AN: After falling completely and unexpectedly in love with this Inquisitor, I felt a need to get her story properly written down before finally beginning Veilguard. Her relationship with Solas is a thorny little tangle that's positively entranced me; it's not at all what I usually write, but I keep thinking about it all the same. I hope I've done her justice here, and I hope the next game gives her a chance for the unequivocally happy ending I can't quite find for her yet.
My unending gratitude goes to Jade for the immaculate beta, as always, and to silksieve and bettydice for the cheerleading.
The Stars dare shine occasionally
Upon a spotted World—
And Suns, go surer, for their Proof,
As if an Axle, held—
—When we stand on the tops of Things, Emily Dickinson
1.
"I'm not surprised to find you out here."
"Solas," Adahla says, though she doesn't turn around. A moment later, his hand settles on the small of her back, and she closes her eyes against the traitorous rush of warmth. The distant music picks up again, Celeste's very expensive musicians beginning a sprightly courante; the strains of a violin float over the balcony like petals. "You didn't have to come after me."
"Oh? Would you rather I hadn't?"
Such courteous curiosity, as always, though it's never made her feel quite so small. "I didn't say that."
"You're upset."
"Yes," she says, and his hand slides around her waist, pulling her more firmly against his side. It's such an unbearable relief she almost wants to cry, but the image of Josephine's horrified face is enough to stem the tide. Instead, she lets out a long, shuddering breath and leans her head against his shoulder. A petty, selfish comfort. "I'm glad you're here."
His head moves against hers, a brush to the crown of her hair. "The empress has upset you?"
"Yes. No. Not Celene herself, just—everything to do with her. Briala, Gaspard, the Game." She looks up, searching the stars, and finds out of habit the shape of Equinor, then Solium. "He was guilty, Solas, but not of the things I accused him of. Guilty of stupidity, perhaps; of shortsightedness and greed. None of those is enough to warrant his death."
"He is a politician who made a play for power in a dangerous court. He knew the risks, and he chose his course of action regardless." His hand tightens on her waist. "The man is not worth your tears, vhenan."
"When I was a child, I would read about places like this." She reaches up to frame the forelegs of Equinor between forefinger and thumb, then traces the path back to its starry tail. "Every story I could get my hands on. I would sneak away from the aravels after dinner and read by starlight if I had to. My Keeper was not impressed." She lets her hand fall. "After this evening, I'm not sure she was wrong."
"You brokered an impossible alliance between Orlais and the Inquisition. You settled a contest for the throne which has been years in the making. There are few who would call this a defeat." Only the barest trace of impatience in his voice, but it stings nonetheless.
She keeps her tone light on purpose. "And so falls the curtain on the hero of the evening, thoroughly chastised by her lover on a beautiful Orlesian balcony beneath the beautiful Orlesian stars. End act, players exeunt."
Solas goes still, and when she glances up, he looks suitably apologetic. "Forgive me. I didn't mean to add to your burdens."
"You didn't." She turns her back to the balustrade, still within the encircling hold of his arm, and cups a hand to his cheek. "I appreciate the kindness, Solas. I do. But the entirety of my clan could fit in that ballroom with room to spare, and a childhood of romantic stories about Orlesian politics was not enough to prepare me for the real thing. I wish—" her voice trembles once, and she masters it with force of will alone "—I wish I'd had more time. Even a few hours might have made a difference."
"Ten years wouldn't have mattered. Sometimes there are no good choices, vhenan; sometimes there is only the best hope for least pain. You did all you could with what time you were given." His brief, pained look gives way to an easier smile, and his eyes crinkle at the corners. "As you always have."
She smiles herself—can hardly help it when he shows her such tenderness—and kisses him. He presses back eagerly, as he always does, though his hand slides no lower on her waist and he keeps a respectable inch between their chests. The violins pass from the courante to the sarabande; soon enough, he draws away, though his eyes linger on her mouth.
She runs her thumb briefly over his lower lip, just firm enough to make him jolt in surprise, then loops her fingers behind his neck in impulsive affection. "And you?" she asks, feeling more herself than she has in hours. "What did you get up to all evening? When I left you last you were lounging against a statue, three drinks deep and looking dangerously lighthearted."
The corner of his mouth twitches, though he manages to keep the stone face. "Political intrigue, interminable gossip, and a cellarer far too free with the expensive spirits."
"More potent than you expected?"
"Hardly. I felt very little." He pauses. "Until the fourth glass."
"Mm. That explains a great deal, my elven serving man."
His mouth twitches again. "Should I have had another designation? After all, I follow willingly at your every beck and call. Even to such a place as this."
She laughs, throwing back her head, and his arms come more firmly around her waist. "I thought Josephine was going to go after the herald herself. If looks could kill, he'd have dropped dead on the spot."
"Which would have been an entirely different intrigue altogether." The violins pick up with the second movement, and all at once Solas breaks into a smile. "Come, vhenan. Dance with me."
"Now?" she asks, though she can hardly deny the girlish flip of her stomach. "Here?"
"Yes," he says, seizing her hand and pulling her from the railing. "You asked earlier, and I wished to, but there were many reasons it would have been unwise. Now those reasons are gone, and I will not have your only dance after Lady Montilyet's interminable lessons be with a murderous usurper."
"You're very kind." One hand, almost against her will, settles on his shoulder; her other hand finds his. She hesitates; he lifts an eyebrow almost in challenge and steps forward, and with Josephine's iron counting at the back of her mind, she can't help but move in time with him. "I didn't expect you to know dances like these."
"Orlesian?"
"Modern," she says, not intending it as insult, but his expression goes so abruptly wounded she can't help but laugh.
"You were gone many afternoons," he says, defensive, though his arm around her is secure as ever. "Occasionally…I slipped into the back of the hall where you practiced. I watched. I learned."
The flip settles into a steady, brimming glow. "A noble gift indeed. I'm touched, emma lath."
The second movement draws to a close, then slides smoothly into the third. The aggrieved look fades as he turns her back towards the balcony, and before she can think better of the gesture, she leans in and rests her cheek on his chest. He gives a sigh; the hand at her waist slides up to her shoulders instead, and he presses a kiss to her temple as they dance.
When he speaks, his voice is less a sound than a thrumming in his chest. "I find myself thinking of you as a child, sneaking away from your hahren to read a little longer. Though I suppose such political books rarely ended up like this."
"They were Orlesian, Solas," she murmurs, and she can feel him smile. "Lovers dancing together in starlight after a man has been sentenced to death? They all did, every one."
"Hm. Then I will endeavor to live up to the promise." He's silent a moment, then adds, "Speak to your spymaster about Gaspard. There may be something yet she can do."
She closes her eyes. The violins have changed without her noticing; she has no idea if they're still in the third movement or if they've moved on altogether, and she doesn't particularly care. Pressed to him like this she can hear his heartbeat; while it's out of time with the music, it's steady as the stone they stand on, and for the first time since they stepped through the gates of the Winter Palace she feels like she can breathe.
His heart, his heart, his heart. "Solas?"
"Vhenan?"
"Ask me to dance under the stars again sometime."
His hand on hers grows tight. "I will."
—
2.
"My very dear Inquisitor," Dorian says, his tone so acidic it could scald, "kindly explain to us in your infinite wisdom what we're meant to do now, hm?"
"My very dear Dorian," Adahla snaps, but with spectacular effort she manages to rein in the rest. She takes in one long, slow breath through her teeth, counts to five, then five again, and lets it out. "It's fine. We'll be fine. A few cold nights won't hurt us."
"A few cold nights, she says," Dorian mutters, giving a moody kick to the shredded remains of his tent.
The rest of the campsite lies around them in equal disarray. Wyverns, she guesses, judging by the claw marks and the wide tail-like sweeps through the rocky sand. They'd deliberately set the campsite atop a difficult-to-reach plateau, had only been gone a few hours—and yet it'd been long enough for the wild denizens of the Hissing Wastes to find it and tear it to ribbons. She doesn't even know what they'd been after; most of their rations are in their packs, and they'd left little more here than their camping supplies, a few handfuls of scrap weaponry worth selling, and a smoldering campfire. All of it lies scattered now in various states of destruction across the entire hill.
Dorian starts to rake a hand through his hair, pauses at the stiffness of the pomade, and settles for smoothing the ends of his impeccable mustache. "Well, I suppose we'll have to turn back. The last supply depot can't be that far away, surely. We could march double-time."
"The nearest scouting camp is two full days' travel north. We're less than an afternoon from the tomb—which is due south, I'll point out." Adahla uses her staff to nudge some tattered cloth to the side—the remnants of Solas's tent, she thinks—and uncovers two books half-buried in the sand. The covers are damaged but intact; she fishes them out, dusts them off, and sets them atop a nearby rock with three others she'd found near the perimeter. Solas, rescuing what supplies he can from a similarly chaotic pile of cloth and wood across the camp, gives a thankful nod. "I'm sorry, but turning back now hardly seems efficient."
"Besides," Bull adds behind her, "you've complained nearly every step we've taken in this desert, and the Inquisitor's had us walking a child's pace. Sand in your fine Tevinter boots, you said. What makes you think you could keep up with double-time?"
"Just because some of us don't have legs as long as trees—"
"That's enough," says Adahla, deliberately placid, and Dorian subsides, simmering. "It's almost sunset as it is. We'll move camp to the base of the plateau so we aren't as visible and build up a bigger fire. It'll be uncomfortable, but we'll be all right." She gives a bracing smile. "Come on, we can weather it. Just for a few days."
"The Hissing Wastes. A bloody waste of blighted time, I say."
"Dorian," Solas says sharply, and Dorian throws up his hands.
"Ah," says Bull, tugging a sheet of oiled fabric free with a flourish. "Our lucky day. Looks like we have one whole surviving tent."
Solas studies the bundle. "The pattern is the Inquisitor's. She should take it."
"I most certainly will not. Dorian, have the damned thing with my blessing."
Dorian hesitates, a hint of shame creeping over his features. "Ah—well. We've all walked the same distance today, I suppose, so perhaps—"
"Dorian!"
"Fine," he hisses, snatching the furled fabric out of Bull's arms, and he stalks off to the far side of the plateau.
Near a full hour passes before they finish relocating to the base of the mountain, and by the time they have the fire built and dinner cooking at last, the sun has long since fallen below the horizon. The desert temperature drops swiftly, as it has each night, and in short order all four of them are wrapped in every layer they own, huddled close to the fire as they dare.
Bull, on cooking duty tonight, tends the hissing spits. "We should get an early start tomorrow, beat the sun. Who's ready for more fox?"
Dorian wrinkles his nose but holds out his bowl. "I don't know what I expected. Every time you have dinner duty, it's meat, meat, and more meat."
"It's good for you," Bull says, ladling a fresh spoonful of stew with a sharp, toothy smile. "Put some muscle on those spindly bones. Fatten you right up."
"For the slaughter?"
"Sure," Bull says. "Anyway, shouldn't you be getting to your tent? Your nice, fancy tent that holds in all that heat, sized just right for two people?"
"Ah." Dorian fidgets. "Look, Inquisitor, if you and Solas—"
"I'm fine," Adahla says, waving him off. "Bull, stop needling him. If you want to share—either of you," she adds with a glance at Solas, though he's put on the stony mask of patience that means his annoyance is rising, "then just ask, will you?"
"Fine." Bull swivels in place. "I want in that tent, Tevinter. It's colder than a tamassran's tits out here, that tent's going to be the warmest place in ten miles, and I want in."
"What? You can't be serious. You're the size of two people by yourself."
"Then we'll be snug."
"You're sweaty! You smell!"
"It's musk. You get used to it."
"Inquisitor!" Dorian cries, but Adahla only rinses her empty bowl, sets it back by the fire, and goes to walk the perimeter of their makeshift camp.
It's a peaceful walk, for all that it's frigidly cold and all too sandy. The Wastes are quiet at night, most creatures burrowed deep against the chill—she wishes she could do the same—and only in the farthest distance does she once see a faint flash of movement. A lone wyvern, perhaps, stalking one last kill before settling in for the evening; she watches several minutes more, but the rolling dunes are still and silent after that, and eventually she continues on her way.
The Wastes are beautiful, she thinks, even through the desolation. The moonlight snares and drags on every bank and sandy ridge, pools in the divots between the dunes; in the distance, strange flat-topped mesas, rich oranges and reds during the day, have become towering black silhouettes. The night sky itself is clear as crystal, the stars infinite and brilliant and stretching from horizon to horizon.
"Lovely," she says out loud, her breath a puff of white fog.
At last, she returns to the camp. The base of the plateau has provided a reasonably sheltering nook, surrounded on two sides by large stony outcroppings and several large boulders on the third; she's pleased to see the firelight is all but hidden thanks to the jumbled rocks.
Solas, his hand pressed to the ground, looks up as she approaches. There's a pause, a pulse of magic, and a blue-white glyph glows briefly in the sand before fading into nothing. The fire has been banked, the dishes put away; Bull and Dorian are nowhere to be seen. The tent is quiet, dark, the flap closed.
"They worked it out, then?" she asks, stepping past him and his wards to crouch by the fire.
"Yes. It was not without fervent discussion, but they settled in quickly enough. I trust the Wastes were quiet?"
"As the grave." Something drapes over her shoulders, something heavy and blissfully warm: a thick woven blanket, so hot it must have lain by the fire for some time. "Emma lath, have I told you lately that I adore you?"
"Not lately." He drops to sit beside her with a sigh, and when she opens her arm he accepts without much protest and shifts in against her. This close she can smell him: something clean and wintry, like the side of a mountain. He tugs the blanket more securely around them both, then takes her frozen hands and holds them in his own. "But I can acknowledge there have been certain hints, here and there."
"Here's another," she says softly, and presses her lips to the corner of his mouth.
He shivers—she's not naïve enough to think it's from the cold—and immediately seals his mouth over hers. Even here he can do nothing by halves. Passionate, of course—kissing Solas is always like stepping into the heart of a tempest—and restrained, always, so restrained she wants to dig her fingers all the way down to the core of him, to pluck him apart thread by thread until he's come completely unraveled in her hands.
He kisses her again and again; creators, he's pressed so close he might be trying to share her skin. His heartbeat drums against her—or is that her own? She never can tell, least of all when he's sweeping over her in such a storm, can only try to cling to the safety of the storm's heart.
He breaks away first, as he always does, though she's privately pleased he's breathing harder than she is. Her fingers, still clutched in his beneath the blanket, have forgotten they were ever cold. "Perhaps…perhaps this is not the most ideal place, vhenan."
"One day that excuse won't be enough," Adahla says through tingling lips, and she kisses his jaw. "When we get back to Skyhold…"
"Yes," he says, entirely too fast, and her heart swells with affection. "Of course."
He's also taken the liberty of pushing their bedrolls together and dusting off the sand, she discovers, and in short order they've shed the most prickly bits of their armor and bundled up as near as possible to the fire. He's chivalrously put himself at her back, the hems of the now-three blankets tugged up over her nose; even so, a sharp unpleasant line runs down her side where the fire's heat cuts off.
"It isn't cold enough to kill," he says in her ear.
"Is that meant to be comforting? Because I must admit I'm still very uncomfortable."
He gives a soft huff of laughter and throws one leg over hers beneath the blankets. "And now you begin to sound like Dorian."
"I hope the Dread Wolf snatches off your toes tonight for even suggesting that." She burrows backwards into him, then glances up towards the clear black sky. "I remember once as a child, we made camp beside an enormous lake. I'm sure I'd seen the stars before, but I hadn't realized—the woods always covered up so much of the sky. But that night I remember looking at the moon and the stars above me, then down where they were mirrored in the water, and I remember getting so dizzy I thought I was going to fall over."
"Did you?"
"What, fall over? No. Well—" She snorts. "I stole a little boat my friend's father had made for him, rowed out to the middle of the lake, stood up like the greatest fool of five or six, and toppled in."
Solas laughs again, his chest vibrating against her back. After a moment, his hand snakes through three layers of blanket and coat to her aching left palm, curled up by her throat, and he presses a thin thread of welcome heat into the Anchor. "Could you swim, at least?"
"A little. Enough to know to hold my breath and try to float. Enough to yell for help, though the hahren had seen the splash and was wading out already."
"Wading? To the middle of an enormous lake?"
"Yes, and I won't hear you suggest otherwise." She rolls to her back and presses her lips to his chin. "Don't tell me you weren't just as much a handful. I won't believe you."
"Oh, there were times I was quite destructive indeed." His smile brushes against her temple; then he follows her gaze up to the night sky. "I've wandered through many dreams of desert evenings over the years. They are often beautiful, and occasionally terrifying, but rarely do they ever look like this." He pauses, then smiles again. "Perhaps it is the company."
"Solas, for someone who refuses to let us warm up together properly, you can be a terrible flirt."
"I—" he says, and to her absolute delight, a faint pink tinge spreads across his cheeks, though he keeps his eyes trained determinedly upwards. "Perhaps we should speak of something else, vhenan."
"And occasionally a terrible coward," she gripes, though she kisses him to soften it before nestling back into his shoulder. The fire is wonderfully warm on her cheek; Solas has finally thawed the rest of her. "Show me your favorite stars. I'm certain you have some, and stories to go with them."
"You're teasing me."
"Only a very little. I'd quite like to hear anything you have to share—and that's the truth, from the bottom of my heart."
"As you wish," he says, mollified. "Though I confess I am no astrologer. I suspect by now I have watched more constellations pass by in the Fade than I have in the waking world. And those are…changeable at best."
"Tell me about some of those, then."
The fire crackles and spits; a log snaps with a rush of sparks. Eventually, he says, "I saw a man who walked by night, who found the stars a sacred guide, their gleam a compass as he fled his masters. He mapped them out on paper scraps, took comfort in their feeble light, and when he reached his freedom, knelt and blessed them."
She watches his profile. "Were they our stars?"
"Yes. And yet, no. The dreams shaped them."
She closes her eyes. "They can still guide us."
(The next morning, Solas goes to wake Bull and Dorian while she packs up what remains of their belongings. He lifts the flap of the frost-lined tent, goes very still, and lets it fall shut again; then he goes to the edge of the camp, shoulders straight, hands linked at the small of his back, and stares out over the waking sands.
"Is anything wrong?" Adahla asks, pushing to her feet.
His voice is carefully flat, though she thinks a laugh is hidden deep beneath. "You remember last night, how I wished to wait until we returned to Skyhold?"
"Yes."
"They did not.")
—
3.
Adahla drags in a slow, recentering breath.
A river of sweat pours down her back. Her hair sticks to her temples in ragged strands, her hands clumsy with adrenaline; beside her Solas is little better, his brow shining, his mouth tensed in concentration. His eyes flick once to hers, then back, lit from below in an unearthly blue light.
Focus. She shakes out her shoulders, studies the map once more. Hesitates. Draws a line.
"Yes," Solas says, following the trail eagerly. Then, with uncharacteristic fervor: "Fenedhis!"
Adahla's already clearing the astrarium, wiping out dozens of starry connections with a sweep of her arm. The blue glow fades back into a hundred pinpoint crystal gleams, beautiful and maddening in their isolation. "I'm sorry, Solas. I thought for sure that was it."
"As did I." He rolls his head on his neck, wipes his forehead, and rests both hands on the astrarium's carved, polished surface. From a bush nearby, a brightly colored bird takes wing with a sawing cry. "Again, vhenan."
"Again?" Varric, seated on a low boulder across the clearing, looks up from the manuscript in his lap. "Come on, Chuckles. You two have been at it for almost an hour. You're no closer than you were, and—I can't believe I'm saying this—we're losing what's left of the light. Shouldn't we keep going if we want to reach the next camp before dark?"
"But we are close!" Adahla says, and winces at the wheedling in her own voice. "Really, Varric, we are. We've made so much progress, and if we stop now—if we wait for another day, we'll forget everything we've already learned. It'll take so much longer to solve."
"Or—and hear me out on this—we could just…move on. Find camp, set up for the night, and figure out a way to keep all these Frostback Basin insects from eating us alive while we sleep." Varric sticks his pen behind his ear. "You know, sometimes it's not the worst thing to leave a little mystery in the world."
Adahla blinks, then glances at Solas. "Leave it behind? Unsolved?"
Solas's brow creases. "I don't understand."
"They like it," Cole says from nowhere, and Adahla looks up to see him perched in one of the great narrow pines studding the Basin. His hat is covered in thin green needles; they shower down around him as he tilts his head. "A pleasant pain, muscles stretching, mind to mind and heart to heart. Thoughts in tandem, twinned anticipation; like realizing the lock had a key all along. I thought I had to do it alone, that no one else would understand. This is better."
A faint heat rises to Adahla's cheeks, but it's hard to stay embarrassed when Solas's hand drops lightly over hers. With some reluctance, she says, "I suppose we could come back another day."
"No, no," Varric sighs. "The kid's right, and I guess we have the time. If this is the closest you two can get to a date night these days, I won't be the one to interrupt."
"You could help, if you like."
"I may have an overinflated ego, Inquisitor, but give me a little credit for knowing where my talents lie." He jabs his pen at the waiting astrarium. "No, you two have fun with that thing, and I'll keep working on my chapter over here. Facing away from you this time. Not listening to anything."
"Charming," Solas says dryly, but his eyes have lit again with that clever excitement that'd drawn her to him in the first place. "Come, vhenan. Again. We were close that time, I'm certain."
"Yes," she says, smiling, amazed at her own affection for him as she bends back over the table. The key pulses as she awakens it, lighting in miniature the puzzle's complex goal, and she touches one of the edge stars. "We've been starting with this one, but it's trapped us every time as we come back from the lower third." She moves her finger to a star near the very center. "I think we ought to start here."
"And when the pattern crosses over?"
"We'll pass right through it, rather than skirt around."
He smiles. "Lead the way."
She does. He stands at her shoulder, watchful and patient, and together they trace out the path between the stars. The first dozen connect cleanly, then the second; a tricky exchange about halfway through is fielded by Solas's excellent decision to bypass one tempting place on the outward journey and pick it up only on the return.
As before, the completed portions of the pattern lift themselves from the table, hovering a few inches in the air and gleaming with blue-white light. The reflections catch beautifully on the flat polished surface beneath them; on the astrarium's domed cover, unfurled like flower petals around the table's edges; on the line of Solas's jaw as he leans nearer.
"Here," he says at last.
But Adahla sees it. Just for a moment, like a flash of lightning, some lovely epiphany revealing itself to her with a certainty all too rare these days. "Here," she says, almost stumbling in her haste. "Solas, I have it—"
He gives way to her completely. Star to star, join to join; the pattern unfolds before her fingers like the creases of a love letter. Ten left—five—three—
"There!" she says, and the stars burst from the table all at once.
The constellation is by far the largest of the astrariums they've solved. Even the sunset cannot dim its brilliance; the solved pattern hangs in the air above them, around them, near a meter across in every direction. Streaks of light dance over Solas's face as he turns his head to follow; a hundred pinpoints glitter over her lifted hand. Here and there brighter beads race down one path, then another, like dew sliding along the strands of some impossibly complicated spiderweb.
"You did it," Solas says, and there is wonder in his voice.
She can't catch her breath. Hundreds of stars slowly spinning around them in unearthly beauty, the forest lit with the gold of early sunset, the shock of her own satisfaction after so long a struggle. She pivots in place, matching the cloud of stars, until she finds herself face to face with Solas once more.
Solas, whose eyes are trained not on the stars, but on her.
She hears Cole drop from the tree, then say as if from a great distance, "They'd like to be alone."
"What's that, kid?"
"They'd like us to go away. Heart pounding in my chest, breath catching in my throat, everything suddenly as clumsy as a babe. She's never looked so happy; she's never been more beautiful. I need his hands more than I've ever—"
"Hey, whoa, whoa!" Varric stumbles up from his boulder, jamming his papers back into his belt, clapping both hands over Cole's ears as if it might help. "We're going, we're going! Try to keep it clean until we're out of range, will you?"
"That isn't my fault," Adahla manages, but Varric's already hustling Cole over the edge of the hill, and in a matter of moments they're out of sight. She should feel worse—should feel—poor Cole—but Solas's eyes suddenly hold all the light in the entire world, and she can't seem to care about anything else.
"Vhenan," he says, his voice very deep, and that word in that tone is enough to sap the last of her reason from her head. She seizes the collar of his robes, drags him forward, and kisses him.
He lets out a surprised breath, as if he somehow hadn't seen this coming, and then his arms come tight around her, so tight her own breath sighs out all at once. Such a relief—such an unspeakable relief—and his mouth is so warm against hers, and his hands on her back fairly blaze as he pulls her even closer. The suspended motes of light still orbit them in unhurried time.
She can't get near enough. Her hands rove over his cheeks, his chest, the back of his neck; somehow they tangle in the laces of the fur over his shoulder, and the whole thing slides a handspan downwards with the unintentional wrench. She knows what to expect here—Creators, his quiet sighs—knows this will go as it has a dozen times before. A caught breath, a harried smile, a readjustment of his clothing and an unwelcome counsel to patience.
Not this time.
Instead he grips her waist and seats her in one motion atop the astrarium table. More strength than any apostate should have—her legs twine immediately around his waist—so much easier to reach his face from this height. Her thoughts are scattered as the stars around them; she can hardly recognize one before being spun off wildly to another.
The starlight haloes him, plays over his skin like music. Small darts streak over his closed eyelids, burst and flicker over his throat; she chases each one as if she can catch it, mouthing her way down one side of his throat and up the other, delighting in every abrupt pant and swallow.
His hands, his hands. One stroking through her hair, the other slipped somehow beneath her leather coat, splayed with barely restrained patience at the small of her back. "Solas," she breathes into his ear, and the hand clenches into her shirt. "When you and I—when we, together—"
"Vhenan," he says, his voice trembling, and the triumph she feels at the sound roars up through every inch of her skin. She can feel everything, everything, the slight chap to his lips, his stomach rising against hers with each quick inhale, the damp evening breeze stroking over the back of her neck. Solas presses his cheek to hers and shudders. "Vhenan, you—"
She turns her lips to his cheek. "Emma lath, emma lath."
"Ar lath ma—"
"Solas," she gasps, and he kisses her so hard he bends her backwards over the astrarium table.
She doesn't know what she hits. Some hidden lever, perhaps, some shifting key. All she knows is there's a hollow click beneath her shoulder, a grind of a small stone gear, and in an instant every star above them winks out to nothing.
They both freeze in place. The sun has dropped at last below the horizon, leaving them in a cooling twilight grey. The absence of the light is oddly blinding after so long; she blinks again and again, and eventually Solas's face—entirely mundane, entirely perfect—resolves itself out of the shadowy trees above her. His cheeks are flushed, his lips parted; he looks just as dazed as she feels.
"Well," she says, pleased her voice is steady despite her heart pounding from her chest. "That's…probably for the best."
His gaze is still trained on her mouth. "Yes. I…"
"Solas."
"Vhenan."
She cups her hand to his cheek, and he drags his eyes to hers like a man fighting an endless tide. Somewhere in the evening an insect begins a ratcheting call; brush rustles as a fox creeps from its den.
She keeps her voice low, unwilling to break the moment. "We should find Cole."
"Cole. Yes."
"And Varric."
"Yes, of course. And Varric." He shakes his head as if shaking off a spell, then pulls her back to a seated position at the edge of the table. His eyes have cleared—disappointing—but the flush has yet to fade.
She kisses him once on his chin, just because she can. "I do so enjoy solving puzzles with you, you know. You make me feel quite rewarded for a brief moment of ingenuity."
"Oh? You think me a man so easily swayed by intelligence? By patience and persistence?" He rests his forehead against hers, smiling. "By the unbridled joy of a beautiful woman?"
"The joy comes from sharing it with you, Solas." She kisses his chin again, then the corner of his mouth. He has gone very still. "As you well know."
"Vhenan…"
"No? You'd like me to remind you?" He starts to protest, but she continues without stopping. "No, now I intend to. You know very well how highly I respect your mind. Your thoughtfulness, your deliberation. Your passion," she adds, and smiles again as his gaze drops back to her mouth, "for the Fade and its spirits. Your hunger for knowledge whets mine, Solas. It's a gift, and one I won't take for granted."
He takes her face in his hands and kisses her. Much gentler this time, and sweeter, and tinged with something painful she can't name. "I cannot imagine you taking anything for granted."
"It's a practiced skill," she says, running a thumb over his cheek. "We may not always agree, you and I. In fact, I sometimes wonder if my decisions might drive you right out through the Skyhold gates. But you stay every time, ara sa'lath, and every time I love you a little more for it."
"You give me far too much credit," he murmurs, but his hands as he lowers her to the ground are gentle, and his eyes are fond as she straightens his clothing, then her own. "And if my personal opinions have caused you to have a moment's doubt, I ask you to forgive me. The weight you carry is already too heavy."
"If I didn't doubt myself once in a while, I think you would love me less." She links their hands together; behind them, untouched, the astrarium's cover folds up upon itself once more, gears and hinges whirring and clicking until the smooth, gleaming dome has been restored. "And anyway," Adahla adds, squeezing his fingers, "I walk the path with you, emma lath. There's no safer place in the world."
He smiles, shaking his head, and they set off into the forest's twilight together. A quiet walk, all told, but she loves him for his quiet, too. Besides, she hardly needs his words after all this time; his grip on her hand is strong, as it always is, and he does not let her go.
—
4.
Once, when she was very young, one of the hahrens had taken all the children to the top of the tallest hill for miles. A lesson on weather, she thinks, on how to see the signs of a coming storm; she's forgotten most of it after all this time, but she remembers him gesturing at the heavy grey clouds that'd hung low around them on the hill. A blanket for the world, he'd said. Remember that. The nights are always warmer when the clouds are thick.
The clouds stretch horizon to horizon above her now, blocking out every star in the night sky, and she's never felt colder in her life.
Her face is numb as ice. Her legs, too, even in her fur-lined boots, and both arms all the way to the shoulder, even if the right's has been wrapped in a plaster cast and splinted to her own chest. She can't feel the shingles of the roof beneath her in the slightest, hadn't realized anyone's knees could ever grow this cold. As they have for days, the Well's voices rise in a faint, wordless whisper at the back of her mind, then fade again to nothing. She can't catch a single word.
A cloud breaks above her, just for an instant. No stars behind it, no sky; only a shred of the waning moon, a glimpse of pristine white. Then—lost again in seconds, transformed back to a grey, muted glow, the only sign in the heavens of any light at all beyond the clouds.
There had been fire below, earlier. Guards with torches patrolling along the Skyhold walls, standing braziers dotting the paths in the courtyard, lanterns swinging back and forth as the evening meal finished and the soldiers retired, laughing, for the night. Flecks of golden warmth in a world gone completely to ice around her.
That'd been hours ago. The guards are abed, now, their torches out, gone with all the stars. She closes her eyes, lets the frosty air bite the inside of her nose with each breath. Like this, she can almost believe the whole world sleeping, every soul on the continent gone still and silent at last—at peace—and no one left awake at all except for—
"Inquisitor?"
Her eyes fly open. Her hand clenches into a fist over her heart, but the bone is still very broken, and agony lances up her frozen, splinted forearm. She sits up on the roof gingerly, every joint and muscle protesting the shift, and waits.
Perhaps he'll leave. She's set all his things in two neat stacks by the door, his books and his paints and his unimpressive clothes; he must have seen them. Must even now be gathering them up, wearing that same wounded, determined expression that makes her want to tear the jawbone from its leather cords and fling it right at his face. Creators, Maker-Bride, let him just leave—
"Inquisitor? Are you here?"
Closer, now. Openly worried. He must have seen his belongings and walked right past them. The clench of her jaw feels strange, numb as it is, and her teeth ache at the pressure.
"Inquisitor?"
On the balcony now, directly beneath where she sits on its roof. She hears him take three quick steps, hears his palms strike the rail as he reaches it. How easily she can imagine him leaning over, eyes wide, searching, searching—
The unmitigated gall of him, thinking he still has the right to care. "What do you want, Solas?"
A sharp inhale, the twist of a boot on stone. "Where are you?"
"I asked first."
"I came to see…" A rare stumble in his words, as if he's stepped forward and found open air rather than earth. "Cassandra said you were injured today."
Her breath puffs up into a white cloud. "Yes."
"She said your arm…" Another trailing off, almost helpless, and she despises him for it. "Inquisitor, the night is very cold."
"Yes."
"Please."
Her anger rises again, black as the starless night, but she's not fool enough to do herself real harm out of spite. She is cold, frozen down to the marrow. She pushes to her feet and walks to the edge of the balcony's overhang, every limb slow and clumsy.
Still, enough control to swing carefully over the narrow curved gutter, even with her broken arm strapped to her chest; enough control to navigate back down the iron trellis, its winding vines withered and brown with winter. Enough control to pass by Solas on the balcony without looking at him, without taking the hand he's half-outstretched to help.
The warmth of her room is shocking after so long on the icy roof. A fire blazes merrily in the hearth, a pile of dried, split logs standing ready in the rack beside it; a dozen candles burn atop the mantle, another dozen scattered over her desk, her book-laden shelves, the small tables beside her bed. Burnt down at least halfway, every one. Josephine will chide her for the waste of wax.
A thick woolen robe has been laid invitingly over the armchair before the fire. She goes instead to the bed's carved foot, catching a glimpse of herself in a standing mirror on the way: ruddy skin gone nearly white with cold, an unhealthy flush high on her cheeks, her eyes flat and glittering.
She turns. Waits.
That Creators-damned expression again. He stands framed by the open balcony doors, staring at her splinted arm with his brow furrowed, the temerity of a frank grief rising in his eyes. She's never been prone to temper, but the sight seizes her like the teeth of a wolf. She thinks, a little shocked, that if he were to come a single step closer she would strike him.
He clears his throat. "Cassandra said it was an ambush in the Wilds. Venatori."
"Yes."
"What happened?"
"They had a great brute with them, a man with a warhammer. He snuck along the edge of the fight and came up behind me." Her fingers flex over her heart, and the lance of pain judders along her arm. "I thought you would be there. You weren't."
The blow lands as she expects. His eyes clench shut, then open again with great effort; his hands link together behind his back, his shoulders high and stiff as a keep wall. "Not a complicated injury, I trust."
"Vivienne assures me the break is quite clean."
"Then you will heal quickly."
"Su an'banal i'ma."
That one catches him off guard; he looses a sudden, noiseless sigh and takes a half-step backwards. "Vhenan, I—that is, Inquisitor. I spoke out of turn. Forgive me."
"Tell me the truth."
Almost a gasp. "I can't."
"Then it seems neither of us gets what we want." She gestures politely behind her. All her blood has snap-frozen in her veins, like a river struck dumb by winter. "Your belongings are there, on the table."
His eyes drop away, and he strides past her without speaking again. Good. The wind's already scraped her raw; she doesn't need him to know the hammer struck her skull, too, nor that his name was the first she'd called on waking. Doesn't need him to know that Vivienne had been pushed to the very brink when mending her broken head, that the arm had swiftly become an afterthought; that in her confusion she'd asked for him a dozen times. Varric had put away his pen at the third; he'd torn up the page at the sixth.
He would care. Even now he would care and would wish to comfort her, and he would choose not to, and she would be forced to watch his terrible guilt at the choice. And even now she would still crave that smallest scrap of his attention, like a crawling vine desperate for spring. Mythal'enaste, she can hardly tell which of them is more pathetic.
A slight movement catches her eye. Ah, the mirror beside the hearth; and in its glass a clear view of Solas as he gathers up his things from the table. His movements are slow and deliberate, book stacked upon book, clothing refolded with precision and tucked into the bag at his hip.
He suddenly falls still, his face turned in profile. His hand rests not on one of his books, but one of hers: her latest little nature journal, the page still open to a sketch she'd made outside Din'an Hanin. A statue of an elven warrior, spear in hand, an ancient, complex inscription at the base; she'd copied it down for him just the other day. She'd thought he'd like it. She'd hoped to work through the translation together.
All come to nothing, now. Ah, she's so bitterly, bitterly cold.
In the dead silence of her room, he turns the page. Not a whisper of sound as he does, not even when he recoils the instant after, his face twisted in agony.
Fair enough. She's hardly skilled at portraiture and no good at all at abstract expression; she'd begun the likeness for her own pleasure. Besides, if seeing his own face brings him such pain, then perhaps he can understand a tenth of what she—a thousandth—
One long, slow breath, in and out again, her frozen lungs crackling at the stretch. "I think you should leave, Solas."
She watches his eyes clench shut in the mirror, his chest hollow out as if she's struck him a fatal wound. He braces himself on the table, but one shoulder drops unevenly, almost as if his elbow has buckled beneath the weight; then, as if by force of will alone, his expression smooths back muscle by muscle into a more familiar mask: calm, observant, unaffected. Creators, even now her traitorous heart aches at the sight.
"Inquisitor," he says, straightening without looking at her, though he inclines his head in her direction. "I will not trouble you again."
A handful of steps, a handful of seconds, the click of a closed door. As simply as that, he's gone.
She watches the mirror a few minutes more, then turns to look at the place where he walked away. His things are gone as well, all trace of him neatly vanished. Nothing at all left behind. Ah—not even her nature book, she realizes, its place on her desk now conspicuously empty.
"Thief," she says aloud.
Her voice cracks. Like a stone dropped to the middle of a frozen pond, a thousand hairline fractures splintering through her in an instant. She doesn't want this. She doesn't want—this—
Her hands have begun to shake. The tremble is awful, all her blood at last begun to thaw, hot-cold prickles shivering up her arms and legs like they've been asleep a hundred years. The Anchor burns like fire.
She jerks on the robe over her splinted arm, clumsy as a foal, and stretches out her marked hand to the hearth. The Well's whispers rise, fall; her limbs shake as if with ague. Sylaise, your comfort, now more than ever, I ask—
Ar lath ma, vhenan.
—for healing, not of the mind but of the heart—
The best gift I can offer is the truth.
—and if you will not heal it, burn it out of me with your gentle flame—
The catch to his breath as she'd leaned up and kissed him—
You are perfect exactly as you are.
The shivers continue unabated. The prickling spreads through her inch by inch until it reaches her eyes, stinging there dangerously, but she refuses to give in, refuses, and after several seconds the pain yields to her will, like a spring flood giving way around a river rock. Instead she watches the fire, her mind carefully blank, letting the flames twist and curl in on themselves, admiring the play of golden light over the surrounding stone. Still warmth here. Not yet strong enough to reach her heart, but still—some heat left in the world somewhere, and perhaps if she waits long enough—if she tries—
A glacial finger strokes through her hair, over the back of her neck. The balcony doors, she realizes, still standing wide open; she draws the robe closer around herself and goes to shut them at last.
The night sky is still so dark. The clouds have not abated, still stretched in one great unbroken cover as far as she can see, but even so she can make out the hazy glow of the half-moon beyond the mountain's rise. A promise, perhaps, that the clouds will not last forever. A reminder that one day there will be stars again.
I'm sorry.
The wind caresses her cheek. Too cold, she thinks, especially now that she can once more feel the ice. She closes the doors one-handed, latching them firmly against the wintry evening; then she returns to stand before the fireplace, as close to the heat as she can bear, and waits for the shivering to end.
—
5.
Adahla opens her eyes.
Ah. The lake again. A peaceful dream, recurrent as it has been lately; her memories of this place are still too fond, despite the years, and the world has lately been too difficult. Her thoughts still know where to turn for respite.
Her favorite time of day, even. The sun is less than a quarter-hour from setting, the lake and woods around it cast in a thick golden glow. The lake shines like a polished sovereign, reflecting the wildwood, each doubled leaf-edge dripping gold; a few clouds skate through the clear sky, tinged rosy pink along their edges, and disappear behind the trees. Evergreen pines, as always. Two great aravels on the shore, crimson sails furled, surrounded by quietly grazing halla, as always.
He's here.
Of course he is. She knows her mind too well not to recognize the shape of his presence within it, the shadow of a shadow at the very edge of the forest. She's glimpsed him there before, in the fleeting moments where he's stepped into her dreams and vanished again in the next breath, but tonight—tonight he lingers.
She knows why. And because it is her mind and her dream, it's the mere effort of a thought to take the loamy earth where she stands and the dry leaves rustling around his own feet and—
—pinch—
Solas doesn't startle often. At least, he hadn't, back when she'd once known him—but he startles now, his eyes wide as he stumbles a full step back toward the trees. He recovers quickly, though, as he always has, drawing himself up to his full height, linking his hands behind his back. The same strange gold armor, the same heaped fur bound over his shoulder.
He lifts his chin. "Inquisitor."
"Fen'Harel."
He flinches, as she'd meant him to. How satisfying to know she still has this power over him, even after years apart. How maddening that even after so long, even after the way he'd left, she still can't stand the sight of him in pain.
He swallows, but when he speaks his tone is carefully, perfectly level. "I should ask your forgiveness. I did not wish to disturb you here."
"Tonight? Or all the nights before?"
There, the flash of a grimace. "Ah. I had not intended…" And then—the faint crease of a smile, as if against his will. "But I should have expected no less. Your perception has always been remarkable."
"Except when it came to you."
"You saw many things I did not wish you to see."
"And I blinded myself to certain others." She puts her hand on her hip and turns, surveying the lake behind her. The sun has dropped lower in the sky, the tallest pines spearing up now through its edge; the herd of halla have moved on from the aravels, grouped instead in the knee-high rushes that sweep along the edges of the water. "Well? What do you think? It's no Haven mountainside, but I confess I prefer it."
"Beautiful," he says quietly. "As you are. As is everything you touch."
She can feel his eyes resting on her, on the empty sleeve folded and pinned at her left elbow, even in her dreams. "It's certainly more peaceful now than it's been the last few nights. Though you know that as well, of course."
"I—your fever was severe. The nightmares were…" His voice twists wretchedly. "I only wished to spare you pain."
She laughs. She doesn't mean to, but it's all so patently absurd she can do little else. He says nothing, his grief a living, potent thing between them.
It had been his grief she'd recognized, even through the fever's ravings, even through the horrors that had writhed with her worst madness. Whatever he'd done to her arm at the ruins, whatever magic he'd reclaimed—the flesh had died cleanly, the healers had told her later. At least he'd given her that.
For months she'd watched the Anchor slither through her skin, its green tendrils creeping like ivy across her palm, over her wrist, in twisted latticework up her forearm. Then Solas had touched her, and she'd felt it wither in place, his power flexing the air around them, had felt everything below the elbow go instantly and perfectly numb.
The Anchor had known where it belonged. She'd been its steward only for a time; then it had been called home, like a river rushing downward to the sea, and it had left her behind. Empty. Changed.
After that—only confusion. A blur of senseless images: Dorian bending over her, his brows creased with worry; the medicinal reek of the healing tents; Solas's voice, blending impossibly with the healer's voice as she faded in and out of consciousness. No infection, she remembers them saying, no rot, no sickness that time alone would not cure. They'd cut away the dead bone, had cleaned the wound and stitched the skin; they'd wrapped her arm in pristine white bandages she'd feared to touch.
Then the fever had set in.
She has no wish to remember the nightmares. The flashes are enough: agony, teeth like needles, a terrible twisting pyre and a ceaseless screaming. She'd thought she'd gone mad; she'd been sure some demon had claimed her at last, or Corypheus, or red templars and their corrupted lyrium. Thorns had lashed around her arms and torn them to bloody sinew; her flesh had burned away over and over. She'd craved the peace of death, had begged for it.
Then—and this she recalls with startling clarity—strong hands had fallen on her shoulders from behind, had slid around her in a protective embrace. His magic had pulsed, cool and clear as water, and silence had spread out from her feet in a wave. The horror had receded before it, as had the fire, and the pain, and the fear. Not vanished, not completely, but withdrawn to the very edges of her mind, his shimmering barrier as absolute as the ones he'd once thrown over her in battle.
He'd held on, and she'd gripped his wrist so tightly her fingers ached. The relief had been its own sort of torture. In the stillness his grief had swelled around them, slow and sure as a tide, and with it had come a love that shook her to the core.
And then she'd opened her eyes, and he'd been gone.
One of the halla bleats, a plaintive, lonely sound. The lake, now a hazy purple with twilight, breaks into ripples as a fish surfaces, then smooths back into serenity once more. A few stars have begun to peek through the darkening sky, close enough to their true homes for comfort. Ah, how she's always loved this place.
A leaf crackles as Solas shifts his weight. "Forgive me," he murmurs, and even that is startling after the quiet. "I should not have presumed to trespass here. I will disturb your rest no longer."
The ice thaws. Her voice softens. "Solas."
He stops. As he always has when she's asked, in every way but one. "Vhenan."
She closes her eyes. "Again."
"Vhenan." Closer now, the leaves crackling again with his quick steps. The word is almost a plea.
"Again."
"Vhenan."
A wolf poised at her throat, teeth bared. She opens her eyes.
Still here. Still here, inches away, and his face a mask of pain, his jaw clenched hard enough the muscle jumps. She might have torn out his heart and thrown it at his feet. "Please," he says, and she thinks even he doesn't know what he asks for.
The best gift I can offer is the truth.
"I still love you," she says, and she smiles.
A shudder runs through him head to toe. He cups her face—tenderly, so tenderly—and he shudders again. She leans into his touch, covering his fingers with her own. Not to restrain, only to rest.
"Ar lath ma," he gasps, and Solas bends his head and kisses her.
Ah, ah. She's forgotten. Two years—more—two years, and she's forgotten how Solas always kisses her with such total abandon. His whole body curls over hers, bowing her backwards; his fingers slide into her hair, pressing there, holding her face to his as if he might forget to breathe otherwise. The sheer warmth of him—of his mouth—
The embrace in the Crossroads had been unbearably brief, a glance of starlight off a hurried creek. She'd been hurting, overwhelmed, her heart broken and remade again in a matter of minutes. He'd told her everything at last, everything, every scrap of truth she'd ever yearned for; he'd misled her from the moment they'd met. He'd shattered her faith like glass; he'd promised to doom the world and save her in the same breath. He'd kissed her like he loved her. And through it all, the blinding, fiery agony of her hand burning her alive, like clutching the sun itself, searing her to ash from the inside out…
He's kissing her right, right now, and he—loves her.
"Solas," she breathes, and she wraps her ruined arm around his neck. He shivers again at his name, as if he has forgotten how it was meant to sound; she murmurs it again and again into his lips. He holds her so tightly she aches.
Like standing in the heart of a storm. His mouth is hot, open, searching instantly for hers again with every parting; he is desperate, as desperate as she is to remember how this feels, how this is meant to go between them, and after so long apart this is still not close enough.
More stars in the deep-blue sky above them, mirrored in the lake below. She takes his hand—which of them is trembling?—and leads him to the lee side of one of the silent, graceful aravels. Furs of every kind have been piled high here, warm and soft and welcoming, and Solas kneels beside her as she sits and sinks back into their weight. A brief moment to gather themselves, his cheeks flushed, his eyes bright and fixed entirely on her; then he bends and kisses her again, one hand braced on the rabbit-fur by her ear.
Mythal'enaste, she's burning up all over again. She plucks at the edges of his armor, the cool metal entirely in her way; he huffs a laugh against her mouth and pushes the pelt from his shoulder.
"And the rest of it," she sighs, even as his lips drop to the hollow beneath her ear. "Solas, emma lath—"
His voice shakes. "Please, how can I—what can I do to please you?"
She runs her hand over the back of his head, down the strong lines of his neck; he withdraws just enough for his gaze to rove hungrily over her face. She's right here, in his arms, and yet the yearning in his expression makes her heart clench.
Stay, she thinks and does not say. Her eyes sting. Solas, just stay.
But that is a dream, even more than this place. He broke the world, once, out of horror and desperation; and out of desperation she'll keep this one whole a little longer.
She lifts her hands—hand—to his face. "Touch me," she breathes instead, and his eyes soften further. "Solas, just let me feel you. Help me remember you're real."
His eyelids fall shut, and Solas presses his mouth to her palm. His lips move against her skin, some voiceless invocation, then slip to the hammering pulse inside her wrist, her forearm, the crook of her elbow. She can't—Creators, with her other hand gone she can't hold him—no, not the Creators, not any longer—gods, let the Dread Wolf take them all and be done with it. Let the Dread Wolf—
Adahla laughs, dropping back into the furs, covering her eyes with what's left of her upper arm. Solas pauses; a moment later he draws it back down, the touch gentle enough to hurt. The stars have emerged in full force behind him, stretching horizon to horizon with a glinting, endless light.
"Vhenan?"
She only smiles, shaking her head, searching along the edge of his pauldron until she finds the hidden seam. There—and there—one quick tug on the leather strap, and the engraved metal comes free in one piece. "Take this off. All of it."
His eyes crinkle as he smiles back—she's always loved his smile—and he sits up, his clever fingers working the latches and knotted cords with brisk efficiency. The heavy overcoat drops away, the twice-wrapped belt, layer after layer of golden mail; soon he kneels again beside her, barefoot, wearing nothing but trousers and a linen shirt and that same damned jawbone around his neck.
She fingers the dark bone, then traces along the leather thong up to the side of his throat. "I used to dream about strangling you with this necklace."
He kisses her fingertips. "A fate I would have deserved."
"And not entirely removed from play. Convince me otherwise, emma lath."
He smiles again, though this one is a little amazed, and at last, at last, at last, he puts his hands to work where she wants them. Feather-light touches over her cheeks, her throat, the high woven collar of her jacket. A firmer grip at her waist, her thighs; he lifts her from the furs in one smooth motion and resettles her in his lap, chest to chest, her knees bent to either side of his hips.
Such a solid weight to him. Sure and steady as he pushes her jacket from her shoulders, baring her arms to the starry sky—his mouth surer still as he returns to her jaw, her collarbones, the curve of her neck. She leans back just enough to tug off her boots one-handed, though he makes a sound of inarticulate protest that thrills her blood, and he pulls her back against him the moment he can.
The gift of his hands; the gift of his mouth. If she's at last to have him here, after all this time, she'll take everything she wants. "Emma lath."
His answer—vhenan, she thinks—is muffled in her throat. A scrape of teeth over the pulse-point, his breath hot on her skin. The words scatter from her mind like birds; she has to reclaim them one by one. "Did you know? That I would lose the arm?"
He goes very still; she smooths his shirt over his back, softening the question. "I'm not angry. Only curious."
"You should be," he says, self-reproach flooding through his tone, but this is her dream, and she is through with his remorse.
"Solas."
"No," he says at last, lifting his head, and his hold tightens on her waist. "Not at first. Nothing had gone as I expected, and you wielded its power so easily from the start, with great wisdom and courage. By the time I realized the danger to your life, you had already become too dear to me." His gaze drops. "Until these last few months, I had hoped to find another way to remove the mark. I underestimated how deeply the power would be drawn to you. To your strength."
He trails down her arm, touches the edge of the white bandages. The pain is distant here, only a phantom, and the pressure of his skin on hers is real. His voice is real. "I had always known I would come to you in time, whether the need came from the weakness of my heart or from the Anchor itself. And then I felt it—the change—your anguish—the mark growing unstable, and suddenly there was no time left at all."
"But I was the one chasing you. Breadcrumbs on a trail."
This smile is unexpected, almost self-conscious. "You enjoyed solving such mysteries before."
"Dhava 'ma masa."
His chuckle is a little stiff, dormant from disuse, but his relief is palpable as she leans in to kiss him. His grip shifts restlessly from her arms to her waist and back again; his chest stutters on the sharp inhale. His mouth opens under hers—and all at once she's hot again, blazing, her skin suddenly far too small for her roaring need.
"Solas—"
"Vhenan, I—"
"I don't want to wait. Not a moment longer."
"Yes," he gasps, and he surges up into her like the tide.
Ah, Creators—Maker-Bride—by every holy spirit she's ever met. She can't hold this—can't hold him—his hands are on her again, caressing, tugging, splayed flat on her back and curled around her thighs. His mouth—hot as coals on her mouth, her throat, her chest where her tunic's collar dips. The stars dance in the sky above them; the full moon has lit the glade a brilliant silver. The glow snares on the aravel's furled sails, drips in long streaks along the sleek curve of the hull, pools in the muscled planes of Solas's shoulders.
He manages to tug off her shirt, then his. New scars for both of them, and her arm, her arm—an iron band squeezes all the air from her lungs. He wraps her in an embrace and kisses her without hesitation, and the band snaps.
Gods, she wants him undone. Every stitch come apart, every inch of that imperfect mask shattered and thrown aside. She rakes her nails up his bare back and delights in the answering hiss, at the wild flash of his eyes as he unknots her breastband and presses her down into the furs. His hips settle decisively against her own, only a few layers of linen and leather left between them, and she—
She grips the cord of his necklace and pulls his face down to hers. "You left me," she says against his lips.
He kisses her back, shuddering, shuddering. "Yes."
"You'll leave me again."
A broken gasp. "Yes."
"But here—now—" she forces him to look at her "—when you're here with me, Solas, I want your heart. All of it. Not the Dread Wolf's, not Fen'Harel's—yours. Every last part."
"Yes—"
She's found his laces at last. Even pinned by his weight it's only a matter of seconds, and in a few seconds more he's shoving his trousers away and bending over her own buttons with shaking hands. Two hands—the buttons are workable with one, but so much easier with—and then done, gods, finally, her hips lifting from the furs as he frees her of the last of her clothing.
He kisses her cheek, then draws back in the moonlight. "Beautiful," he breathes, and there is something like wonder in his voice. "I had not forgotten, but I did not remember…"
"Emma lath," she says, but the rest of it is lost as he bends over her and sets himself to work.
How well he remembers her body, even after all this time. How easily he can work her to the edge and ease her back again, his touch strong and sure, his tongue every place she wants it almost before the thought crosses her mind. Every inch of her skin tingles with desire—her toes curl—she clutches at his head and he laughs against her, no mockery at all, only raw affection. She's lost all control of her magic, lightning bursting from her skin; sparks leap from her fingertips to his shoulders, flit up from the ends of her hair, dance along the surface of the furs.
How long? A quarter-hour, an endless year. Stars above her, and a thousand lights like stars—his mouth descends again before she's even begun to come down and she wrenches her head back, gasping. He's breathing as hard as she is—she can feel his quick-spreading ribs—and she wants—this, only this, over and over—wants so much more—
"Solas," she says, forcing herself to sit up through the coiling heat, her heart brimming over with such fondness she can hardly bear it. He lets her put a hand to his chest, lets her push him down into the furs in turn, lets her settle herself astride his waist before she leans down to kiss him.
"Vhenan," he whispers, and the stars shine in his eyes, now. "If you could see you as I see you…"
"Ar lath ma," she breathes. His eyes clench shut, and she's ready at last, more than ready, his heart thundering beneath her palm—
(Solas.
Vhenan, vhenan—my love—
I know. Solas, emma lath, I know—
Always. Always. Even when—
Emma lath, emma nehn. I know.
Ir abelas. Ar lath ma. Ma ghilana vhenas.
I know.)
Later, much later, they lie tangled together in the heaping furs. Her glade is never cold, but he's drawn one of the thicker wolf-pelts over her shoulders all the same, and her head rests over the steady rhythm of his heartbeat. His fingers trail idly up her arm, over the line of her neck and jaw, along her ear to the very tip, then down again.
The lake beside them still reflects each glittering star, the water calm and clear as glass, though the night sky has begun to yield to a lighter grey. The halla on the far shore stand with their heads dropped in sleep, waning moonlight strung through their twisted horns; some bird in the trees strikes up a dawn song she nearly recognizes.
Not long left now. She can feel it, the faint lines of tension in his hold, the distant tug of her own mind beginning to wake. It has always been a dream, after all; it could only ever end one way.
Finally she stirs, sliding her hand between her cheek and his chest. His heartbeat fades back into silence. "I think it might be time to leave."
His caress slows, then falls still. "Then duty calls us both, it seems, though I'll recall your touch dearly and often."
"There's war to wage, ara sa'lath, but this is not its battlefield."
"I will return."
"Don't lie to me here, Solas."
He lifts himself to one elbow, slipping away, then brushes the backs of his fingers over her cheek. "I will find you."
Damn him. Damn herself. She closes her eyes. "I believe you."
His lips brush over her brow; the furs shift as he stands. "Vir suledin."
A shadow of a shadow, the briefest press of power on her mind. And—gone.
Adahla rolls to her back. The stars have faded almost completely away; a thin line of gold stretches just above the trees, promising sunrise. "Ara las mir lath."
—
1.
"Solas!"
Solas places one finger on the page, marking his place, and looks up at the Inquisitor's voice. The smile is already on his lips; he can hardly seem to suppress it these days, even when he would wish to. The Inquisition is an organization still in its infancy, the halls of Skyhold yet draped with centuries of cobwebs; they have been here only a few weeks, but somehow they have each found some small place within its walls to claim as home.
And with his own place here in his rotunda, the cold mountain sunlight spilling down from the high windows, his name resounding from the distant ceiling in her voice—he thinks he could certainly do worse.
"Inquisitor," he says, pushing up from his desk. "I thought I heard the commotion of your arrival. The party has returned safely from the Emerald Graves, then?"
"Save the casualty of Dorian's favorite pair of boots."
"Ah. That would explain the incessant complaining up the stairway a moment ago."
Adahla inclines her head, eyes bright. She looks uninjured, if a little mud-spattered and stained, and her hands are clasped together behind her back. "A deep creek and an enormous bear, nothing more."
"Oh? So little?" He's smiling again, he can feel it. "Given the enemies we regularly face, one hardly understands the fuss."
"That's what I—oh! You've been painting!"
She turns in place, attention caught now by his unfinished mural. Geometrics shapes only so far: a ray of golden light, borders marked out in triangular patterns, the suggestion of a distant mountain. His plaster knives and jars of pigment lie in neat order at the wall's base; she surveys them curiously, notes the damp tackiness of the wall with her usual care, and leans closer without touching it. "I didn't know you painted, Solas."
"To be more accurate, it will become a fresco. The pigment is mixed with wet plaster and applied while damp, rather than painted upon a canvas."
She throws him a look over her shoulder, a mix of genuine interest and gentle mockery. "And thus educated, I am free to admire its beauty without the burden of ignorance."
"Forgive me," he says, feeling enormously foolish in the way only she can cause. "It is unfinished, of course."
"I'm only teasing," she says, relenting, and this smile is warm as the sun. "You know perfectly well I like learning new things, and I like listening to people discuss their passions."
"It has been years since I have had the luxury of both a place to consider such a project and the time to complete it."
"It's lovely, Solas. Really, it is." She steps back again to consider the lines. "Even this early, I think I can guess this is Haven."
"You are correct, of course," he says, and, satisfied, she abandons the mural to approach his desk. "But your appreciation is misplaced, surely. I have seen you with a pencil and pages of your own."
"Oh, I have my little sketches, but they are neither so abstract nor so aspirational. I find it much easier to copy directly from what I see." She pulls the small notebook from her pocket and lays it in a clear place on his desk. She flips through its pages without purpose: a crumbled wall in the Hinterlands with ivy climbing through the mortar; a finch's wing sketched in isolate extension, small notes in the margin indicating the bones and joints; an inscription to the Lady of the Skies carved on the base of a stone plinth.
The sketches are careful, detailed, lovely as the rest of her. "You see more than I expected."
"Or I let my interests drag me far too easily from the path, if you take Cassandra's point of view. Here," she adds, flipping towards the end of the book and pulling a folded sheet from its pages. "This one is for you."
Solas raises an eyebrow and unfolds the paper. Twenty or so stars have been scattered over its surface, as yet disconnected and shapeless. "Ah. I see you have found another astrarium."
"I did. I was forced to complete it without you, but I've brought you back the pattern in apology."
Something strange in her voice, something new. He looks up, curious, but her eyes are trained steadily on the page in his hands; he watches her moment longer, just enough to strain politeness, and there: faint color blossoming in her cheeks and throat.
Heat rises in his own at the sight, swiftly enough to shock him. He is no callow youth to be easily swayed by a quick smile and a strong mind; he walked this place before her people had even become a thought, and yet—and yet his mouth is dry as sand, his heart thudding in his ears.
"I solved it in three," Adahla says.
She's looking at him now as if she expects a response, but he can hardly think past the color of her eyes. He could mix that shade exactly, he thinks, dazed, two parts his palest green, one part—
"Solas?"
"I—" He shakes his head sharply, dispelling half-thoughts of a new mural. "Forgive me. I was…distracted."
"The pattern." She touches the corner of the page. "Three attempts. I suggest you don't work in pen."
He can't help his startled laugh. "I will endeavor to succeed, Inquisitor."
"As long as you don't succeed in three tries or fewer." She smiles again, and her face is very close to his, her smile reaching all the way to her eyes. The smell of damp plaster has mixed with her own, something fresh and earthy from the long road, with a metallic tinge like lightning. She says, "Then I suppose I'll leave you to it."
"Oh? You have no wish to stay and supervise the effort?"
"As much as I'd like to, I promised Cullen a report a quarter-hour ago. And turnabout's fair play, anyway; if I had to miss you the whole time I was working on it by myself, I'll insist you do the same for me."
That heat rushes through him again, prickling through his skin like loose embers. Her gaze is steady, even if her cheeks are pink and her eyebrows raised. Why has his tongue suddenly gone so thick? "Should I attempt to solve it quickly, then, or slowly?"
"I'll leave that decision to you. Not to mention if I watch you try, I'll want to give hints." She pushes away from his desk at last, tucking her notebook back into her pocket. "Besides, I needn't hover over your shoulder to count. I know you wouldn't lie to me."
He manages to meet her eyes, though the world seems to have dipped away beneath his feet. "I am glad."
To watch her leave—hurts, somehow, so instead he takes the sheet of stars to the small antechamber adjoining the rotunda. He's claimed his bed here: a narrow cot tucked into a recess in the wall and laid with brown pelts, an unassuming side table with a single candle, his small chest of belongings. A wide window has been set opposite the bed, and he sinks down to its sunlit edge with the page still held in both hands.
She'd thought of him. Half a country and five days' hard travel between them, and even amid the distractions of a bear and Fade-rifts and Dorian's endless complaining, she'd had time to think of him here, where she'd left him behind.
What are you doing, old wolf?
No harm in such a small thing, surely. She would be disappointed if he were to ignore it. A pencil—there, on the table among his idle sketches for the frescoes. The morning is yet young; the light streaming in from the window behind him is strong, clear.
He can almost see her copying down the pattern in the green forests of the Emerald Plains, hair tucked behind her ear, paper spread over the astrarium's carved surface. Marking out distances with one hand, measuring them out again on the page, fastidious in the details because she does not know how to be less.
She'd missed him. She'd thought of him while they were apart and made a gift to tell him so. How long has she carried it with her, waiting to see him again?
Solas smiles, puts the pencil to the page, and marks the first place where the stars might begin to join.
—
end.
AN: This is the last project I wanted to finish before beginning VG, so I'll again beg for no spoilers. Thanks so much for your patience, both for this & for all the years you've let me rattle on about this world to you!
"Ara sa'lath." My one love.
"Su an'banal i'ma." Go to the Void.
"Dhava 'ma masa." Kiss my ass.
"Emma lath, emma nehn." My love, my joy.
"Ir abelas. Ar lath ma. Ma ghilana vhenas." I'm sorry. I love you. You show me the way home.
"Vir suledin." We will endure.
"Ara las mir lath." I give you my love. (Excerpted from the Dalish Inquisitor's wedding vows in Trespasser.)