Author's Note: Final chapter! Apologies for the delay, I've been busy with life. I hope you enjoy!

The instant the Viddasala has finished petrifying, her spear fixing in place before it can leave her hand, Solas hears quiet gasps behind him, the sound of metal dragging across grass. He does not look yet, does not much wish to. His agents have told him, not that they needed to, that Leas' arm is in a dreadful state, that it will not be much longer before the Anchor consumes him. Solas can speculate well enough what it will look like, even smell like. But despite that, and despite the fact that Leas' armour will hide the damage, still, he steels himself. Not just for Leas' arm, not only for the Anchor but for everything. How to explain all of this… and how much does Leas know…

"Sol… Solas," Leas pants. Only his name, but Solas blinks. The word seems to have come from below him. He turns, slow and deliberate, and when he does not see Leas' face in front of him, he looks down. At once, his eyes widen.

Leas is crawling—has obviously crawled all the way up here from the last eluvian, not so far below. His skin is ghastly white, his cheeks sunken in, his hair limp and lustreless, and his eyes—gods, those eyes—are green, not just in their irises but in their pupils and whites. His arm is glowing, the veins brilliant green up to his shoulder, and the Anchor sparks furiously in the palm of his hand, continuous, never-ending. His breath is ragged and uneven, and though he tries to support himself on his good hand, it soon gives way, and he almost falls on his face. In the same moment, the Anchor flares up again, and every one of Leas' muscles goes taut as he screams and convulses. The sound is harsh, as if he has been doing a lot of it already.

Ir abelas, lethal'lin, Solas thinks, his heart clenching and sinking almost to his feet. A dreadful sight, though not much worse than what he had expected save for the crawling. But it still rends at his heart, provokes the guilt into rising and trying to strangle him again. He swallows around it, barely, and he glances at the Anchor. His friend deserved so much better, and now he will pay a dreadful price for an action that was not his own. Solas need not see his arm to recognise that it is beyond repair and will have to be removed. He can't do that, not here, but he can at least hold off the pain of the Anchor for a while. With a single glance, a single thought, that is done, and Leas sucks in a deep, sudden breath as the Anchor's sparking ends. He then glances up at Solas, his eyes returning to their normal state of white, gold, and black, and he staggers to his feet.

"That should give us more time," Solas murmurs. Enough time? Perhaps not, but they will see. "I suspect you have questions."

Leas holds the elbow of his damaged arm in his other hand and stares at Solas. He grimaces, his eyes going wide and puppy-like as they always do when he's stressed and confused. This time, misery is clear in his expression, as well. "The Qunari answered some of those questions. The information I found while travelling through the eluvians answered more." He pauses, draws in a deep breath, fright and something like betrayal replacing the confusion in his eyes. And who can blame him, after all the terrible stories of him Leas was raised on? "You're Fen'Harel. You're the Dread Wolf."

Solas offers him the smallest of smiles, as if that could assuage the sting, heal the pain of this blow. Nothing will, will it? "Well done," he says, and he means it. No surprise that Leas would figure it out, for he has always been sharp, but he is glad the man saw so clearly, regardless. So saying, he plunges into the explanation. "I was Solas first. 'Fen'Harel' came later… an insult I took as a badge of pride. The Dread Wolf inspired hope in my friends and fear in my enemies… not unlike 'Inquisitor', I suppose. You also know the burden of a title that all but replaces your name."

The much younger man's breath audibly hitches, and there is another pause. Solas remembers well how Leas had used to behave years ago. How often did the man act out and make decisions without heed to the consequences or what other people felt about it, much like a teenager—and how much trouble did it cause before he wised up? His behaviour had been baffling until Cole had explained to Solas that Leas feared to lose what he was, to become something different from who he was. After that point, Solas had understood perfectly. Leas had been a young man trying to remain himself and not get swallowed up by his title, and as deleterious as his actions were, who could blame him? It is a hard enough life being only a title.

But they are not entirely here for Leas, are they? "I saw the stories as we travelled through the eluvians," he says. "Are they true?"

"They are closer than the Dalish legends, though still prone to making me into something more than I am," Solas tells him at once. Perhaps the same could be said of every legend that ever speaks of heroes, villains, and false gods, but the passage of time and the loss of so much have made the few remaining elven legends into something else entirely. Looking at them now, the resemblance between the various personages (or perhaps 'characters' is the better term) and who he remembers them to be is… scanty.

Leas' eyes only get even wider and more puppy-like than ever, but the sorrow in them is recognisable. It is the same look that Leas always pulls out when he faces a friend or an enemy who he has a reason, no matter how small, to pity. Solas is familiar with it, even grew used to it no matter how much the inherent naïveté of such a thing baffled and pained him. But it had never once occurred to him that Leas would direct it at him, at the Betrayer of his people's legends. Surely, he had thought, such a revelation would be too much even for Leas, that knowing the truth of his actions would put him beyond sympathy. Yet here they are, Leas staring at him with only pity and sorrow for him in his eyes, and Solas now wonders why he's so surprised. Leas could pity anyone.

"I'm so sorry, Solas," he says, and painful sincerity radiates from every word, the way it always does. Solas' heart clenches again. "What you've seen… I can't imagine."

When will this pity of yours end, Solas wonders as they stare at each other. I am as unworthy of it as all your other enemies who you've ever pitied. When you learn the truth in full, will you pity Elgar'nan despite his monstrousness? That is a rhetorical question. No doubt Leas will at least pity, if not Elgar'nan himself, then the lost potential, the concept of what he could have been but was not.

And there is so much lost potential, so much that could have been…

That concept spurs him into beginning the explanation in full, the story he has held close to his chest for so long, perhaps too long. The words come easily, more easily than he had expected, and as he talks, the old memories drift through his head and pull him in, leaving him awash in them. After a certain point, he almost does not see the marvellous scenery down below the cliff, and indeed, the only thing that he truly notices is Leas himself. The man never grows angry, nor does he weep, nor does he even seem that confused. He only asks questions and listens to the answers in patient silence, and he never objects or protests. As ever, he is entirely open-minded, more than willing to see beyond the preconceptions the Dalish instilled in him. But he does not laugh, not like he did that night when Solas told him the truth of the vallaslin, so long ago. For all that Solas knows that this is not something to laugh at, still, he wishes Leas would. He wishes all the more when he looks back at Leas after explaining how the Veil took everything from the elves and sees a tear trickling down his cheek.

But when Leas looks at him again, there is still no blame or resentment in his eyes. Quite the opposite—there is only perfect understanding and sympathy, as if he can comprehend, or is trying to, why Solas believed he had to do what he did. It rends at him, and after a few moments, he has to shift his gaze elsewhere. No, lethal'lin, you should not be so generous. I suppose I should not complain when other Dalish have been only hostile and suspicious, but you are too kind. How many elves died, directly or indirectly, because of what I did? How can you forgive that?

Here, Leas redirects the subject towards the future, and Solas walks away from the cliff, closer towards the eluvian that will take him away from here. Leas follows behind him and again listens in silence while he explains. While his words are poetic, they are also blunt, and he does not shy away from the ultimate confession of his plans. It is almost anticlimactic, not as grandiose as it ought to be, but that thought hardly crosses his mind. He can sense Leas freezing, and he turns back to see that all understanding has gone out of his face, as one might expect. Confusion replaces it, and horror, and perhaps an inkling of panic.

No surprise. Solas would have held there to be something wrong with Leas if he had continued in his insane understanding even to this point.

"You're going to… destroy this world?" Leas breathes. His eyes go wide again as he speaks, and he visibly swallows, what little blood there is in his face leaving it.

"Not happily," Solas says, as if that makes it any better, as if knowing that what he is doing is wrong can make up for the fact that he is going to do it, anyway. What sort of monster is he becoming, anyway? Is he any better than the Evanuris, though his motives are purer?

Rhetorical questions again. He does not need anyone to answer them for him.

After a few moments, Leas seems to recover his power of speech. "You know I'll have to stop you… arani," he says, voice soft and sorrowful, and Solas looks away again. Foolish man. He should not be calling him a friend, not now, not after what he's just learnt. Why does he persist? Is he in denial? Does he think his friendship will be enough to turn him away?

It might be, he realises. If Leas could show him another way… it might be enough.

He bows his head. "I know you will try, yes, lethal'lin."

Further explanations and questions follow from there, about his plans, the orb, the eluvians, the corruption in the Inquisition, the involvement of his agents, everything Leas had always deserved to know and now finds out at last. Leas looks increasingly weary and sorrowful as their talk goes on, his eyes getting ever more puppy-like with almost every sentence Solas says. But he remains patient, as ever, and never once raises his voice in anger. That has always been his way, but Solas can name few people who deserve it less than him.

Only once does Leas' patience crack, and that is when Solas admits it had been like walking in a world of Tranquil. Unsurprisingly, Leas, who has always seen people as people first, no matter what, recoils from him. His eyes bulge, and his mouth twists into a tight grimace. Solas does not look away—should not. "We aren't even people to you?" Leas murmurs, in the manner of a man who has had about all that he can take but has just found something new to be horrified by.

"Not at first. You showed me that I was wrong… again. That does not make what must come next any easier," he responds. Again, as if saying that could make any of this better.

When Leas has finished with his questions, he lets out another sigh and looks down at his hand. The Anchor is pulsing green, an ominous sign. "There's still the matter of the Anchor. It's getting worse."

"Yes. I'm sorry. And we are almost out of time." Now, Solas looks away, knowing what is coming, hardly able to bear to see it. His friend deserves nothing of this.

Almost on cue, the Anchor flares up several times larger than Leas' hand, and his veins—up to his shoulder— glow green again. Leas collapses to his knees, and Solas winces as his scream—protracted, harsh, tortured—claws at his eardrums. He wills himself to look back, avoids glancing at Leas' face, sees the armour melting and smoke rising from its gaps, smells the metal fusing to Leas' flesh. Shudders and twitches wrack the man's body, almost like seizures, and Leas' scream abruptly cuts off. He remains on his knees, but Solas knows that it will not be long before he blacks out—and if he does, he might not wake up again.

"The mark will eventually kill you," he murmurs. "Drawing you here gave me the chance to save you… at least for now." Small consolation, he knows.

Leas now collapses from his knees almost onto his face. He lands on his elbows, and they are only just enough to support him. He looks up at Solas, and even that movement he struggles to accomplish. When he speaks, the words are soft, breathy, and punctuated by gasps. "You… don't need… to destroy this world… arani," he says. He speaks arani with a hint of fierce determination, as if Solas is still his friend even now. Solas bites his lip. "I'll prove it to you."

Solas stares sorrowfully down at him. Oh, but how right he hopes Leas is. "I would treasure the chance to be wrong once again, lethal'lin," he says as if he isn't wrong already.

Leas swallows and gasps again. "But if I can't… prove it… then I'll stop you. You know… that…"

And what else can they expect? "I know," he says, and he kneels. "Take my hand. I'm sorry."

Leas falls further forward, his good arm now bearing the weight of his body, as he lifts his hand. Solas can feel the heat of the Anchor even before their hands touch, and it is searing, almost indescribable in its fury. A miracle Leas made it all the way up here, but there it is. Within a few seconds, he's worked the spell he's been waiting to use for years, and the Anchor has come away. The task complete, he stands and watches Leas again, but there is no expression on Leas' face now. For a long moment, they just stare at each other.

Then Solas turns away. "Live well, while time remains," he says, every bit as softly as before, and he walks off. As his breath comes in shuddering gasps out of a chest so tight, his ribs might break under the pressure, as he clenches his fists and tries to hold himself together, he is keenly aware of Leas watching him. The temptation looms to go back to him and return with him, and it almost brings him to a halt.

But he keeps walking, ignores the sound of Leas collapsing to the ground though it pains him, and he soon passes through the eluvian.

After he returns from the lavatory, Leas collapses onto his bed and rests his head against the headboard with a groan. He flings his remaining arm over his stomach. "Gods. I haven't felt this awful in years," he mutters. "Even after waking up from losing my arm… even when I was going through the Darvaarad. I just wish it would stop. I wanted to talk to Dorian through midnight…"

Taralen hesitates, but Telahmisa knocks him with her elbow. When she glares at him, he springs into action. "Oh, right! Er, Leas, do you want any more of that medicine?"

Leas sighs and tilts his head in Taralen's direction, but doesn't open his eyes. Even in the little light provided by the candles, his face is ghastly pale, his cheeks hollow and sunken in. He looks half like a corpse. "I wish. But I've already taken my limit for the day, and I'm not about to go over it."

Telahmisa leans forward and pulls the bottle containing the drug from her pocket. "What about this?" she says, and Leas cracks open one eye and peers at the bottle. "This is like that other stuff we've been giving you, but stronger. It'll block your access to the Fade and help you sleep better. No guarantee it'll keep you from waking up needing to throw up, but…" The best part is it's not even a lie, not totally. It's just somewhat more potent than she's leading Leas to believe.

She's hardly got the words out when Leas nods, the gesture almost frantic. "Please. What I wouldn't do for a bit of solid sleep…" he says, and he sounds relieved. The deep shadows under his eyes show the reason for that clearly enough.

"What about Dorian?" Taralen says nervously as he shifts in his seat. "Don't you want to call him first? Tell him you can't, er, make it?" He visibly swallows.

"This'll take a while to kick in, like most drugs," she lies. Oh, it'll take time, yes—but not as much as he thinks. "You'll have time to call him and tell him what's going on. I'm sure he'll understand." She speaks the words with a slight veneer of disdain, and once again, the question of how Leas can lower himself enough to love a Tevinter passes through her head. But she says nothing of it as she unscrews the bottlecap, pours the correct dose, and hands it to Leas. He drinks eagerly, unaware, and he does not notice Taralen flinching and looking away, guilt written all over his face. As soon as he's drunk, he slips under the covers and smiles at them.

"'Ma serannas, you two," he says. "Last few weeks haven't been… haven't been ideal. I'm glad you're here to help me."

Telahmisa smiles, though it's more like a smirk. At the same moment, Taralen cringes again and says, "De da'rahn." He speaks so quickly that Leas spares him a glance and furrows his brow, but he does nothing beyond that. Instead, he lays down and turns onto his side.

There's their cue to leave. "I think we should let him rest," Telahmisa says, and Taralen nods and rises from his seat. After they bid Leas good night, they head out of his room, shut the door behind them, then walk about halfway down the corridor so he'll think they've left. They come to a halt, and Telahmisa leans against the wall while Taralen fidgets with the end of one of his sleeves. "So, we're doing this at last," he mutters.

"Yes, we are. Nice job almost giving us away."

Taralen groans and flushes a deep red. "He didn't suspect anything, and even if he did, there's not a lot he can do about it. Besides, I'm not… comfortable with this, Telahmisa…"

She sighs. There's Taralen's conscience again. "You know why this is necessary."

"Yes, I am." The uneasiness in his face, the way he bites his lip and glances about him, belies those words. "It's just… this has been going on for weeks already. We all but sabotaged him with the magebane. And now we're about to drag him off to parts unknown after he's already lost so much. I know why it's needed, it's just… he was our clanmate once, and he's done so much. He deserves better than this."

"He stands in the way of a better world for our people," Telahmisa informs him coolly. "All so he can keep sucking human cock, in more ways than one. He's more of a traitor than we will ever be." Taralen flinches and opens his mouth to argue, but then he closes it again, evidently reconsidering.

How can she be argued with, anyway? For all his so-called championing, Leas has always shied away from the harsher actions, the real methods needed to win their freedom back. He is too much on the side of the humans to accept what they must do, and that makes him an enemy. There is nothing in their world that their two peoples share—it is either humans or elves. And if Leas wants to side with the humans, then she'll treat him like one. His efforts are admirable, but they are not enough, and she cannot wait for the peace he alleges will one day be. Not after the stories that her parents told her, not after what little she's seen in Halamshiral.

A couple of minutes later, Telahmisa pushes off the wall again. "Come," she says, and she and Taralen turn and head back down the hall. They enter Leas' room to find him passed out on the bed, as expected. He breathes deeply and heavily, and his sending crystal is in his hand. At once, Telahmisa grabs the bottle of magebane, opens it, and dumps most of the contents into Leas' mouth and makes him swallow. That dose will be enough to make him seriously ill again when he wakes up, but not enough to kill him.

"You are aware that'll be flushed out of his system eventually," Taralen says as he pulls back the sheets.

"Eventually. Why do you think I've been having him poisoned since he got here? It'll take weeks, at least. And with his sending crystal also gone…" So saying, Telahmisa reaches behind Leas, undoes the chain of the crystal, and pulls it away. She stuffs it into her pocket.

Taralen cringes again. "Is that also necessary?"

"Yes." She smiles as she says it, a little vindictively. "This will keep him from contacting the magister. And once he's shut out of the network, he'll have nowhere to go, and his friends won't be able to find him. Not for a long while, at least." If things don't come off immediately, then it may well be nothing more than a stopgap—but they have to try. Anything for a better world.

"Sounds like there's more to it than that. What do I do with his possessions?"

"Roni will come along later to pick them up and dump them somewhere. And maybe there is," Telahmisa muses as she stuffs the crystal into her pocket. "The sending crystals were elven. If I can get this to a mage who knows how to work them… it could be used to our advantage. But beyond that…" She scowls. "I can't fathom why he would accept such a gift from a Tevinter. Disgusting. He needs to remember what he is, what shape his ears are."

Taralen stares at her. "So this is about spite."

She shrugs. "Whatever it's about, you can't deny this is necessary. Now come on. Lift him. We need to get moving." For a moment, he hesitates, but then he nods, his pout and the pallor of his face screaming his reluctance. He puts his arm under Leas' prone form, lifts, staggers under the sudden weight, then slings the man over his shoulder. Without another word, they leave the room and head back out into the corridor.

The entrance to this part of the palace is, for the moment, unguarded—Telahmisa timed this for the brief pause in between guard shifts. Nevertheless, they remain silent and stick to the deepest shadows as they cross the scant distance between the guest quarters and the room containing the eluvian. Though she has none of Taralen's uncertainty, even she feels a jolt of anxiety as they make their way, and even the presence of many other elves heading in the same direction provides no comfort. By the time they reach the room, unmolested and seen by none, her hands are sweaty.

The room is packed full, holds several dozen other elves much like her parents, sick of their abuse and ready to do anything for freedom, for a better world. Several pairs of eyes go wide at the sight of Leas in his vulnerable state, but none make a peep. Telahmisa gestures, and the exodus begins, elf after elf slipping through the eluvian into the Crossroads, taking—hopefully—the first of many steps into the future they haven't had since Arlathan fell.

But now it is coming again, and that sends a thrill of excitement down her spine as the pair of them fall into line and pass through the eluvian. Taralen staggers again as he carries Leas on his shoulder, but he soon finds his balance. A solitary mage wanders behind them, her purpose to seal the eluvian once all have gone. Doing so will hopefully be one of the last acts of petty human magic she ever performs. In time, Creators willing, they all will have magic again, and they will remake the world to suit their image, and never again will they submit.

And if Leas has to be sacrificed for that—if his son and brother have to suffer—if many people have to suffer… well, the world's ending, anyway.

Their suffering is an acceptable price to pay.

Author's Note: And that's it, at least for now! I hope you've enjoyed this work, and I'd appreciate it if you favourited it or left a review if you did. And who knows, you may see more of it when DA4 comes out.