Chapter 32: The Plunge

The night air chilled Solas to the bone as he stood upon Skyhold's ramparts. The sharp winds were all the more cutting, as if his physical form was already shredding to pieces.

Abelas emerged from the door behind him, slightly out of breath. "It is done. The last of the children should be through now. And Magister Pavus has arrived."

"Thank you, Abelas." He looked at his commander with the solemnity of one who feels regret but cannot hold it.

Abelas paused, knowing what was soon to come. "It has… been an honor to serve, Fen'Harel." He bowed his head as a sign of respect. When he rose again, it pained him to see the resigned sorrow within his friend.

"The honor is mine. I could not have asked for anyone better to help make this real. I pray you find a new name when this is over."

Abelas gave a small grunt and a half-smile. "Unlikely. I have carried it for so long."

Solas smiled softly, a sadness in the bitter gesture. "Yes. But still, I shall hope for it." He hesitated, for even thinking about her made his eyes burn and his chest tighten painfully. But he had to ask. "If you… When you see her, tell her that I love her. And I'm sorry," he said quietly, his throat constricting and choking on his final words. It was too much. He wasn't ready to say goodbye to her. If he had known the last time he saw her had been the last time… He would have done it differently. He would have held her and kissed her and told her how important she was to him. How much she mattered.

Abelas nodded in understanding. "I will. I swear it."

"Thank you, Abelas. For everything."

With a deep, shuddering breath, Abelas bowed once more and left.

Thankfully, Solas was not left alone with his thoughts for long. Dorian arrived, sweat beaded upon his brow despite the cold. "Abelas told me what happened. Is it true?"

"Yes, it is."

"All of it?" Dorian asked as the breath left his chest. He couldn't believe it.

"Yes. All of it is true. Dorian, take this," he said, holding out the same crystal necklace he had enchanted to communicate with Lavellan over long distances. "It will unlock the eluvians. You will need to make use of them. Abelas has a map of the ones we know about scattered around Thedas. He will help guide you where you need to be. But you must find her."

"How am I supposed to find her? She could be anywhere."

"I doubt she will be far from Morrigan. Take this as well," he said, holding out a vial.

Dorian took it but drew back, revolted. "Is this… a phylactery? Funny. Didn't think you would participate in blood magic."

"It is mine. It will not give you power over the Dread Wolf, but it may be enough to track me… or whatever is left."

"How will you find Morrigan then? Or is she going to leave out a plate of big, juicy bones and wait behind a boulder with a butterfly net?"

Solas almost found his humor refreshing. "No," he said grimly. "I tried to find my partner in the Fade and with magic, but could not. Whatever Morrigan is doing, wherever she is, she has blocked off all connection to the Fade. I cannot find her. But the Dread Wolf can."

Dorian gave him a skeptical look. "How does that work?"

Solas shook his head. "Please, Dorian. There is not time. She is in labor. If we do not hurry, she will be in even greater peril."

Dorian looked down at the phylactery in his hand and then enclosed it in his fist. "I will do everything I can to help save her. Besides," he said, putting the phylactery in his pocket and slipping the crystal around his neck, "I look forward to seeing Madame de Fer again. I've always wondered which of us would win in a fight: beauty or the bitch." He grinned, his mustache twitching up momentarily before he looked back at Solas, a tortured expression on his face. "Before we go, there is something I should mention. I'm not sure if she told you, but some time ago we were talking and she asked me… Well, it came up as a last resort sort of proposal, one might say…" Dorian fumbled, trying not to have to say the words as the wind (and definitely not the thought of losing his best friend) stung his eyes and caused tears to appear there.

"Take care of our da'len, Dorian. If it comes to that." Solas felt the stab to his heart at the mere thought of what that meant.

Dorian nodded, cursing under his breath as his emotions betrayed him and tears burned down his cheeks. "It won't come to that. I'll make sure of it."

"Thank you." It was all Solas could bring himself to say, but he meant it.

Dorian nodded, his mustache twitching. "She'll never forgive you, you know. If you don't come back from this. I mean, leaving her twice, she might forgive, she's clearly the sentimental type. But a third? No, she won't forgive you a third time. So you have to come back, you hear me? For her. Find some mean little vindictive piece of yourself and latch onto that Dread Wolf like a parasite. Whatever you have to do, come back. Alright?"

Solas felt an odd swell of gratitude. He glanced down as a smile briefly touched his lips. "I will try, Dorian."

"No," Dorian shook his head. "Not try. Do."

A moment passed where the two mages stared at one another as the mountain winds howled, beckoning them both down separate paths. There were no words in their goodbyes as they turned away from one another.

Solas breathed in the icy air as only the roaring winds could be heard cutting through the mountains over Skyhold. Even now, with the keep quiet and still, he remembered what it was like to walk the halls when they were his, so many millennia ago. Now, in the quiet emptiness they were his once more. Here was the place where it had happened. Here was the place where the sky was held back. So it must be that where the Veil was created, it would now be destroyed.

But looking around, he felt her presence here. The imprint of a small, muddy boot on the stone floor. Green vines with flowers climbing up the walls matched the flower crowns resting on a bench. A faded Inquisition banner flapped in the harsh wind. He had kissed her here, one night after a bottle of wine and a game of cards led to a late night stroll along the ramparts. Even now, the thought of her smile melted his heart and in his chest a dull ache, like an old wound echoed across the vastness of time and space. "Ir abelas, ma vhenan," he whispered to the stars above. A tear slid down his cheek as he knelt upon the stone and closed his eyes.

He stepped into the Fade, the world around him gone and replaced with snow and shadow. The darkness pressed in around him as the Dread Wolf stepped out, crunching the snow beneath his paws as he approached, red eyes gleaming, nostrils flaring in the sharp white cold. The voice, like cracking ice, came to him.

"There was never any other way but this."

Solas raised his chin and raised his hand, hardening his heart for what he must do. "The time has come. You want your freedom. Help me destroy the Veil and find my family and I will give you your freedom."

A cackle like grinding rocks shook the area. "You've nothing left to bargain with, Pride. This is the only path there ever was." The Dread Wolf's lips pulled back, revealing a fanged smile that chilled the blood. Tendrils of shadow slithered across the snow and up Solas's body as the Dread Wolf slowly consumed him. The flesh of his body melted as the Dread Wolf took command of his physical form, becoming one. "But you will see your family again. I will give you that. I told you to remember the taste of her blood and the sound of her screams."

The last of the shadows swallowed him and as the world faded briefly into darkness, Solas surrendered the last of his will to the only means left to him.

Then, cutting through the darkness holes of light gleamed like stars, spreading and growing. The light seeped through the cracks of shadow like a broken mirror, stretching and reaching as they connected in a delicate web. The light grew and the shadows danced and played, washing over the landscape, sky, and seas, bleeding energy into the world and freeing all those that had been trapped inside the Fade for countless millennia. No land was left untouched by the magic that released the dreaming world back into the physical world.

And the world, returned to what it once had been, was forever changed.