The frosty precipice reminded one of Tarasyl'an Tel'as, if one were inclined to draw such comparisons. Often, the elf had wondered if this familiar landscape had always existed in the space between worlds, or if somehow his own restless yearning had conjured it up. Regardless, it was a home, of sorts. A base of operations, a ground zero in the preparation for the upcoming battle. He had little doubt it would be a battle. The funny thing about people who exist in a certain reality is that they are often averse to changes to that reality. Changes that might bring about the very end of that reality entirely were even less well-received. It was a prospect he never found particularly appealing, but the necessity of his machinations had overridden any queasy qualms about the ultimate conclusion of this plan.

The world would burn, and like the phoenix of fables, the great civilization that was meant to be would rise from those ashes.

Solas reclined in his high-backed chair, his armored arms glinting in the firelight. He had objected to the chair at first, pointing out to Mithra that it uncomfortably resembled a throne. She had insisted, stating that the meaning behind such a chair was not necessarily an indication of rule, but rather one of wisdom. Easy to find the person in the most elaborate seat in the room, and discern that was the one you had to convince. He managed a smile that looked more like a grimace, reminding himself that it also served as a target: slice here to remove the head of this great beast of revolution.

The hall was empty, the fires low. This was the time, more than any other, that his thoughts returned to her.

The wind was a dull howl, scattering the ash and dried leaves in this place of battle and death. In the distance, the cries of the masses, realizing that victory was had, rose to a clamor. Soon, she would be among them, celebrated and raised on high. A religion in her own right, eclipsing Andraste herself because Evelyn Trevelyan was flesh and blood. She was real. A living god in human form, turned gleaming golden in the sunlight. With her back to him, her hair and armor glowing ethereal, she looked every bit the part.

The orb of da'lanis lay shattered at his feet, the deep hollows inside now exposed, mirroring the echoing emptiness inside his chest. All he had fought for, all he had gained, lost. He had hoped that the choice would be his to make, which path to take. In one moment, that choice was made for him.

Her boots on stone, standing over his crouched self. "I'm sorry, Solas." Even after everything, wanting to console him, make him feel whole. He rose to his feet, to face her. In her eyes, he saw the questions she didn't dare ask. Not now, not with the world screaming her name.

"Your people are calling for you. You should go to them."

"The Maker can take the people. They aren't mine. You…" her gaze fell, the lower lip quivering slightly. He wasn't hers, either. Not any longer. "Do the elves have a word for 'heartbroken?'"

His eyes snapped shut, he took a deep breath in, shook his head. "There is no word for this feeling, vhenan." He saw her react to the word as if slapped, wincing, her eyes squinching shut. "No words, elven or otherwise. That is why it hurts this way. Too many feelings and not enough words to describe them." Solas took her chin in his hand, raised her face to his. Her eyes were threatening to brim over and it made his throat feel thick. He dipped his head against hers, not trusting himself to kiss her. "This was real. What happened between us. It was real. And I am very sorry."

"Wh-" her question interrupted by her advisors, running toward her, Josephine calling out.

He considered the prospect of abandoning it all. Scooping her up, carrying her away, doors closed against the world and nothing between them, nothing to hold either of them back. Let everything and everyone sort themselves out and just be with her. Forever.

He didn't. He somehow managed to resist that primal urge and turned from her, the image of her hair backlit by the fading sun burned into his memory. Something to save, something to savor. Something to tuck away in the far corner of his mind, brought out when the feeling overwhelmed him. Much as he had saved the scent of her skin when she came in from the rain, the delicate way she chewed on the pad of her thumb while she read, the soft sighing noises she made before she woke, the soft sighing noises she made when he touched her.

Within the hour he would be untraceable. By dawn even her farest-ranging scouts would find no trace.

He stared out at the mountains beyond the narrow window. This was, by far, his favorite form of torture: recalling the moment, the very final moment he saw her. They had maintained their distance, dancing the careful dance of hurt and anger, for the weeks before that final battle. Harden your heart. Sharpen it as you would a blade. Words spoken to her, but meant as a mantra for himself.

Keep your distance, protect yourself, shield your feelings as you do your thoughts.

Words he had to live by. Words he should have listened to months before he'd nearly destroyed them both.

Outside the leaded glass window, the wind howled. You cannot dream away the events of the past, that much was certain. He could not change the circumstances of her birth, nor of her reality; the reality where he had left her alone and marked in various ways. Why did it have to be Evelyn Trevelyan to appear and disrupt the ritual? Why did she have to be the one to absorb a power she was too mortal to survive? He would have to take her arm, and with it her worldly power. He could remove the poison, but not entirely the disease. She would still be infected, although it might be years before the effects of that infection spread to her mind. Still, he had hoped to be the one to help with that transition. Had there been time, had the orb not been destroyed, he could have done things differently. There were places, reachable by those with knowledge, where time moved at a slower pace. Places where he could have hidden her away with all the time in the world to research and find a way to remove the shard safely. Removing the shard from her flesh might have removed both the threat and the presence now waiting within her. But now it was too late.

He slipped off where he sat, his own musings and sad rememberings making his mind too weary to carry his body up the stone steps to his bed.

The dream was familiar.

Dark, red, smoke and soot all around him and the intense throbbing pang of something lost, something missing from the picture laid before him. This was a place of devastation, heartbreak, and it made his very spirit ache to walk within it. The orb shattered, then reformed. She stood with her back to him, then face to face. Her smile sad, her eyes angry, her words accusing. She reached for him, suddenly, her voice changing and twisting into something ancient and cruel as she spoke the name that should never cross her lips.

With a start, he awoke, finding fingers pressing into the flesh of his wrist. Sabrae stood above him, her hair falling forward and masking her face. "You were talking in your sleep again, hahren." Her words were tinged with an edge of tease. Sabrae had come to the cause from an alienage, and her manner was often blatant, coarse. A method that was likely successful with the human males she used to pickpocket. He was not so blind to notice her advances, and fortunately was experienced enough to know how to pretend he did not see them, and deflect.

"Ah," he straightened up in his seat, carefully withdrawing his arm from her grasp. "Yes. I was attempting to rest my eyes before my journey." His words surprised them both.

"Are you leaving us, then?" she asked, folding her arms beneath her breasts in a practiced move, meant to emphasize. She had undoubtedly disarmed enough to kill in her past. "Where are you off to this time?"

Solas looked away, frowning deeply. In his mind, memories of the dream filtered through, flipping like pages in a book. Evelyn's gaze searing through the smoke and shadow, seeing him as he truly was. Powerful and vengeful, backed by an army willing to die for her love, driven by a force given power by the magicks that ripped through her veins like an infection.

His heart seized in his chest, but he managed to keep his words even. "The mountains. There is something there I seek. Something most dear to me."