did not trust anyone right now. An intruder who had managed to bypass Var'Thenerasan's protection was much less likely than a turncoat among his people.

And until he knew who had been behind it, he would keep the specifics secret from them. How strange... As I lay there watching him, I became aware that something was different between us. I felt… a connection to him. A faint, gossamer-thin thread that linked us. I had known these things because they had trickled over along that thread from him to me. And it seemed to work both ways. Solas' eyes found mine and his expression turned pensive. I was sure that he knew much more about such connections than I did. Maybe they were normal between mages and their Conduits. We had, after all, shared a very intense mind-link when I had siphoned energy for him.

"What will happen to you now? Because of the curse?" I didn't know why I blurted this out. But I had not liked him being helpless and mad inside that wolf body. It had felt all wrong. Suddenly, as if unable to stop himself, Solas reached for me. The backs of his fingers gently brushed my cheek, making the breath catch in my throat.

"I don't know. But we will figure it out, Ren.", he said quietly. Weariness threatened to drag me down against my protests. I stifled a yawn, already halfway to sleep. Eyelids growing heavy.

"What does that mean, that word?", I murmured.

"Fox.", he whispered. As I drifted into a dreamless slumber, I remembered an old elven fable about a fox and a wolf. They did not get along in the beginning, but were forced to join forces so they could take down a snake marauding their hunting grounds. Well, if I was Fox, then he should be Wolf. Without the 'Dread' prefix, it sounded much less threatening. And by now I had come to understand – reluctantly, but still – that he might not be that dreadful at all.