Chapter 48
Solas had caught Ellena just in time to carefully lay her on the ground. Turning to look behind him, he was about to ask Blackwall if he was alright when he saw the burly man, knocked out, a smear of blood on his forehead. He was moving to heal the gray warden when someone called to him.
It was a voice that haunted his dreams at night.
"Dread Wolf." The words reverberated into the air. A fiendish echo. It had been years since Solas had been called such a thing. At first, he had known the name as a term of endearment. Later, he learned it was his assigned codename. The revival of its use brought a chill to his spine as the memories flooded back in a sudden irrepressible burst.
Looking up, Solas saw the handsome face of a woman he had once intimately known. The last time he had seen Andruil, she had been all creamy skin and pouty lips. She looked much as did in the past, auburn ringlets falling to her waist over a snow-white fur coat. She was beautiful to most, but not Solas, as he knew the unblemished veneer obscured her bottomless cruelty.
He had once seen her burn a man alive with her hands simply because he had accidentally coughed in her presence.
"She's rather waifish, not much to her." Andruill sighed, examining her perfectly varnished brick-red nails in distaste. Andruil herself had a body of supple curves, her hourglass shape comely and fantasy inducing. It was quite the opposite of Ellena's petite and slender form.
Solas glanced down at Ellana, sleeping on the ground. She was curled on her side; a hand wedged between her cheek and the asphalt ground. Her features were untroubled, her white-blonde hair falling out of her carefully arranged pins, framing her olive skin face. A fresh layer of snow was starting to accumulate on the ground, covering up the signs of battle.
"I see how it is with her," Andruil continued, her tone growing dark and bitter. "Did you tell her the story of our relationship? I can't imagine the little thing would be pleased."
"Us?" Solas sputtered. "You are aware that none of that-or let me say actually all of that-was a farce to bring about your downfall. Tell me, where do you find the truth in what passed between us?"
"Oh, Solas. Do you really think I've forgotten all those wild things you said in my bed? Or should I remind you?"
Andruil inched closer to him until two pale blue eyes mirrored his. He had watched on more than one occasion how Andruil had bewitched innocents with her charms. Seeing her now, thinking of how much danger Ellana was in, sickened him. He tried to forget the affectionate things he had been forced to say back to her, or do, in service of defeating the Evanurius.
In the following years, he was sometimes conflicted on how much of it had been acting, or if some hidden part of him had enjoyed the erotic whirlwind.
He was, at the very least complicit.
"That isn't what this is about," Solas said, gesturing emphatically to the surrounding bloodshed. He was unsure if the precipitation falling in the air around him was ash or snow. Sirens boomed in the background, drawing closer. Delay, say anything...
"You're right. Although, I am pleased to say she's nothing like you. Her magic is different. Does she know that? You were always the strongest amongst us, and she could smite you with a single twitch of her small finger."
"I destroyed you once," Solas growled, "I will not hesitate to do so again."
A charged bolt crashed down from the sky, missing Andruil by a narrow margin.
"Did you mean to miss? Or were you nostalgic?" Andruil taunted, taking out a charred wolf jawbone from her pocket. It glittered ominously in the strange light of fallen street lamps. "You were always so generous."
Solas was almost able to respond with a jeer when she clenched her opposite hand, paralyzing his mouth with magic.
The object he stared at should have never been made. A foci inspired by old Fairytales. It was able to tear small rips in the Fade, allowing the wielder to cast more powerful magic. Only, such a thing happened at a great cost to the user.
"Amazing, isn't it? How such a small thing can wield so much chaos. Then again, this was your design. Based on old Elvhen artifacts, if I'm not mistaken. What was it you said to me that night? 'A wedge between the waking world and the Fade.'"
Solas' hands curled around his throat. The magic was beginning to suffocate him. He fell to his knees, drawing the occasional stolen inhale.
"Be careful," she continued in a mocking voice. "You can pull it apart, but can't put it back together. Well, you've proven that's not the case."
Andruil snapped her finger. The sirens were only a few blocks away. He could hear the marching steps of agents as they drew closer. Although his store of mana was almost depleted, he could feel the magical barriers crashing down. If I can hold on…
He would gladly die before letting Andruil take Ellana.
"Eventually, she'll figure out that you are using her. It's laughable, really, the same way you used me. It's not even your game this time. Should I ask what the Nightingale wants? The orb undoubtedly."
"Andruil," Solas interrupted in his best attempt to keep his voice calm. "You will never have her, or the orb."
"We'll see," Andruill whispered in a sensual voice, her fingers cupping his jaw, forcing his face upwards. He was summoning a blast of magic to his fingers to end it all right then when Andruil, when a roar in the background signaled that the Inquisition had arrived on the scene. He could hear Leliana calling out orders as the Templars flattened the Veil further, using their lyrium to terminate any errant mana in the air.
"Until we meet again," Andruil whispered, before she disappeared in a flash, over the horizon. A fade step, sweeping her far away, in a single breath.
A roar followed. Solas clutched his head. He too was beginning to lose consciousness. How was he going to tell Ellana all of this?
Something inside him told him the worst was yet to come.