A/N: The flirting is going to steadily increase, peeps! I quite enjoyed the Forbidden Oasis exploration!
Twenty-Six
Solasan
"We're under attack!" Rosa shouted through gritted teeth.
Solas tossed barriers up over their group before she'd even finished and just in time, too, as Rosa heard the hissing impact of an arrow a second later on the barrier. She refreshed it to be safe and then twisted round to see where the projectiles were coming from. Through the mists she saw a ledge above them and realized there must be an upper level, recessed beyond the waterfalls. She saw figures at that edge—Venatori archers knelt and taking aim.
"Venatori!" she yelled. "Venatori on the ledge above us!"
"I fucking hate ambushes," Iron Bull growled and charged past her, battle axe in hand as Venatori warriors leapt down from the ledge with splashes. The Qunari let out a deep bellow as he spun wild through their ranks, killing two warriors and knocking aside another.
But the damage to their soldiers had already come in the first moments of the fight. The archers had hit five lightly armored scouts, leaving three of them half-collapsed in the pool or clawing their way for the sandy embankments. Two others lay in the pool, dead from unlucky arrow strikes that had let them choke or bleed out immediately. The soldiers had fared better with only the first one dead in the pool from the arrow she'd taken to her neck. Rosa's companions were in good shape, being further out from the archers and with Solas' strong barriers protecting them so quickly.
"How do we get up there?" Tal asked, yelling to be heard over the waterfall.
A very good question, Rosa thought and then flinched as another arrow streaked into her barrier, making it flicker. Sera splattered through the water a few meters away, dropping to one knee as she fired a shot up into the ledge. One of the Venatori archers stumbled back, dropping his bow. "Eat it!"
Cassandra shadowed Rosa, offering her extra protection as more arrows raced for her. Rosa refreshed her barrier, even as Solas tossed up another over their group. A Venatori warrior dropped from the ledge and raced for them both, knocking aside an Inquisition scout who tried to rise to Rosa's defense. Cassandra had her shield at the ready, her face creased in a vicious snarl. "Stay behind me," she growled at Rosa.
Rosa ignored her suggestion and lobbed Fade stone at the warrior, hitting him squarely in the chest. He fell over with a tremendous splash. Cassandra sprang forward and stabbed him through the heart before he could recover. Crimson stained the water and Rosa felt the sight tug on her heart. This should have been a quiet, beautiful place.
Ice runes suddenly lit up in blue beneath Rosa and Cassandra. The hostile magic set Rosa's skin prickling. "Shit," she cursed and pushed Cassandra. "Move!"
Fade-stepping away, Rosa escaped the rune just as it hissed and crackled, freezing as it activated. Water froze overtop of it, going opaque. Cassandra had gotten clear of it and now, baring her teeth in a savage snarl, she was in the thick of fighting the warriors with Iron Bull.
More arrows hit Rosa's barrier and she curled her hands into fists, her heart thundering loud in her ears with mounting frustration. She was losing too many people because the Venatori had the high ground and…where was the Creators-damned walkway to the temple?
Finding Solas beside Tal back near the statues, trying to provide everyone with barriers and also trying to aid Sera in picking off the archers and mages on the ledge, Rosa Fade-stepped to join him. He shot her a look as she popped out of the spell next to him, then whipped around to spin her staff as she cast chain lightning on an archer she could just see through the mist.
"How do we get up there?" she asked Solas, using elven.
"I don't know," Solas replied, his voice strained as he thrust out a hand and clenched it into a fist, yanking down. Up on the ledge, with a loud whine-pop, Rosa saw a few figures smash into the ground with a powerful Veilstrike.
"How can you not know?" Rosa demanded in frustration. Water splashed in front of them but there was no one visible to cause it.
The splashes charged past Sera and the archer twisted round and shouted, "Inky! Incoming!"
Tal reacted first, thrusting out a palm that glowed faintly purple. The invisible Venatori rogue became visible again and let out a scream as she whipped round and began to run away. Rosa and Solas both shot their own spells after her—Fade stone for Solas and a fireball from Rosa. The rogue fell with a cry and did not get up again.
"How can you not know?" Rosa repeated, snagging Solas' sleeve and tugging on it.
Solas glared at her, his teeth bared. He didn't answer her but instead refreshed their barriers and then took a step further out into the pool. He held up his staff parallel to his body with both hands. The stave glowed a reddish green as his body shook with effort. Rosa felt the fine hairs on her neck and arms stick upright as she broke out in gooseflesh. She recognized the spell and grinned. Slamming down the butt of his staff into the water, Solas cast the firestorm on the ledge.
Fireballs streaked in, bright and orange and flickering with flame. They slammed into the ground, spraying hot brimstone in wide arcs. An archer caught fire and screeched, jumping from the ledge. The warriors in the pool already stopped to stare with shock as the earth shuddered with each fiery impact. Tents caught fire and the ledge brightened, flames licking along the worn sandstone pillars. Bits of brimstone fell into the pool and hissed, sending up plumes of steam.
"Fuck yeah," Tal said, grinning. He launched a fireball of his own at a Venatori still fighting with Iron Bull and then let out a whooping cheer as more rogues and archers leapt off the ledge in a desperate attempt to escape the raging inferno raining down on their camp.
Solas was breathing hard, his barrier shimmering as it weakened. Rosa refreshed it for their group, letting him recoup his mana reserves. It looked like all the Venatori archers were dead or on fire now, but Rosa wasn't about to let overconfidence make her sloppy.
As the firestorm at last subsided the oasis went mostly quiet. The Venatori camp smoldered and crackled with fire on the ledge, newly deserted. Iron Bull, Cassandra, and the rest of the Inquisition soldiers and remaining scouts killed the Venatori who hadn't managed to flee. The roar of the waterfalls continued, filling Rosa's ears, but it seemed quiet now after the fury of the battle.
They set about collecting their own wounded and dead, then searching the Venatori bodies. Their efforts earned them Imperial currency as well as a mixture of other coinage and small baubles. It stabbed at Rosa's heart when she found a small doll in a Venatori rogue's pockets that had been bound for shipping. This woman must be a mother. Rosa wondered who she was and why she'd joined this cult. Why had she let it take her away from her child?
The intrinsic pool, cerulean before the battle, now had a slight purplish tint from blood. Rosa stared at it from the shore near the strange guardian statues—the warrior woman and the faceless man. She held her staff out, still reeling from the short but vicious fight and feeling uneasy. They'd lost nearly half of the men and women Rylen had sent with them, mostly scouts to archer fire, but some had suffered serious burns or wounds inflicted from the Venatori mages. Iron Bull had taken a slash on his blind side but Tal healed it with ease. Rosa and Solas had attended to the soldiers and scouts.
The sky overhead had changed to the brightness of full afternoon and Rosa wanted nothing more than to take a nap but there was still endless work to be done. Nothing they'd found on the Venatori bodies revealed why these men and women had decided to take an interest in the temple. And, as the Inquisition soldiers and scouts set to work bringing camping equipment down into the oasis, Rosa soon learned of a new issue.
"This place gives me the creeps," Iron Bull complained with a body-wide shudder. They were walking side by side, both carrying crates with supplies through the canyons. Rosa had ordered that no one travel alone as they knew the Venatori were still in the area and some had definitely survived the attack. Cassandra was with them, her hands free as she acted as lookout and escort. She'd been silent, her expression still grave from the battle.
Rosa sighed. "I didn't expect the ambush. I should have."
"We had reports they camped at the entrance," Cassandra said. "But it was not clear we had reached the temple."
"Don't beat yourself up too much, Boss," Iron Bull told her gently. His single blue eye was soft as he smiled at her. "I'm taller than everyone here and even I didn't see them up there."
Rosa frowned, scoffing with frustration. "There's no way up to the fucking temple! If there was we could have charged up there and…"
"It was unavoidable, Inquisitor," Cassandra said, her tone soothing. "Their camp was not visible from the pool."
"I don't know how those Venatori could stand sleeping that close to it," Iron Bull said. "Frankly, I think we are too close to that damn place." He shuddered again.
Now Rosa eyed the Qunari with confusion. "What?"
"The temple," Iron Bull repeated, his words slower now and his eye narrowing. "It gives me the creeps, like I said."
"But why?" Rosa asked, shaking her head. She grunted as she hefted the crate in her arms up higher. "We can barely see it through the mist and the waterfalls. It's just an elven ruin."
Iron Bull made a half-formed word that turned into a sort of, "Uhhh…" His lips twisted down and then he clamped his mouth shut.
"What?" Rosa asked again, growing exasperated.
It was Cassandra, surprisingly, who answered. "You do not feel the sense of dread that permeates this place? It is stronger the closer we are to the temple."
Suddenly Rosa remembered the reports the scouts had given her saying that the temple gave off a feeling of foreboding that had kept most people away. Miners had braved it previously and the oasis was littered with the evidence of their work here. Someone had also, apparently, visited it to erect statues that didn't appear elven. Yet otherwise the area was untouched largely due to whatever magic permeated this place.
And yet Rosa had not felt a thing.
She swallowed, suddenly anxious as she looked between Iron Bull and Cassandra, seeing their speculative and intrigued expressions. Already sweaty from their work carrying the crates, Rosa now felt suddenly cold. "I…I haven't felt much," she admitted and then quickly offered up a kneejerk alternative explanation. "This is an elven ruin. Maybe it's been spelled against non-elves."
Iron Bull grunted. "Maybe," he hedged, but the tone of his voice suggested he doubted that explanation. Had Sera already complained of the foreboding sensation and Rosa just hadn't noticed?
"Maybe I'll feel it when we're closer to the door," Rosa said and shrugged.
"Perhaps your mark provides you some measure of protection," Cassandra suggested.
"That could be," Rosa lied, smiling and nodding. "Must be." The spell over this temple had to be keyed to blood and it recognized her as a friend due to her kinship with Dirthamen, Mythal, and Elgar'nan—maybe even Falon'Din himself too. She made a mental note to ask Tal—and possibly Solas—to pretend the temple bothered them, too.
At the outcropping above the intrinsic pool Rosa helped Iron Bull, Cassandra, Sera, and several scouts and soldiers set up tents. The ledge tapered off in steps a short distance from camp before falling away entirely to leave a significant gap between their position and the temple entrance. When the work was finished Rosa squeezed through the brush at the edge of their camp and sat on the ledge, gazing out over the gap through the mist to the temple.
The scent of wood smoke from their campfire competed with the sweet smell of the water as the scouts set up the hearth to prep for the evening meal. Solas and Tal had gone out with some soldiers to further secure the area and to find dinner for the evening. They were the best hunters, after all, beyond Rosa herself.
The sun was starting to set, casting the upper levels of the canyon in even deeper shades of crimson and setting off rainbows in the mists and the waterfalls when Rosa heard the bushes rustle behind her. She tensed and turned to see Sera standing a few paces behind her, arms crossed over her chest and her brow furrowed with a look of something akin to disgust. Her bow was on her back, along with her quiver of arrows as she stomped her way closer to Rosa's ledge.
"So," Sera said, shooting Rosa a glare. "Bull told me you don't feel…" She gestured with one hand in a fast, violet fluttering motion to indicate the temple. "That…shite. You don't feel that? Seriously?"
Rosa frowned, knowing there was little point in trying to lie about it now. "Not yet, no…" She shrugged. "It might be my mark that's keeping me from feeling it." Lifting her left palm she wriggled her fingers to remind the other elven woman that "Andraste" had marked her. That would hopefully put Sera at ease.
"Bull don't believe that," Sera grumbled, crossing her arms over her chest again and glowering. "It's weirdy magic-shite again, innit?"
"Technically my mark counts as 'weirdy magic-shite,'" Rosa reminded her and then lied, "I don't know why I haven't felt anything about the temple, Sera. Is it really that bad?"
Sera snorted and her lips curled in a snarl. "Not like bees stinging you bad or nothing," she explained, shuddering. "Just like…" She huffed, struggling to explain. "Like when you're a little kid and you know the bully's waiting in the alley to punch you in your gob and take your cookies—only, worse than that a bit, yeah? Like there's two rich codgers come to make you lick the shite off their boots."
"I'm sorry," Rosa told her. "I wish I could make it better for all of you, but I don't know why I seem to be immune." She smiled and hoped it looked truthful.
Sera rolled her eyes. "It's some elfy-elf shite, innit? Yeah? Tell me straight, your holy lady bits."
"It's nothing I can share, Sera," Rosa insisted, a little bit of an edge entering her voice now. Did the rest of her companions think this too?
"Be serious," Sera grumbled and then brightened, snapping her fingers as though the answer had suddenly come clear to her. "I know—Droopy ears gave you some spell or other rubbish, didn't he? Something spooky from all that Fade piss he loves." She smirked then and added, "Or maybe you got it just from banging bits with him."
Rosa choked on her half-laugh, half-gasp. "What?"
Sera giggled. "You heard me. Nasty, that is, but…" Edging closer—which made Rosa shrink away with a frown—Sera waggled her eyebrows. "You banging bits with him again, yet? Treeface says no but I got coin—"
"Sera," Rosa interrupted her, snarling the other elf's name as she shot to her feet.
"Yeah?" Sera grinned.
"Shut. Up." Before Sera could antagonize her any further, Rosa stepped down the ledge and then off it, landing in a crouch in the sandy embankment just outside the intrinsic pool. With her stave flopping on her back with each angry step away from the intrinsic pool and the camp on the outcrop above it, Rosa headed for the nearest round mining entrance.
Behind her on the ledge Sera called out, "What? What'd I say?"
Ignoring Sera's voice, Rosa pressed on into the tunnel. She heard the scuttling of spiders around the bend and grabbed out her stave. A torch stood on the wall to her right, dark and unlit. Lifting one palm, Rosa flung a little gout of flame at the torch and with a crackle it caught and spluttered to life. Around the bend she heard the hiss of the spiders as they reacted to the light.
Grinning savagely at the thought of taking out frustration on a simple enemy, Rosa erected a barrier over herself and strode around the corner—only to find it had been boarded up. Sighing with frustration she considered turning back, but hesitated. Why not explore? The Venatori had to have gained access to the temple somehow…
Drawing in a breath, Rosa lobbed a Fade stone at the boards. They cracked, splitting along the grain. The spiders on the other side skittered, spooked by the blow. Rosa stepped closer, lifting her staff and willing out three fireballs from it. The wood crackled as it caught and smoke wafted up as it licked its way along the dry tinder. Rosa waited a few moments, eyes watering with the gathering smoke, and then she spun her staff and slammed it down, casting winter's grasp. The cold doused the flames, leaving blackened, cracked wood in its stead.
Rosa lunged for it with the butt of her staff, slamming it into the wood repeatedly until it cracked wider. Another Fade-stone and she managed to create a narrow gap that she could slip through. The spiders had vanished form the other side, retreating deeper into the tunnel. Rosa clutched her staff tighter and refreshed her barrier as she moved forward.
Up a ladder and down another long stretch of tunnel, Rosa found herself in a four-way intersection of tunnels. To her left the cave climbed and twisted away, out of view. Ahead it ended in a cave in. Skeletons lay partly exposed under the rocks. To her left, however, Rosa saw another exit, boarded up. Light peaked through the edges.
Could it be…?
Moving to the boards, Rosa peeked through the slats and grinned with triumph as she caught sight of the remnants of the Venatori camp and the temple entrance. Stepping back, Rosa repeated her earlier efforts, busting and burning her way through the boards until she'd created a way through.
On the other side she walked through the waterfall mist, blinking away the excess moisture. The air was sweet after being trapped in the confined space of the tunnel with the burning boards. She passed scorched rocks and bushes as well as the ashes of Venatori tents. The temple stood before her, the sturdy stone door carved decoratively in a way that was familiar and made her shiver with dark memories.
She had seen this type of door before in the bleak future of Redcliffe. That door had been keyed to open only to red lyrium shards, but Solas had encouraged her to use her power as a Dreamer to make it open simply because she willed it. Yet, when she had touched it…
"We are here. We have waited. We have slept. We are sundered. We are crippled. We are polluted. We endure. We wait. We have found the dreams again. We will awaken."
Would this door react the same way the red lyrium shard one had? The thought of hearing those whispers, sinister and disembodied, made her shudder and tuck her hands under her armpits. Best not to attempt opening the door without Solas' presence at the very least, in case some nefarious magic in the door tried to trap or harm her.
Sidestepping slightly, Rosa moved to examine the pillars to the right and left of the stone door. On the right side the stone was smooth and unadorned, worn by time. Yet, on the left, Rosa found an inscription in written elven. Someone had left a parchment beneath it and, miraculously, Solas' firestorm earlier had been far enough away that it had not caught it in its brimstone. Rosa knelt and squinted at the inscription in the stone first, lips moving as she read the elven.
"Emma solas him var din'an. Tel garas solasan. Melana en athim las enaste."
Grabbing the parchment, Rosa found a shaky handwriting over it, offering a translation to common. Arrogance became our end. Come not to a prideful place. Now let humility grant favor.
She stood upright again and snorted, shaking her head. That wasn't how she would have translated it. Written words in elven were always difficult to translate with complete certainty. Ivun had told her that before the fall of Arlathan written words in their language were always infused with magic to pass their true meaning along. That meant varying messages could be carried in the same text. Ivun could have written this inscription and passed two entirely different messages to her and Tal when they touched it. But would the magic in the inscription have survived so many ages?
Squinting again at the words to try and see any contextual clues in the shapes of the symbols, Rosa murmured aloud her own translation. "My pride became our death. Do not come to this place of pride." Frowning, she struggled to make sense of the next sentence. "May time grant humility."
What did the speaker really want to impart with this message? It seemed like a warning, which was suitable for a prison.
Glancing back at the smoldering Venatori camp, Rosa scowled. Why in the Void had they come here? What did the hope to find within this temple?
Through the mist of the waterfalls then Rosa saw movement and turned fully back toward the intrinsic pool. She saw Solas and Tal walking back through the water on their way to camp with a handful of soldiers and scouts, though the sound of their splashing steps was lost in the roar of the waterfall. Rosa took off jogging for the boarded up cave to her right, hoping to catch both men before they reached camp.
Returning to the canyons made Solas' stomach clench. It was an annoyance, weighing on his shoulders and making him lightly queasy. He knew it was the wards in the temple causing the reaction, but knowing that didn't lessen its impact.
He followed Tal, who seemed as jovial as usual, as they sloshed through the intrinsic pool. One of the scouts carried the two nugs they'd killed to serve as dinner, strung up on a bit of rope and slung over his shoulder. Tal kept whistling a tune Solas could almost name as they walked and the Inquisition troops seemed to appreciate his pleasant demeanor to compete with the slow-burning dread from the temple.
Suddenly they heard a voice calling to them. The group stopped, stiffening as they collectively reached for their weapons and searched the gathering darkness of the canyons for a threat. Yet, a moment later, everyone relaxed as Rosa appeared out of a nearby cave, shouting their names. The scouts and soldiers continued on after respectful nods at Solas and Tal—and Rosa, though she was much further away.
A few seconds later she was splashing through the water, grinning as she stabbed a finger up toward the ledge and the temple beyond. "I found a tunnel that connects to the entrance," she said, pivoting round and heading back toward the cave. "Come on!"
Tal was smiling and his brown eyes twinkled with excitement as he started after his sister—only to halt and jerk round to shoot Solas a puzzled frown. "Why the long face?"
Solas arched a brow. "My face has not changed, lethallin."
Tal rolled his eyes. "Smartass. You know what I mean." He elbowed Solas as they started walking again, jogging to keep up with Rosa as she entered the cave.
Sand clung to Solas' feet irritatingly as they left the pool and came to the embankment. He decided not to dignify Tal's chatter with a response. His stomach tightened more as they shimmied through the narrow hole Rosa had apparently made in a wooden blockade, judging by the scorch marks and the faint smell of wood smoke still lingering in the area. Solas heard spiders chittering from somewhere deeper in the tunnels and braced himself for battle, grabbing out his staff. Tal did the same after scrambling up a short ladder. Luckily the spiders didn't engage them.
Soon enough they reached another barricade and slipped through another charred, splintered hole, courtesy of Rosa. On the other side Solas saw the ledge that served as a vestibule for the temple's stone doorway. It was as he remembered it—magically sealed and made of hard stone that showed little sign of weathering. It would require shards, he knew, to open it.
The Evanuris—primarily June—had warded this place to make it resist Dreamers so that it could not be breached easily. In a time of magic the Evanuris had secured it by making the door and the so-called temple beyond difficult to access using magic. The shards had been left with each of the Evanuris to hide away in secure locations. June had designed the temple so that Falon'Din's prison could only be opened with all of the shards. The only way anyone could gain entry was to get every single Evanuris to agree to hand over their shards.
Dirthamen had managed just that a few centuries later, crowing for all to hear how desperately he wished to reunite with his "brother." And, one by one, the others had all caved. Mythal and Solas had been the last. Solas had only resigned his own shards at Mythal's urging. Had he refused any longer, she'd said, the others would have turned on him and placed him in Falon'Din's prison after waging war on him to forcefully take his shards. So Solas had submitted as well in the end. Better that he should remain free that he could fight on, trying to change Elvhenan's society and right the injustice of slavery.
A lot of good he had done with his freedom in the end.
"Okay," Rosa called to him, drawing Solas out of his melancholy memories. "You're the expert here. How do we get in?"
"It will require a certain artifact to open it," Solas told her, biting back the desire to groan with the coiling tension in his gut. The wards were by far strongest at the door—though Tal and Rosa were apparently too excited to feel it. "Several of them, in fact. They are shards."
"You don't know some kind of trick spell to get in?" Tal asked, shaking his head in what appeared to be disbelief. "Seriously, hahren?"
"No," Solas said, a touch snappish. "It was not meant to be easily accessed. It is a prison."
"What would the Venatori be doing here?" Rosa asked, motioning at the charred tents, crates, and other supplies that marked where the Venatori had been camped. "Do you think they had any of the shards?"
"Possibly," Solas answered, giving a half-hearted shrug.
"Are you cranky or what?" Tal asked, snorting. "Do you need to eat or something? I have some spindleweed…" He began fishing into a pouch at his waist.
Solas scrubbed over his face, heaving a sigh—before suddenly freezing with realization. Dropping his hands away from his face, Solas stared at the siblings, seeing their easygoing postures. "Tell me, Tal—" His eyes flicked to Rosa as he indicated her too. "Inquisitor—do either of you feel the least bit uncomfortable near this entryway?"
Tal cocked his head. "Huh?"
But Rosa grimaced. "Shit, I forgot about that already." She slugged Tal in the shoulder. "Do you remember the reports we had about this place?"
"We?" Tal parroted, smirking. "I think you forgot. I don't get reports on everything because I am just Talassan, beloved bastard of Ghilath."
"Oh, shut up, da'isamalin," Rosa retorted with a snort. "I know you had to have heard something about it. This temple gives off some kind of nasty feeling to everyone."
Tal smirked. "Funny. I feel fine. I like it here."
Rosa ignored him and looked to Solas. "You feel it too then?" Her brow furrowed and her eyes narrowed as she stared at him, but, after a moment, her lips twitched into a tight smile.
Solas stiffened, certain she was trying to read him with her talent for sensing lies. There was no reason for him to be on edge, but the wards in the temple made him irritable and tense with some deep primal fear. He sighed again and nodded. "I do feel the effects of the wards, yes."
"Odd," Rosa said, cocking her head and frowning.
"Hardly," Solas rejoined. Did she truly not understand why she and Tal were immune? Or was this a test for him? He was about to ask that but held himself in check for fear of revealing too much or slipping up in some other way. It was difficult to think around the tightness in his stomach and chest.
"I'm lost," Tal interjected with a nervous chuckle. "Can one of you please tell me why Rosa and I aren't affected?"
Solas hesitated, restraining his initial desire to answer. He stared at Rosa, waiting for her to take a stab at explaining. As the seconds ticked by with only the roar of the waterfall to fill it, Rosa finally shrugged. "I don't know for sure, but I'm guessing that the Creators are immune to the wards." Motioning between herself and Tal, she added, "You and I must have enough of their blood that the magic thinks we're one of them."
"Indeed," Solas said, nodding his approval. That was just close enough to being true that he didn't have to add anything. In reality, Solas knew the original wards should not have affected him. Discovering that they did had been an annoying surprise. The original wards had been designed to drive off anyone other than the Evanuris. Apparently Dirthamen or Falon'Din himself had changed the wards much later to exclude Solas and possibly others in the pantheon. Probably Dirthamen and Falon'Din were the only ones rendered immune.
And Rosa and Tal were their direct descendants, which had tricked the magic.
"Cool," Tal said, smirking. "Thanks, babae." He chuckled though his expression saddened.
Rosa's face was sympathetic as she looked at her brother but after a second she said, "I need you to pretend the wards do affect you, da'isamalin. Can you do that?"
Tal nodded. "Yeah. I can do that."
"It's weird though," Rosa said, cocking one hip out and grasping it with her hand as she stared at Solas, an unmistakable challenge in her violet eyes. "Why are you affected? You're descended from Mythal, aren't you?"
Solas tensed anew, struggling to hide the sudden flutter of panic in his chest. She had him with that detail….unless…
"I am a distant relative," he lied. "Too distant apparently to deceive the wards here."
Rosa nodded, her expression pensive. Whether she'd felt the lie or not, Solas couldn't say. But she seemed satisfied as she turned to the door and frowned at it. "So do you think there's any way in here?"
"The shards," Solas told her. "I am not aware of any other method."
She smiled at him, amusement twinkling in her gaze. "Are you sure I can't just part the walls?"
"That is not currently feasible," he told her stiffly, shooting Tal a quick look to gauge the other elf's reaction. Tal seemed mum, idly picking at his nails. "Magic is weaker now than it once was," he added to cover himself against questions regarding his use of the word currently. He didn't want to find himself stuck explaining the Veil's role in decimating Elvhenan and diminishing magic. Not yet, anyway. He also didn't want to reveal that he knew a great deal more about this place than he should—including that its wards prevented Dreamers like Rosa from just opening the door with their willpower.
She suddenly deflated, a look of grief twisting her features. "Oh—I'm sorry. I keep forgetting you weren't…" She let out a breath. "Never mind."
"I wasn't…what?" Solas asked her, arching one brow.
Rosa looked to Tal and then back at him. "You weren't really with me in the dark future at Redcliffe. Well, you were there. It just wasn't you. Anyway, there was a door there that had to be unlocked with red lyrium shards, but you…the other you told me I could just part the walls."
Solas nodded, swallowing as the ward-inspired tension gripped his throat anew. "I see." Though he knew it'd have been a death sentence for him, Solas wished he had seen her enjoying the full power of her birthright as a Dreamer, whole with the Fade at her back.
"Anyway," Rosa said with a dismissive wave of her hand. "I am not going to admit defeat at this point. I want inside this damned temple." She edged closer to the door, her palm hovering near it. "Do you think it'd be dangerous to taste the magic here?"
"No," Solas said and then, anxiously licking his lips, he opened his mouth to warn her against placing her marked left hand on it and then thought better of it. Snapping his mouth shut, Solas clenched his jaw before forcing himself to add, "It should be safe."
Tal laughed then from the left side of the doorway, where he'd walked during Rosa and Solas' most recent exchange. "Have you seen the inscription?" he asked both Rosa and Solas. "Emma solas him var din'an. Tel garas solasan. Melana en athim las enaste."
The words made Solas grimace with bitterness. That message was…not the same one he had seen here when they locked Falon'Din away. He smoothed his reaction as both siblings looked to him, expecting a response. They knew as well as he did that the words were difficult to gain absolute meaning from without context. Spoken elven was fairly easy to decipher because the speaker could gesture or add inflection. Written words required magic to be clear.
"Have you touched the inscription?" Solas asked.
"No," Rosa said with a shake of her head. "I had a bad experience touching the red lyrium shard door in Redcliffe so I haven't touched any of it."
Now Solas blinked at her, surprised. "How so?"
Rosa shook her head again. "It whispered in my head—nasty stuff. Creepy."
"Like the things you saw when you closed the breach?" Tal asked, making a face. "Varric's right. The weirdest shit happens to you."
The mention of the beings she'd seen in the Fade while closing the breach set Solas' shoulders stiffening. He shifted his weight from one foot to the other, his mana core bubbling with the instinctive need to lash out. Much of his anxiety was the wards influencing his mind, but nevertheless it reminded him that he had not managed to convince Rosa to let him remove her vallaslin. She would be vulnerable to any ancient demon—or the Evanuris themselves—that knew the compulsion spell.
Rosa snorted. "Shut up."
"I'm just saying!" Tal lifted both hands, palms out in a defensive gesture even as he grinned. "You want me to touch this one? Maybe it'll like me better."
"No," Rosa said, elbowing him to try and shoo him away from the door and the inscription. "I want you to stay clear of it where you'll be safe." She drew in a breath then and faced the doorway, extending her right hand—to Solas' great relief—and laid it on the stone. Long seconds ticked by as Solas and Tal watched. Rosa closed her eyes and tipped her head down. Her features were in shadow, unclear. The door glimmered, lighting up then as Rosa apparently activated the magic within. But in a few heartbeats the door went dark again.
Sighing, Rosa withdrew from it. "Damn," she cursed. "It's not creepy like the other door but I guess it doesn't like me enough to let me in."
"Abelas," Solas told her with a dip of his chin. "The magic securing it now is as strong as it was before the fall of Elvhenan."
"As it should be if it was designed by the Creators like you said," Rosa agreed. She stepped back, crossing her arms over her chest and glowering at the door. "I guess the red lyrium shard door didn't let me in either when I touched it, just talked to me. But damn. I did want to get in though. It's a shame…"
"Let me try," Tal said, pushing forward before Rosa could stop him. His hand slapped on the stone as Rosa tried to jerk him back but Tal shrugged her off. The door let out a metallic ring and lit up in white. The marks at the top of the door, slots for the shards, activated with a clatter and the door rumbled as it suddenly opened.
Tal jerked his hand back as both Solas and Rosa gawked with astonishment. He glanced at his hand and grinned. "Sylaise's sweet milky tits!"
Solas grimaced at the curse.
"It thinks I'm Falon'Din—or something," Tal said, grinning from ear to ear. He still held the hand out that had touched the door as if it was magical or marked like Rosa's. It wasn't that Solas could see, but he still had to resist a shudder of unease. Had the magic in this door truly spoken to Tal? Had it reacted to his blood lineage or had it recognized his talent, passed on from Falon'Din? Perhaps it required both to grant entry as it had apparently rejected Rosa.
Rosa cuffed her brother around the back of the head, though that did nothing to knock the grin off his face. "Don't touch anything else, felasil," she scolded. (Idiot)
Tal sniggered as she started to walk through the open stone doors. "You're just jealous, Herald."
"Children, children," Solas chastened with a weary sigh. "Enough." He started forward and immediately felt the grip of the wards leave him. Sighing with relief, he walked in after Rosa to find the temple had not changed much on the inside since he had last seen it. The antechamber was roughly square, pale stone tiles were mostly intact though a great number of them had popped out to the point they resembled cobblestones more than tile. Water dripped from the ceiling where countless hairy plant roots had borrowed in from above. It had been a gloomy place when it was first constructed, but the decay of the ages had not treated it well.
June's crafting and enchantment had been unable to preserve this place from the ravishes of time for all his skill. Without magic to actively keep nature from reclaiming it the so-called temple was fast becoming a ruin. Soon enough it would crack open from the top and allow tomb raiders and grave robbers to ford into it without bothering with the shards. Solas' own uthenera chambers had fallen to such a fate and only the magic wards outside his resting place had protected him.
Rosa walked to the left side of the room where a large stone sarcophagus stood with its lid tossed aside. A mummified corpse sat in a squatting position inside the cracked and crumbling remains of a large urn. She wrinkled her nose. "What was this?"
Solas frowned as his eyes swept from one side of the room, one sarcophagus to the other. They weren't uthenera chambers as Dreamers slept in pristine beds with white gossamer sheets. Those Dreamers who left their bodies behind and passed away would have been interred in sarcophagus like these, but Solas could think of no reason they had been left open like this or who would be placed in them to begin with. This had been a prison when he'd first seen it and the sarcophagi were a new addition. Attendants might be housed inside sarcophagi, warded to ensure they stayed in stasis until their master awoke. That seemed more likely over an actual burial. "I am…unsure."
"This isn't how lenalin described uthenera chambers," Rosa commented. She extended one hand out, tentatively laying her palm on it. After a moment she pulled back, touching her fingers together. Solas could see a layer of dark dust.
"They may have been sentinels," Solas hedged. At Rosa and Tal's confused look he added, "Guardians placed into a false uthenera called stasis using magic."
Tal motioned at the mummified corpse. "And what about that guy? Was he a sentinel too?"
"More likely a slave," Solas said, his voice deepening with solemnity. "Used as a sacrifice to fuel the magic." He snarled. "A barbaric and cruel practice, but I am not surprised that Falon'Din would employ it."
Rosa stepped gingerly away from the sarcophagus and deeper into the antechamber. With casual flicks of her wrist she lit the torches along the walls to both left and right. "So if this wasn't being used as a prison for Falon'Din anymore, what was it?"
"I'm sorry," Solas murmured. "I don't know. I only visited this place once with Mythal." He hoped neither Dalish sibling could see that he had started to form suspicions about the renovations to this place. He kept those to himself.
Rosa walked up the short stairs at the end of the antechamber toward a massive stone door in the same design as the entrance. Lighting the wall sconces to either side, she craned her neck and stared up at the stone door. "Another shard-door."
"Want me to open it?" Tal asked, grinning with pride.
Rosa laid her palm over the stone and again it lit up momentarily and then faded to nothing. She let out a breath and stepped back from it, glancing at Tal behind her. "Have at it."
Stepping sprightly forward up the short stairs, Tal slapped his palm over the stone door. Again it lit up in white and let out a shrill ring. Solas winced against the noise but stared unblinkingly with astonishment as once more the stone door opened, groaning as the ancient stone gave way. But this time Tal's whoop of joy was short lived and premature as a barrier crackled over the narrow entryway. The color was a deep crimson that immediately made Solas choke with horror.
"Tal! Get away from it!" he shouted.
Rosa snatched her brother's shoulder, hauling him back. The two of them stumbled down the stairs, frantically reaching for their staves. Solas' pounding heart eased as he saw neither sibling had touched the barrier.
"What is it, Solas?" Rosa asked without taking her eyes from the barrier.
"A blood magic barrier—and a very powerful one to have lasted this long," he told them, voice grave.
"What happens if I attack it?" Tal asked, daring to look at Solas over his right shoulder. He spun his staff about, as if getting a good feel for it or considering taking action even before he had the go ahead from Solas.
"I would not advise that," Solas said as he too gripped his staff. Stroking over his mana core, he reassured himself that he had the knowledge and the power to disrupt the spell if it came to that. "Your attacks will merely reflect back onto you. They cannot touch this barrier. A large enough dispelling or mindblast may penetrate it, however I suspect it may also be tainted with Blight."
"I thought that was Dirthamen's thing?" Tal asked, groaning.
"Have you forgotten your own lore, lethallin?" Solas asked tartly. "Falon'Din and Dirthamen worked in partnership so thoroughly that their accomplishments were rarely separate. Falon'Din used Dirthmen's Blight just as Dirthamen commanded legions of Falon'Din's charlatan priests to collect valuable secrets."
"Yeah, yeah," Tal grumbled. "Brothers. I get it."
"How do we get around it?" Rosa asked, jumping to the point. "Mindburst or dispelling?"
"Neither," Solas snapped. "It would be safest to leave it."
"What?" Rosa asked, almost squawking with disbelief as she looked at him with a frown. "Seriously? You want us to stop now?"
"Yes," Solas insisted. "This barrier is designed to prevent unintended and unworthy interlopers from accessing the center chamber beyond."
"Hey," Tal complained, glaring. "I am not some unworthy interloper, thank you very much!"
"To this temple you are," Solas told him firmly, gesturing at the barrier. "You are not one of Falon'Din's disciples."
"No," Tal said, still frowning. "I'm his great-grandson. I'm his kin."
Solas clenched his jaw, barely managing to hold back his angry retort. Falon'Din would happily enslave you and sacrifice you without a second thought if it furthered his ends. Saying that would reveal how well he knew the other Evanuris and he could not risk that. Instead Solas gave a vehement shake of his head. "It is too risky. The magic here will seek something specific to prove your loyalty to Falon'Din. Your gift is almost certainly not enough to allow you passage. And if you fail you will be infected with Blight."
"Then why can't we just destroy it?" Rosa demanded, gritting her teeth as she snarled at the barrier as if it'd personally offended her.
"It will splatter in a way other barriers do not. If touched…"
"Blight," Tal growled. "Yeah, I get it. How do we shut this damn door then?"
"Back away," Solas suggested. "The magic should reset itself and close the door."
Rosa and Tal retreated further away to join Solas more in the center of the antechamber. A few steps away from the short stairs to the main chamber the stone door groaned and swung shut. The barrier disappeared behind it and, finally, all three elves relaxed.
"Well," Tal said with a sigh as he returned his staff to his back. "That sucked balls. Completely pointless."
"Perhaps," Solas conceded, rubbing one hand over his face as he glanced back at the sealed main chamber door again. "But our true reason for being here was not to uncover the secrets of this place—merely to prevent the Venatori from accessing it. We have already accomplished that."
"At a ridiculous cost," Rosa snapped, shooting him a glare. "We lost a lot of good men and women today in the ambush and we don't have any idea why the Venatori were here."
Solas offered her a wan smile. "That should be apparent." At her withering look Solas motioned to her left hand. "You possess the Anchor and Corypheus requires it to access the Fade and the Black City. He is seeking out Elvhen ruins in the hope that he will find another orb."
Tal snorted and broke out into snickering laughter. "Didn't he go on about how he made the orb to begin with? Elgar'nan's fiery cock, that's hilarious. He's full of shit and he knows it."
Even Rosa was smirking slightly as she made the connection. "I wondered if he knew it was Elvhen or not. I guess this proves it." But her shoulders fell a moment later. "Still, I feel like this was a wasted trip if we can't…" Breaking off she gestured exasperatedly at the closed stone door to the center chamber before letting her hands slap back to her sides.
Solas nodded. "I'm sorry, Inquisitor," he told her somberly. Inwardly he still felt pleased they had come here. Stopping the Venatori was worthwhile in itself, even if it didn't fully satisfy Rosa, but more so Solas had had the chance to let her and Tal see the casual cruelty of one of their ancestors. His gaze flicked to the mummified corpse in the crumbling urn and he sighed with real regret—for the men and women who'd died today in the ambush as well as the helpless slaves who'd been sacrificed at the whims of a false-god.
Tal turned slightly, following Solas' line of sight, as did Rosa. "So that guy was a slave?" he asked.
"Yes," Solas replied with a solemn nod. "Most of the Evanuris used slaves like this. In some ways, his death would have been a mercy as it ended an immortal life of suffering."
Rosa's features twisted with something akin to pain. "The vallaslin are slave markings," she said in a quiet voice, glancing between both Solas and Tal. "So if Falon'Din was actually imprisoned here and we woke him up he would see us as slaves."
"Yes," Solas affirmed.
"And what about when he learned we're kin?" Tal asked with a tight smile.
Solas clenched his jaw and shook his head once, curt and firm. "I doubt that would have mattered to him." He glanced to Rosa as he added, "Or Dirthamen. Both were fond of sacrifice and blood magic. They cared little for the lives of those beneath them, including their own kin."
Tal frowned. "Then I guess I'm glad the Dread Wolf locked them away." He paused, smirking. "He did lock them away, right? Falon'Din isn't actually in uthenera in that chamber, right?"
Solas tried to keep his heart from suddenly racing, to give away nothing. "That much was clear from the Fade as I slept, yes." He smiled lightly as he added, "We can be reasonably confident Falon'Din is not behind that barrier."
"Good," Rosa said and then glanced at the entrance and grimaced. "It's dark outside. We should get back to camp before Cassandra starts worrying or Sera and Iron Bull start coming up with creative reasons all three of us are gone."
"You mean like we're out here having a threesome?" Tal quipped.
Solas immediately frowned and felt his face flush all the way to his ears.
Rosa glowered with disgust at her brother and then slugged him in the shoulder. "Sildela!" (wrong thoughts/risqué/pervert) she scolded. "Are you really so sex-starved you'd see me as attractive?"
"I didn't say I was thinking that," Tal protested, flinching as he darted ahead to avoid another angry swat from Rosa. "I was saying Iron Bull and Sera might think that." Safely outside the temple on the landing, Tal looked back at them through the entrance and shoved a finger into his mouth, making a gagging noise. "Seriously, asamalin, you know even the thought of you naked makes me want to swear off women altogether."
"One more word out of your perverted mouth, Tal, and I swear I'll—"
"Look at Solas," Tal interrupted, pointing. Solas frowned, silently willing Tal's mouth to sew itself shut. "He's blushing. Give you one guess what he's thinking about right now. And you, Rosa, you're blushing too. Now who's sex-starved?"
Solas started to protest but Rosa acted first by flinging a bit of fire at Tal. The wily young elf merely leaned clear of the doorway to let it fly past him and hit the sand outside. He let out mischievous cackle from somewhere out of sight in the darkness. "See you back at camp!"
Rosa let out a deep-throated growl off to Solas' right, a few paces away. "There are some days I just want to strangle him…"
"There are some days I am tempted to help you," Solas quipped, finding a playful smile had leapt to his lips.
They stared at one another in the flicker of the dull yellow-orange torches burning on the walls. The roots overhead dripped water in a melodic tinkle every so often. Solas knew he should excuse himself or encourage her to walk with him back to camp but the glimmer of her violet eyes over her sun-kissed skin held him spellbound. Tal hadn't been wrong earlier when he accused Solas of having less than pure thoughts about Rosa.
But then Rosa dipped her chin to him, smiling in a way that was both tender and a touch melancholy. "I should get back to camp." She started walking for the entrance, her bare feet splattering on the puddles in the loose tiles on the floor. "See you around, flat-ear," she said teasingly as she exited.
Alone in the temple now, Solas sighed. He gazed around at the guttering torches and the decay of the old world—his world—all around him. The mummified corpse trapped in its urn kept grabbing his eye, throttling his heart with guilt. He could almost hear its voice in his head: You owe me, Dread Wolf. You owe all of us.
Frowning, Solas left the temple.
Next Chapter
He let out a little strangled sound. "This is hardly an appropriate place," he protested, but she could hear the moan underlying the words.
Rosa turned his chin away, attacking his ear instead. She nibbled the lobe and then licked along the point. The groan and shudder that elicited made her chuckle throatily. "Then come to my tent tonight," she whispered into his ear. "We both know you want to." She bit the pointed tip of his ear, hard enough that he gasped. "Don't make me beg, flat-ear."
Thank you to Random Rockets! Great to hear from you again! And yes, both Solas and Rosa are getting better at exposing the truth. More to come!
Thank you also to Sutet! Thank you for reviewing so often! You're spot on with that observation though. No matter what he does to lay groundwork...the "I killed your dad" news is going to be really, really rough. But no one ever said Solas was full of good ideas! Well, except for Solas himself right up until hindsight showed him he was wrong.
As we get closer to Here Lies the Abyss, where I'm going to break canon all over the place as usual, my end game will reveal itself. *mischievous cackling* My beta thoroughly approved when she realized where this will go long term. Looking forward to you guys seeing it too!