Author's Note: This chapter has a soundtrack: Is There Somewhere by Halsey. I love, love this song with this chapter.

Chapter 7 – Greed

"We must win the next battle against the Forgotten Ones, or all is lost," Sylaise said to the other Evanuris.

"We need him," Ghilan'nain stated.

"He won't help. He never does," June said. "He's a rebel."

"But a powerful rebel," Sylaise admitted.

"He thinks we don't care for our people, that we don't protect them," Ghilan'nain added.

"It doesn't matter," Elgar'nan chimed in. "We have nothing he wants."

"What he wants is to make us pay for our so-called misdeeds," June scoffed.

Sylaise pressed,"If we can show him we're prepared to bury the hatchet—"

"He'll just pick it up and beat you to death with it," June slotted in.

Ghilan'nain spoke, "He sees us as would-be gods, and the People slaves instead of our devout followers."

Sylaise sighed. "In his eyes we're merely heartless tyrants."

"When it is he who has no heart," June said.

Andruil nodded and spoke solemnly, "During the last battle…

I stood in firelight, surrounded by the enemy,

most of my army dead around me…

I looked up through the smoke and ash…

I saw him leaning casually against a tree.

He just watched as my soldiers were slaughtered in the valley below him.

I looked upon him and shouted, 'Save us!'

And on the wind soaked in blood and ash he whispered…

'When did I say I would save you?'"

June sneered, "Of all the gods, I hate him the most."

"That is no god," Elgar'nan amended. "That is a monster."

"That," Mythal said softly. "Is Fen'Harel."

The Inquisitor woke with a jolt to her dimly lit room. The only illumination in her quarters came from the fire in the hearth, having died down after chasing away the winter chill, and it barely reached the centrally placed bed but what did manage to reach cast a warm, smoldering glow.

She had been asleep in her bed for a short while, she guessed, for it was still dark outside her windows and rain was now beating against the roof. It was a torrential downpour outside and jagged lightning lit up the midnight sky.

For a long time, Ellana laid very still, watching raindrops slip through the dark clouds to idly spiral downward in a free fall before splattering against the glass of her windows and roll down in streaks.

She shifted beneath her sheets and found the unfamiliar ache between her legs was gone, thanks to the health potion she'd taken before going to bed.

Trying to find a comfortable position, she rolled over onto her side, taking a deep breath, but then tensed as she heard the sound of breathing.

Breathing?

Someone was in her room.

Every nerve she owned became suddenly taut with alarm when the bed shifted as a body lowered itself onto it behind her. She forced herself to take a deep, calming breath—inhaling the scent of cold air, dying embers, rain-soaked glass, and something else. Paint? She breathed deeper. Yes, fresh paint mixed with the scent of tea and herbs.

Solas.

Ellana's heart was palpitating rapidly in her chest when she felt the sheets lift up behind her. Solas' arm slid under her pillow and the other arm wrapped tightly around her body. Wordlessly, he pressed his palm against her stomach and pulled her back against him. Every muscle in her body stiffened to the point of paralysis at the sudden contact, the warmth of his hand soaking through the thin cotton fabric of her white nightgown.

For a long time he remained perfectly still and silent behind her, so silent she could hear her own breathing sounding unnaturally loud, even amongst the heavy rainfall. She wasn't sure if Solas was about to turn her onto her back and kiss her. She wasn't even sure if he was about to say goodbye and leave Skyhold forever. The only thing she was certain about was how good it felt with his chest rising and falling against her back with each breath he took.

His chest was hard, she noted, like marble. How many statues had been forged in his image—the Elvhen God of Rebellion, Fen'Harel, the Dread Wolf? How many women had worshipped him? Had he loved any of them? Had he ever married? Did he have any children? Any family? Were they all gone? Was he all alone?

There was the simultaneous flash of lightning and crack of thunder outside her bedroom.

"Enaste dennar ma?" Solas whispered, his breath stirring her hair, raising the hairs at her neck.

Ellana suppressed a shiver as that cultured, low-pitched tone with its ancient elvhen accent whispered over her skin, muffled slightly as he held her as tight as he could against him.

She swallowed. "You want to be forgiven?"

"Don't we all?" he murmured into her hair.

There was a long pause before he spoke again. "Before… I went a little crazy." His voice was thick with what she could only guess was a deep-sated need to put right what he saw as his own failure. "I am ashamed of myself for taking my—feelings out on you."

"We both went a little crazy," she admitted, her breath rattling in her dry throat.

"I never meant that to happen." She tensed against him with hurt and his voice lowered and softened almost imperceptibly as he explained, "It wasn't meaningless. Nothing with you could ever be meaningless. But I do regret that it happened. I lost my head, acted selfishly, and was rough with you. Words cannot express my shame." His voice was coarse, roughened by remorse. "If it was ever to happen, it was not supposed to happen that way. Not the first time. I wanted to be gentle, to give you what you wanted, what you deserved, so that you'd respect me afterwards—and yourself—nothing at all like—"

"Why are you here, Solas?" Ellana somehow managed to get out past the thick, tight feeling in her throat.

"Because I am greedy," he breathed hotly, his voice full of self-recrimination.

The silence came back. There was no sound but the rain tapping on the roof and glass, and the occasional rumble of thunder.

After a long pause, Solas exhaled heavily against her nape, his palm hot against her stomach. "I did not foresee myself coming to care for anyone in this world. My being with you… it isn't right..." His words were so quiet they were nearly drowned out by the rain lashing wildly at the windows. His arms began to tighten, holding her against him with such intensity and need. "…but losing you would…"

Ellana slipped her fingers through the hand that was resting against her stomach and she squeezed it. "I forgive you."

She felt him instantly relax against her, his relief and gratitude evident in the sigh that ruffled her hair. Solas turned his head so his face pressed into the curve of her neck. "How can you?"

Her heart began to pound like the rain on the window, the previously even rhythm of her breathing shattering when his mouth began to trail slowly, oh so slowly, down the column of her neck.

"Because you're the big bad wolf, you mean?" she asked as she reached up behind her to clasp the nape of his neck, pressing his hot mouth deeper into her throat.

"Yes," he uttered bleakly. "Even though I am the villain?"

She bit back a moan from the feel of the drag of his lips on the flesh of her throat.

"Tell me… why did you choose to be this?" she questioned breathlessly as his hands roamed slowly, expertly, over her nightgown.

"Be what?" he rasped, his teeth lightly scraping against the side of her neck.

Her eyelids fluttered shut when his mouth unerringly found the pulse at her throat, and gently closed his lips over it. "The Dread Wolf."

"Choice had nothing to do with it," he answered in a self-deprecating tone. "This is what I am."

Ellana rolled over onto her back, her chin coming to rest on her shoulder. Soft grey eyes collided with dark navy that were staring at her so ardently she thought the very intensity of his gaze would pierce her skin. They were so close she could've counted his eyelashes.

She licked her lips and lifted her hand to press her palm over the beat of his heart.

"You are not a monster," she said with unwavering conviction.

He clenched his eyes shut, his chest expanding against her hand as he released a barely audible breath, "Ma serannas."

His eyes opened to watch his hand lift to twine his fingers in her short, white-blonde hair. For a moment that was all he did, rubbing it, savoring the texture, letting it glide through his fingers. She knew he loved her hair and she felt a twinge of regret for cutting off so much of it.

Then he turned his attention to Ellana herself, lowering his gaze to her face, and his hand, too, trailing his fingertips over her cheek, touching her lightly, so lightly, just skimming his fingertips along her cheekbone with the utmost piety.

"You are so… beautiful," he murmured, his voice hardly more than a whisper.

She breathed deeply as his fingers trailed down the line of her neck, along the bare skin of her collarbone to the dip at the base of her throat.

A flash of lightning lit the night sky outside her window, illuminating her bedchamber for a split second in silvery-white light as Solas leaned over her, placing one hand on the pillow beside her head. The wolf's jawbone that hung around his neck fell to lie heavy against her breastbone.

Ellana slid her hands up his back, feeling the muscles flex and ripple beneath smooth skin, before dragging her hands along the curves of his shoulders, up the sides of his neck to lightly graze his pointed ears. At her soft touch, his lips parted, emitting a broken breath, his eyes tethering hers, looking at her in a way she'd never seen before.

"Mythal and the others used to accuse me of having no heart. I know now that they were right. My heart lives outside my chest." Solas slowly dipped his head to her, bringing his face close to hers. His mouth hovered just above hers, heating her lips, caressing them with his breath. "That's what you are—ma vhenan."

Her hand wrapped around the back of his head as she brought his mouth down to hers.

He kissed her slowly, reverently, deliberately. Soft and deep, with a sweetness that was almost unbearable, full of a feeling so rare she would kill for it.

His mouth slanted over hers, his tongue sliding slowly inside her mouth. Her lips parted under his as his fingers gently slipping the thin straps of her nightgown off her shoulders. She felt an abrupt coolness as he gently tugged her nightgown down and bared her chest to his gaze. He managed to drag his lips sideways enough to murmur her name against her cheek. His mouth was warm and moist, and so necessary to her mouth that she chased after it.

His hand slid down the side of her neck, fingers dragging down to explore the valley between her breasts. She arched into him and he filled his palm with the small swell, slowly kneading, before pressing his thumb against her breast and dragging it in a deep circle around her nipple.

Solas sat up swiftly, removing his clothing to reveal a torso that was lean and smooth, narrowing down to trim hips. She watched him come over her again, slowly raising the hem of her nightgown. The air was cool on her bare thighs, his hand warm as it came to rest on her knee. His searching hand grew bolder, making slow kneading circles along the length of her bare leg, her heart beating so hard she thought it might burst through her ribcage.

"You make me want to forget about the past," he confessed, his breathing pattern audibly fractured. "Sarlin'ara—it's you, only you, that I'm lost to myself, that I'm not the Dread Wolf, that I'm no one, nothing but yours."

Ellana was dazedly aware of her legs spreading and his hand moving upward purposefully, gliding his fingers between her thighs, causing her to suck in a sharp breathe, her chest rising with it.

Holding her gaze, with a single finger, he touched her. Her breath filtered out on a ragged exhale, the muscles of her belly and thighs clenching involuntarily. He watched with slitted eyes as he stroked her, drawing the entire length of his finger slowly along her.

Frissons ran through her when his fingers gently slid inside her, lingering, only to withdraw and stroke her slick flesh again. Her hips strained uncontrollably toward him as he stroked her again, this time probing deep inside her, and her core suddenly ignited, like oil catching fire.

That was all it took. Her torso arched into a shuddering bow when it happened, her fingers tangled in the sheets, a thousand nerves screaming with relief. As she came back to earth she noticed the air suddenly smelled of something wonderful—rain from the overnight shower mixed with a strong floral scent.

Ellana's eyelids fluttered as her gaze wandered around her room to find what was responsible for the perfume. Dazed, she discovered that she'd inadvertently transformed the four bedposts of her bed into tree trunks with fresh green leaves sprouting from them. The tree trunks were joined from above by an arched set of delicate branches to form a natural canopy with twisting vines of ivy and wisteria. The bedframe and headboard had been magically altered into two entwined branches covered in aubretia flowers in shades of purple and crimson.

"Your conscious connection to the Fade is astonishing." Her gaze shifted to find Solas staring down at her with an expression akin to awe and admiration on his regal face. "You are not of this world."

Her lips curved softly. "Neither are you."

Thunder rumbled all around them as he pulled the hem of her nightgown up and over her head, tossing it to the floor.

No one had ever seen her naked before and Ellana abruptly felt shy and self-conscious. But the insecurity she felt faded away when his hooded gaze smoldered down the length of her, a perusal that could not be deemed lazy, as nothing that this man did ever seemed to match that description. It was focused and overwhelming, intense, the kind of look that smoked all areas it touched with little tongues of flame. She was suddenly no longer embarrassed about being naked in front of him, not when he looked at her like that, like he thought she was the most exquisite thing that ever existed.

Ellana reached for him, unable to focus on anything but her need to be as close to Solas as his skin. But he surprised her by sliding his arm tightly around her waist and flipping them over so he was the one directly under her now.

Ellana adjusted her legs on either side of him, and her eyes locked with his, neither looking away as they sank into each other's bodies.

Solas made a soft tortured sound in his chest, a slight furrow between his dark eyebrows, as if he was in pain. She exhaled a faltering breath as her muscles shifted and stretched around him and she was thankful that this time her body was already adjusting to the bold incursion of his and the sharp edge of pain was already beginning to fade.

"Have you ever been married?" She bit her lip as soon as the question was out.

His hands dragged up her thighs to close tight around her waist. "No."

"Any children?"

His eyebrows rose slightly. "Not that I know of."

"How many women have you had?" Ellana asked, suddenly curious, while she traced each sculpted muscle of his chest with her fingertips, running her hands down the smooth lines of his ribcage.

"Too many to count," Solas answered roughly.

Though she knew it was unreasonable to feel hurt by that, she couldn't help the way her face twisted into a stricken look.

She moved to take her hands away from his chest when he slapped his bigger hands over hers, trapping them there.

"You're not asking the right question, lethallan." His eyes shifted back and forth between hers. "Ask me how many women I'll have after you."

"H-How many?"

"Banal asha—None," he swore quietly with vehement force.

Her eyes held his as she moved her hips awkwardly, hesitant and uncertain, the single movement igniting her body and fevering her skin. She did it again, her body gliding sensuously over his, like a slow, rolling wave. His eyes rolled back in their sockets and his lids fluttered, like he was about to pass out as he rocked against her, fingers clasping her hips. With each movement the heat between them grew, causing their bodies to glisten in a thin sheen of sweat, the only sound in the room the rain belting down upon the roof and the rough drag of their breath.

Creators help her, this felt so good, she thought she would die of it.

A flash of lightning cut across the sky, thunder following hard on its heels. Her hips circled and moved over him, rising and falling. Solas stared up at her, probing her face the entire time, as if nothing could tear his gaze away. He watched her face closely, fixedly, studying every detail, every subtle shift of every expression she made.

He watched her make him hers.

She kept her eyes focused on his through the water that seemed to be filling them, wanting to remember the way he was looking at her right now for the rest of her life, refusing to blink.

"Solas… how long?" she breathed. "How long have you loved me?"

He squeezed his eyes shut and his mouth opened, but instead of an answer he gave a guttural groan when her body undulated.

"Before the Temple of Mythal?"

His breath hissed between clenched teeth as his body bucked against the hold he kept on her hips.

"Before the Winter Palace?"

He said nothing, the luxuriant swoop of his eyelashes shading his eyes from her.

Her breath came in short pants. "Before… Adamant Fortress?"

Silence.

Ellana struggled to draw another breath past her tight throat, a certain amount of effort involved as she struggled to continue her questions with her movements.

"Before… Crestwood… before we met Hawke?" she panted, oxygen hard to catch.

"Yes," he managed through the raggedness of his inhalations, the single word sounding torn from the very depths of him.

She swallowed. "Before… before Skyhold?"

"Before then," he uttered brokenly, breathing in a hard, raw rhythm, his fingers digging into the flesh enveloping his hips.

She expelled a fractured breathy moan as she rocked against him. "H-Haven?"

His hand lifted, taking hers. Their fingers entwined, folding and caressing, then interlocking.

"The first time I touched you…" Softly, almost achingly. "Right then… I felt the whole world change."

She smiled down at him, loving the way the space between her fingers was filled with his. "Sweet talker."

Solas sat up swiftly, curling his body up to hers, his stomach muscles rippling with the movement. His hand slid into her hair to hold her still as he claimed her mouth with his own in a benediction, as if he was trying to give her his very soul in that kiss.

"Ar lath ma,vhenan," he whispered, his mouth still touching hers, his lips caressing her with every word. "You were mine from the first moment I touched you."

His words seeped into her skin, broke through the shadow of ache and plunged into the softest and most vulnerable part of her. It was the first time in her whole life that somebody had told her that they loved her.

Blinking away tears, Ellana croaked, "Say it again."

He fell backward onto the bed, taking her with him. "Ar lath ma," he repeated, his arms instantly banded around her like steel. "If you had been born in my time, I would have found you, and I would have loved you then just as I love you now."

She buried her face in his neck, breathing in the scent of him, and his hand came up to cradle the back of her head to press her mouth deeper to the skin of his throat as he thrust into her, urgent now. Up and into her, over and over, until she fell off the end of the earth and he poured himself into her with uncontrollable shudders.

Ellana lay heavy on his chest, panting into the curve of his neck, her entire body vibrating from the aftershocks, his arms wrapped around her.

They stayed like that, still intimately connected, listening to the rain come down in torrents and their breathing as it evened out, waiting for reality to come filtering back in. It was the calm after the storm with another storm hovering in the near distance, threatening to roll in depending on what they both chose to do or say next.

"How long?" Her words were a mere whispery sound.

"How long what?"

She shivered slightly when she felt a finger slowly trace the shape of each separate vertebra in her spine from her nape to the small of her back.

"How long will you love me?"

"Bellanaris—I am not a man who does not love forever." The commitment – conviction - in his voice, the rippling possessive warmth in his tone, the unwavering sense of purpose engulfing her…

Outside there cracked a bright flash of lightning that was followed closely by a rolling clap of thunder. Ellana's blood turned suddenly cold as a horrible thought hit her. A crushing tightness filled her chest, squeezing out her breath as she whispered, "But you're still going to leave, aren't you?"

Solas went completely still beneath her and a new tension began to suck the oxygen out of the air. He didn't say a word, didn't move, and his chest wasn't rising and falling anymore, like he wasn't even breathing.

His continued silence left Ellana to use up the next few suffocating seconds to draw her own assumptions, which she did with a shuddering gasp of dismay. She moved to pull away, to read his face, but he kept his arms around her and followed her to stay inside her, as if loath to separate.

"Yes."

That one word hit her like a whip across her flesh. Tears stung hot and dry against the backs of her eyes as she realized she hadn't changed the Dread Wolf's heart. With only one word he could virtually flay the skin from her bones.

She died a little when she realized this was something she would never experience again after he left to walk his Din'anshiral. She couldn't stop the tears. She couldn't stop her heart from breaking when she knew she couldn't have this with him for the remainder of her days.

When a single tear fell onto his skin, his arms tightened around her. "I know, vhenan," he whispered and she caught the faint roughening of pain in his voice. "I know."

A red fury began to fill her head and her vision, her hurt, anger, and dismay simmering on the point of eruption as the prospect of life without him loomed like a death sentence.

She placed her palms on his chest and pushed herself up to throw a fulminating glare into his face, her gaze hard and unforgiving.

"What right do you have to leave?" she gritted out. "If you do, you'll doom us both. What kind of life will either of us live if you—dammit!" she choked on a sob. "Do you really wish to be alive without your heart?" It was a raw cry, scraped from a deep bank of emotion. "Because that's what will happen to both of us if you leave, Solas. You will be sentencing us both to a half-life!"

Solas clenched his eyes shut, his face contorted and aggrieved.

Ellana immediately moved away from him, shaking her head, words lodged in her throat as she sat back on her heels, livid that he could look like his world was more torn than hers.

"Is that what you want, Solas?" she demanded with frightening vehemence, feeling the slick glide of wet tears fall from her eyes down her cheeks.

"Tell me!" she shrieked when he said nothing.

His eyes slowly opened and she felt her heart crack. Diamond dewdrops glistened behind spiky black lashes, tears shimmering in the shallows of his gaze, and in their depths she saw a never-ending storm of pain no living thing was equipped to bear.

His hands reached out to take her by the shoulders, crushing her against his bare chest, determined to close the distance between them. He quickly buried his face in her hair, holding her so tightly, his arms gripping her almost painfully.

"I will be with you always." The strangled words, spoken in anguish, tore at her heart, ripped through the tight grip she had on her anger. "Every night I will be there, waiting for you. I will be waiting in your room, in your bed. There you will find me every night. Every second of your dreams, I will be with you. I will never leave you, vhenan," he swore, his voice steadfast in its conviction.

She sniffled, "You offer me dreams, but dreams would just remind me that what we had did exist, and that I've lost it forever. I'll only want to escape them, to find you in reality," she murmured in a wobbly voice into his shoulder. "I don't want to only see you in dreams. I don't want to yearn for you with an aching heart. I want to be with you, really be with you." Her fingers dug into the lean muscles of his back as she buried her face in his shoulder. "I don't want to let you go. I don't even think I can. Not even for a second. And I cannot bear to think of you alone."

"I love you—bellanaris." His arms were strung so tightly around her that she could hardly breath. "I'm sorry I cannot be with you longer." The words were uttered so quietly, so thickly, as if there were tears coating each syllable.

A sharp, stabbing pain pierced her torso, something vital breaking inside her.

"Why?" she uttered faintly through tears of emotional exhaustion and the lump in her throat making it difficult to speak. "Why are you trying to break what's left of my heart?"

He buried his face into the curve of her neck. "If I'm breaking your heart, then in breaking it, I am also breaking mine." He made a sound, like a groan of agony as his body curled into hers. "Wounds on you create scars on me."

He was shaking against her now, violently, his shoulders jerking sharply as if he were crying, but he made no sound and there were no tears. She held him so tight her arms shook, attempting to alleviate the anguish that wracked them both.

After a long time, Solas pulled back and took hold of her face, forcing her away so he could look at her. Grief-stricken blue eyes that were rimmed red held hers, so tortured it hurt staring into them, his expression so raw that her heart wanted to break at the sight of it.

"The path to restoration can be cruel, ruthless, and unforgivable. I knew this when I set upon it. To achieve atonement, a bargain must be made—" The words stopped when he was forced to swallow. "I traded my soul a long time ago so I could undo the damage I'd done." Some hair clung to her forehead and his long fingers gently pulled the sweat-soaked strands away, tucking then behind her ear with an air of misery. "I will save the elvhen people, even if it means this world must die."

"Yes, I understand why you think things have to happen this way," she snapped. "Yes, I understand your reasons for causing me this much pain. But understanding alone doesn't magically cure the heartbreak—" Her voice broke; she struggled to recover it. "Or the knowledge that from the very beginning you've been planning to let me die."

His head jerked to the side as though she'd slapped him. She watched his throat work as he tried to swallow, his hands falling away from her face as though they weighed a ton. When he looked back at her, his expression was sullen and brooding darkness filtered through the blue of his eyes.

"You were always going to die," Solas said in a tender, hoarse, far away voice. "The Mark… it will eventually kill you. I have tried everything. There is nothing I can do. I can only delay it." He shook his head dejectedly. "Your fate was sealed the moment you picked up the orb. I'm sorry."

The words fell into the room like the drop of a guillotine. "The orb is yours, isn't it?"

He grimaced and lowered his eyes from hers. "Yes," he confessed, like a sinner to a priest. "I planned to recover my orb and use it to enter the Fade. Then I would have torn down the Veil. As this world burned in the raw chaos, I would have restored the world of my time… the world of the elves."

That shot sparks down her backbone. "I never though of you as someone who would do that, Solas. Playing with so many people's lives—you might as well be a god, one of the Evanuris you despise so much."

He winced, like he didn't want to be hit with that. "I told you I didn't want you to see what I must become." He turned his gaze back to hers, eyes now hard with resolution. "But my path is set."

A sudden frozen stillness grabbed hold of her that barely allowed her enough room to breathe, her emotions a tornado of dangerous debris.

She shook her head. "You are a hard soul to save."

"It's too late for that," he said in a thick voice of bitter anguish.

She felt her face go prickly and hot as a sudden sense of panic overwhelmed her.

"Solas, don't forsake me!" she cried in stricken protest.

She watched his mouth clench and his chest move up and down on a fierce tug of air.

"Whatever happens…" His eyes lowered, soot-black eyelashes flickering against fiercely jutting cheekbones. "Know that what we had was real."

The word had fell like a granite block, crushing her beneath its weight, cracking her clean in two, her chest lifting and dropping in a single wrenching gasp of pain. But with it was an unholy animosity born inside of her, growing, swelling until her limbs began to tremble with the force of it.

"If you forsake me… if you leave me—I'll never forgive you!" she cried, her voice cracking on a sudden upsurge of impassioned indignation, scalding tears burning her eyes. "Do you hear me, Dread Wolf!"

That brought his eyes snapping up to hers in time with a burst of lightning.

"You walk out on me—I will hate you," she bit out like a curse. "I will hate you for making me love you, for having to love you, for throwing it all away when you could have taken me with you."

"I can't do that to you, vhenan," Solas murmured so softly, almost unintelligibly. "You are right to be angry."

Ellana shoved her finger in his bare chest as she hissed at him, "Know this, Fen'Harel—you abandon me and I'll fight you - and I'll destroy you - even though I'm going to pray that you can't be destroyed because I can't imagine living in a world without you in it. But I will fight you nonetheless. I will fight you so you won't be able to reach your goals. I will fight to ruin every plan you make. I will fight to take everything you want away from you. I will hurt you through the only thing that can hurt you—through your pride." Her eyes seared into his with unshakeable purpose, burning like fire-coated steel. "I will fight to save you from yourself."

Her fierce words caught Solas on the raw. Something unknown flashed in his eyes before he swiftly rolled them over, pinning her on her back beneath him, spreading her legs with the pressure of his thighs.

"If you dare, ma lath…" His lips captured hers, kissing her as if he'd never kiss again. And slowly entered her body with his. "…come and save me."

Ellana fused her mouth to his, wrapping her legs around his waist, hugging him so tight she didn't know where she began or he ended.

This was it.

The end.

They both knew it.

With their fateful, unavoidable parting looming on the horizon, it was as if each cell in her body was expanding in an effort to absorb every last ounce of him into her as he came into her like a sin-sick soul seeking redemption.

Later, when the sun was rising, Solas carefully withdrew from her body and rolled onto his back beside her on the bed, gathering her sweat-dampened body in his arms. Her leg was draped over both of his, her arm thrown across his chest, his wolf's jawbone hanging on the leather strap around her neck. To remember him by, he'd said when he'd secured it around her neck.

Solas' finger dragged across the back of her hand lying on top of his chest. "I will never forget you." They were quiet, quiet words lined with steel, like an unbreakable promise.

She said nothing. Her eyes looked so bleak in her pale face that they appeared haunted. They were not seeing much. They looked inwards, staring into the cold, dark recesses of her mind where pain, heartache, and bitterness were waiting to grab hold of her when reality returned to burst the little bubble of happiness they'd managed to create.

In the arms of the Dread Wolf, her people's greatest adversary, the Inquisitor slept with a broken heart. For she hated him but she also loved him and that was her problem—she loved, loved—loved the Dread Wolf!

She dreamed he would turn around from the path he was set on. That in the morning he would sweep her off her feet, whispering softly in her ear, "I'll stay." Or that he would smile at her and say, "Come with me."

But it was only a dream.

The next day, another Breach into the Fade formed in the sky in the Valley of Sacred Ashes. By nightfall, Corypheus was dead, the orb was destroyed…

And Solas was gone.

That first night, Solas came to her in a dream.

In the dream, Ellana had found herself emerging from a dark forest to enter a small clearing among the trees. She strode down to where the springy turf grew on the edge of a riverbank. The river was wide and ran dark and silent. Tall oaks and willows lined the river like sentinels, big and brooding. A low ground mist enveloped everything in a soft skirt of billowing white.

A full moon hung just above the tops of the trees, blanching the color out of everything, surrounding her in eerie tones of black and grey, except for the river, where it formed slinky silver patterns on the silent mass as it moved at a slow and lazy pace. It so still and silent she could even hear the water softly lapping the pebbly ground at her feet.

She looked up to find Solas standing on the other side of the river. He was watching her sadly, staring at her with infinite longing, like a freezing man out in the snow watches the flames of a warm fire flicker and dance through a frosted windowpane.

Silver eyes glared murderously at him as, with a flick of her wrist, she sent a fireball crashing into the tree beside him, setting the wood on fire. The angry flames raced up the tree trunk, swallowing the bark and the leaves. She could hear the wood pop and crumble, as the fire chewed and devoured the tree. Flames and smoke hit the midnight sky as, in seeming slow motion, the big tree buckled near its roots and toppled over, crashing beside Solas, a few feet away, blasting him with a gush of air and reaching flames.

He didn't even notice, his eyes never once leaving hers, though she could see he'd received the silent message she had sent him.

The Inquisitor turned her back on him, not seeing the way Solas' proud head bowed, his shoulders slumping, as if a heavy weight of sorrow and despair rested atop them, before he vanished into nothing.

Solas never invaded her dreams again.

Translations:

Enaste dennar ma?: Can you forgive me for my sins?

Ma serannas: My thanks (Thank you).

Banal asha: No women

Ar lath ma: I love you

Bellanaris: For eternity

Ma lath: My love