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Merrill bent over Hawke's still form, laying a gentle hand along the side of Hawke's face. "Wake up, lethallan," she whispered.
"She will recover," said a calm voice behind her, and Merrill looked over her shoulder to see Solas standing there.
"Where were you? We— I— You were needed!"
"I had to look for something." A spasm of pain crossed his face. "But I was too late."
Merrill got to her feet, her eyes searching his face. "Too late for what? What do you mean? I don't understand!"
"The orb." Solas's voice was always soft, but now it was lower still, almost a whisper. Merrill moved closer to him in order to hear him better. "It is broken now. It can never be used again."
"What orb?"
"The one that Corypheus had. It was m—our people's. An artifact, from the days before Uthenera."
"How did Corypheus have an elven artifact of such importance?" Merrill demanded.
Solas spoke slowly, painfully. "It was a mistake."
"Whose mistake?"
His eyes looked deeply into hers, bold and honest, and his hands caught hers, holding tightly. "Mine."
"How?"
"I … needed someone with the power to use the orb, to accomplish … a certain goal. A goal to bring our people back to what we were before I—before everything ended."
"So you allowed Corypheus to do all of this."
"No! Not allowed. Never allowed. I came to the Inquisition to stop him once I knew that he was more powerful than I had bargained for. I followed the Inquisitor, led him, to stop Corypheus. Tonight was to have been—I was to have gotten the orb back, used it for its original purpose. But I was too late. Now—I do not know what to do now, how to make this right."
Merrill thought she ought to be angry with Solas. Hawke would be, the Inquisitor would be, Varric would be. But she was not them, nor were any of them of the People. They couldn't understand the importance of saving whatever there was left of a culture so ancient, so long buried, that few remembered anything about it at this late date. And she had made choices of a similar nature in pursuing her own paths—how could she blame Solas for having tried, even if his attempt had led to such failure as this? "Let me help you," she said impulsively, before she could stop herself.
Solas held her head in his hands, looking deeply, searchingly into her eyes. "Do you mean this? You do not know what I intend to do, what lengths I will go to, who may be hurt in the process."
There was no time to think—already Merrill could hear voices, people coming up calling for the Inquisitor. At her feet, Hawke stirred and moaned, and Merrill knew if her friend came to full waking it would be that much harder to pull herself away. And perhaps that was for the best—if she thought too long she would talk herself out of this, and every fiber in her being yearned for it, for him, for whatever paths lay ahead of them. "I mean it."
"Good." Solas smiled, a warmth in his eyes she had never seen before. "Come, we must travel by hidden paths."
"Wait."
His eyebrows rose, as if he suspected her of second thoughts. But Merrill shook her head at him as she knelt next to Hawke's body. Taking from her finger a carved wooden ring, she slid one of Hawke's gauntlets off and placed the ring on her friend's finger. Gently, she rested a hand on Hawke's forehead. "Dareth shiral, lethallan," she whispered. She got to her feet and took Solas's hand. "She gave that ring to me once. It will tell her that I left of my own volition so that she will not worry for me. I owe her that much."
"Then you are ready?"
"I am."
And he led her into the darkness just as the Inquisition's party came into view.
The raven was still on Leliana's arm as she burst into Josephine's office. Josephine pulled her hands out of Ciel's as soon as the door opened, turning away and picking up some papers so as to hide her face, certain it was red. Fortunately, Leliana was in no mood to notice Josephine's distress. It wasn't clear if she even saw Ciel standing there.
"It is over, Josie. The Inquisitor has won; Corypheus is dead."
The papers fell from Josephine's hands onto the floor and for once she didn't care. "You are certain? He is truly dead? Because Varric has said so often—"
Leliana unrolled the strip of vellum she had taken from the raven's leg. "The Inquisitor opened a rift inside Corypheus's body, it says. No one could survive that."
"His spirit? Does it exist in the Fade?"
"I don't imagine so. No doubt Morrigan will have something to say about that." A shadow crossed Leliana's face. "Assuming she survived."
"Assuming any of them did."
"It says nothing here but that the Inquisitor did—and Harding, since it was she who wrote the message." Leliana looked at Josephine, her blue eyes unusually open, and worried. "She would have said, if we had lost someone. Anyone."
"Surely she would have," Josephine agreed.
"At any rate, they will be returning soon. We should arrange a reception for them."
"A reception? We must give a party! The biggest party Skyhold has ever seen." Josephine frowned. "I know I put the information for the caterers here. Or should I try a new one? The last ones had such a heavy hand with the petit-fours."
Leliana smiled. "Whatever you do will be excellent, as always, Josie." She frowned thoughtfully. "Many things remain to be decided, of course … but they can wait until we have celebrated this great victory."
She left the room. Josephine shuffled through papers, looking for her clipboard, which she found buried beneath a stack. Just as she unearthed it, a pair of arms stole around her waist and pulled her back against a broad, warm chest. "Where were we, my dearest?" Ciel breathed in her ear.
"Oh! There is not time for that now," she protested, wriggling from his grasp.
"There is all the time in the world." He caught her hands again, holding her in front of him. "You are free now, Josephine. We can marry."
"I—I still have responsibilities to the Inquisition."
"The Inquisition's purpose was to defeat Corypheus. It has done so. What remains?"
"I do not know. There may yet be work for us to do. At the very least, dismantling it will take some time."
His blue eyes darkened. "Don't you want to marry me, Josephine?"
"I do," she said, knowing it to be the truth. "I do. But I made a commitment here, and I wish to see it through." She laid a hand along his cheek. "Let our people return, let us mourn the lost and cheer the victory, let us look at what remains afterward, and then I can tell you the answer you seek. Can you wait that little bit longer?"
"That little bit, and no more. I cannot be trifled with, Josephine, much as I desire you as my wife."
His voice was unusually serious, and Josephine felt a chill of alarm. What would she do if it came to a final choice between the Inquisition and Ciel? Would she follow her heart, or her duty? For once in her life, she did not know, and the lack of a clear answer troubled her more than she would have admitted.
As the group of the Inquisitor's people banadaged wounds and prepared the horses for the trip back up the mountain to Skyhold, Blackwall felt his destiny wrap around him in bands so tight he could barely breathe. Corypheus was dead. Blackwall … Thom Rainier had no further reason to remain with the Inquisition. And the Inquisitor's patience with his continued presence would wear thin sooner rather than later. That much was certain.
In truth, Rainier wouldn't have been sorry to go. He had always been meant to be a Grey Warden. His time in the wild had been nothing more than ducking the fate Blackwall had intended for him, and he owed the Wardens the time he had left.
If only he could find an easy way to tear the heart from his body, first. He cast an anguished look at the sky, half-wishing to see the Breach still there, if only so that he would have an excuse to stay.
"I know what you're thinking." She was there next to him. Of course she was. She was never far from his thoughts or his heart or his side, if she could help it. "And … you're right."
"I am?" That was a surprise.
"Yes. You owe the Wardens your life. You should go." A little half-smile tugged at the corner of her mouth. "After all, you just helped stop an ancient magister darkspawn—you'll be their most qualified recruit maybe ever."
She seemed remarkably calm for a person who had thus far refused to have this conversation. He eyed her warily.
At his lack of response, the smile faded from her face, and she rubbed the back of her hand across her dirty cheek, sighing. "I mean it, Blackwall. You should go." Harding was tired, he could see that. She had fought as hard as he had, and had been here before the Inquisitor's team arrived.
Without even being asked, he relented. "Not yet."
She smiled, just a little. "Soon."
Blackwall reached for her hand, holding it tightly in his. "Soon," he agreed.
There would be no question of her coming with him. She was the Inquisition if anyone was. Her future was bright, the Inquisitor relied on her. Whatever was coming next, she was needed here, to help put things back together. So he would leave her and go north, to Adamant … but he would have a proper good-bye first, one that would last him through whatever remained of his life.