I'm not entirely certain I ever should have written this chapter. It's likely my least favorite. I wanted there to be a good reason that a hunter from Clan Lavellan went to the Conclave, and since Inquisitor Lavellan seems...curiously disconnected from her clan throughout the game, I came up with this reason. Not every reason for everything needs to be made explicit, though, and this one perhaps should have been left in the background.

Keeping it in is probably the kind of thing that happens when you're your own editor. Oh well.

Translations at the bottom.

Unwelcome Vengeance

I took a few more steps around the pillar and then stopped again, but examining it from a new angle - the fourth new angle I had tried - didn't make my feelings about it any clearer. It wasn't a different texture, or size, or color, it wasn't any less - or more - solidly there. It didn't look different, it just was different.

How long had I been staring at it now? Time seemed to flow past as I examined it, and I felt as though I was being drawn into strange depths where whispers of sound dictated nearly audible words, and wisps of light illuminated nearly intelligible runes. And yet I could grasp none of these things - or, at least, I could grasp only enough to see that this pillar of memory was different.

I might go back to Enleal with this mystery, and the spirit would perhaps help me understand it - but that would take time, and desire, and I had already spent the afternoon wandering through that garden. Enleal had given me an exercise to try when I came upon things in the Fade that I didn't understand - the very exercise I was attempting to apply now - looking beyond the objects my mind used to make sense of the Fade and into a less filtered reality. The spirit compared it to the word vocabularies children gained as they learned to speak, or, earlier, the sight vocabularies babies acquired before they could begin to make sense of the jumble of colors, shapes, and depths that made up the world.

I needed, it said, to acquire a kind of Fade vocabulary before I could begin to differentiate between and then comprehend the different meanings and purposes behind the shapes and textures and other indefinable properties that the Fade took on.

It had warned me that I might not yet have enough experience for the exercise to grant me comprehension. And I likely shouldn't be surprised that it was giving me very little information now - whatever made this pillar different, Solas had made it. I knew perfectly well that Solas shaped the Fade with the same ease and grace that an Orlesian couturiere shaped cloth. Or, well, with the same ease and grace an Orlesian couturiere would possess had he or she been practicing the trade for several thousand years.

That was one piece of information, I supposed. Somehow or other, spending so much time in a Solas-shaped Fade-space had given me an instinctive familiarity with his work. I had no words to describe the fingerprints he left on whatever he built here, but I knew them. There could be no counterfeits. This pillar was his doing.

Which meant that, whatever else it was, it was almost certainly safe for me to interact with.

I blew out an impatient breath and approached the pillar at last, done with exercises in frustration that didn't tell me what I wanted to know.

Tentatively, I reached out and touched the stone - and immediately there was a difference. Most of the time, touching one of the memory monuments whisked me away into whatever memory was contained there. This one...didn't do that.

"Forgive me, vhenan - "

Solas's voice was so clear in my ear that I imagined I could feel his breath tickling my skin, and I turned instinctively toward the sound, my fingers losing contact with the surface of the pillar as I did so.

His voice was instantly gone, and the rest of him wasn't making itself apparent, either. Unsettled, I nevertheless returned to the memory and put my fingers against it once more.

"Forgive me, vhenan," his voice began again, "for leaving you this memory. Though I spent hours debating whether or not it would possess either use or value for you, I decided in the end that it is a matter which you have a right to know of. By that same token, however, this is not a memory I would share with any other than you, which means certain limits must be placed around it that will, by necessity, make it less engaging. Limiting matters further, I cannot risk my people by allowing you access to an unfiltered version of these events and conversations. I will show as much as I can, but narration will be necessary to fill in gaps."

I pulled my hand away again before he could go on, even though I could see now that the interruption meant I would have to begin all over again. It truly felt as though he was speaking softly in my ear - so much so that it sent phantom shivers up my spine as my body reacted to his perceived presence. Shivers. A pounding heart. A hot face. And - a certain tight ache low in my belly. Solas's voice was - lovely, always. But when he spoke in my ear - and even more now that I knew how it could be when we were together - what I was missing -

Taking a deep breath, I reached for the pillar again, resolving that this time I would make it through the entire memory - whatever it was.

I closed my eyes this time as he spoke, allowing myself to imagine that he was standing behind me, telling me this, perhaps waiting to wrap me in his arms if I found whatever he was about to share sufficiently upsetting.

"Did you think I wouldn't notice? What was it you said? I had no desire to leave Clan Lavellan, at least not - that was later, and different. I didn't pursue the matter because you were correct: it had no bearing on what we spoke of then. Moreover, I didn't know how much to tell you - either how much I safely could, or how much you might want to know.

"The way pieces of Clan Lavellan have sworn themselves to me has been different from the ways other Dalish clans have chosen - or not - to join my cause. There are, of course, stragglers from clans whose Keepers remain wary of me, and defectors from those whose Keepers swear their clans to the cause, but Clan Lavellan has split essentially in two over the question."

I was, of course, well aware of that, but he couldn't know how closely I was watching any of the Dalish, including my own clan - or, at least, so it was to be hoped. If he did, it meant some of my messages to Deshanna had been intercepted or stolen, and their ciphers broken.

"I wonder how much of this you are aware of - at least some, I would suppose - and how you feel about it. Though I mentioned your clan more than once this past day, you didn't bring it up, so the most likely conclusions are that you either don't care, or that you care a great deal and for that very reason have no desire to discuss it with me.

"If the latter - ar delemah na. Ir abelas."

I opened my eyes as he stopped speaking. An unsteady, translucent vision rose before them, moving wherever I looked, and I quickly closed them again before it could make me sick. Against the darkness, the image was much clearer: Solas, dressed in clothing much like that he had worn at Skyhold, in what was evidently a workroom. Bunches of herbs hung from the ceiling, drying, and there were shelves of both books and magical or alchemical reagents. In the vision, though, he was painting a canvas whose design I couldn't quite make out.

Then, behind him, an eluvian half-shrouded in a curtain came to life. Solas put down his brush and turned, evidently somewhat surprised at the interruption, but not alarmed by it.

Abelas, last priest of Mythal, emerged.

"I hardly expected a report from you personally," Solas told him. It was odd: I could tell he spoke Elven - and likely the ancient dialect of the Elvhen, because the words were pronounced oddly - but I also heard him speaking in the common language. It must be some sort of enchantment, ensuring I wouldn't miss what they were saying merely because the dialect was strange to me. "A written missive would have sufficed."

The two men eyed each other warily, and I could see that whatever truce they had negotiated was a cautious one.

"No," Abelas replied shortly. "It would not have sufficed." He clasped his hands behind his back and gave Solas a measuring look. "I cannot say what the Inquisitor told her...Keeper." He seemed put off by the word for some reason. "But the Keeper's response has fractured her clan. A growing number of Clan Lavellan have approached those whom they could locate from other clans in order to find our agents, with the intent of serving you."

"Spies? Infiltrators?" Solas asked.

"Doubtful," Abelas replied. "There is a...an animosity toward the Inquisitor - personal, in a sense, though I cannot find anything specific she has said or done to offend so many."

I let out a breath. Where would I even begin? With Deshanna's perceived - and perhaps real - favoritism? Or with my own inability to simply do what was expected of me in some aspect of my life?

"Curious," Solas said, his attention beginning to wander back toward his canvas. "She is generally thought charming."

Abelas grunted. "Perhaps that is the trouble, then. 'A high priest has no authority in his mother's house.'"

A smile crossed Solas's face and was gone just as quickly. His voice became impatient again. "True enough. Keep watch on them in any case."

"I intend to," Abelas replied stiffly, visibly bristling at the dismissal. "A number of them have put together a plan to assassinate the Inquisitor in your name."

Solas's gaze snapped to Abelas's face and he became ominously still, his eyes narrowing. "Have these plans any merit?" he asked, his voice filled with cold menace.

"You would be able to judge more easily than I," the priest replied, obviously still irritated. "Would she meet personally with someone from her clan?"

Solas relaxed a fraction. "Perhaps, but certainly not alone, and not anywhere convenient for an ambush. She would see the potential danger - and even if she dismissed it for one reason or another, Leliana - the Divine - would not."

The only reason I would ever take the risk would be to capture one of Solas's agents alive. They had a disconcerting tendency to die when caught. I certainly wouldn't trust anything sent to me by former clanmates who had rejected Deshanna's warnings - and I would, of course, check with Deshanna to see who had run off before even beginning to think about arranging a meeting.

"What do you want done with them?" Abelas asked.

Solas thought for a moment, his right arm settling across his chest with his left elbow cradled against it. His thumb rubbed his lower lip absently as he gazed at the ceiling and considered alternatives. He had often assumed a similar pose in the rotunda at Skyhold, particularly when contemplating one of his paintings. It always made me want to kiss him.

This time, I watched his face slowly harden with grim resolve. "If any of them have a more clever suggestion than simply trading on their acquaintance with Silea - with the Inquisitor - find out how deep the animosity goes and whether it might be redirected elsewhere. Those we could, perhaps, train and use," he decided. "As for the rest…" his voice became colder, "execute them. There will be enough threats for her to navigate in the new world without setting loose a series of fools with imagined grudges - especially if those fools are of no particular use to me in this world."

There was a spark of - something - on Abelas's face. Approval, perhaps? "As you command," he said, his tone not as irritated as it had been moments before. "There is another small matter. Do you know the name Terys Isenril Lavellan?"

My eyes popped open in shock, and I had to close them again quickly as my vision swam uncomfortably in and out of focus. There was no reason Solas would know the name - but I certainly did.

"No," Solas said, one eyebrow arching.

"He registered an objection to the assassination plot on the grounds that the Inquisitor was promised as his bondmate," Abelas frowned in confusion or distaste, "and he wants her...retrieved."

Retrieved. Like a lost halla. Of course he did. It seemed he was still so foolish and careless he might as well be suicidal - or at least he had been, whenever this conversation had taken place. I imagined Solas had cured him of it - one way or another.

I wasn't certain I wanted to know precisely how - had I wanted Terys dead, I would have shot him myself. He had given me more than enough opportunities for it, and several very good excuses. I almost had, once, entirely by accident. Had I not realized he wasn't the bear I was hunting and pulled my shot at the last moment, my arrow would have gone through his eye rather than scoring his cheek.

Felasil.

Although claiming we had exchanged promises of any sort was delusional, even for Terys.

These thoughts flitted through my mind as several successive emotions crossed Solas's face. "Find out what you can about Terys from his clanmates, and if the picture remains unclear, I will consider means by which someone might approach Deshanna."

"Does it matter?" Abelas asked with a barely-concealed sneer. "If the Inquisitor wanted him, he would be with her now. Your personal feelings - "

"Are the least important part of the matter," Solas cut him off coldly. "But on the same grounds that I will not leave would-be assassins hunting Silea through Thedas, I want to know exactly how lost to reality this man is."

Abelas studied him suspiciously, his eyes narrowed, but nodded a reluctant agreement.

The vision faded and I opened my eyes as Solas's voice once again began to whisper in my ear: "I knew you had never cared for anyone else in a romantic sense, but I confess I did consider the possibility that you had been pressed to choose a mate against your better judgment. Why you wouldn't simply tell me, I had more difficulty imagining - and for good reason, as I still believe you would have, had it been the case. In spite of my likely-transparent lie, Abelas found my argument persuasive enough to help without additional prodding, and agents began asking questions about Terys.

"Up until this point, I had failed to appreciate just how dismissively you were treated by many of your clanmates. It put into perspective the coolness I had, on occasion, noted you displayed in turn. I still have difficulty understanding the degree of personal affront on display over your lack of interest in choosing a mate, and your rejection of Terys in particular. I will not repeat their words, vhenan - I suspect you have heard what they had to say more often than you cared to.

"To look at the woman who saved Thedas, though, and find oneself able to judge her only on her fulfillment of the most conventional - and least pressing - of her duties to the clan - " His voice was saturated with disdain. "I fear, arasha, that a sizable number of your clanmates are fools beyond hope of saving."

Well. I could only hope he hadn't killed all of them in an effort to spare me the trouble. Small-mindedness was not - and should not be - a capital offense. Normally that wasn't something I would expect Solas to need to be reminded of, but between a handful of idiots assuming the Dread Wolf wanted one of his chief adversaries dead, and Terys being...Terys...I would almost give him a pass on losing his temper.

Almost.

"It required several days to piece together the most likely version of what had happened between you and Terys." Here he paused, and heaved an audible sigh. "I understand you wouldn't have seen a reason to tell me of this. Quite likely you forgot about it for weeks - perhaps even months - in the midst of everything else. But Silea - a man ten years your senior spent a year and a half pursuing you relentlessly, and your Keeper only stepped in after he - "

My shoulders slumped guiltily as Solas paused. Though there was certainly enough blame in this particular matter to dirty most of the clan - me included - Deshanna deserved the smallest share.

My failing was primarily one of maturity. I had received the vallaslin young, and then taken over leading the hunters a little less than three years later, all because of Deshanna's faith in me. But there were always whispers about how I had never earned anything myself, but relied on our Keeper to give me whatever I wanted. The whispers were wrong, at least mostly - I had risen through the ranks of the hunters to be named Haleir's Second just as anyone else would have been. I was an excellent shot, could keep track of who was assigned to what without needing to refer to a list, and people tended to listen when I snapped orders in the midst of a crisis. Usually the orders even turned out to have been sensible ones once there was time for a full accounting. When Haleir and his First died in a bandit raid, Deshanna had merely upheld the traditional means of passing authority. She would have been within her rights not to, but she saw an opportunity to keep me too busy to become restless, and took it.

And she was right about leading the hunters - I had been capable of all that was required of me in that role. What I lacked the maturity to do was set aside what everyone said about me when Terys began his pursuit. I should have given it to Deshanna to handle immediately. That is, after all, the sort of thing Keepers are for. Instead I told her to let me deal with it myself - and then nearly ended up killing him.

As for the rest of the clan, or a large portion of it - their failing was spite. Terys wouldn't have been as aggressive as he had been without the support of their whispers. I suspected that, in private, there had been more than whispers, though I couldn't prove it. I only knew that after Terys began trying to court me, the phrase "avys banalasa Elgar'nan isa'len" had drifted after me more than once, spoken just loudly enough for me to hear.

"I confess that I remain unclear as to why you nearly shot him," Solas went on, recalling me from my rapid mental review of my history with Terys, "but what is clear is this: you are not the sort of person who takes risks with the lives of others. He must have come upon you either hunting or in battle, and very likely should have known better in either case. I - I wish I had known for a number of reasons, not the least of which is that a man like that bears watching, and there was always the possibility he would find his way to me."

I rolled my eyes a little at the last part - it wasn't as though I had known the Dread Wolf was going to start luring my people into his service, and that was information that had been actively kept from me. If Solas had wanted greater transparency from me, he ought to have started by being more transparent himself. He wasn't wrong about Terys, though. Stay away from the hunting grounds was practically the first rule any Dalish child learned.

"You don't consider Terys a physical threat - that much is clear. And why should you? You are a skilled combatant and he...isn't. I want to be explicit: I am not questioning your capability or judgment - merely your experience. You have, perhaps, had the good fortune not to witness the ends to which such entitlement can drive a man." He sighed again. "I am doing this badly - allowing my own fears to overtake what I want to say. This is what I want to say: whatever you must do to rid yourself of such a person is justified, vhenan. Should you ever encounter one like him again, listen to your discomfort. Do what you must.

"I suppose now you are convinced I killed him, which I think you would disapprove of, given the lengths you went to not to kill him yourself. I hope you will be pleasantly surprised."

As did I.

Another vision rose before my eyes, and I closed them again. The setting for this one was a comfortable study, with books lining every wall, and a desk and several cushioned chairs filling the floorspace. I wondered where it was - the waking world or the Fade? The view from the single window within my line of sight was of forested hills. The shapes of the distant trees suggested a more northerly location, but that was supposing the view was even real, which certainly couldn't be taken for granted.

I heard two sets of footsteps, and then Terys came into view. He turned back the way he had come, looking at someone who remained invisible from my current perspective. "He will see you when he is ready," a voice from that direction said. It was a woman's voice, difficult to describe - neither low nor piping, husky nor mellifluous, though she spoke with a Marcher's accent. I wasn't certain I would recognize it if I heard it again. Leliana had always taken care to coach her own people to pitch their voices similarly, and to feign accents not their own when they could - which meant the Marcher accent wasn't likely of much use.

And that was assuming Solas hadn't changed the voice entirely in crafting this - whatever this was.

"While we wait for him," Terys's guide went on, "tell me once more of your betrothal. I still don't entirely understand why the Inquisitor would leave so soon after the agreement was made, and on such a long and uncertain journey."

Terys's pale skin flushed an angry red at the implied skepticism. "The Keeper sent her. You might not understand, but we do as our Keeper - " He stopped, perhaps realizing he was there against Deshanna's will and advice.

"Perhaps I don't understand," the woman agreed, her tone affable. "I've heard Clan Lavellan's Keeper had both a First and a Second. Wouldn't one of them have been a more natural choice to monitor the Conclave? Why the leader of the hunters - a girl only a few years beyond childhood? Was there no more hunting to be done?"

"Whatever her reasons, the Keeper didn't share them with me," Terys said sullenly.

"Even though the Inquisitor had already all but declared herself your mate?" the woman responded, surprise too evident in her voice for it to be anything but feigned.

Terys apparently thought so, too. "Why do you think I left?" he snarled, hands clenching. Slowly, he brought his temper under control again. "It should be clear to anyone who knows her that she is being held captive. She would not stay away from her people merely to aid the - the shemlen Chantry - "

"In sealing the Breach and defeating the darkspawn magister seeking godhood?" Solas's smooth, amused voice asked, preceding him by no more than a heartbeat. He stepped out of a shadowed corner partly blocked from my sight by shelves of books, and I honestly couldn't say whether he had come through a door or had been standing there the entire time. "Perhaps you were not aware, lethallin, that I aided the shemlen Chantry in sealing the Breach."

I heard leather creak. "En'an'sal'en, Fen'Harel," his agent greeted him, and I guessed she had bowed or made some other salute, as Solas inclined his head graciously in her direction before returning his attention to Terys, his eyes narrowing slightly though he was obviously trying to remain cordial. For the moment.

Terys bowed low. "En'an'sal'en, Fen'Harel."

"Su tas ma," Solas responded, clasping his hands behind his back. "I understand you were once close to Silea."

Terys startled slightly at my name, and then apparently took note of the past tense, his hands again curling into fists. "She is promised as my mate," he told Solas through clenched teeth.

"That is a curious claim, considering the many months we spent travelling, working, and socializing together without your name ever passing her lips," Solas replied. "Even more curious in light of - " He seemed to think better of what he was about to say and changed tactics. "Do you know what the spirits call Silea?" He used my name again just to watch Terys flinch at the implied intimacy. I could see it in the way one corner of his mouth twitched as he suppressed a satisfied smirk.

"I am not a mage," my former clanmate responded, teeth still clenched.

"They call her fenes'saota. Do you know enough of our language to translate it?" Solas asked. He was enjoying this entirely too much - and I could imagine how he had enjoyed putting it together for me to witness, no matter what apologies he had offered at the beginning. I was half-tempted to accept the implication that Terys still lived and leave it at that. This posturing wasn't anything I needed to see.

Terys's brow furrowed. He really wasn't much good with the language. I wondered whether Solas had guessed or whether his agents had discovered it and informed him. Likely the latter, I supposed. "Wolf - wolf's - mate. Wolf's…" He trailed off, his eyes going wide as he absorbed the likely meaning of what he was saying.

"As it happens, Silea graciously accepted my vows and token," Solas told him, stretching the truth somewhat and leaving out all the context - but I had worn his ring, and I hadn't ever purposely hidden it, so it was reasonable that his agents would have informed him. That was more or less the same as accepting his vows, such as they had been. The meeting I was watching now had to have occurred sometime after he had taken my arm, but I had no idea when he had discovered that I no longer wore the ring - he might not have realized it until he saw me standing in a robe in his re-creation of Skyhold. Nearly everything I did publicly required either gauntlets or gloves, and on the rare occasions I wasn't wearing them, any agent of his would have to be specifically looking for the ring to note that I didn't have it.

Solas's current agent spoke up as Terys stared at him, stunned into silence. "I understand the Inquisitor is a beautiful woman," she said, passing Solas a book.

Posturing and irrelevant flattery? I was leaning more toward leaving the rest of this unwatched, even though I did enjoy the sense of Solas's voice speaking in my ear in between these visions.

I missed what Solas said in response as I weighed my options, but he caught my attention again when he told Terys: "I believe Silea would prefer I allow you to live, if I can, so I will give you a chance to prove you are capable of distinguishing between reality and fantasy. My agents have pieced together what happened between the two of you. If you can tell me the story as I have it here," he gestured with the book, "without significant deviations, I won't be forced to kill you."

All right, that was - not the worst idea. But was he really going to force me to sit through this recitation? Perhaps there would be some point if I had any way to contact him and set the record straight in case Terys managed to lie about something - but I didn't, and none of it really mattered anyway. Terys had only ever been a problem, one I didn't want to solve with arrows, but otherwise heartily wished myself rid of. Watching him admit there had never been anything between us - humiliated before the man I did love - was not going to provide me a sense of closure or triumph, which I assumed was what Solas had been trying to offer. But - the whole affair had been mortifying, and hearing Terys admit he had been wrong under threat of death was just vaguely embarrassing.

Now if Solas had managed to gain that admission from those of my clan who had urged me to accept Terys - that would be another thing. But from his irritation with them, I knew he had not. He was focused on one entitled individual. If I felt wronged by anything, it was the attitudes that had created that individual and helped propel him toward a crisis I had been too immature and inexperienced to deal with.

Perhaps I should have left the clan, as I briefly threatened before Deshanna found the solution of sending me to the Conclave.

If only I knew how to manipulate this thing Solas had left. I could simply skip ahead to something I did want to see.

Solas and Terys had exchanged a few more words while I was lost in thought, and then Terys began his sullen recitation. I pulled my hand away after the first sentence, unable to listen further. He understood he had been lying. All right. Good. That meant he was probably alive. I did wonder what Solas had done with him, but -

I studied the pillar again, briefly finding myself sucked back into its...depths, or less-filtered reality, or whatever I should be calling it. Having a goal in mind actually changed my perception of what was there, though I couldn't put it into words - and, as it turned out, it wasn't enough for me to do what I wanted to do. I tried touching the pillar again, but found when I concentrated I could only make it start over again, not skip forward to some other point.

I simply didn't know enough to control what Solas had planted here. Not yet.

Terys's precise fate would have to wait for some other day.

This had been frustrating, and though much of the night still remained, I was too unsettled to want to search for Nehnadahlen. Instead, I went looking for a more satisfying memory. The next marker I had placed would be of Enansal. I was curious to see what Solas had left in response.

The answer was: he had left a great deal. An entire forest or constellation of pillars surrounded the one I had placed, each one a separate memory of the time he spent with Enansal. Most were short - small things like Solas looking down and realizing the boy had fallen asleep against him while reading a particularly dry text, notable mostly because he was continually surprised by the amusement and affection he felt in those moments.

There were a few longer memories, most of which included me, and some of which I hadn't remembered until Solas reminded me. I went through them all, one by one, and then went back to enjoy my favorite a second time, as it was a day I remembered very differently. Not in its particulars - Solas seemed to remember everything that had happened clearly enough - but it hadn't impressed itself on my memory as it had on his.

His reason for remembering was a good one, though. I hadn't fallen in love that day, and it turned out that he had.

Ar delemah na: I am about to wrong you

Felasil: Fool

Avys banalasa Elgar'nan isa'len: She would reject Elgar'nan himself

En'an'sal'en: Blessings