Great heroes beyond counting raised

Oak and iron 'gainst chains of north-men

And walked the lonely worm-roads evermore.

Mighty of arm and warmest of heart,

Rendered to dust. Bitter is sorrow,

Ate raw and often, poison that weakens and does not kill.

Andraste 1:2

Leliana felt the veil warp; its thinned tatters whipped at her, as, she assumed, they whipped at all humans, regardless of whether they had ever encountered the arcane. It was an odd sensation, she considered, and one which, should any remnants of the world as she'd known it survive the present storm, might give all a greater appreciation of what mages went through, on their tight walk between the Fade and the unchanging world.

It was a great if.

For once in her life, the Nightingale felt nothing; no drive, no will, no purpose. She felt defeat and she felt freedom, in such a way that one hung by her neck as heavy as a mountain, and the other gave her the sensation that she too could fly, and, thus suspended, she did not look away from the portrait of Pavus and Lavellan which hung above the mantelpiece, though she knew that something had come through the mirror behind her.

The other stopped, in turn; only then did she look over her shoulder to meet his glance, yet he too was looking to the portrait…What did he see in it? Leliana wondered. Vel's ears? Her dulled vallaslin? The dragons on her robes? Dorian Pavus' hand on Veldrin's half bared shoulder?

She'd have asked the question, for now, as all the sands of time were draining to an end and the hourglass threatened to turn, only curiosity remained; she didn't ask, however, because judging by the look on Solas' features, he would not have an answer.

'You were my mistake, first and foremost,' she dreamily said. 'You know that, don't you, Solas?'

The elf finally met her stare, and shook his head in unstifled sorrow. 'No, Sister Nightingale,' he softly spoke. 'You,' he whispered, 'all of you…were my mistake.'

He then turned and once more passed through the looking glass.

Perhaps, Leliana thought, he would win. Perhaps he would lose. Still, the one thing that was certain was that regardless of the outcome, the Dread Wolf would carry that portrait with him for however many hours of life he had left.

The two hosts stood, facing each other – each counting but a few souls, each wielding the strength of armies.

Abelas recognised some of them; indeed, he knew some of them better than he might have liked, and despite the fact that there were things about some of them he had struggled to forget, such as for, instance, the fact that the Tevinter Magister had spoken in his favour at the heart of Mythal's temple. Yes, he'd sought to forget that.

It was far easier to remember the Qunari who then, as now, would have cleaved him in half at a gesture, and the little blonde archer who was so apart from herself that no truth of the people remained in her heart. Along with their memory, Abelas' thoughts unwillingly turned to the moment when he'd first locked glances with Solas and recognised him for what he was – to the words they'd exchanged over the shoulder of the woman Solas had then been following.

Elvhen like you? Abelas had asked, then.

Elvhen like me. Solas had nodded – and though the words had been spoken plainly and out loud, Veldrin Lavellan had not understood their meaning. She could not have.

Almost a decade before, however, Veldrin, the woman he least wished to remember, had looked him straight in the eyes. Now, though she had indeed grown in strength so much it was palpable and unholy, she simply stood at the forefront of her group, her eyes trained to the ground.

'Abelas,' the Tevinter expressionlessly said, jolting the Sentinel from his memories and into the present; once more, Abelas thought, the human did not act in his own interest.

What Veldrin Lavellan and her Shem should have done to secure their victory over Abelas himself was seal the eluvian that he and his Sentinels had come through, and kill them all – beyond himself, Abelas knew that he would not engage, here. It would be madness to: in steel and magic, Veldrin Lavellan's group dwarfed his, just as Solas had predicted. But now he'd seen it with his own eyes, he'd remembered and counted them; he'd learned that Lavellan and the ones better left forgotten had not joined forces, and that Solas would find them easy pickings, as he probably found the dragons of Minrathous easy pickings.

If Abelas had been in the shoes of the Shem'len Lavellan was bonded with, he'd not have risked that knowledge getting back to Solas. He would have sealed the mirror and scored the only pyric victory he could have – kill all the Sentinels. In coming through the eluvian, Abelas and all who followed him had already shown they were willing to die, for now, more than ever, they were but a droplet in the tidal wave that had been Mythal, in the tidal wave that was Fen'Harel…and yet…

'Abelas,' the Tevinter had repeated, in such sadness that one might have imagined he had stooped to learn elvhen. Lavellan did not shift her glance from the floor; she did not seal the mirror. Her group did not move to attack – the stand-off felt as if it had lasted hours, rather than minutes, and Abelas half lifted his hand to bring it to an end, and order his host back though the eluvian.

It was not to be.

The mirror rippled, and Solas materialised by his side to finish the phrase that the Tevinter Magister had begun.

'Abelas,' Solas said, even as Veldrin Lavellan finally lifted her glowing, crimson glance from the ground; there was a smile upon her features, one that was too gruesome and distorted to behold. 'Abelas,' the Dread Wolf whispered, in the same breath as Dorian Pavus, 'run.'

'Well, well, well, what do we have here?' Imshael cordially said. 'Don't you look fancy in your god-armour, Solas…Excuse me,' he followed, smirking, 'Dread Wolf it is these days, I understand.'

Solas took a deep breath and clenched his jaws, setting the cold fire of his blue eyes on Dorian.

'What have you done, Tevinter?' he hissed, in disgust.

The demon inside Veldrin's body stepped up in between the Magister and the Wolf, hiding the former from view.

'He's done nothing, fluffy puppy.' Imshael said, smiling. 'But,' he conceded with a shrug of Veldrin's shoulders, 'I see that he is right to like circular conversations – you always assume it must be the Tevinter human doing all things unpalatable. I take great pleasure in letting you know that Magister Pavus has done nothing; just like you, your vhenan did it all…all on her own. Just like you, Dread Wolf. Two major differences, though,' the demon added, raising one hand, with the index and middle finger extended. 'You did not care about what lives you laid to waste on your path; she does. Far more important than that though, she is actually in my good cards. You,' Imshael growled, his voice dropping to a blood curling tone, 'are not. Are you not forgetting to petrify stuff, by the way?'

'Go on,' Imshael enticed. 'You know you want to – Dorian at least always wanted his profile immortalised in marble, I doubt having it immortalised in granite will make much of a difference…'

Solas looked down and took a deep breath; he remained silent.

'Don't lose your nerve now, Dread Wolf,' the demon goaded. 'Veldrin Lavellan certainly didn't – she invited me in, to fight you. She enlisted Tevinter's Archon, and, who-hoo…we both know what else, to fight you. She's not a shy one, her, she truly is a rare and precious spirit, this one; it's not that you were too good for her, it was always that she was too good for you. So why are you not matching her willpower? Why are you not willing all of these,' Imshael said, 'out of existence? Is the choice bearing heavy on you, now that you have to kill those you personally did love or at least respect?'

'Were we to tally up the lives you took while looking the other way, we'd rack up quite the sum,' Imshael merrily said, circling close. 'Why are you counting these? Just because you knew them, once? Go on, go on, you came to kill, so, do it. The only choice you're still to make is whether you will kill them all while looking them in the eyes, or turn around and kill them without looking – the latter is your regular modus operandi, anyway. Choose, master of lies. Choose, while I still let you do so.'

So, Solas chose – he turned his back on all, and closed his eyes. 'Ar lath ma, vhenan,' he whispered, as he willed them all away, expecting that his own heart would turn to stone along with them. It kept beating though, one tick after another painful tick.

He didn't understand. He turned around.

His heart kept beating because they were all still alive; the magic of his god-like will broke upon a shield which hovered in mid-air between himself and Veldrin. The white light it radiated dissolved his spell, deviating it into nothingness and feeding upon it at the same time; all those who stood behind the woman Solas loved stood tall and breathed at ease, while he suddenly felt at a lack for air, and the veil collapsed about him as it had never done before, heavy and constraining. He could not run into the Fade; the eluvian behind him was dead and dull.

Imshael made Veldrin smile. 'Too late,' he said, using her voice. 'Or maybe I just lied on this one – you really did not have a choice but look them in the eye and count them. Are you counting?'

Solas found that he was, but could not count beyond two – Vel, his Vel, and Dorian Pavus by her side, a flaming focus orb in his hand. He saw the Iron Bull in the distance of the few feet that separated him from Veldrin's group, and there was a nagging absence…

'That's right, you're missing one.' Imshael beamed. 'Where is Sera?'

It was only then that he saw, rather than felt the tip of a sword piercing his chest from behind; he knew that it had missed its mark, but also knew that even if Sera had found his heart, it would have mattered little – he was no immortal, yet his armour was only the veneer of gilded metal; magic and Fade threads kept it together. For one who took in the Fade as others took in breath, it was protection and healing alike, thus a single blow, even to the heart would not have been deadly.

Veldrin could not have known it; Sera, who'd hated him, could not have known it, but she would not have missed. Solas looked down at the bloodied sword tip, clenched his teeth, and took a step forth, slowly slipping himself off the sword's edge. He spun to grip the blade, hoping to take it out of Sera's hands before the weapon's aura, the aura that was pinching at him and must have ripped at her truly harmed her; after all, Sera stood beyond the edges of the barrier that protected the others and…

…the sword that had only caused him such minor inconvenience was hovering in mid-air too, free of Sera's grip as it was free of his chest; he saw the blonde rogue dance on the edges of his vision. The second sword precisely nipped at his cheek, though Sera had barely touched it in her haste to retreat behind the white barrier of the shield.

Sera's breath was ragged but, behind the shield, recovering; Solas's hands, from where he'd wiped the blood off his chest and off his cheek, were streaked crimson.

Veldrin alone could not have known about his armour; Sera would not have missed his heart or his eye – and, despite knowing what their weapons were, despite understanding that whatever he'd learned of their plans had been woefully, painfully wrong, that there was something else at play, here, Solas hesitated before casting.

'Vel would not choose this,' he softly said. His blood began slowly draining back inside his body, yet the healing did nothing to assuage the sorrow, for he knew all too well she had to have chosen this unknown path, and that she'd done it because he had not left her a choice, just as she'd left none for him. He looked up to meet the demon's glance – by the smirk on its features as it took a step forward, outside the barrier's reach, Imshael knew he did not need to speak of choices in his turn.

'If it is any consolation, which I dearly wish it will not be,' the demon said, dryly, 'Veldrin really does hope you will not suffer. Too much,' it ended, with a wide grin.

Red light bathed him from below then, his shadow shifting as an orb of a make he could not recognise came alive somewhere above. The magical lines of Aurelian Titus' power drain diagram stretched out from his feet, as if he had suddenly stepped into a nest of writhing serpents; though the scratch on his cheek was no thicker than a hairline, he could feel it beginning to bleed as if his flesh had been split to the bone – and late, too late, he felt that his blood was not dripping down his cheek, but rather crawling upwards, over his temple, just as the blood of the all but closed wound on his back was slowly creeping under his breastplate towards his shoulder, inexorably pulling away from the completed circle under his feet and towards the dully glowing orb above.

It was enough to jerk Solas from the dream; he could not move, and no waves of dispel could remove the shackles of the magical serpents at his feet, but his armour still held its powers. Within its many strands of the Fade, the wound on his back closed and no new blood flowed. The old one, however, continued to ascend undeterred, seeping between the delicate, overlapping gilded plates, crawling upwards, ever upwards on his neck and then, on the back of his skull in deceitful, disgusting warmth. Both wounds were closed now, but the blood kept moving, and soon, despite his focus, he could feel the two faint trickles uniting and lifting clear of his skin.

He brought his own staff to focus and attacked in turn – glittering, fierce missiles that might otherwise had found aim and rent flesh from bone darted about the chamber, pointlessly attempting to breach the white light barrier of the shield. Solas gritted his teeth and redoubled his efforts, no longer aiming behind Veldrin and her demon, but straight at them; Imshael smiled, crooking the corner of Vel's lips upwards. It extended her hand, actually drawing the attacks towards her and away from all others. The deadly glow worms danced about her, so close to each other that they hid her from view, which was, he thought, a small mercy; he still did not wish want to watch her die.

He no longer felt the blood on skin – even if it had still been there, it would not have mattered, and, for the thousandth time, wished that he could truly reverse time and take all of his thoughts, and words, and deeds back, wished that he too would have been severed from the Fade and died, along with all the other sleepers he'd murdered in the creation of the veil, he wished that with her death, his quest would be over and knew it would not be and…

His eyelids forcefully flew open, and he met Dorian Pavus' stare.

'Fuck you,' the human whispered, between clenched teeth.

'She should not have…' Solas whispered, feeling the heat of his own magic on his face and willing himself to sustain Dorian's glance.

'Opposed ya?' Sera spat, her features so contorted that she, too, looked as if she had been possessed – perhaps she was, but the demon of her rage was familiar and impotent.

'I think you met a different boss than we did, Solas,' Iron Bull said.

'I loved her,' he pointlessly said, shifting his glance to the burning cocoon.

'She loves you very much too,' whatever was stifled within it said; the cocoon blossomed wide in the blink of an eye; as Solas shook his head, to get rid of the impossible vision, all his missiles distanced themselves from Vel's intact figure, no longer under his control, but under hers. Tadpoles in the moss of shore, the fire danced about her fingers and caressed her skin without damaging it, then ran though her hair like the delicate fingers of a long lost lover.

Veldrin too closed her eyes, and, on her command, his own power turned against him as a great tidal wave – the defences he summoned from his armour were misguided, for the attack did not centre on him. Instead, all the energy dryly burrowed itself into the alien magical circle beneath his feet. Once more, too late he realised that he no longer knew her, or any of them; too late, Solas brought about himself a barrier so solid that only other Elvhen, Elvhen like him could breach it.

It shimmered blue, against the red light below and the white light before him. He saw Vel's features as if through a pane of glass beset by heavy rain. She stubbornly remained Vel, and she walked towards his barrier, spreading her fingers upon it and pushing against it gently, with no apparent intent of striking it down; for a heartbeat, the heavy rain cleared, and he could see her eyes, golden and laden with sorrow, before a million cracks within the barrier grew to replace the wash of energies.

'I promised I would follow my path, Solas,' she whispered. 'I did.'

The blood he'd lost, the blood she'd taken from him and he'd thought pointless tugged despairingly at the top of his barrier, a remnant of something the colour of rust threatening to go dry and cling to the bottom of an upturned, clear bowl.

He'd summoned the barrier a literal droplet too late, and though that mistake of his, the droplet rose and rose, and rose again, and met the glowing surface of the orb that had never stopped shining above him. Beneath Veldrin's small fingers, his barrier cracked and crumbled. The circle of snakes he stood in grew bold and crawled under his armour and his skin, its many heads and tongues and scales crept in the fibres of his muscles and so, and so a wolf found his paws in a clenched trap he had not even remotely sensed.

One that he finally grasped he'd not escape, even if he chewed off a limb.

'Don't, vhenan, don't,' he pleaded, as through the many cracks he watched her turn away – she would kill him, he understood it and accepted it, though he still did not truly grasp how… Still, he oddly felt no fear for himself, or even for his plans. No, what he feared for was her, for the guilt she'd shoulder, for the parts of herself that she'd lose, the parts she'd already lost to the demon and the vile spell she was using, those parts she'd never recover…

'Don't do this to yourself, Vel,' Solas said; for the briefest of moments, she looked over her shoulder, through her demon's eyes, then slowly turned away.

'Bull,' Solas heard her whisper.

'My pleasure, boss,' the Qunari answered; his axe came down and shattered the magic Solas held undefeatable for all of his millennia into small, melting shards – Vel barely needed call Sera's name, then.

The blonde rogue darted forth, grabbing the accursed swords in mid-flight. She moved significantly faster after she'd touched them, as if they'd been protecting her from the crushing aura of the altar, and she had no need to stab or go against his armour now. No power that Solas possessed could free him from the circle in which he was standing, nor from the insidious power of the orb above so Sera merely needed dance around him, nipping at every inch of exposed skin, all shallow scratches, none bleeding more than a droplet before they healed.

A droplet from each of was more than enough.

Feeding off him, the Tevinter orb grew resplendent enough to rival the ancient relic Dorian was holding; with each pulse of its red light, Solas felt weaker in an eerie way, for his magic was draining and he felt as if the lines of the Veldrin's circle were slowly growing under his skin and replacing his veins, yet his mind remained clear, as did his vision – he felt no pain, not yet, but the clarity of mind and vision was cruel enough.

Though Veldrin's back was still turned to him, Solas could well see the blade of her Arunlin'holm glinting between her fingers, and, his glance fixed on her movements, he did not notice that Dorian had closed his eyes and gritted his teeth, in a desperate attempt of focussing away from the fact that his wife slowly split her left hand veins open from wrist to elbow.

It was the last heartbeat of clarity, before the pain truly began, and it was unlike anything Solas had ever felt – as soon as Veldrin's darkened blood touched the hungering maghrallen, Sera's menial cuts were no longer of any importance. His blood fought its way to the surface from every pore of his skin, rivulets running out from under his fingernails, his nose and the corners of his eyes, uniting to streams and running upwards. Every fibre of his body was screaming and writhing in agony, leaving him with no strength to do so in turn; through crimson mists, he could only see the burning arch of light that now connected his blood flow to Veldrin's, via the blindingly glowing bridge of the orb – and finally understood, no…felt…what she was doing…knew that the reason why he'd been so easily entrapped was that the magic being used on him was not only blood magic, but also new, terribly new, narrow in its goal and lethally precise in its purpose.

Veldrin was draining not his blood, but his powers, yet not in the way that Morrigan, or any Elvhen might have, for the drain purposefully and wickedly stayed clear of his thoughts and his consciousness. Else, he painstakingly thought, bending over, and feeling as if he'd been flayed alive by acid, Vel would have seen some of his thoughts, she too would have known, felt…

'Stop,' he chocked, leaning on one knee. 'Stop, Veldrin – you could not hold the Mark, you cannot…You'll kill her – you will kill her, not me…Is that what you want?' Solas whispered, looking up at the red eyes of the demon who'd finally turned to face him, and addressing it alone. 'What manner of a parasite are you, that you would kill your host before you kill your prey?' he managed, coughing blood onto his already bloodied hand.

Imshael smiled and flexed Veldrin's arm, to show that she, at least was no longer bleeding; the arch of light that closed over the maghrallen was weaving her veins blue and resplendent under her skin. The iridescent light now rose over her shoulder, under her robes and over her left cheek, even growing into the white of her left eye…And still, it smiled, then sighed theatrically.

'Eh,' it amusedly said. 'An immortal parasite? I thought we knew each other better than that.' The demon said, looking down at Solas and shaking his head. 'But…No, I am not killing her – Veldrin herself would prefer to die with you – and might I say, how touching I find your concern for her now, after you did try to make statues out of them all – ironically,' he added, 'the very people who have bend over backwards to keep her alive and safe.'

'From you.' Imshael said, sweetly. 'From me. Well, from herself, mostly…Speaking of which, Mae, sweetness. If you'd be so kind; I think Vel's had more fun here than she intended. Silly sentimental bint,' he affectionately cooed; Veldrin's left eye was now fully blue. 'It's as if she truly expected that I would make it quick. Or painless.'

Solas did not hear the last phrase, but then he scarcely needed to. Nor did he see Maevaris Tilani advance, or Radonis' orb rising out from between her fingers; all he did see was the blue draining from Veldrin's left eye, as the line of his blood, still flowing upwards though the maghrallen, then passing though her body, finally channelled into the third of the foci – it drained, it all drained, and for a moment, a heartbeat, her eyes were golden, they were her eyes, and he felt joy.

After that, he felt only pain, saw only blood, and he finally screamed.

Good evening - and it did have to come to this. Other than employing a titan to throw Nevarra at Solas' head, I saw no other way to defeat him, so hopefully this well prepared one makes sense. Plus, we shan't be killing him, though I have to say he won't be having very much fun.

Thank you for reading and commenting,

Cheers,

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