She finds him exactly where she left him.
The sun is well risen by the time she marches back into the forest and there will be little opportunity left before Cassandra or Cole come looking for them. She doesn't need all that much time to say what is burning on her tongue. The challenge will be saying it and not disintegrating to ashes in the process.
She does not mask her approach and finds Solas waiting for her, face cast in the shadows of morning and despair, and she does not miss how he straightens himself in preparation for her arrival. She notices many things about him now - she knows too many things, things that no one should have to live with, that no one should know. She even knows his suffering is greater than her own in many ways, but looking at him now she cannot care.
"I don't even recognize the person in this," she says, holding up the memory crystal. "How could I name my child the wolf's dream after everything you had done to me, to my world? If you ever loved me you should have killed me instead of letting me turn into that!"
He shakes his head, mouth opening to reply, but she cuts him off. "No, you couldn't. You cannot let anything go, can you? You take everything until there is nothing left. Did you even try to stop her?"
"I did not know her intentions. I tried-"
"You should have tried harder! How could you-" Keela doesn't finish the question. She knows the answer already. He could destroy Thedas, betray her trust, break her heart for the same reasons she allowed the Chargers to die. There is no personal sacrifice great enough when it comes to what must be done to save your world. It is what she once believed too, what she had to believe to be able to face the reflection in the mirror each day. Everything she has ever done as Inquisitor only reinforced his dedication and the guilt of this realization is like lead in her stomach.
She is foolish for even considering that she might have won him over in the end, but their child- "If I had told you I was pregnant would you have stopped your plans?"
He cringes and it is all the answer she needs. It is obvious she knew the answer in that memory too- there can be no other reason she can think of as to why she would not have told him. The grass beneath her feet begins to burn slowly, browning and curling as the fire inside her escapes her thin control. She has never lost her hold upon her magic, but she sees the edge of chaos creeping closer than it ever has before.
"And now it will never happen."
Despite the threat of smoking rising around her Solas takes a step forward, hearing the break in her voice just as much as she did, and she wishes he had used this bravery when it mattered. That hope had been the thing he latched onto first instead of last. "That is not necessarily true."
"Isn't it? Do you know the day of her birth, Solas?"
Confusion passes over his features at the question. "Yes."
"Do you know when she was conceived? The time of day? The hour?"
"Not anything so specific."
Her voice is low as she steps closer to him. "What happens if the timing is wrong? What happens if we have another child that is not her? Can you imagine what knowing what was lost would do to us? What happens if it is her? How could either of us look at her and know what was sacrificed?"
His confusion has shattered into understanding and fear. She feels it too, but she lets the rage rise above it all until the power of it hovers above her skin. The desire to let it all loose is a heavy thing, to let it shoot from her veins and consume the leaves and bark around her, consume them both. Anything would be better than this hollow hole growing where her dreams used to be.
She sees herself cradling her daughter in the memory. Such a beautiful thing, the one pure thing they ever made it seems. There is only this vision and a name. It happened but it didn't and how can she mourn someone who never existed? Even so, the loss of it all is like a sharp knife against skin. It wedges itself between the two of them, between something that she was beginning to believe could endure anything.
"There are considerations, Solas. Least of all the fact that the thought of letting you touch me ever again makes me sick."
The word slaps through the air and Solas turns his head away, as if she truly has struck him. She knows she is being cruel but the pain inside her is becoming too large to combat, snowballing down a bitter slope towards a catastrophic end. She had the chance for a family, she had child and now- the fire beneath skin grows stronger, warping the air around her body.
"I could forgive so many things, but this…what did you think was going to happen? That I would jump into your arms after learning that you threw away everything I ever gave you?"
"What would you have had me do otherwise?" he asks with a heat of his own and meets her gaze again with misery pooling at the surface of his blue eyes. "Would you rather I kept it all from you?"
Yes! her heart shouts as everything else denies it. He trusted her with the truth, he trusts her finally, but it seems too much and too late now. "I would have the Dread Wolf pay for his own mistakes for once."
"As would I! If there was a way-"
"Don't. Don't do anything. You have done more than enough."
"Inquisitor!" Their time is up. With a deep breath, Keela wraps the mantel of her station like a thick barrier around her. Although it offers no comfort it is the only protection she has left against horrors no person should ever need face. Solas watches, his own expression split open, and with a twist of ugliness she hopes he won't be able to hide behind his own title so easily now.
"Don't speak to me unless I ask you to, don't even come near me. For once in your life leave me be, Solas." Keela walks towards the sound of Cassandra's voice and doesn't look back.
The others notice the change in her but do not comment on it. Their confusion is understandable. She and Solas went from estranged lovers to holding hands and staying close to one another after Corypheus' defeat, and now to this dead silence even worse than before. After everything they've faced together, the Inner Circle knows better than to ask. Even Sera takes one look at her countenance chiseled from stone and snaps her jaw shut. What should have been a lively journey back to Skyhold turns into something more like a funeral march. For all her strength, Keela has never been good at pretending- that is his specialty, after all.
When they reach the fortress she rolls her shoulders back and lets herself crumble at bit. It is easier to smile as her people cheer and clap for their victorious Inquisitor and when she stands upon the steps and addresses the crowd a different type of pressure pushes on her chest, something born of pride. Even if Corypheus wasn't the threat they thought she won't let Solas take away what has been done. They mattered, she mattered.
The main hall is a flurry of celebration, the long tables filled with mouth watering food and the corners sprouting joyous music that bounces off the walls. Drinks are pushed into her hand and for once she welcomes the taste of wine - it loosens her laughter, softens her words, drops her into a haze where nothing can be thought of for too long. She speaks with her advisers and her companions about their accomplishments and shared experiences, of how much they have all changed under the all seeing eye of the Inquisition, and for a time she manages to forget.
When the wine has worn off and the night has grown long, she finally notices Solas tucked away in the shadows. He stands by the statue next to Josephine's office watching and she wonders if he has simply stood there all night instead of partaking. She's surprised he isn't squirreled away in the rotunda or off somewhere making plans to destroy her world again. Knowing the future, he could easily change his designs to make the end come quicker if he so wished. However, as she nears she can tell by the grey clouds in his eyes that he has spent the night thinking about only one thing.
"A word?" she says, a mimicry of his words and a smile on her lips. Keela doesn't check to make sure he follows her up into the Inquisitor's tower, but she can feel his gaze upon her like the weight of the hundreds of caresses given. She wants to scratch at her skin but instead digs her nails into her palms as she leads him onto the balcony. Dark night is giving way beyond the mountains, coating the horizon in a lighter blue, and the sight reminds her of looking up to see the light at the bottom of a pond.
Neither of them speak for a time. If she closes her eyes, she can easily remember another time they stood in the same place. She had been too caught up by the moment to catch all his words, forgot about them entirely when his lips made the blood in her veins sing in her ears. It would be kinder in the long run. She hears it now, loud and clear, but it is a mystery just who would have benefited more if he kept walking.
She is suddenly so very exhausted. Keela leans upon her wrists and bows her head, letting the curtain of her hair block his body at her side. After this she will collapse into her bed and stay there for as long as possible, until Josephine or Cullen come to collect her personally, but for now there is still a battle to be fought even if a war has been won.
"You aren't powerful enough to bring the Veil down now, are you?"
"No, I am not. I spent a year after leaving the Inquisition amassing most of the needed magic to see it done. What I acquired from the battle with the qunari two years later was the final piece needed to begin."
Her anger is quick to return. "The battle where you baited both me and the qunari to fight for you it seems, if I can read the memories of the crystal correctly."
"I…yes."
"If I decided to slit your throat right this moment would you be able to stop me?" He does not answer this time. She pictures his jaw clenching, eyes wandering to the mountains to collect himself. His hands likely clasping behind his back in a pose she once thought to be so open. Now she knows it for what is it- he makes a wall to keep the world out, to keep her out.
"Do you believe I intend to go through with my plans again?" he asks and it is her time to answer with silence. "There may indeed be some way to bring down the Veil safely and see the Elvhen restored but I will not seek it out on my own. I would put their fate in the hands of others trustworthy of the task, as I should have."
"Then what will you do?"
"I am not certain. I was hoping-" he halts, letting his hopes drift upon the warming breeze. They both know what he longs for and it is a thing unreachable now and perhaps forever more.
"Go get your power," she says after a long pause and without looking knows his eyebrows have lifted in surprise. "If we want there to be change for the elves of my world and the ones from yours, then I imagine they will need more than the Inquisitor in their corner for the days to come. And there's the matter of this."
She finally turns to him and holds out her marked palm. "I would appreciate it if you would get this out of my hand before the whole thing is destroyed this time."
"It might not be possible. I do not know of a way for it to be removed without irreparable damage. Do you truly believe I would have allowed you to suffer so needlessly if I could have prevented it?"
"It is very clear that I know so very little about you at all." When he begins to protest she cuts him off with a slash of her hand. "Find a way. Don't let it happen to me again. I…please."
Solas takes a step forward and she does nothing to dissuade it. A hand lifts but doesn't reach for her and for a blinding moment she wishes it would. She wants to feel his touch again, to forget all that has happened and be who they were before the truth became chains even harsher than the lies. They were bound together by them once- now they are pulling them apart.
"If there is a way I will find it. You have my word."
Light spills over the mountains to illuminate his face and she moves backwards, knowing that he has already broken his word and broken her world at the same time. "Your promises are ashes in my mouth, Fen'Harel."
Both his hands come up as if he can ward it away and the part of her that still loves him screams to see the pain across his features. "Vhenan,please-"
Enraged energy bursts from her, pushing him back a few steps even as she advances with finger pointed at his chest. "No! Do not call me that! I died because of you. In your future I never even knew my own child and you let her grow up without either of us. You let her die for us! You-I am not your heart. I would rather carve out my own than to hear you say it ever again, do you understand?"
She can see he wants to fight back against her fury with his own and she cannot blame him. He has been the one to carry her death and the sins of his actions for years when she has only glimpsed them in a crystal. He was there to see his own magic rip apart their daughter when she doesn't even know the color of her eyes. She knows all of this, but she refuses to carry his weight too. None of it would have happened if he would have just let his accursed pride go.
Keela turns away from him. "Get out. Out!"
He leaves, slowly. Leaves her with tears running hot down her cheeks, burning from her shame to allow them at all and from the world inside her rolling over into ruin. The dawn rises beyond the mountains and she watches it come alone once more.