A/N: It's a new chapter! At long last! Thank you for reading; I hope you enjoy!

"They were desperate, they were terrified, and they made mistakes." Ilona's eyes were blazing, the gold burning to swallow the sapphire, and she leaned over the table between them, her nails leaving tiny little half-moons in the softened wood.

Solas had seen her this furious only once before. The fight between them charged the air to boiling; he could taste the edges of her fire on the end of his tongue. The candle on the table grew in intensity, throwing her face into a fragmented maze of shadows.

But her voice was still terribly calm.

And he, for his part, was not about to concede defeat. Not for this.

"That means little." He refrained from clicking his teeth together at the end of the sentence, so fragile was the remaining peace. "They did everything willingly. They subjected themselves to that insane ritual willingly."

Ilona stopped meeting his gaze, but it wasn't a gesture of agreement. He knew her far better than to think that even for a moment. Her forehead wrinkled, as when she was thinking, and her grip on the table lessened just a little. All of these small gestures he noticed, because he understood, because he'd had far too long to observe each breath that passed her lips.

"Yes." The word was a tragic song that bled through her voice and landed between them. He waited. Whatever else she was going to say would not matter. He believed what he believed. And he believed the Wardens had been wrong. She should have exiled them immediately for committing unforgivable crimes.

"But they did not do any of it with bad intentions." Such a soft sentence, heavy with her inherent trust in people. In the good the world held. Solas repressed the urge to scoff. It was decisions like this… that made him wonder if she truly had the kind of understanding she claimed.

The thought that she was naïve made his reply colder than he intended. "Good intentions can lead to dark places." He almost spit the words at her. By the Void, he was angry. Fire crackled in the pit of his stomach, as he had tasted the hints of hers. No other made him flare like this. Only her. She dragged everything to the surface, both pleasant and distasteful, through the needle-thin cracks she had created.

How could she possibly hope to control the Wardens? They, clearly, worked toward their own ends, not considering the ramifications raising an army of demons would have on the rest of the world. They saw it solely as a tool. They were given the opportunity to "cleanse" the world of the Old Gods and they took it, forgoing any consequences and ignoring the very large possibility that it was too good to be true. He was entirely unsure how they had managed to logically accept that as sane.

Yes, they had been desperate, but desperation did not excuse their actions. Desperation was… familiar. Too familiar. It made him uncomfortable how easily he remembered feeling desperate, like a lingering itch in the far recesses of his mind.

Perhaps there were other reasons he hated the Wardens.

Sparks dancing in Ilona's eyes snapped his attention back to her. Her lips had flattened to a thin, ivory line. The candle to her left began to flicker, wildly waving in a nonexistent breeze. She ceased leaning on the table, folding her arms across her chest. The sigh that escaped her was old, too old for the youth still clinging to her features. "So they should be condemned for trying to save people."

When she worded it that way, it made him the villain. Ironic, yes. Correct, in this instance… no. He wished she wouldn't twist his words. Licking two of his fingers, he extinguished the candle, canceling the release of her magic. "That is not what I said." He could hear the darkness in his own voice. It was not a tone he had used in so long… it was a tone he had never wanted to use again. Especially not when talking to her. An old shadow deep in his bones stretched languidly and growled. He pushed it down.

Something flashed through her eyes as they skittered over his face. "It's what you mean. I can tell. They made sacrifices, Solas. Because they saw no other way out. What about that is so hard to accept?"

Of course she could tell. Or so she thought. If she knew… she would likely no longer be standing carefully in front of him now. There would be lightning between her fingers and equal danger in her eyes. Not the hint of an ember. "They were ignorant. Desperate, scared, trapped, it all is insignificant. Many in the world have been all three. It does not give one the right to resort to blood magic and rituals, greater good or no."

Her eyes narrowed, just slightly. It was a dangerous gesture, he knew, having seen it used usually before a fireball whispered to life in her palm. But her hands stayed dark. Her voice had fallen to little more than a murmur, razor-sharp pain tied to each word, faint as a breath on the wind. "And what about redeeming them? Sparing them? Letting them… atone?"

Atone? How did what she had decided help them atone? Bringing them into Skyhold, endangering any and all around them, that was not the answer. That did little more than increase their chances of corruption, and gave that twisted magister a realm of access into their ranks. It was, in hindsight, like inviting a wolf into a herd of halla.

And there was already one of those.

Solas shuffled a pile of papers on his desk, desperate for something to do with his hands. His voice remained level, chilled by the hints of Winter. "They constructed an inane plan to preempt the Blight. I do not see the need to allow atonement for naivety and compulsiveness."

Ilona recoiled like he'd struck her. Pain, not anger, not hate, was blinding in her stare, and silence held court for far too many heartbeats. Solas waited. Ilona's normally calm features were pinched and strained, adding dark lines to the serene angles of her face. Her eyes were fixated on the sheets of paper on his desk, gold-ringed sapphires avoiding his. She blinked, twice, before speaking, and her voice plunged all the way through his chest.

"Were you never naïve, Solas? Were you never compulsive?" She still refused to look at him, all the fight draining from her words like a bleeding animal. She looked, very suddenly, as small as she had the first time he had laid eyes on her, those many months ago. The Inquisitor had long left the room.

He sighed, defeated. No was the answer to both of her questions; millennia of naivety and compulsiveness had led him here, now, to her and her Inquisition. "This… is not about me." He stood a little taller, a little looser, less tense, his hands folded behind his back. The immediate anger was, for the current moment, gone. He breathed.

She laughed, bitter as elfroot, a small breath that fell to the floor. "But it is… and I… I don't know why I'm trying to convince you so terribly." Her eyes turned to him, through him, and her lips curled faintly into something hurt. "What about me, hm? Did I not deserve second chances?"

This gave him pause. Those were not similar circumstances, not even remotely. She had not resorted to blood magic or summoned demons or killed—ah. There it was. He let his voice turn soft, no hints of Winter or sharp edges. "This is not about you, either, vhenan."

"But I made the choice. I spared them; I had to. After everything, after Stroud…" Her breath stuttered before recovering, so small he almost did not hear it. "…I had to." She closed her eyes, clenching the hand with the Anchor into a fist. "And you're right; more people will probably die."

She blamed herself for far too much. Solas walked around his desk and tucked her against him, pressing his lips into her hair. "You cannot be blamed for their actions prior to joining. But now you are responsible for them; they serve the Inquisition and represent it, and they are dangerous."

Ilona's words were muffled by the fabric of his shirt; she freed her hands to snake them around his back. "I know. But they can still be redeemed."

Solas sighed again, into her hair. Such hope, such faith. "Your optimism will get you into trouble someday."

Her head turned so that her ear was against his chest, over his heart. A small laugh rippled her frame. "It already has."

"Mm? How so?"

One of her hands on his back patted him, twice. "The Anchor. I went to the Conclave with such confidence, with so much faith that the talks would work. I believed I would observe and go back to running, back to hiding." She laughed, again, a little breath. "And now, here we are."

The Anchor was certainly trouble, more than she could possible hope to know. Solas could feel it against his spine, humming with strong, rapid power. It didn't feel… right, though it never would on any hand other than his own. He wrinkled his forehead. With the Breach closed, should it be that unstable? Did it pain her? Asking might raise suspicion… she would tell him if it was.

"And was it trouble you overcame, or trouble you lost to?"

He nearly felt the smile fall from her face. She pulled away, meeting his stare with those eyes, and tucked a stray raven lock behind one of her ears. The nick in it let torchlight fill her skin. "I think I'll overcome it when it's gone, forever." The light from the Anchor highlighted her face as she lifted it closer to her. "When the Venatori are gone, and Corypheus is gone, and the war is just a memory. Then… then I'll have overcome it."

Solas' heart twisted into knots. It would never be over. The war would never be just a memory, because it would continue; he would force it to. He would force her father and farther down this path that she hadn't even chosen in the first place, because if he knew anything at all, he knew that she would not simply stand by and watch. Her soul burned too brightly for her to allow the world to burn.

"That will be a day to look forward to." He smiled faintly, though it felt tight. Ilona dropped her hand and returned it, a gesture full of honesty and trust. By the Void, he did not deserve her.

The door to the rotunda shuddered against the wall just then, breaking the moment. Ilona's mask leapt into place, her smile falling, replaced with one of cool serenity. Solas straightened, adjusting his own. Time to ponder these things later.

"Inquisitor! Our soldiers located Crestwood's mayor. He awaits trial." The scout saluted Ilona as he delivered the news; she returned it before nodding.

"Thank you, I'll be right there." She cast Solas an apologetic smile, he tipped his head and helplessly lifted his shoulders.

"I will remain here." Ilona in judgment brought back severe memories, ones he would rather not associate with her. News traveled fast; her decision would find him soon enough. The scout gone, she stepped close to him again and kissed him lightly.

"I am glad you understood my choice, at last." She smiled into his lips.

"I try, vhenan." And then she was gone. Solas stood for a moment in the silence and closed his eyes. Another lie, one more to add to his ever-growing list.

He had long ago given up trying to understand her.