The Wellspring of All said, "None now remember.

Long have they turned to idols and tales

Away from My Light, in darkness unbroken

The last of My children, shrouded in night."

Andraste 1:8

Yet, there was little will to live another day, even less will to fight; it had all ended, in that pit of voles, with Abelas' yes, with Veldrin's…There was nothing but loss and regret, and an eternity of empty time ahead, in which to feel both.

Not even the deceitfully soothing wing of rage descended; Solas was merely cold, within and without, for the first time in his long years, truly defeated.

He'd noticed that they had not bound him again long minutes after his human tormenters had withdrawn, and it took further, long minutes, mayhaps hours to understand why, and guess by whose orders – Daren'thal, he thought, leaning his head back on the bars of his cage, and looking to the ceiling without truly seeing it.

Daren'thal, the reader of thoughts and seer of futures, the one amid those best left forgotten whose cruelty had always been so hidden in her good looks and soothing voice, so veiled in her mist of her smoke that one barely intuited it existed…The Augur, so innocent and random in her wickedness and kindness alike…

Always the most dangerous of them all, he'd numbly thought, the perfidious beauty of her wickedness lying in the fact that she most likely did not even know she possessed it.

Her long lost love for Urthemiel had been genuine and radiant, as his for her: Beauty and Mystery entwined, with Beauty drawn into the ranks of the first traitors and ensnared there not by personal will for power, but by the far more inescapable binding of true love. Without her, they would never have been seven, without her…

And this was her revenge. The day had been Anaris', but this…

Why let the painful niggle in a twisted shoulder or a lash call the mind back from where the true pain lay?

He thought of dying animals licking their wounds, and not realising the pointlessness of the endeavour; he thought of how they died thinking that there was still a chance, a cause, and envied them those last flickers of hope, their lack of awareness of the inevitable, the power to fight the numbness overcame them, and the last sleep descended…

Still, here he sat, knees gathered to his chest, not in awareness that death to follow, but in the absolute knowledge that it would not.

And he was not alone.

The other's eyes dispelled the darkness where he'd slithered to grieve, even the illusion that if he could never again hide from himself, he could hide from the others…her, he bitterly thought. Him.

'Why have you come, Anaris?' he asked, without lifting his forehead from his crossed arms.

'To watch you suffer,' the Old God expressionlessly replied. 'To finally, truly watch you suffer.'

Solas clenched his teeth. 'And?' he whispered. 'How does it feel?'

'Primal,' the other shrugged. 'Brutal. Miserly. Vulgar. Satisfying. Pleasurable to an extent I never recall experiencing, even in my life before this one…The Lady Mystery,' he followed, approaching the cage, and softly running his elegant, long fingers across the bars as he indifferently strode by, 'needs not be here in physical presence, she can take delight from afar; I on the other hand could only watch you writhe, like the earthworm you are, and hence…'

'Go on, my brother,' he said, grinning a horrid grin, 'make my efforts worthwhile. Shed a tear or two…ask me, on trembling breath, why.'

'Why?' Solas asked, raising his glance to Anaris' – his voice was indeed trembling, but his eyes were dry; there was such a thing as sorrow too intense for tears. 'I'd thought that even you…'

'I…what?' the other ironically scoffed, pausing to tower over his prisoner. 'That I would so soon tire of watching you being lashed and prodded? I wonder why you'd think that, Pride – you yourself told the Dawnbringer that you acknowledge your pains are deserved, and long in coming. To your body, I could have done much more. We both know, though, that flesh is transitory, and so are its pains. Your pride as well I've merely scratched, not truly dented over these past few months…No, Solas, these games I've played with your frail and powerless form were for the entertainment of the humans in my care. My entertainment begins now.'

'I'd thought that even you would find it in your heart to not fully annihilate the people merely to crush me,' Solas quietly ended.

Anaris emitted a small chuckle. 'Is that what you think you witnessed, on this day?' he asked, baring a sharp canine.

Solas closed his eyes.

'You've once more sold them to Tevinter, this time, for good…Or you have forced them into selling themselves…'

The Old God laughed, this time in full.

'Ah,' he responded, 'the Lady Mystery is proven right once more. You are...truly, unchangeable, Pride. See,' he said, leaning on one knee to match the other's height sitting, 'the Augur told me that with your mind now rushing in all directions, you would soon find a way to cast us all as villains, once again, and that if I do not make haste in ripping another pound of flesh from you, you'd find a way to hide from what you now feel, and shoulder less than you should. No, my brother, we did not sell your precious shell of our past lives to Tevinter, nor did we twist their arms into selling themselves – they came to us, in feverish supplication, and we gave them what you could not.'

'A state,' Anaris followed, gracefully straightening. 'More so, a status; Godly protection…'

The rage rose, then, in Solas' heart, and it was welcome.

'I know you as many things, my brother,' Solas hissed, 'but as a liar, before this day, I knew you not…'

''Tis true,' Anaris smirked. 'Between the two of us, you are and you will always be the master of lies – I'm speaking truth.'

'Truth?' Solas spat, painstakingly rising to his feet in turn, and facing to his ancient nemesis with as much dignity as his weakened body allowed. 'Abelas, bending knee to you – truth? That…farce…that grotesque farce…within the heart of our foe's strength, truth?'

'You would have me believe,' the prisoner further queried, finding a last spark of fire, 'that Abelas and Veldrin agreed to the vile treachery that before all unfolded – that they willingly agreed to return tens of thousands of our people to slavery?'

'I made no such claim,' Anaris scoffed. 'Neither willed it, but both submitted.'

'To your threat,' Solas said, then staggered an inch back, truly holding on to the cage's bars for support. There was no amusement in the Old God's sapphire eyes, no smirk to turn up the corner of his lips.

'No, Pride,' Anaris slowly spoke. 'To the will of the people. I,' the Old God said, for the first time lowering his glance, 'must confess to a certain amount of unhealthy curiosity. Since my second awakening, I've walked the streets of your jewel of a city more than once, seeking out corners where I and some maiden were once embroiled, seeking out chambers wherein books more pleasure brought than maidens…Even that little tavern on the western corner of the great flower market, where we two used to meet and play at cards, and drink more than our vaunt…You will remember it, I am sure; for centuries we met there, and it was there that Andruil first sat on your lap. I found nought but that, for all of my corners, and all of my rooms, and all my oases of peace were demolished, due to you. That place on the square still stands, and do you know what it is, now?'

'That place,' he whispered, 'where I thought I found friendship and you thought you found love? The place where I watched you first loving Andruil, then realising who and what she was? The place where, on one night you could no longer stand the monster she is being in your arms, and you told her to be off you and forget you, and we drank until morn, just the two of us, alone, tossing coin after coin to the innkeep just to leave us to speak of everything and nothing and your heartbreak – do you remember that place, Solas? The people, your people, drain their shit buckets there, or, if they're strong enough of nose, they outright shit and piss there.'

'This is what you brought back. Not even a flickering shadow of our world, but its outhouse,' Anaris said.

'In the crowd I stood, when your Abelas, stony faced, broken and weak put the expulsion of the Tevinter slaves to the will of Arlathan's people…and do you think they paused to think, Solas? Do you think, for a second, the dregs you gathered stopped to consider the misery of others? I did not even join the clamour or their voices. I did not even smile. Though my heart sang with glee...'

'So no, my brother, your bolthole is now as demolished as all of mine…you cannot run to even the thought that I, or Mystery, or even Patience and Sorrow willed this fate upon Tevinter's slaves. The people, your people…'

'That can't be true,' Solas whispered. 'It can't be true,' he pleaded, looking into his lost friend's eyes, then swiftly shifting his glance aside, for he could no longer sustain the cold, sincere amusement in the other's voice.

'I know not how, or even why your lackey came to be so dear to the Lady Patience and the Dawnbringer,' Anaris continued. 'They did ask me to let him live, and taught him to behave in my presence in such a way that he might not arouse my wrath – they are children of peace time, those two, and for all the trials you faced them with, have little understanding for what you know so well: that wars end when one dances on the graves of their enemies. As you once thought you'd danced on mine.'

Solas softly shook his head. 'Thus,' he whispered, 'you did not merely go to Arlathan to see what your humans made of it…You went to kill Abelas, too, in such a way that Veldrin and Dorian would never know you'd done it.'

'Quite so,' Anaris nodded, with a hint of a smile. 'You, I still need alive, if only for amusement; him, I do not – I feared that he would kneel only to reach for the dagger in his boot, yet there was no need for me to act against him and no reason for doubt; your people killed him with a show of hands, and it was priceless to watch, Solas, almost as good as watching you die now…what had you hoped for, Solas?' he questioned, lingering bitterness in his voice. 'The same thing you had hoped for millennia ago, I wager – that freed of us, the people would cease to be wicked; that with the Evanuris gone, a better nature would finally come to the fore? That with the humans gone…'

He snickered.

'You think, my brother, that you sailed from one grave error to the next, but this is not the truth – you merely committed one mistake: believing in the good nature of the people, believing that it was us alone creating divisions and oppression…Oh, how I wish you had been there to see how these, your good people, when left to their devices, acted towards each other…'

'Those men and women that you stole from Tevinter were little less than lepers from the first hour,' Anaris uttered, taking great pleasure in slowly uttering each word. 'You took them with the clothes on their backs only, but you allowed the free Orlesians and Fereldens to bring whatever wealth they had. Did you, perhaps imagine that they would embrace Tevinter's unfortunates as brothers just because they have similarly shaped ears?'

'For some, usage was swiftly found in work as menial and hard and filthy as that the humans had already destined them to; those fortunate enough to be found useful gained stale bread for their toils, but these were few. The others, like rats, littered the city, reduced to beggars and thieves and whores, despised and mocked by all, but feared as well, if only for their numbers…Gleefully, without a second thought and despite pleas and wails, your fair city decided to rid itself of them, Tevinter liberati raising their hands along with Ferelden sewer rats…'

'Enough, Anaris,' Solas whimpered. 'Enough…'

'Not by a longshot, brother – this is my hour, and by the heavens, I shall have it' Anaris said, cutting short even the strangled plea. 'You need to open your eyes, and behold what lied before them for millennia – that when those who were once weak gain even a morsel of power, they'll turn and cruelly exercise it on those weaker then themselves. That sheep turned wolves preserve no memory of having been sheep, and that those who find themselves holding a whip swiftly forget a lash's bite. The darkness of men and Elvhen alike comes from within, not from without, and not even you, destroyer of worlds, enemy of all the Gods could change that…'

'You did not give them any time…' Solas said, in a voice he barely recognised as his own.

'Indeed,' Anaris nodded, 'and for the best it was that I did not, for a grim future they were headed – alienages were already there, Solas, all but in name. Revolts would follow, soon, and they would not be skirmishes in which those who rise up are outnumbered ten to one, for those forced to the gutter made up a third of your shining city's inhabitants…Regardless of who won, your streets would have run red with blood, and those who might have escaped the massacre would have no choice but to lead the humans to your walls, to finish what the people themselves had started. To finish the people, once and for all.'

'If that had been your intent, Pride, I would congratulate you for how close you came to your goal,' the Old God ended. 'Again,' he snarled.

'Better that,' Solas bitterly replied, 'than the fate you and your humans have in store for them…'

'If left to your devices, you would choose death for all at every turn, would you not, brother?' Anaris asked, shaking his head – and it was not the words that added to the torment, but the kindly, disappointed tone in which they were uttered.

'You chase from one invented outcome to the other,' the Old God sighed, 'though sadly neither foresight nor hindsight are your gifts…and it is for this reason, above all, that I wish you alive. Tevinter's property returned, Arlathan will be free to become precisely what it wills, and from this little cage of yours, you'll watch it turn into the Elvhenan of old. Within your stinted lifetime, you will nonetheless know of the return of slavery within the city's walls, and not because I or the Augur will prompt it. The people will evolve that way themselves…'

He interrupted himself and chuckled.

'Do you know,' he asked, in cold amusement, 'that those of the Dalish who deigned to take Tevinter slaves into their…service, demanded that they bear a vallaslin?'

It was too much, and Solas slipped to the floor, groaning as if he had been physically struck, and still, there was no mercy.

''Twas not the Gods, or fate itself that you could not defeat, my brother. It was the base nature of every living being, human or Elvhen, or woodland beast: the powerful prey on the weak. They always have, they always will…We have not punished Arlathan by giving it to Tevinter – your pain and rage today might have dulled your hearing.'

'The city is not to be an Imperial province. There will be no tribute demanded. Ar lasa mala revasal, Solas. Now, I have made them all free.'

'They'll thrive and multiply, as they never might have under you…And when they outgrow Arlathan, we shall give them other free kingdoms, in other places of power, while you will rot here, forgotten, until you'll even remember a whip's lash as lover's caress.'

Solas pressed his eyelids together, not caring that, indeed, a wave of acid tears was flowing down his cheeks, and that Anaris must have taken great delight in them.

'If what you say is true, brother,' he softly whispered, 'you are, and always were, the better man…It was…It wasn't in my power to kill you, and spare you the pain of the imprisonment, but you…'

'…can kill you, now?' Anaris spat, once more kneeling to savour the other's pain from up close. 'Why would I do that, Pride?' he queried, his voice gentle. 'When I get tired of all brothels, I might still come down here, from time to time, and watching you, like this, will give me more pleasure than all the women of continent might.'

'Do you wish me to beg, then?' Solas said, barely moving his lips.

'You're not going to beg, now.' The Old God smiled. 'It's early still, and your suffering has just begun... The day will come, though, and maybe, after all fight is truly and forever gone from you, I might show mercy. I might not,' he breezily added, looking over his shoulder.

'I am begging, Anaris,' Solas said, raising his glance to that of the friend he'd once betrayed. 'End it. You have truly taken everything – you've won, the war is ended, and there's a true grave to dance upon.'

Anaris straightened, and faced forward once more. 'Everything, Pride?' he asked, with an unreadable smile.

He vanished, leaving his sister, the Augur, to answer in his stead.

Not everything, she said, in his thoughts; the door to his cell creaked slowly ajar.

'Veldrin,' Solas tonelessly said.

'My heart,' she answered, closing the heavy door behind her.

She slinked along the wall in silence, then sat, not caring that the floor was wet and dirty; she was so dazed, so broken, that she did not even take note of the fact that she sat in such a way that the Tevinter crest upon her sleeve was the most immediately visible thing from where Solas sat.

It did not matter, in the end. He'd find the Pavus crest equally painful to behold, and the light of the single torch was so dim that he would not have noticed the outlines of the halla horns…or, even if he did, he'd had no love of the Dalish…

Neither of them moved, not even so they could meet each other's glance, and, as they sat in silence only interrupted by the painful drip…drip…drip…of water running down moss covered granite walls, they each sought hatred for the other in their hearts, and though they dug deep, none was found. Their pained togetherness was, Veldrin thought, akin to that of two parents standing on either side of their child's pyre; she'd witnessed such a thing once, when she was a girl…but she remembered it vividly, as if she had somehow turned time and witnessed it anew…

Because, perhaps, she was a witness to it now: a man and a woman, standing on opposite sides of a pyre that they had both, in some ways, lit, the silence in between them only broken by the crackling of the wood, and the air only filled by the smell of the burnt flesh…each thinking the other guilty, while questioning their own part in building the pyre and bringing fire to it.

And there was one more difference, Veldrin thought.

The boy in her recollection had been dead, by the well-meaning mistakes of both his parents. What rendered this all heartbreakingly different was that the nation that they had both set alight was still alive, and would scream, writhe and beg, once the flame licked its flesh.

And she'd brought it about as much as he had.

'I've not come to apologise, Solas.' Veldrin said, at long length.

'I know you haven't,' he painstakingly responded.

'I've come to mourn with you. Once long ago, I promised that you will never have to grieve alone.'

He nodded.

'We should then,' Solas reasoned, 'mourn in silence.'

And then, we must endure, Vel might have said, but he'd asked for silence and she honoured it.

Not for nearly enough time, though, not for as much time as she felt was needed, though probably a century might not have sufficed - a rumble of rushed, panicked voices filled the dungeon's corridors, as if some great mass of people had come hurtling down the stairs.

'Oh, Gods, what is it now?' Vel breathed, standing briskly. 'What on this hell of Earth…'

'Finally…Magistra Pavus, oh, Lady Patience, you are being summoned!' the Tevinter soldier who slammed the door of Solas' dungeon to the wall blurted, in equal panic and relief.

'What do you want from me?' she'd spun and hissed. 'What…'

'A scandal!' the man cried. 'A scandal! A scandal in the Archon's chambers!'

'I trust his grace Radonis to handle such things without my aid,' Vel had snarled. 'I am…'

In mourning. Leave me be…

'An emissary from Starkheaven…'the man followed, barely managing the words, for he was truly out of breath.

She stood, and turned her back to Solas – the elvhen man took but a second to behold her, and note the swift transformation of the frail, heart-broken woman that had, but a heartbeat ago honestly grieved by his side into a woman he barely recognised: her chin raised, her shoulders straight, her eyes…

'I care more for all the rats nesting in this dungeon than for the emissary of Starkheaven,' she said, and her voice too was unknown to him.

'If only, Lady Patience,' the guard all but wailed. 'The Lord Watcher calls you! Starkheaven threatens war; Ferelden threatens war…'

'What?' Veldrin breathed, then briskly turned around, as Solas chuckled, then laughed as she had never heard him laugh...

'The peace with the Shem'len that you destroyed our people to save, ma vhenan,' Solas said, his blue eyes burning in the darkness. 'Your peace, the peace you bartered, with blood and tears, and lands and forests…Am I mistaken, or did it last just under an hour?'

'Just above two,' Veldrin snarled, gritting her teeth.

She swiftly turned away once more, silent and dark in her Tevinter robes; she left the baffled guard to close and bar the door behind her, though knowing it was useless. In this, she had agreed with Daren'thal, before even descended to see Solas – even with cage unlocked and dungeon door wide open, he had nowhere to run to.

Neither did she.

'What fucking madness is this? Starkheaven threatens war? What the…' she hissed, on broken breath, not immediately noticing that it was Altus Hadrian struggling to keep pace with her, despite the fact that he was genuinely one foot taller than she was.

'You have to see it to believe it,' the man replied, in an equally hushed tone. 'I haven't been in there, but it sounds like pandemonium from the antechamber…'

It was only then she noted the discrete markings on his robes were those of House Cassius – despite it all, she stopped and spun on him with a fury of a thousand unleashed harpies.

'Of many things I thought you guilty of, Lexi, this…'

With seemingly suicidal decisiveness, the man roughly grabbed her by the arm, and pulled her forth, leaning in close enough to whisper in her ear.

'No time to explain this, now, Vel.' He said.

'Short words will do, scum,' the woman said, lips curled in disgust.

'Alright, short words it is,' Lexi replied, still pulling on her arm as if he'd meant to dislodge it from her shoulder. 'You sent me to Maevaris; she read your note, then told me that since she cannot tell me to eat shit and die, I should at least eat shit, so she wrapped me out nicely and passed me…'

'To bloody Cassius? Who was foolish enough to take you?'

'Who had no choice but to, once Mae promised to publicly accuse him of kidnapping and torture…'

'And what about your sacred marital bed, the fortunes of your family, eh?' the woman spat. 'No longer fearing for them?'

'No, Vel, I don't,' Lexi snarled in response. 'Six pounds, eight ounces of a screaming baby boy – congratulate me at your leisure – assured I don't have to. So here I am, still on your side, and eating shit, for this was Maevaris' pleasure. If you will give me time, I'll explain fully later, for now…Please take my word, and this,' he said, swiftly taking a dagger from his sleeve, and pressing it into her palm.

She felt the radiation of the focus gem immediately, and knew this was no trinket – she'd been unarmed descending to see Solas, it had been the one condition that the Lady Mystery had imposed for her belated generosity…

'Is it that bad, in there?' she asked, pausing a minute before the Archon's door.

'I've heard nothing but indistinct shouting, Amata,' Lexi said, shaking his head, his blue eyes full of concern, 'but I am unsure how bad it's going to get. Everyone's armed, including Dorian and the Divine. You should be too.'

He swallowed dry, before letting go of her arm.

'Good luck, my friends,' Lexi whispered, lowering his glance.

'Oh fuck,' Veldrin whispered, parting the doors.

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