She can't stay here.
A few days later Keela announces she will be heading to the far west. There are still rifts to be closed in the Hissing Wastes, Venatori to vanquish from its flowing dunes. There has been no time to squander with travelling so far when Corypheus' threat was so near, but now she can attend to unknown tasks and finish others in the Western Approach and Forbidden Oasis. It is also convenient that it is the farthest she can run away from him.
"I must insist you let me accompany you," Vivienne says, making it a demand without changing the softness of her voice, and Keela wishes she could keep her friend close but there are greater things in store for the First Enchanter than watching her stumble through sand and grief.
"You can't. They're going to name you Divine within a few months."
"Darling I appreciate your confidence in my chances but that is not something set in stone."
"You will be Divine, Vivienne. I…do you trust me?"
"I'm offended you would even ask such a thing."
"Here." Keela hands her two notes, one with a blood red seal and another rolled up in twine. "Don't open the sealed one until after your naming. The other is a question I'm hoping you will be able to answer."
She waits as Vivienne reads over her words and lists, watches as the other woman's eyebrows lift with surprise and then turn down in thought. "This is a most interesting predicament, my dear. I can't help wondering what your interest in it might be."
"I cannot tell you-"
"Do you not trust me, Inquisitor?"
"I do. I absolutely do. I wouldn't come to you with this otherwise. It's because I cannot make myself say what needs to be said, not now. I just can't."
"I will head to Val Royeaux then," Vivienne announces after a pause. "If what you say is true then it is where I belong. There are a few colleagues of mine there that might able to assist with your query as well. I promise digression will be of the utmost importance."
"Thank you."
"If you should need for anything else, do not hesitate to contact me. And please," Vivienne's pats her hand, the gesture as caring as the look in her eyes, "take care of yourself, my dear."
Keela doesn't swear to do so- it's not something she is sure she can keep to, and she is finished with lies. The day of their departure comes swiftly. Wagons make a long line out of Skyhold's gates full of supplies for the western regions. It will be a slow, long journey and she feels like pawing at the ground along with her hart.
"These ingredients will take time to get, Your Worship," the tiny apothecary in front of her says, fingers quickly folding the parchment and hiding it away in their robes.
"Have the finished product sent to Griffon Wing Keep when it is finished with a note to summon me. No one else is to know about this, do you understand? No one."
"Of course, I swear I'll tell not a soul. I'll keep no records neither. But ah, Your Worship, you know that it's permanent? Once the decision is made-"
"I know it perfectly well. Thank you for your assistance." Clearly dismissed, the apothecary gives a small bow and shuffles away. "Are we ready?"
"The wagons are prepared to depart on your order," Cassandra announces.
"No final complaints about the journey ahead, Kadan? Or are you saving them all for the road?" Bull asks from atop his nuggalope.
Dorian meets her eyes for a quick moment, seeing the storm that's taking over inside, before he looks away. "The only complaint I will have is if you insist to ride upwind with that creature."
"All right, let's-"
"Inquisitor." The whole courtyard seems to descend into silence around her at the sound of Solas' voice. Cassandra and Dorian turn their steeds towards her, inching closer to offer support or defense, but Keela gives a subtle shake of her head. Her anger stays deep inside, her face a piece of perfect glass, for she knows he would not risk her wrath on something insignificant.
"Head out!" she shouts to the caravan and says to her companions, "I will catch up."
They are hesitant to leave her but soon enough the courtyard is empty of all the extra commotion. When the last wagon rolls out of sight, Keela finally turns to face Solas. He seems fit to travel himself with a full pack at his back and wearing sturdy travel gear.
"Going somewhere?"
"West, although not upon the same path as you. I should have begun my travels days ago, but I…"
"What do you want, Solas?"
"The Iron Bull. Have you discovered his fate within the crystal?"
She has not touched the thing again since that night days' ago. Her mind tries to sort through the many images she's witnessed so far and remembers a fortress full of qunari and dragon fire, flashes of a battle she couldn't concentrate on when it led to meeting him again. Cassandra and Dorian had been with her at the final eluvian, but Bull-
"What happens?"
Solas gestures for her to follow him to a more secluded area where their voices will not carry so far. "In a few months he will return to Seheron to report to his superiors personally. All communications will appear normal, however," he pauses, shifting from one foot to another. "he will submit himself for reconditioning. The Iron Bull you know will cease to exist. During the events at the Winter Palace two years from now he acts as an agent for the Ben-Hassrath only and will turn on you during a crucial battle. You will be given no choice but to strike him down."
Skyhold grows loud in her ears. It all comes together in a steady rush like a thunderous waterfall that drowns out the world and drowns her in it at the same time. She is thrown back to the Storm Coast and it is blood that rains down, soaking into her clothes and skin and filling her mouth. When Keela resurfaces she is braced against a stone wall in Solas' shadow as he protects her from prying eyes and she is too overcome to push away from him, stunned to realize he gently holds onto her arm and has not caught fire from the act.
Her eyes watch him. His touch is just strong enough to feel through her coat but no more demanding than that and traitorous memories of heated moments full of more desperation flit across her mind. Solas moves his thumb, a small comforting gesture done a hundred times, but nothing is the same now. Keela pulls out of reach and straightens, remembering what they are now.
"Did you know? Did you know what happened to him in Seheron?"
Solas' gaze softens, not with added concern but with remorse. "I did." And he did not see fit to tell her, to warn her, but for this her anger is pointed directly at only one person- herself. This is no doing of Fen'Harel, no part of a left over legacy still coming apart at the seams. This is her fault alone.
"That future is no longer written as it once was, but if you allow him to return to the Qun it will likely repeat in some fashion. Urge him to remain with the Inquisition. For his sake, and for yours."
Dorian's too, she thinks. Was there anything in their future that wasn't spoiled? "I will. I won't let him go."
"Good."
Keela's fingers twitch at her side as they stand there, silent. The desire to run overcomes her, to ride fast and hard and escape from this knowledge even as she swears to see it through to the end. She will not fail Bull a second time. "Thank you for telling me."
She doesn't say goodbye, only gives him and nod and turns to swing upon her mount. "She had your eyes."
Her heart drops so suddenly she has to put a hand to her chest to see if it still beats. "What?"
"Cole, he…it is difficult for him to avoid our thoughts even with my assistance. With both of us vacating Skyhold he will be in less conflict. I did mean to pry, only the other day he informed me that you have been wondering-"
"Solas," she says it with a sharp shake of her head, pleading for him to stop, and for once he grants her mercy. Instead he pulls a piece of parchment from a pocket and holds it out to her, fingers trembling slightly.
"For when you are ready to know." She hasn't felt ready for anything since the moment he looked upon her with love and relief, embraced her instead of pushing away after the final battle. If it is what she thinks it is etched in charcoal she's not sure she'll ever be able to face what has been lost.
Even so she reaches out and takes hold of his offering. He doesn't let go immediately, forcing her eyes to find his. "I am sorry, Keela. More than you can possibly imagine, for so many things."
"I know," she replies, quietly, brushing the tip of her finger against his and letting him see again a brief glimpse of the dying embers of her love for him before closing herself up once more. She tucks the drawing into her own pack and feels his touch grow cold. "Goodbye, Solas."
The anger stays with every mile traveled but it doesn't stay the same. Anger has always been an ally, a bolster of strength when the last enemy refuses to fall or a clear burst of energy when she needs a moment more to think. A weapon to build against others. Guilt mixes in with the fire, colder and sharper, edging her grief with spikes that strike out at her instead, poking and prodding and never giving her a moment's peace.
Her actions do not help the matter. Every night she wraps fingers around the memory crystal to disappear into its images and relive past events, to travel through ones that haven't happened yet. That won't happen now. She begins to write them down into a book trying to create a timeline of events. It is sketchy at best considering the only landmark she knows for certain is the Exalted Council in two years' time, but she has to make sense out of this senselessness somehow.
Shadows grow beneath her eyes despite her best attempts to thwart them. She notices in the mornings as she tries to make herself presentable for the long day and covers them as best she can. She doesn't want to become that wraith she's glimpsed, that hollowed out, broken thing he made her and yet this pain sticks to her like a disease. There is a war raging inside her, pulling her across lines never thought to be crossed, never thought possible, and although she has faced many a great enemy it is something entirely different to battle oneself. Orders grow curt, tempers shorter, but she is only disgusted with herself.
She let a monster win because she loved it. What does that make her?
When they finally roll into the Hissing Wastes Keela imagines the caravan is grateful to be relieved of her, but her companions are not so fortunate and neither is the first group of Venatori they find. For a few minutes, the dark expanse around them is as bright as day as she unleashes fire and fury, turning the sand beneath her smooth like glass. She hunts, relentless like the hounds of guilt upon her heels, and those foolish enough to stand in her way are smote upon wastes.
On their second week in the desert, her friends finally have enough. "Keela."
Her feet dig into the sand as she comes to a sudden stop. Troubled thoughts sift away and she comes to realize they've trapped her, letting her sink down a dune with a rock wall at its base and their stone serious faces behind. A burst of indignation flares up at her fingertips although she is hardly surprised by this turn of events. It is only surprising they let her carry on like this for so long without reprimand.
"We have been patient but this must come to an end," Dorian continues. "You're going to get yourself killed or worse, get me killed. It's time to confide in your confidants."
"It's got something to do with Solas and that crystal you keep in your pocket," Iron Bull says and she resists the urge to reach for the memory stone. "He told you something way bad, right?"
"Please let us help you, if we can," Cassandra adds. "To see you like this…"
They have seen her far worse, or will- or would have, and she has seen the wreckage of their lives too. Bull, already dead before she casts the last spell that stops his heart. Cassandra, lost to a tide of Elvhen in a battle that never should have been fought. Dorian…she is still unsure of his fate, trapped on the other side of a wall Fen'Harel built where the sky burned, and it is her doing that saw him suffer there.
The sand sucks at her feet, pulling her down and down and down. "So you decided to cage me, force me to speak it?"
Dorian's gaze softens, borders on regret. "No, we would never-"
"Get out of my way." The threat is soured by the frustrated tears choking her voice, but she won't let them fall to be soaked up into the parched ground. She can't let herself fall, not again.
Dorian and Cassandra step apart and she charges through. She wanders the area for awhile, always within sight of the camp or a scout on the horizon, although she thinks about walking off into oblivion a few times. Would the world truly suffer if she disappeared somewhere? There are only a few rifts to be closed and the Herald of Andraste will no longer be needed except to keep a few pages in a history book somewhere.
Instead she eventually marches back towards the fire and tents when the night grows too cold for even her magic to thwart. In the dim light she almost mistakes his form for another rock formation, but between one step and the other she recognizes the shape of long horns turning upward.
"Making sure I didn't run away?"
"You're not the type to run, even when maybe you should. Just making sure no baddies grab you while you're stuck in your own head." She wants to spill her secrets like sand running over dunes, unburden herself of this burden, but how can she ask them to carry more weight for her? "Ready to talk yet, Boss?"
Boss, Bull says, but she hears it like a snake's whisper before it sinks dripping fangs into flesh. Bas. How can she afford not to tell him the truth? "I kill you, in the future."
She tells him everything. Everything about the Qunari plot, Solas' plans and success, her daughter who rewrote it all. Bull barely moves throughout her words, only watches her carefully and quietly as the story unravels and so does she. Each word loosens something inside her until she feels stretched out, frayed. He is silent still when she is finished, the threads of her life between his hands.
She pulls the memory crystal from her pocket and shows it to him. "If you need more proof it holds a record of everything. All you have to do-"
"No, I believe you. It makes sense. Well, not the whole time travel shit but…me."
"It doesn't have to happen, it's not too late. There are other paths than giving yourself over to duty and I'm sorry that I made that example, that I didn't help you when you needed me to. I was wrong. Look what following missions and beliefs blindly did for Solas, and me, and the world. I…I took your family from you and I can't give them back but," she drops to the ground before him, pleading with body and words, "I promise, I swear, that I will help you find a life outside of the Qun if you wish it. I will not let you down again, or let you sink into madness. Stay with us. With me and Cassandra, Sera. Dorian. Stay The Iron Bull."
He clears his throat after a long moment of nothing. "I…yeah."
"Please tell me you'll at least think about. It's your choice, no one else's. Decide for yourself."
"Right. I'll think about it." Bull stands, looming high above her and blocking out of the stars. "I'm gonna go…"
He doesn't finish his sentence and walks by her, big feet stepping over her footprints and following her meandering path. Keela watches him go until his form folds into the darkness and even when she can't see him any longer, she still feels the strands he holds. They tighten around her neck, a noose of her own making, and she can only hope if someone must pay for her crimes it will only be her that swings from the gallows this time.