There was the boy, but the spiteful woman was nowhere to be seen. Just as planned, Marlo was waiting in the same out of the way corner by the gatehouse that they'd all spotted the night before. Quiet and concealed, the location was perfect for a regrouping. Behind an old, broken caravan whose axis had been shattered in two, the derelict junction amid the longstanding structures was far enough off the main path that few would chance by the spot on accident.
Dawn wasn't far off now. The night was at its deepest. Merely the cold, distant stars and rare lamplights penetrated the dense blackness. Only the wish to cross and quickly fall asleep kept him going, so that he may dream and seek the Inquisitor as promised. Solas could feel the long hours weigh sorely upon his eyes, burning acidic between refreshing, heavy blinks. It was not the time, however, to become tired, not until they were safe on the other side. Perhaps it was his age that was finally catching up to him, but the mage was not so old as to give in to every moderate discomfort of his body.
He brushed away at the nervous twinge that crept up his spine as he approached the silent lad, noticing a flighty flick of the boy's gaze that didn't appear to relieve his own anxiety. They were so crucially close, a meager wall of iron and stone and wood stood between them and the last sprint to freedom. This arrangement held such untellable importance, every tactic hinged on its success, yet he took no joy in bringing it nearer to fruition. Every choice he'd ever made had hurt so many.
Still, he could not leave Chiyo to be the last in a long line of victims. Not this time, not when he needed her as much, if not more, than she needed him.
This he would fix, not only for the sake of his plans but to finally make amends for taking nearly all the magic away. The birthright of the elves, the power that should have sung in each and every one of their veins. He'd been too proud to think they would have survived the wages of men without it, that they would have remained their equals if not their betters.
He'd been wrong. And for that mistake, he would pay the greatest penalty.
Solas waved once and received a sharp nod, noting that it was safe and they were unfollowed.
"Has your Master forsaken you yet again? Twice in one day, a tad excessive for such a shrewd creature." From his pack, he produced a small, meat and vegetable filled pouch made of chewy bread. Still warm, the thin, waxy paper wrapped around the meal was spotted with grease, too sodden to crinkle as it was offered to the voracious Tevinter youth.
"Privvy. Nature called." Solas saw Marlo's hand tremble as it reached out, hesitant at first before accepting the quick dinner. Long fingers closed around the food, but he held it to his side instead of tucking in like a famished young man should.
"Ah, then we shall wait for her to return." Said Solas, curious as to the drained complexion his companion was taking on and the damp appearance of his skin. Hunger should not have agonized him so though perhaps Solas had forgotten with the years what it had been like to grow into a man. How many extra helpings he had snuck from the kitchen late in the evening and fruits plucked from the trees while exploring those primary years. The healthy fat of his adolescence had not followed him long into maturity, leaving him nearly as rakish as Marlo by the time he'd reached his full height. Decades still before the narrowness of his neck matched the width of his jaw, the knobby bones of his shoulders filled to fit the span of his long arms. Marlo was a few years from that completion, his hands and feet too large for his limbs. But he had the look about him as if he'd been born starving and had never had the chance to recover from all those lacking suppertimes.
"Ya, sure…" No thanks followed, only the firm settling of the boy's attentions on his dirty boots. He wouldn't look at Solas and he shifted subtly away when the elven mage took to the shadowy wall beside him.
He watched him swallow dryly and pick at the wrapper; maybe this adventure was too much for him. Fear conquered hunger uncontested, a man could go for miles with nothing to sustain him if the urgency were there. One could always eat after they survived; better to live than taste a last meal instead.
"Eat while we have the moment, tomorrow shall be swift but I hope the road to be easier on us all." Solas tried to assure, his next glance to Marlo revealed more than fretful nausea. Gangly fingers clenched around the pastry, squishing some of the innards out. He stopped himself short of mushing the whole thing by shoving it deeply into his coat pocket. Sweat now beaded the boy's brow and his breathing sounded near ragged. "Are you well?"
"Yes." It was harsh, even for as blatantly rude he'd been known to be. Marlo loosened the frayed end of the scarf coiled about his neck to mop at his face. His other hand moved to conceal his throat, but not before Solas spotted a line of red running across the briefly exposed skin.
A warning screamed across his mind when Solas reached to reveal the wound, a dagger drawn the moment he grasped Marlo's elbow brought all his ignored instinct to a head.
His protective ward popped to life within a hair's breadth of being grazed as he held back the other, bruised and scratched wrist beneath a knife too ornate to belong to the hand that held desperately onto it. Solas heard the marching of boots and the clink of armor from both sides of the passageway shortly before he saw the men in silver armaments, a sword emblazoned on each chest plate, and red robes hanging down their fortified legs.
"I'm sorry! I didn't have a choice!" Marlo struggled, trying to break the hold, caught in a clash with the larger man. A cut stood out in the open air, dried, beaded blood marked the line dividing his neck. Solas doubted immediately it had been put there by the boy's own hand.
"There is always a choice." His blue eyes were wide, almost glowing with the magic he'd drawn upon by instinct and years of warfare. Solas didn't want to believe for a moment what was rapidly being revealed, to have come so far only to be betrayed.
"They said I could go home!" The runaway slave stumbled when he was abruptly released, striking the dilapidated side of the abandoned cart with force. He knocked one of the leaning, disconnected wheels over, spooking a white cat out from under its hiding place.
The desperate stare hit Solas hard as Templars flanked the lad, one reached to hold him up by the shoulder. The gauntlet grasped too firmly to be friendly, the silent forewarning made excessively apparent. One wrong move and they wouldn't hesitate in snuffing the kid as well if it meant leashing a powerful mage in his place. Marlo stood, frozen by the touch, his hand remained tight about the blade another knight offered to take back from him. With cautious cajoling, the knife was loosened and returned to a sheath.
Solas held the spells pulsing in his palms and dancing along his fingers at bay, he hadn't moved for his staff yet. Now was not the time to let the ice issue forth wanting for a plan, with but a thought it would coat his limbs and chest as another encapsulating layer. He considered the Templars, choosing a side that would be easier to break through. Heavily fortified and prepared for battle, there would be causalities no matter which way he went.
The livid cat had woven itself between Marlo's ankles, every snowy hair puffed high off its back and tail. A low snarl whined through the stifling alley, but he kept his feet steadfastly and protectively planted around the small animal.
"Apostate, you are under arrest by order of the Chantry for crimes against humanity and principal decency. The unlicensed magic is the least of the offenses your captives have revealed to me. This tirade against civilians ends now." The senior Sister among them spoke clearly, her voice sharp as the long swords of the guards at her side. She commanded these men, and their revered silence showed the absolute belief and obedience demanded of them. No one so much as stepped forward without her signal.
Carefully, Solas lifted his hands to the level of his bald head. Not once did he break the hard stare he'd captured with Marlo, reading every tensing of his jaw and quiver that shook his narrow chest. "One can only guess as to the lies you have been fed Sister, these people have been my traveling companions and nothing more."
"How does that explain the atrocious marks all over that child's body? And the allegations by the woman, Maker, I have never heard of a man so deranged. She was lucky to have escaped you." They were surrounded now, the soldiers crowding ever closer. Solas could almost feel their breath in waves on the back of his neck.
"You would be fool to believe everything you hear." Solas kept his cadence calm, it was not to the faithful woman he spoke to, but to Marlo. He couldn't react, even as he sensed a brave soul slip his plain staff from its holster, not at the cost of another who'd been dragged into his mess unwittingly and without knowledge. This was not the boy's fault, but his own. "They were not in any danger, least from me."
"On your knees." Two sets of gauntlets met his wrists, the metal fingers encircled his bones. He allowed the muscle behind them to send him to the ground though the added kick to hurry the joints was unwarranted. He grimaced, suffering to be disarmed and removed of his travel pack.
"Wait…" Marlo whispered between shuddering lips as the proud man went down. This wasn't supposed to end like this; he knew that though he'd been told the plan in full. They were going to capture the wicked mage, with force if necessary. If they couldn't make a use and profit of him with bridling, they'd brand him Tranquil. If he fought too much to merit the effort, they'd simply kill him as an example to others. Ghislain held no tolerance for mages outside of their circles or necropolises this close to Orlais, they could not be seen as weak and overrun as their northern, heretical brothers.
"Are you going to come quietly?" One of the guards asked gruffly, keeping his unwavering grasp on the potentially hostile mage.
"There is always a choice…" Solas repeated, the clank of shackles met his ear as they were loosened from a belt. A tightening of the boy's hands into combative fists at his sides was all the permission he needed to let the full fury of winter seep from his core, freezing the arms of the men who slapped the first heavy bracelet to his wrist. Icy crystals formed up the polished steel and his imprisoners screamed as their hands were turned painfully cold, unusable blocks of frozen flesh.
As the first knight shouted Marlo twisted, pulling the recollected dagger from the sheath on the nearest Templar's hip. With one slash he drew it across his forearm, straight through his clothes and the flesh below. He cast the blood, though not at any person but down at his own feet. It splashed, brilliant red against the cat's fur, changing the small animal into a massive beast with a caustic swirl of smoke.
Paws the size of dinner plates, fangs and claws that would send even the stoutest mabari cowering. Kitty was gone and in his place a terrifying lion as white as snow but for the smear of offered blood on his snarling face and shaggy mane.
A feline shriek pierced the night, and a red moon would rise next over Ghislain.
Solas did not recognize this dream, misty with the rising dawn as it were. He could not place the location for all his travels and the thinning fog only served to partially blind the elf. His memories and experiences with the Dalish were limited at best and far from peaceful, but he knew their aravels immediately. This arrangement was certainly more than just one of the nomads' temporary settlements. Clusters of vessels with dulled crimson sails lined the whole embankment as far as his eye could see through the murky shroud.
With their bows all pointed towards the clouded sea, the land-ships stood as eerie markers of the elves who'd once left them there. Buried up to their spokes, the bottoms of the hulls were in the soft, earthy sand. They'd been there a while, the sediment had swirled in graceful eddies that lay undisturbed until he crossed through.
A limping trail of impressions marred the naturally smooth surface. Each slowly filled with water, tiny pools of his fleeting touch tracked singularly up the ghostly gray shoreline.
He was so tired, so spent, even here he could feel the added toll of the injuries left upon his physical body. Only a few years out of utherna and already Solas wore exhaustion as a near constant cloak. For a time the Fade had served to restore him, he'd take his fill of it each night and awaken renewed by its forces. But for the last few months, he'd been slowly scraping away to the bottom of his energy's own barrel. With little time for rest and poor access to food, his ancient body simply could not keep up with the demands he made of it.
There wasn't much left now and the journey was not yet done.
The sun never seemed to rise any higher than the bare crest of the distant horizon. Miles slipped away beneath his unwrapped feet, but the aravels slowly grew sparser apart and more broken. Keels had large cracks leaving decomposed splits in the wood. Masts had fallen over, allowing the once proud, heavy fabric to rot away on the ground. Some were left toppled on their sides, leaving their planked bellies exposed to the tide and spray, crusting them with salt while they collapsed under their own weight.
Solas then came to stop before an aravel that had been forcibly dragged back from the water's edge, uprooted from its muddy grave and propped up higher on the pebbly slope. Parts and pieces of other housings had been used to make a few repairs, reinforcing holes in the hulls and patches over the ragged sails that had been repurposed into a canopy roof. He approached the rough shelter and halted when he caught sight of a faint green light passing beyond the darkened open entry. There were no door or hinges where one had long since been ripped away.
With added caution, he drew near. Solas took note of the small litter of fragmented bones off to the side and the hollow, wide depressions too large for the petite woman he was after. They were much too blurred to have been made recently. Solas' fingers brushed the splintered trim, catching on the rough grain as he poked his head inside. Instantaneously the overwhelming scent of noxious herbs swept over his senses, the heady musk of mushrooms, drying boughs and barks that made his head swim with a groggy, stifling pungency. The combination threatened to make him drowsy and numb, but a touch of mental magic quickly fortified him against the foreign effects.
A dissipating breath cleared his perception enough to produce a few balls of light, erasing the dark shadows as they hovered through the cluttered space. It was a scratchy rifling behind the partition that brought him forward to find the Inquisitor leaning nearly half-inside of an old, dented leather trunk. He observed for a moment as she continued her unremitting toss of disregarded items, already a small pile of castoffs had built up around her knees. Chipped wooden bowls, incomplete squares of embroidery, handfuls of loose buttons, unraveled foot bindings, arrow shafts, wads of twine, threadbare tunics, tarnished spoons, all of it, scooped out like the innards of a gourd.
"It has to be here." Her focus was so fixed on the search that the Inquisitor didn't even flinch when a hand embraced her shoulder and settled on the cold curve of naked skin at the crest of her arm. She was dressed much too thinly for the crisp morning. Solas knew her to bundle in cozy sweaters and layers at the first hint of a chill, and now she didn't so much as shiver. She had survived their last encounter, but her mind was clearly amiss for its ingenuity. The cost, though, came at the failings of her emotional state.
"What do you seek in this place, my heart?" This was most certainly her dream though the level of detail recalled was beyond any he'd witnessed from the same mage only a few seasons prior. Timid and always remaining close to the places she actually was, Chiyo was not the venturesome dreamer that now stooped before him. This entire landscape was constructed by her doing and memory, seamless and complete, suited to her whim and temperament.
Without coaxing, she pulled away from the container, her face marred with frustration. Dusty hands pushed the overgrown hair from her brow though the waves would not obey the command for long.
"It's somewhere, it has to be. If Tamaris had one then there must be others." She gripped the trunk's carved ironbark edge, decorated with rudimentary imagery of young children linked in a playful dance. She still scanned the jumbled contents for what precious token had been lost.
"I can do many things, ma'lath, but I do not possess the gift of reading minds. Not even here." Fretful hands slipped down her arms, persuading her further till she stood up among the mess, knocking several rejected items over in her wake. She did not turn to confront him, her mission unfulfilled, the Dalish elf continued to scour.
"It struck me as we were leaving, she was holding the babe while Vahari said goodbye. That was Tassali's sylvanwood ring." Chiyo's head lolled when the worried mage gently swept several loose strands behind her ears. His fingers lingered over the icy tips, holding them in an attempt to impart some of his warmth. "She must have kept it secret while I'd been a child, but I'd know a Keeper's ring on any finger. A reminder of the great betrayal, to stay ever vigilant and cautious for the sake of our People."
"They took her, all of her, from me. Am I responsible, it should be my burden to bear…" Solas relinquished his hold with the first low, predatory growl, but the noise changed to that of a troubled sigh when the small mage turned on her heels. "I need something in this damned world to be real, to make sense because every time I wake up the rules have changed and the truth is altered to be easier to swallow."
There was no light in her eyes, the brown hardened and compact as trampled earth. Her gaze was muddied by the dark, tired bruising below. Had Solas not known her in person he would have never thought Chiyo's pallid cheeks, depleted of all their hue and drawn taut over the bones, to have ever held joy. The Inquisitor's fine chin stuck out too sharply, stretched far away from a sinewy throat and collar. Solas stopped himself from looking much further than the shrunken breasts atop the stretched muscle behind the gaping divide of the thin slip. This was how she saw herself now. Unable to forgive, the punishment had been inflicted upon her own flesh. "I killed a child, my own cousin, so why didn't I pay that price?"
"Chiyo… Ir abelas." The name slipped from his lips without warning, but even the soft, consoling syllables were enough to wrinkle the woman's nose.
"Do not come here to offer me pity, I don't want any either." Her white teeth flashed, exposing briefly the light color of her gums. He did not remember her teeth to have been so sharp, each in its correct shape had gained a razor-edge.
"You knew too, didn't you? And said nothing." Her tongue struck the back of those severe incisors with a harsh click.
Solas slowly tucked his hands behind his hips as she spoke, convinced if he were to reach out and touch her again that he stood to lose a few fingers. "I would not consul you on your own history, my discoveries were accidental. It seemed crueler to torment you with details that held no resolve."
He was a better liar than to glance away, but to see hatred cross her features was enough to make any man waver.
"Bullshit." Her eyes grew wide and she stared nearly through him, with an angry step forward Chiyo drove him back. "How long? When did you start lying to me?"
The elf's lips failed to move. They held a hard crease on his stern face when the words remained unsaid.
"How long did you know about my mother, about what I had done?" She demanded again, one foot crossed the other, sightlessly slipping around the clutter.
He took a breath, feeling the pull of the endless line of truths he'd kept hidden, a rusted chain of honesty. Each a weighty link attached to the others, pieces that traced back to the very beginning, back to the anchor that lay deepest beneath it all. But there was no more running, not from her, not from this. He might die before getting another chance if his luck continued on the same darkening path.
"I knew something was wrong when you lay bleeding in my arms, reciting stories of your youth. A mage born in blood, striking fear into the hearts of all… I knew of the binding next when I traced your constricted magic to its source. It was Wisdom, whom you helped me release, that revealed to me a memory deep within the Fade. Of a Keeper with a terrible choice to make with few good options to spare. I have sought to release you, to give you back what should have always been yours… You cannot fight Corypheus in this state." His chin dropped, matching the quietness of his tone. "There are… concerns."
Solas felt his words come up short, there was a risk in telling her too much of a future yet to be. What if in divulging to her he made things worse. That knowledge would be what drove the Inquisitor to that last act of destruction. Knowing that fate might solidify it indefinitely, a self-fulfilling prophecy.
There were things that were better left said in person, not in the ever mutable Fade.
"What made you believe you had the right to keep this from me?" Solas did not flinch as a fist was made around a handful of the warm wool of his shirt. He closed his eyes to the building fury that glowered up at him from below. In truth, no reason would suffice, it had all been done to alleviate is own selfish anxieties and protect his crumbling plans. From the very start, he'd measured much of what she'd been allowed to learn, keeping on the perfectly poised mask till almost the end.
"Didn't you love me enough," He heard the accusation catch in her throat. "Even for that?"
All of his inward focus burst forth at the notion and he glared at the elf, startled with surprise by the swiftness in which she was grabbed. He did not wish to bear down upon her, but Chiyo's upsetting words all but shattered the heavy mask behind which he caged his emotions.
"Love you?" She shrank away with his cruel and serious laugh, pulling against the immovable hold he'd taken of her strong arms. The ground beneath them began to quake, leaving the warp boards to groan with the strain. "I have nearly ruined this abysmal world to keep you safe. Alive. I could not even begin to describe the actions I have taken, the rules I have broken, the changes made to my plans in protecting you. Tangled so deeply within me, that you have become my very heart. Ma'nas falon! All of this, the lies and the leaving, all that I have yet to do, is because of this terrifying love that will not forsake me even if I beg it to."
Too angry to fully back down, Chiyo's chest rose with the swell of the words she spat back. "How has running away solved any of this? Things have gotten worse or have you not seen the rifts that—"
"I opened them." He interrupted with the placid and weighty admission. Solas would have smiled, were the situation not so grave, at the spark of light that shone anew in the eyes he peered into through hooded lids. "I knew they would distract you. The research on the Veil, that is another thanks I must offer to you. It proved to me how truly weakened the magic had become. With your efforts, it is nearly whole once more."
"We have been trying to save people, Solas, not risk more of them." The skin beneath his hands grew warmer, rapidly losing its deathly chill. A little more, he would goad the life back into her is that's what it took. A soul entrapped in ice would not do, he needed that fire she hid so well. Chiyo's rage would fuel her forward and she would find him with daggers drawn. Solas was certain of this callous plan.
He thought of his actions in the ruins beneath the Dead Hand, of the elves that had helped him destabilize the troublesome Veil. Their lives too had been gambled though the necessity hadn't negated his guilt in the slightest. "It was a calculated maneuver, and you were not the only one to balance sacrifices and lives."
"You have to end this," Steam hissed between her snarled lips as the air around them crackled with tiny floating flames. Like fireflies, they settled onto the wooden beams and soon their color spread, burning away the shadows with rapidly increasing light. "I will not have you hurting others for my sake. I'm not worth their lives!"
He felt the first hot licks at his heels, it would be but a moment before the entire aravel went up in smoke. "And how would you stop me?"
"Solas!" The fire was hungry, having waited so long.
There wouldn't be a scrap left of this dream by the time the flames had their fill.
Someone once told me that humans flee when they see the sails of our aravels flying above the tops of trees. I say, good, let them flee. The humans took everything from us-our homeland, our freedom, our immortality. What's a little fear compared to all the horrors inflicted upon us? I recite the Oath of the Dales to myself each day when I sleep and when I wake: "Never again shall we submit." Never again.
The Keeper says that one day the Dalish will find a home that we can call our own. But why? Why should we tie ourselves to stone constructions like the humans and the dwarves? What is wrong with the life we have now? We owe nothing to anyone, we have no master but ourselves, and we go where the halla and the gods take us. There is nothing more wonderful than sitting on an aravel as it flies through the forest, pulled by our halla. We are truly free, for the first time in our people's history. Why should we change this?
(Codex)- From the journal of Taniel, clan hunter.