Archive of Our Own

Chapter Text

Apotheosis

1. deification, elevation to divine status

2. the highest point in the development of something; a culmination or climax

3. release from earthly life, ascension to heaven, or death. 

4. (psychology) The latent entity that mediates between a person's psyche and their thoughts.

Rook was aimless.

Rook was empty, hollow, and useless.

Rook was nothing.

A name that meant nothing to her and never did. A hero to many, a villain to others, an utter nothing to herself.

Who even was Rook? A pawn? A title? A position?

A little bird? She chuckled to herself as her eyes fell on his absurd, damned armour that now hung in the aquarium room. A trophy proudly hung on her wall.

She had hunted and chained the biggest prey out there, and his pelt now decorated her walls. She had considered using it as a carpet and only those cursed tusks, or horns, as wall decoration, but realized it wasn't the most comfortable thing to step on at night, so on the wall it went. It was the only thing that offered a semblance of satisfaction, and she looked at it every time she could open her eyes and step back into reality.

She had been lying in bed for weeks. Or was it months? Time made no sense in the Fade, and the Lighthouse was her only reality.

The uncomfortable green sofa had been turned into a bed by the Caretaker, and she decided rest was a well-earned reward after everything she went through. Existing was a burden, standing and functioning were something that seemed close to impossible, so she surrendered to the softness of the bed and to dreams. And nightmares.

Solas.

She thought of him, and the echo of his name resounded in her chest, as if in a cavern. He left a wide-open maw when he died. When he was killed. By Elgar'nan. Rage and pain and helplessness.

Nothing mattered.

The connection to him was ripped so abruptly that her soul was still tied to it. Tied to nothing, not even a ghost, because he was utterly and completely gone.

That part of her that ended where he began and had grown so accustomed to him being there, a rock, a tether to keep her grounded, still reached out to him. A phantom limb, a presence that wasn't present.

Then her companions. The ones who had been killed too... And the surviving ones who probably hated her for it.

A pathetic sob bubbled in her chest, and it enraged her even more. She flipped on her stomach and buried her face in the pillow, letting sleep run over her again like a warm wave.

Was it day or night? She guessed day, judging by the light that filtered through the water outside her window.

It didn't matter. She could sleep longer. Sleep the pain away. When that stopped working, she'd find other ways to numb the pain away. She had abused the Dreamer's Herbs, and there was always a cup of the bitter tea on her nightstand. Sometimes it would spoil and taste like pure bile and acid, but she'd still drink it. It was even more potent then.

The Caretaker wasn't happy with what she was doing, but the tea kept appearing there anyway. She willed it into existence, and the Caretaker could do nothing about it.

Little bird. Little monster. Sleep always spoke to her. Dreams and nightmares were living things at the Lighthouse and, if left unchecked, they'd turn into delirious visions that only made the pain sear hotter.

She could sense that happening again, so bleary-eyed and groggy, she reached for the teacup and drank deeply, some of it spilling on her chin and the bed sheets. It didn't matter. This place cleaned itself.

She hadn't drunk any liquids in hours, so the tea was a blessing for her parched throat. The concoction soon caused chills to run through her body, and she huddled back under the warm covers. A feral beast burrowing deep to chew on its own fat til spring may rise again.

She fell and fell, until something akin to solid ground was under her feet. Solas' Prison was vast and ever-changing. She knew it led to different places in the Fade, but without letting the one locked in leave it. The prisoner could look outside sometimes and have glimpses of a better life, but never fully taste it.

She loved the concept, the torment that Solas concocted. Locked in, eternal, feeling no hunger or pain, yet tasting fleeting sweetness. She would lock anyone who wronged her or the world in here. When she finally came out of her self-imposed prison, she would do that to many, starting with what was left of the Venatori.

For now, it was only him. Elgar'nan. Oldest sun or whatever he called himself. She didn't even care to remember or say it right. He had killed Solas, or rather, his archdemon did, and she hated him with the power of the sun he had moved on that faithful day that seemed an eternity ago.

Bellara, Neve, and Emmrich, the only survivors of the Veilguard, could think fast and come up with a solution after Solas died and the Veil was unravelling like an old cloth. They'd tie Elgar'nan to it again, and by some miracle, they managed it. For them, it had been enough. They were satisfied and mourned the losses and celebrated the victories.

It hadn't been enough for her.

Nothing was ever really enough for her. It was written in her flesh. More and more every single time, no matter what she achieved or was offered to her. Her soul was a gaping, insatiable maw.

The first thing she wanted was a trophy, and Emmerich helped. He thought it a fair punishment and explained the meaning of the medals he wore on the cape that had been discarded on the battleground before they defeated him.

It still wasn't enough, though.

She needed more, so she went to Emmrich again and asked him to help her get the crown and the dragon tusks. To accomplish this, they had to imprison him and momentarily dampen his magic. The effect didn’t last long, and when he was alone, his powers would return.

Emmrich thought the imprisonment and removal of the crown was a necessary and even fair measure, regardless, because he shouldn't have had any right to them anymore.

The god emperor had been dethroned and demoted to a mere elf, even if a large and very angry one at that.

His crown and dragon horns went on her walls, joining his robe.

Still, it hadn't been enough.

This time, though, Emmrich wasn't as eager to satisfy her wishes as he had been before.

Elgar'nan could still use his magic, which enraged her. Solas was killed, and he had killed him. He shouldn't have any right to use magic anymore. He had no right to anything he owned or to who he used to be in the past. Nothing that defined him should be his now.

She wanted him chained, she wanted him weak, helpless, she needed something that would take away, or at least dampen his magic. Emmrich had been horrified at first and even went as far as to remind her that Solas would have disapproved of any spirit being chained like that and that it may turn him into something even more horrific than he already was. She didn't care. Solas was gone, and she was the Lighthouse keeper now. She was also the one who decided what happened to those residing in the Prison of Regrets.

She insisted. Relentlessly, she went to Emmrich with the same request. She used all her persuasion skills and took advantage of Emmrich's fatherly weakness towards her, and pushed and pushed until he gave in, as she expected. After all, he was just as hurt by the losses they suffered. Davrin, Lucanis, and Harding had all been killed. Worse of all, though, for Emmrich was that Strife had fallen in battle, so they were both tied together by common pain and revenge in the name of killed lovers.

And so it was that Emmrich used all his powers to bring forth a magical chain made of materials she didn't fully understand, with enchantments beyond her knowledge. With Bellara's knowledge of magic dampeners, to which the chain was connected, they created something of a novelty. The chain went around his wrists and up his arms to coil loosely around his neck. It didn't fully contain his magic, though. He was far too powerful for that. But it did make it very weak.

Impotent, she chuckled to herself as the yearning to see her real trophy grew again.

She had a little ritual that she sometimes observed when on her many Fade explorations. She'd go see Elgar'nan and either insult him, mock him, or in any way tease him for being a failure. He couldn't do anything other than roar, rattle, and pull on his chains and sometimes release some stray magic that made the darkness crackle with light.

That was exactly what he was doing now, as she reached his prison cell. Because, yes, he was also contained by a cage. It was admittedly pretty, gilded, and golden, just as he might have liked it, but a cage nonetheless.

She knew he sensed her presence because he'd turn into a wild animal every time she appeared, rattling the bars, yelling curses in both Elven and the common tongue. He'd use his magic and barely achieve some weak, stuttering flames or a short flash of light. He would do the same things over and over, always getting the same results, yet persevering.

He fixed her with burning eyes and scowled, clutching the golden bars with chained hands.

"A big bird in a cage, flapping its wings uselessly, for he will never fly again..." she whispered as she saw him.

"I do not need to fly to destroy you," he said, his voice raspy, probably from all the screaming he was doing when alone. "One day, I shall break these chains and break you, and there is nothing, nothing I want more." The last words ended in chilling, inhuman growls.

His cultured, smooth tone was utterly gone, and she relished watching the spectacle.

She smiled, taking in the hilariously pathetic state he was in. He had discarded the heavy armour, which was now lying in a corner of the cage.

He was wearing only his undergarments, which consisted of a loose silk tunic and pants, both of which used to be a light cerulean blue. In the Prison of Regrets, though, everything was just another shade of vaguely coloured grey.

"Is that so?" she said as she paced in front of the cage. "That seems to be your promise each time I visit, but you have yet to go through with it. You know what they say about those who do the same thing over and over, expecting different results?" She stopped closer to him but didn't bother waiting for an answer. "Insane," she whispered. "They say such people are ill, insane."

He chuckled darkly. "It seems you are blind to the irony of your words. Look at you succumbing to vengeance... Do explain how that is sane?"

His hands were so tight on the bars that she feared he might bend them somehow, but without magic, no matter how much physical force he might have had, he stood no chance.

She looked up at him, a wicked smile twisting her features. "I do not answer to you and never have. Rich of you, of all people, to question my morality." She said, lifting her right hand and slowly running it over his knuckles, keeping her eyes on his, even if it made her shudder inside.

When it came to Elgar'nan, she had done so many things that she didn't want, that instinctively, she'd have rather run away from, but her pride and stubbornness didn't allow it. Keeping eye contact while caressing his hand with feigned tenderness was no different from what he did to her when he had captured her, eons ago, when Solas still lived.

His expression was unreadable; a cold mask with burning eyes. That was when she noticed the gold in his irises... swirled? Like molten metal, they moved and flowed, glowing with a faint inner light.

During her capture, she did not notice that. She was sure they were not like that. She'd have seen it even though, considering how utterly delirious he had made her, she might have missed this detail.

"Must I remind you that this time you are my prisoner? That this time you do not control me," she broke the silence with laughter, keeping her hand on his, "You don't even control yourself! How does that feel, Lord Elgar'nan?" she said the name with poison in her voice. Bitter bile could have just as well crawled up her throat at those words.

He clenched his jaw and released a breath that skittered hotly across her face. He smelled of smoke and blood, hot metal and ashes, and hate bloomed redder in her heart.

"You can't even end your own suffering..." she whispered to him, closer than before, wanting him to feel her breath, wanting to bait him the way he did once.

His lips twisted in a snarl, white teeth gleaming in the darkness, ready to bite and tear, and she knew he would do just that if he could.

Something stirred in her mind, and she was overcome by the urge to step away from him. The next moment, he twisted his hand, trying to grab onto hers, but she was faster, and he missed the opportunity.

The fury in him grew even more when she escaped him, and he screamed, deep and loud, waves of hot white light erupting from his palms.

"Come to me, da'len. Let me show you how the end of suffering feels," he said, violently rattling the cage again and reaching out between the bars. With a short flick of her hand, she sent a surge of lightning into him. It hit him in the chest, bounced from the collar, down to his wrists, and he recoiled with a growl of pain, staggering and breathing harshly. "How low of you. I wonder what your dog would say about your actions now. Ah, such a pity he is naught but dust and cannot see how low his bitch has fallen. Chaining someone like this and then relishing in torture."

"I'd relish your death. Alas, we cannot afford that, or the Veil will fall," she said, watching him with crossed arms, from a distance.

"Irony seems to never release its hold on you, da'len. Desiring my death with such passion, and yet unable to see it through. And how fitting that I am the one your entire, worthless world depends on?" he returned to the bars of his prison, as close to her as he could.

"A disgrace indeed. But what does it matter now? You're locked here, and all you have is the small joy that we all depend on you. You can keep it and have fun with it. I allow it."

He laughed, fully and with actual joy. "You allow it?" he took a ragged breath, and that otherworldly growl rattled in his chest again. "You are forced by circumstance and hunted by your own sorrows. Tell me, child, where is your source of joy? Who bestows anything akin to love upon you?" his hands wrapped around the bars again, and he rested his forehead upon them, viciousness in his eyes. "There is nothing but agony in this world for you. Even caged here, and yet I know..."

"Shut up, you utter monster! You know nothing about me! Shut up, or you'll feel pain again!" she shouted, taking a single step, but not approaching the cage as she had before.

Faint light erupted from his palms, alighting his face from below, making him look like a sinister marble carving. That, along with faint, flickering flames, was the only magical manifestation he could still perform. It was perhaps a remnant of the searing, obliterating light he had almost disintegrated her with in Minrathous.

"Monster," he rasped. "Are we not both? You and me, devouring forces, snakes consuming each other, devastating flames. Oh, what we could have achieved, had you only learned to surrender..." His light ebbed and grew along with his whispers.

"Surrender to what? To Blight?" she laughed cruelly. She didn't really care for propriety or to look sane around him, which was oddly freeing. "Solas was right all along. The Blight did take away your wits. Listen to yourself! Really believing one would surrender their life - their free, hot-blooded life - for that disgusting mockery of living you offer. Why would I want to be reduced to a slave to the materialized rage of my enemy's enemy?"

"SILENCE!" he yelled, and the Prison shook with the echo of his voice.

"Or what?" she asked, walking back to him again, closer again, taunting him and enjoying every moment. "I ask you again, what can you do?"

He was shaking with rage, but something passed over him, a thought, a feeling, and he smiled softly.

"There are things I can do, da'len. Things I am doing as we speak, things that are my cherished companions through the endless twilight. Fen'harel perishing before your very eyes is my closest advisor, and the anguish on your face is my lover." his voice was low, rumbling from deep in his throat, the thoughts giving him pleasure just as he was putting them into words.

It wasn't pain that she felt at his words, nor unyielding rage. No, it was cold, calculated thirst for vengeance combined with that same absurd inclination to be utterly shameless around him.

"Mm, is that it?" she asked. "Despite your dulled wits, you haven't lost your touch with words completely, it seems. I must give you that. It is unfortunate for you, though, that I have more than words at my fingertips," she smiled at him and walked away from the cage, putting the necessary distance for what she was about to do.

She could manifest things in the Fade so much easier than ever before. She didn't know why that was. Perhaps the Lighthouse itself acknowledged her as its true keeper, or maybe the Fade accepted her as the rightful conqueror.

Maybe it was related to the painful feeling that a splinter of Solas lingered within her soul. It was inconsequential in the end. It didn't matter in the grand scheme of things.

Power is power, she thought as she threaded her fingers through the air, the matter shifting with her every move. She closed her eyes for better focus, but also not to look into his. He was many things, but easy to ignore was the least of them.

She heard him groan and try to oppose the forces playing with his body as if it were made of straw, rather than materialized lyrium. He had no more magic; he was powerless.

She smiled as pure will and power coursed through her veins and felt her every muscle soften and yield to it, harnessing more and releasing more back. Whatever forces dominated the Fade enveloped her like static before a storm, and with her eyes closed, she could only hear what her command was doing.

Metallic grinding, curses in elvhen and common, more groans and screams, and the very familiar crackling of his spent magic were the only things that painted a picture of her actions behind her eyelids. When she finally opened her eyes and let her right hand fall beside her, she let out a sigh of pure awe.

The cage was gone, as she wanted, but he... She chuckled, looking at her manifestation. It was better than she expected. His arms were pulled up above his head by the same magical chains that had been keeping him prisoner for months now. An admittedly pretty blue gag was between his teeth, and his feet barely touched the ground. He was hanging like a prized trophy, as she had wanted him from the beginning.

"Ah, so much better. You talk too much, my lord," she approached him again, and, in response, he swung his body, moaning and pulling at the chains violently. "Now, now, do not make me hogtie you as well. Let's behave properly."

She examined him, taking full advantage of the opportunity.

By all intents and purposes, the Evanuris were fascinating, especially for someone as analytical and thirsty for knowledge and power as herself, and he was one of the most impressive of them all. He had fashioned himself after all. Of course, he did all in his power to be impressive and intimidating, even though, without his armour, decorations, dragon horns, and crown, he was almost... normal.
Beautiful even, in a grim, fallen way that she couldn't quite put into words. He was, of course, far larger and taller than she, but hanging off the ground as he was added to it. She could barely reach his waist.

This would not do, she thought to herself, and with a swift motion of her hand, the chains dropped from where they hung midair and seemed to be sucked in by the ground. He fell to his knees, and another flick of her fingers unravelled the chains, and they slithered around him like snakes, to pull and tie his wrists behind his back. The lower part of the chains wrapped around his ankles, keeping him in the most undignified position he had probably ever been in.

The glowing bindings pulled his spine back taut, muscles straining under the tension. They wouldn't let him stand, nor fall, no matter how much he tried, and try he did. He growled and groaned, every fibre and sinew in him fighting for release, but to no avail. It felt exhilarating to see someone like him in this position before her. The best part of it all was that there was no reason to hide her joy.

"You understand, I'm sure," she said as she stepped in front of him. It didn't really matter that, even kneeling, he was almost her height. The very thought that she had him in this position filled her with unbridled euphoria.

She touched his shoulder, stalking around him, fingers softly dragging along his back, until she reached the other shoulder. He flinched away from her touch as if burned, and she chuckled.

"What a pity... Such an impressive creature from all points of view and all that potential wasted away." He slumped against his bindings, for a moment yielding to their pull, but quickly recovered, remembering that he couldn't lose the last piece of dignity he had left.

A wild thought possessed her to remove the gag, goad him more, and see what he had to say. "So tell me, how was it to gain so much power and lose it all at the hands of a mortal?" she asked as she yanked the rag out from between his teeth.

He released a deep breath and spat at her feet, but didn't say anything. He just looked at her with burning rage for a moment before dropping his gaze to the ground, a low rumbling in his chest. She tilted her head inquisitively and reached her right hand, tilting his chin up, forcing him to look at her.

"Answer," she demanded.

"There shall be naught left of you when these bonds fail, da'len," he said in a whisper laced with simmering rage.

"They won't fail, my king," she mocked. "You are tied here forever unless I release you. As I said, your entire existence revolves around one little mortal." She ran her thumb along his jaw softly and, for one strange moment, he closed his eyes, but the next second his head snapped towards her hand, and he sank his teeth deeply into the soft flesh of her palm.

She yelped and pulled her hand away, only to see shiny, dark blood pooling in her palm. Blood was smeared in the corner of his mouth as well, and he laughed, actually laughed, golden eyes filled with joy.

Out of pure impulse, her bloodied hand snapped back and collided with his cheek so hard it sent his head flying to the side, and his entire body shook in its bindings.

"You animal," she hissed. "A cage and chains are the only things you deserve."

He laughed again, his magic crackling in blinding light behind him, where his hands were tied. "I shall take my penance, da'len, but I am eternal, while you are mortal. I have slumbered in this Prison before. Eons of waiting and dreaming. My patience is endless, while you are a flickering candle, and you shall one day burn out. Until that day comes, though, I will find ways to unbind myself. Then you shall know true discipline," the otherworldly growl echoed in sinister waves across the prison.

"If that were to happen, at least I'd know you paid in full for what you've done. As if I cared if I die at your hands as long as retribution came for you."

"Die? I would not kill you, child of my children. As I told you before, I do not mean to take your life, and had you bowed to me, you would have received an honourable place at my side. Now, however, I would teach you the bliss of pain and the discipline of surrender. I would not let you perish, even if you begged me to grant it. Endless agony and despair until you learn to obey," his voice was smooth and quiet, and he watched her with a smile.

"I would die of old age one day. How would your plan work then?"

"Death is a mere illusion to me. I can sustain your life and youth indefinitely. If I were not to hold that power in my palm, I would capture your soul and wear it as a keepsake. You shall know no release from me, da'len, nor want to be released. That I swear to you and may it bind us," he said, and the last words ended in a rough whisper that felt strangely material, that thickened in the air and reverberated through the endless nothingness. He had made an oath, she realized with a shudder.

"You don't scare me. An oath cannot be binding unless the other party agrees to it as well, and I do not!" she whispered, tangling her fingers into his hair, and pulling his head back. "Ah, look at that, your hair is real. Hm, the gossip said otherwise," she dug her sharp nails into his scalp, drawing a hiss of pain from his snide mouth.

He fought against his bindings again, thighs flexing as he tried to stand, but to no avail, because his knees hit the ground again.

"Stop it, or I will make that gossip a reality," she clenched her fingers tighter in his hair and pulled again, even harder. "Hm, I think this position becomes you," she let her eyes wander over his chest and shoulders. "Remember our time together after you captured me?"

"It is a cherished memory, little bird," he rasped and stopped fighting her hold. "I remember you enjoying every moment of it. Are you perchance desiring a repeat performance?" he added, and she pulled his hair again, earning another growl from him.

"If I wanted anything from you, I'd simply take it," she said while releasing her hold on his hair. "I just wanted you to remember what you did to me then and know it will also be part of the payment."

His shoulders shook with laughter. Wild, borderline hysterical, and tinged with that eerie rumble, he laughed at her, and she felt her ears growing hot with rage.

"Fine then, remember you brought this upon yourself," she said, and gagged him again. She walked away, relishing the muffled screams and growls that followed her after she turned her back to him.

When she woke up in her bed again, she was drenched in sweat and incredibly angry. She threw off the covers and placed her feet on the cold stone floor to cool herself down. This went terribly yet again.

There was nothing she wished more than to just be able to kill him. Nothing was as ironic as the situation she was in right then. Not that it was unexpected. She often found herself dancing with irony. It ran with her and haunted her at every step. Having her arch nemesis become the one thing that the whole world depended on was just a regular day for her.

She'd see the Veil ripped asunder only to be able to plunge a dagger into Elgar'nan's black heart. Many people already hated her, so it would just be a confirmation of what they already expected of her.

They didn't see the sacrifices she had to make, nor understood what she went through. They only saw that she hadn't done enough, that many people had died, and that a large part of the members of the Veilguard had died too.

There were even rumours that she had somehow done it intentionally, for whatever reason.

No, their reasoning was just stupid, and not "for whatever" reason. Many people believed that because she had been captured by Elgar'nan months ago, she might be working for him, and binding him to the Veil was a way to protect him, or even grant him freedom. They didn't understand why the Veil depended on him, or why it fed off of him, and they wondered why she didn't kill him.

Ignorant people who parroted whatever supported their own biases. Envious, low-life drones who did not understand what living with a knife's edge at your throat at all times feels like. She should not have cared; she was above them and above caring for the opinion of sheep. It did, though, create enough of a scandal that she preferred staying at the Lighthouse at all times. Without a disguise or a tightly wrapped cloak, she could not walk out among people and not be hounded and chased.

Maybe she should have spoken to the press. After all, they had asked for her interview many times, and she refused them over and over. She should have cleaned up her image a bit. Neve would have been such a great help here. That is, if Neve didn't hate her, which she did, and that was something that Rook had no energy to change. Maybe one day.

She decided to draw herself a bath, all the while seething at the memories that assaulted her now when she really did not need them.

The bath didn't do much for her mind. It certainly helped her body, but her mind was just as numb, and as she returned to the room to lie naked and still wet on the duvet, she had the unnerving realization that she barely remembered what she did in there. In a clinical, matter-of-fact way, she knew she washed herself, but any memory of the sensations that came with the hot water or scented soap didn't exist.

A squirming worm twitched in her chest, wanting to break through and make her sob. Pain as deep and dark as the chasm that once separated her and Solas in the Prison was opened in her soul, and from time to time, it was just getting bigger, and there was nothing else to do other than cry herself back into numbness.

She hated having to feel so much. She wished she could just obliterate all of it and just be. No emotions, no good, nor bad, just existing and being. And yet. And yet... She desperately needed the naive hope, the hunger for life, the yearning for more and better that used to define her. They were all gone, along with the people she lost.

Tears stung her eyes, and she let them fall down her temples to get lost in her hair, as she stared at the arched ceiling. The worm in her chest finally broke free and turned into deep sobs that she did not need to hide. She was utterly free, as she had always hoped. No one to see her, or judge her, all alone and free to ugly cry if needed.

She clumsily dressed in her nightgown, sobs still wracking her chest.

Her stomach was twisting in hunger, but she was in no state to eat. Water and more Dreamer's Tea. Food, when she woke up again, whenever that was. That was all she needed, and that is exactly what the Lighthouse provided - a large pitcher of crystal clear water and an accompanying glass, along with a small mug of steaming tea coming into existence on the nightstand to her left. She drank both eagerly, waiting for the tea chills to take over, announcing that it was working. They shortly did come, and she curled up under the blanket, eyelids heavy, body light as a feather. She needed to just sit undisturbed in a pretty spot in the Fade. She'd just linger there as long as she could.

The prospect of getting petrified or maybe turned into an eternal elf-shaped tree was better than whatever it was that she was experiencing.

The familiar feeling of being pulled through the ether and heart flutters that came with it gave her a sense of peace. She materialized on a verdant floating island, and it was exactly what she had wished for. The grass was cool and slightly wet, fireflies fluttered through the bushes, and the fragile, scintillating veils of magic snaked through the skies.

She exhaled deeply and stretched out on the grass, near a stream that gurgled softly over the rocks. If only the ground could swallow her up, if only she could become one with the very matter of whatever made up the Fade.

One day, she would step through the Crossroads physically and get lost among the ruins and trees, bury herself at the root of some oak, let it consume her, so that all would be erased and renewed. The waters would flow over her bones, cleanse them and turn them to roots, the wind would scatter her hair and fashion it into leaves, and her very being would be consumed by the Fade, to become a rainbow veil undulating through the skies. Annihilate herself and be reborn.

Let go... Release yourself. Little bird, little monster...

She ran her hands through the blades of grass, sank her fingers into the soil, and closed her eyes to let the sound of the creek flow over her mind unrestrained. Release, cleanse, sweep away all the shadows and pains.

The future is intangible. All you have is now. All you had was now...

Euphoria bloomed in her chest, spread through her limbs, and pooled in her lower belly, pulling a low gasp from her mouth. Her hands, dirty with soil and stained by the grass, clutched her white nightgown and ran over her clenched thighs, fisting together over her pelvis. Spine arched, mouth opened, she pushed her hands between her tightly clenched thighs, not yet ready to soften, to open and offer the body what it craved.

There is nothing but pain in this world. Why restrain yourself and bow to its demands? The gift of surrender is freedom. Absolution through release...

She didn’t know how long she lingered there, in the embrace of the grass and earth. Maybe it was hours, maybe it was days, in a delirium of blessed nothingness and endless whispers.

When she allowed the Fade to pull her again, she gasped loudly, as the entire world lurched around her. She kept her eyes closed and let her traitorous hands hang around her body. She knew where the Fade would take her, and she wanted it, had commanded it subconsciously, or rather had answered his call.

For a long time, as a rule, she had refused to read anything about him from the Dalish legends or the Lighthouse library. She'd close her eyes and ears to any information, legend, or fact. She thought it simply a consequence of her revulsion, but deep down it was fear. Fear that she'd get enticed, intrigued, or worse, that she'd relate to him. When nothing was left to lose, she did read, she did listen, and learned all she could...

And now here she was, accepting her deepest fears as she faced him again, fallen, uncrowned, eyes burning with something far deeper than hate.

"You summoned?" she spoke into the echoing Prison. He answered her with silence, the rag still in his mouth.

It had been at least one day, or more? She didn't know, and she didn't care. He was immortal after all, and the Prison placed a stasis on the biological functions that kept him alive. She could only imagine how she looked, in her white nightgown stained with the dark soil of the Fade, leaves and grass tangled in her hair, the pain of self-torture etched on her face.

She walked slowly to him, pebbles scratching her bare feet.

Maybe some blood would add to the look, she thought to herself as she stopped before him and noticed with glee that he wasn't standing as straight as when she left him. He was slumped, his breathing laboured, hair a mess around his face.

"Still defiant," she said as they made eye contact, and she saw the disdain within him. "Yet, you called, haven't you?" She decided to unmuzzle him and pulled the rag from his mouth.

He grunted and took a deep breath in, looking up at her, a wicked, broken smile on his face. "I have! I am pleased to see you obeyed," his voice was terribly ragged, crackling around the edges.

"I am merely bored and wanted to see you suffer again, my king," she all but spat the words.

"See me suffer? How long has it been since you gazed upon yourself in a mirror? You will end yourself before I have a chance."

"Sadly, despite the horrors you put me through and that I am still struggling with, I have a very stubborn will to live. I wish I could actually be able to do that. I could give you the honours one day, perhaps."

"Death is not the release I offer, as I have told you before," he said.

"Release, surrender... You keep saying these words, over and over. I wonder if it isn't something you need as well..." she sighed, with a mock tilt of her head.

"We all create mirrors where there are none. I remember words you spoke to me once, long ago, ‘you have no one, you are alone’. How are you now, da'len? Were you alone then, too?" He asked, aiming for what hurt the most as always.

Her face twisted into a grimace of disgust, and she flicked her fingers to release a stinging surge of electricity. He hissed when it bit into him, and his body shook, but he didn't release his hold upon her eyes.

"I see you haven't learned anything. How was it? Ever defiant? Speaking of projection," she laughed. "Hm, maybe I am not employing the right techniques..." she said, walking a few steps back. "I will give you some comfort," she closed her eyes and tangled her will and magic with the prison’s, which answered without hesitation.

When she opened her eyes again, he was standing, the bindings tight around his body to keep him up, and next to him was a large green armchair. It was the armchair version of the sofa that used to be in the aquarium room, she noted. Her mind clutched the nearest reference it seemed.

"Sit," she commanded, and he laughed.

"You jest. I shall not play your games, you utter insect," he spat, struggling just as fruitlessly as ever.

"Oh, the masks have fallen, have they? You forget the bindings listen to me alone, and so does the Prison."

The air itself groaned as the golden chains wrapped around him and forcefully pulled him to the chair, securing him as tightly as before, hands to his back, legs immobile, chained together at the ankles.

"There never was a mask. I am who I am and have remained the same. A god! A god who offered innumerable gifts to a favoured mortal and was repaid in betrayal. You are ashes and dirt, and you are to be swallowed by the earth from whence you came, while I could have bestowed eternity upon you. I know of your fear of death... You, disliked, misunderstood by your kin, while I, the only one who saw your potential...who heard your prayers. Too late now..."

"SHUT UP!" she screamed. "You want me to gag you again?"

"Gag me, miserable mortal. Do what you will for I am eternal," he hissed, looking down his hooked nose at her. Riling her up had always been his special little talent.

"Very well. You want true betrayal, or rather a price paid in full?" she spoke, words trembling in her mouth. "That you will receive."

She walked back to him, circled him, and stopped behind him to lower her lips to his ear. "I ask again, do you remember our time together when you captured me?"

"And I answer again, it is etched in my mind and a dear memory." She hummed and ran her hands over his back and shoulders.

Slowly at first, almost hesitantly, but then the unnatural warmth of him emboldened her, and she wrapped her fingers around his neck, as much as she could, considering the size of him.

He flinched away again, as he did the first time, but she cackled and grabbed his neck again, digging her nails into his carotids, the unnaturally slow pulse fluttering beneath her fingers. Such power over him was exhilarating, and pure glee filled her chest.

"Ah, how the mighty have fallen," he murmured, his deep voice vibrating against her palms. "It is admittedly deeply satisfying to see you like this."

She turned to his other ear. "Not satisfying enough for me though… I might not have the luxury to off you, buuut I can do so much more than what you did to me," she said as she balanced her elbows on his shoulders and ran her hands up his neck to cup his jaw, her fingers splaying over his Adam’s apple, which bobbed under her touch. “Untouchable, frightening…” she whispered so close that she could touch her lips to his skin had she wanted. “How did you call yourself? Maker and destroyer?” Her mouth watered with the desire to bite, and she gave in, sinking her teeth into the curve of his ear, her fingers digging into the soft flesh under his jaw. He hissed and pulled away just a little, but she followed, her hands never letting go of him.

“Creator and destroyer,” he said quietly, his voice husky. “Which I am and shall always be, no matter what…”

“...I do?” she cut him off, her hand tangling into his hair again, pulling his head back, against her chest, the pale expanse of his neck exposed. “No matter what I do? Or were you going to go on another sermon about how I am an insect and you, an eternal being?”

His golden eyes rolled up to hers, and a smile danced in the corners of his lips.

“A fast learner, as always. And always eager to expand on your knowledge…” he said, the eerie rumble accompanying his voice again.

Her eyes roamed over his strong neck, down to where the strings of his undershirt opened a little to reveal his clavicles. His chest heaving, and every fibre within him was strung up again and ready to unleash into something she didn’t quite comprehend, but a dark stirring bloomed within her, too.

It wasn’t mere desire, the type she’d feel for most men. The type she felt even for Solas. No, it was devastating, shattering, the way a stormy sea wants to rip apart a proud mountain standing in its way. The way a swelling, unstoppable wave would crumble a jutting cliff face into pebbles and absorb it into its depths.

She wanted to tear him apart, flay him, disintegrate him, and feast on his heart and his magic.

Her teeth clenched and her mouth watered, as the hand that had clawed at his neck snaked down his chest, found the strings of his shirt, and pulled hard once, the lapels falling to the sides in defeat.

She ran her fingers lightly over his chest, as they devoured each other by gaze alone.

She pulled his head back between her breasts, barely covered by the flimsy nightgown, and his resistance faltered a little, his mouth opening just slightly.

It was a sort of depravity that she needed to surrender to, needed to delve into deeper, get lost in... She didn’t quite know why, and at that moment, when the gold swirls in his eyes pulled her in and the warmth of him attracted her like a moth to a flame, it was meaningless.

It did not matter. Nothing mattered.

“I indeed have so much to learn from you. And not from words or lectures, but directly, straight from the source,” she bent over him, her hair falling like curtains around his face, the softness of her breasts against the crown of his head. She placed a kiss on his exposed neck - tender at first, soft lips dragging along his skin, before she bit once, hard and fast, releasing his hair and stepping away from him before he’d retaliate.

He laughed, low and dark, his shoulders shaking.

“Ah, da’len, not in a thousand of thousands of your wretched lives would you gain my knowledge, nor would I so easily impart it with you.”

She stalked around the armchair to face him. His head was resting against the chair’s headrest, still the picture of leisure, though he couldn’t quite hide the rage bubbling just underneath the surface of his skin. His bound hands were glowing behind him with unspent magic, but he regarded her with something dangerously close to curiosity. It unnerved yet emboldened her.

“My lord, I would never beg. I don’t beg,” she resumed her dance, stalking closer to him once more. “There are other ways to get what I want...”

Her bare feet, over stones and pebbles, one step in front of the other, each sting a penance for what she was about to do, until she was standing right between his legs, looking down at him.

“Maybe begging, humbling yourself, and knowing your place would have prevented the disaster you plunged the world into, da’len. Tell me, how many of your friends had to die for you to have me in this chair?” he breathed, his voice laced with that dangerous softness she knew too well. It still had the power to lull her into something unfathomable and wrap around her like a dark cloak.

“You still believe you can provoke me, even in the position you’re in. Nothing hurts me now. It's the very least you can probably see.”

“And you still think you can lie or hide from me, da’len? I know it all, I see it all. Your deepest desires… they have been bare before me from the beginning. You cannot stay away. All I must do is wait.”

He pressed his knees against her thighs, trapping her between his legs, and she allowed it, offering no resistance. Instead, she leaned forward, placing her hands on his shoulders. The neckline of her nightgown gaped open, giving him a full view of her breasts and down to her thighs.

She didn’t do anything to cover herself, just waited, unafraid, nor ashamed. Such notions had been discarded completely for a while. He didn’t let his eyes stray, though, but kept them on hers without fail.

“What is there to hide, hahren? My goal is torment, not secrecy…”

“Torment? By offering yourself to me freely?” he murmured, his voice slightly, almost imperceptibly wavering.

“A thousand years in this Prison,” she whispered, a finger running along the seam of his shirt, opened wide, tempting her to bite again. “Slumbering, lingering in nightmares, wasting away in such sad company. Touch starved,” her hand slid down his stomach, the muscles shifting underneath the shirt and her palm, reacting to her touch. “Such a terrible fate… A torment, yes,” she breathed the words over his chest, watching the goosebumps form before her eyes.

He slowly let his eyes fall, first on her lips, then her neck, lingering on the plunging neckline of the nightgown, on her exposed breasts. The slight smile grew, just a little. “The change in you is remarkable. The last time we found ourselves in a...similar position, you barely suffered my touch. And now, look at you, a willing offering. I wonder what kept you in check then, or rather what unleashes you now.”

“Everything,” she answered, slowly, mouthing each syllable, while letting her fingers gently slide under the hem of his pants, the soft, warm flesh underneath bringing a new wave of unbridled hunger within her.

His mouth opened a little, and his eyelids fell heavier over his burning eyes. “Everything, or everyone,” he asked, his voice in precarious control. “Your image is precious to you, is it not?”

Her hand slid out from under the hem and slithered over his hipbones, then feather-like touches over his very obvious erection. Satisfaction filled her seeing the effect she had on him, while arousal ran through her body, like a well-aimed arrow.

“No image to shatter, no one to disappoint...” he said. “All alone, nothing to lose. Yourself at last...”

A remnant of her dead decency made her falter just a little, but desire dominated everything else, clear and undeniable, so she wrapped her fingers around him, lightly at first, delicately, then harder, squeezing him enough to draw a low rumble from his chest.

He let out a hot breath that skittered across her face, the familiarity of pure smoke and brimstone, on her tongue – his scent that she knew all too well.

“At long last free to veraciously embrace your inmost self, to offer yourself to me as you have always yearned, even as you professed your love for others,” his whispers wrapped around her mind, pulling her in again, as they always did, but she ignored his words and the effect they had on her and stood back up, fingers curling into the fabric of the nightgown, pulling it mid thigh, straddling him before he could whisper to her further.

She had nothing underneath, had forsaken small clothes for comfort. The cool air of the prison was startling against her heated flesh, but it didn’t cool down her desires; on the contrary, knowing there was just one layer of fabric separating her from him made everything worse.

She had never wanted to be filled so much in her entire life.

“Did you truly, honestly expect me to say that I love you? Are you that delusional?” she said, feverishly searching for something to help her reach her goals, a string, a buckle. Anything.

“Release me, da’len, so I may lend a hand,” he said teasingly, but she laughed at him.

“So now, not only do you expect me to say I love you, but also to release you,” her voice low and husky, she finally found the strangest buckle-like thing she had ever seen. It looped around in on itself, looking like both metal and string. It was strong and cold, like steel, but as malleable as silk. Did she have to solve a puzzle just to…

“The short one with gold thread at the end,” he said, amusement tinging his voice. “And regarding your previous inquiry, I do not expect anything. At least nothing that would surprise me…” his hips shifted a little under her hands just as she pulled the indicated string, and the others gave way and unravelled before her. “See how obedient and well-behaved I am. Just as you want me. Though I sense your deepest, darkest desires conflict with the...predicament we find ourselves in now...”

Her hand slid between the opened fabric, and her fingers trailed along the soft skin. She looked back at him, devouring every small expression, every twitch and deep breath he released, and when his hips moved up, she held him down, her knees digging deeper into the sides of the plush chair.

“Don’t make me immobilize you further. You don’t get to move,” she wrapped her free hand around his throat.

His head fell back against the headrest, eyelids heavy over swirling golden eyes, languid smile on his lips, wearing her hand like a well-earned collar.

“Immobilize me further, when your true desire is to release me and let me ravish you… ruin you…” His throat bobbed underneath her palms, and he sighed deeply before uttering two words that went straight to her core. “...fuck you,” such vulgarity coming from him was both startling and arousing. She gasped, but he didn’t let her speak, “Yes, fuck you senseless, on the cold stones of this Prison which your beloved built.”

The blood rose to her cheeks and spread down her chest, flaming and shameful. She pulled her hand away from his throat and, without taking his bait, she roughly opened the strings that still held his pants together. He was painfully hard and...as large as she expected. Not that she gave it any thought before. Of course, she never thought about Elgar’nan’s cock ever in her life…

“Such foul words from the god of gods. Solas was right, anything else is beyond your grasp,” she whispered and moved further up his body, wrapping her fingers around him to guide him where she wanted him most.

“My foul tongue seems to have the desired effect…” he said, his voice rough, spoken through clenched teeth, “...you are drenched, my dear.”

“Because the only power you have is over the most base and animalistic desires of a mortal,” she defiantly opened her legs more and slid up his cock, her insides fluttering around nothing at the very feel of him.

An errant, stuttered gasp escaped her lips, and desire so maddening and overwhelming flooded every corner of her being. She needed him inside her with a hunger that could not be worded, and nothing would have stopped her now. She was lust made flesh and nothing more…

“Power is power, da’len…” he cooed, his breath deeper and hotter.

“You have no power now,” she sighed, words all but gasped out between trembling lips.

His hips twitched again, and this time she didn’t stop him, fingers pumping down his length, her body following the rhythm, sliding him between her folds, dizzy with the sensation it awakened in her. Her free hand clawed at his shoulder, seeking purchase and balance, or she’d truly lose herself, as he had said.

“You do not know what you got yourself into, do you, little bird?” he said, voice like dark velvet.

A pleasant haze hugged her thoughts, and she had no power to wait any longer, to tease him further. She shifted her body a little and guided him within her, wanting nothing more than to slide down on his length to the hilt.

He moved along with her, slowly, not forcing himself in as she expected, just enough to take that first step she so feared and yet desired.

Guilt washed over her, carrying the memory of Solas with it. She closed her eyes and tried picturing him in Elgar’nan’s place, as if that would make things better. It did not work. It was decidedly not him, but rather his mortal enemy, who could never be ignored.

All thoughts shattered when she sank further, the head of his cock breaching in, not stopping until she took half of him inside her, pain and pleasure all tangling together, to split her open.

She groaned and her eyes fluttered closed, head falling back, both hands clawing at his shoulders.

His girth was overwhelming, and it hurt, even if she was more than willing, ready, and embarrassingly wet, but she tamed her mind, blocked the alarm bells, and revelled in the pain as she took more.

He finally groaned deeply and thrust hard, burying himself within her to the hilt. All her inner muscles fluttered and clenched around him, adjusting to the invasion, yet taking it all in eagerly.

A choked cry escaped her throat as hot static filled her every fibre. Energy that wasn’t hers flowed through her veins, racing to her heart along with her blood, imbuing her. She allowed it all to come, opened herself to his intrusive magic.

She had felt it before, could recognize his magic immediately by the way it tasted and felt when he would use it, but now it ran through her, and nothing had been headier and more intoxicating.

She rolled her hips slowly, almost hesitantly, her chest rising and falling rapidly with each sensation. The surges of pleasure and magic filling her body, eyes still closed, almost ashamed to lock eyes with him again.

The darkness of her mind was safe, if only she could also ignore his low, deep groans. Pain was still there, but numb and silent, her body surprisingly eager and willing to adapt to everything he offered. His pace got faster, forcing her to adjust to his rhythm too, not only his girth.

There was a small voice inside her that was enraged by the loss of control, but each of his thrusts only dragged her closer to completion, and she had no power to stop it all. All she could do was try to keep up and chase each surge of pleasure that coiled within her, making her clench and gush anew.

The sounds that escaped her mouth were embarrassingly wanton, and the same voice of reason was trying to silence her.

“Shh, do not think, little bird,” he whispered hoarsely, his voice as beastly as her groans. Uncharacteristic for him, as were so many of the states she saw him in since she had him all to herself in this prison.

Did he know she had second thoughts? How did he know? Was it the connection he formed with her during the capture?

He thrust hard, once, twice, thrice, and all her thoughts scattered like a flock of frightened birds, and she was once again a mess, brain empty, his magic flowing through her to gather in her chest and fill her with euphoria.

“Yes…” he sighed. “This is but a taste of what I can offer. Release me. Unchain me and you’ll know true bliss, completion...rapture…”

She released a moan that turned into a cry, and her head fell forward, tears gathering under her eyelids at the unspeakable sensations. She held onto him and opened her eyes to meet his again, after what felt like an eternity.

His expression only made it all worse - ecstatic, dark eyebrows furrowed and mouth slack, focused so intensely on her that it made her lightheaded.

“Da’len, my da’len,” he whispered, his arms pulling instinctively against the bindings, golden light rising brighter than ever around them. “so lost and gone for me. He could never offer you this, so you sought me out. You chose well, ma'lath,” his voice almost took a will of its own, material and thick around her.

Her eyelids fluttered heavily, and there was nothing she desired more than to feel his hands on her skin, his hot skin against her own. She needed…

No no no no… she chanted in her head.

With the last will she had left within her, she covered his mouth with her hand.

“Stop, please,” she whimpered, tears gathering in her eyes, as the storm of ecstasy was building within her.

He hummed against her palm, eyes crinkling at the corners, but didn’t stop thrusting, and she didn’t stop bouncing on him wildly. His lips opened against her hand, wet and hot, and he bit down hard on the soft flesh beneath her thumb, just as he had done before. She pulled her hand away, her blood smeared over his lips. And just as before, she slapped him and he yet again laughed, driving into her so roughly she saw stars and searing pain bloomed up to her chest.

“I never stop, da’len. Not unless. You. Gag. Me,” he punctuated each word with a punishing thrust, and she moaned and cried in unison. “But you do not want to gag me, do you?” he rolled his hips in such a way that a flare of pleasure and pain exploded in her belly.

“Fuck you,” she let out, and her voice sounded so pathetic to her own ears that she would have cringed if there was an ounce of will left in her.

“Yes, indeed, it is what you are doing,” he husked, and she wanted to slap him again, but instead, let herself fall against his chest, her mouth on his, kissing him roughly, tasting the iron of her own blood, sinking teeth into flesh. He answered in kind, devouring her mouth, biting her lips, drawing more blood, tongue roughly entering her, dark moans against her lips.

“Shut up, shut up, shut up,” she choked until he reclaimed her mouth roughly, turning her words into muffled moans.

Her mind unravelled in blinding white, and she cried and whimpered desperately, her traitorous arms wrapping around his neck, her mouth hungry on his.

The choking scent of fire, death, and destruction, laced with something ancient and forgotten, summer rain, and roses, filled her mind, chasing away whatever other thoughts she had left to cling onto.

She mindlessly chanted “yesyesyes” against his lips, as the fires built and built and pleasure so intense it bordered on pain overflowed from her core, spreading through every fibre of her being, to bloom and escape through her mouth in guttural moans.

Her orgasm left her devastated and broken, but it didn’t stop him. He pumped relentlessly through her every spasm, grunting and roughly kissing and biting her lips, then her jaw and neck when she bowed her head against his shoulder.

He was breaking skin, sinking his teeth into her flesh, sucking on every bit of skin he could reach, and she felt her hot blood trailing down her chest, but she let it all happen.

She sank her fingers into his hair, pulling him deeper into the crook of her neck, offering more of herself to his devouring mouth, as waves of pleasure ran anew through her over and over, all her insides clenching and spasming insatiably.

Her entire being yearned for self-destruction, obliteration. To be taken and devoured completely, to forget it all and belong, but there still was something fighting it.

A fragment of her soul was left unconquered and rather yearned to conquer, and that fragment rose above it all, dragging her from his clutches, just as he had stopped ravishing her flesh and was now chasing his own completion, searing hot breath upon her throat.

Her nerve endings awakened, and she felt the pain again, red hot upon her neck and pulsing between her legs where he still was, filling her over and over.

Shaky, breathless, every part of her tingling, she pushed herself away from him, the pain even worse when he wasn’t inside her.

She stood for just a breath and then collapsed before him, her legs boneless and unable to hold her up.

He made a frustrated growl that accompanied his heavy breathing, and even if she could barely think straight, it filled her with glee, because that is exactly what she wanted: to leave him unsatisfied. To play with him the way he had played with her once upon a time.

“Finally, in your proper place….” he broke the silence, his voice breathless and shaky. So different, so uncontrolled… It gave her a strange feeling that she preferred to ignore.

She laughed, throwing her head back and turning, her hands sliding up his knees to find purchase and stand.

It was funny and odd how, even though she was not bodily present in the Prison, everything felt just as real as if she had been there. She wondered what would happen if she did find a way into the prison and came here to him fully.

A shudder, not of fear or disgust, ran through her. It was intriguing, darkly tempting, which was the frightening part…

“That was the grand plan?” he pulled her from her thoughts. He was looking up at her, her blood all over his mouth, his stare dark, the only light on his face the gleaming eyes. “Using me for your base mortal desires?” he asked. His cock was as hard as ever, and she considered leaving him like this, untucked for however many days she’d be gone. “Tell me, what do you think you shall achieve with this?”

She bent over him and ran her hands up his thighs, fingers digging into his muscles, drawing a quiet grunt from his throat.

She wrapped her hands around his cock, still hot and wet with her release, and slowly let her mouth hover over its head. His neck muscles strained and his hips thrust up towards her lips, but she tsked, squeezing him harder, a smile on her ravaged mouth.

“I have no plan, sorry to disappoint. Simply trying to find ways to make you pay, maybe. Entertain myself?” She spoke, her hot breath over him. “I will offer you release, and in any way you want it, if you beg. Just beg and I will provide…”

“I do not beg,” he said through clenched teeth, and she squeezed him once before running her hands softly down to his base. “But you have begged so beautifully only moments ago,” he gave her a tight-lipped smile. She ignored him.

“Very well,” she sighed hotly over him, before carefully pulling the strings of his breeches back into their place, tying them with a pretty bow. “And I do not force people. Not even you.”

She could tell that every muscle in his body was flexed and ready to snap, but paid that no mind. He growled, deep and eerily, his eyes burning into her.

“You are aware one day I will have my hands on you, are you not, da’len?” he asked just as she was about to turn and leave.

“Only if I let you.”

“And you shall.”

She struggled to wake up for what felt like hours, but it was probably no more than a few minutes. She would open her eyes and see her room, but then get pulled back into slumber by invisible hands and her terribly heavy eyelids.

When she finally did manage to crawl out of that dark hole, her body awakened with a gasp, as if she had held her breath for far too long.

She was so sore that she had to lie there on her back for some time more. Everything hurt, though there was no drop of blood or mud on her white nightgown.

It was a phantom sort of pain, as if her body retained the memory of what she had put it through, but not having been there, it was pristine.

It was bad around the neck, but the strongest sensation pulsed red-hot between her legs. It wasn’t overly painful, just sore and tingly and so slick that she felt trickles run down on the inside of her thigh. She hadn’t let him finish, and she hadn’t even been there bodily, but it certainly felt like it.

She entered her bathroom and drew herself the usual searing hot bath. The perfect place to calmly think about her sins.

He had a point in asking her why she was doing all of this, because she really had no idea. She had some clarity now after everything that had just occurred, and she was staring blankly at the billowing clouds of steam rising above the water's surface, trying to understand what she was doing with her life. Why was she wasting her precious time haunting someone who’s in there for eternity anyway?

Why go to such lengths? Why say you’re tormenting him, then go and jump on his cock, enjoy every moment of the experience, only to later be overcome by equally intense self-hate?

She groaned and sank into the water up to her neck, just enough to feel somewhat weightless.

Her hands ran over her skin. It felt so silky soft below the water, and she wished someone else did that for her. She imagined bigger hands upon her waist, cupping the roundness of her breasts, running down her belly, to dip between her thighs and…

No, stop, she thought to herself, and quickly got out of the water, wrapped herself in a towel, and stood before the pretty, gilded mirror. She needed to make sure her neck wasn’t completely savaged, and of course, it wasn’t. Lilly white and free of any bruise or even redness. Even though it ached and she could barely turn her head without effort.

She looked terrible; pale, yet her cheeks were an angry red, and her mouth raw and swollen. She had probably chewed on her own lips in the midst of dreams.

She needed food and fast. Her stomach hurt almost as badly as her dream-battered body.

How long had she been lost in dreams? She could not count. Likely far too long, considering how her body screamed at her to be taken care of.

She brushed her hair until it gleamed like liquid fire once more and added a little rouge to her cheeks and lips.

She would go to Bellara, she decided. She needed air. She needed real air. Some hearty Dalish food made by the Veil Jumpers wouldn’t hurt either.

She tried wearing the clothes that were in the best shape. Most of them had been wrecked by battles, partially burned, and generally looking far from decent. She was saved by a simple ensemble consisting of a white shirt and leather breeches, and she quickly pulled them on.

She was so numb that she didn’t even realize when she reached Vi’Revas. She just found herself in front of the shimmering surface of the eluvian, and the next moment she was blinded by the light of Arlathan.

The Veil Jumpers still loved her, still understood her. They knew why she did what she did, they welcomed her as the hero she was, and when she walked into the camp, she was surrounded by the warmth and joy of so many people.

“The Hero of the Veilguard!” some said. “The Champion of the Veil”, others yelled after her as she walked through the crowd, a gaggle of children hooting and trailing behind her.

Tears prickled her eyelids. If only they knew what she had just done. If only they knew how rotten and fallen she truly was.

It was merited, after everything she went through, and yet, the truth was somewhere in the middle. The humans had an inkling of how deep the Veilguard Hero’s depravity went. Wrong and ignorant as it was, they were closer to the truth than the Elves of Arlathan.

She shook all the dark clouds that were gathering around her and asked around for Bellara. She was directed up some gleaming, white ruins, where apparently her friend had been hard at work all day. She swiftly and joyfully went there and indeed found Bellara half stuck in some sort of marble box with golden inserts.

“Bell?” she called out, startling the other woman.

“Ow, hey! Hey Rook! Oh goodness, you… How long have you been just standing there?” Bellara asked, as frazzled as she knew her.

Rook’s face relaxed into an overly joyful smile. She missed Bellara’s energy so much.

“Just arrived now. I don’t tend to stalk, ya know…”

“Oh, of course!” Bellara stood, patting down her dusty pants. He hair was a mess, and trails of dust and sweat adorned her forehead. “Rook, you don’t look so good…”

“Oh, I am aware…” Rook all but scoffed. “You do not need to remind me of the obvious,” she added, and the slightly hurt expression on her friend’s face made her shake her head in confusion.

Why did she speak like that? It wasn’t her way...

“I… I’m sorry, Bel,” she let her gaze get lost in the bright green grass at her feet. “Just tired and very hungry… Can we go somewhere and have lunch? I think you could use a break,” she grinned wider than she meant, trying to hide the awkwardness and worry that had gripped her in equal measure.

“Erm, sure!” quipped Bellara and immediately jumped ahead of her, in a mere moment disappearing down the wooden stairs that had been placed on the ancient ruin.

As she expected, she was offered the most highly ranked seating in the camp, but Bellara saved her by asking for privacy, so they got a smaller seating area, away from the crowds.

“Are you alright, Rook? It isn’t like you to refuse attention, or not talk to people…”

Their food came quickly, and it filled the entire table. They had not ordered so much, but that wasn’t something she could change now. All of the extra food was just part of the constant tokens of appreciation these wonderful people were bestowing on her, while she was not really deserving of any of it.

She took a sip of tea and looked at her friend searchingly for a moment.

“I’m alright, Bellara. I just needed some good food. Tired of the same Lighthouse menu.”

“Well…” Bellara started, but then looked back down in embarrassment. “I mean, don’t be upset, but… ya know, you’re like a sister and I cannot stand seeing you suffer in any way. You must get out of the Lighthouse. It's not good for you… And…” Bellara took a deep breath in as if afraid to say what she had planned. “You must understand he’s not really coming back,” she blurted as if afraid that she won’t say it all if she doesn’t do it then and there.

Rook let those words wash over her and numbed whatever trace of pain they might have brought.

“So now you accept what was? You accept Solas?” she asked her friend and bit into a roasted leg...of something. She hoped it wasn’t nug, but hunger didn’t discriminate.

Bellara had the decency to look up at her with guilt in her warm, brown eyes.

“It’s too late, I know, but yes…” she sighed and broke eye contact with Rook. “I am sorry, for what is worth. We were all scared, blind. We didn’t know how deep it went for you…”

Tears gathered in her chest, so great that it physically hurt to breathe. She bit into the roasted leg again, swallowing the sensation.

“You know, Solas once said that Elgar’nan had destroyed many emotions...feelings?”

“I didn’t know…” Bellara turned her attention back to Rook, an expectant expression upon her face.

“Yes. He did,” she whispered, making a mental note to ask, or rather taunt Elgar’nan about this. The very concept of it was so loaded with implications. “You know what I think,” she continued. “I think he was right to do that. And I think he should have destroyed more of them…” She swallowed the food and bit hard on her lips.

Bellara’s mouth turned down in grief, and she took a swig from the beer in front of her.

“Rook, you know all that has happened with my brother. I carry that pain with me all the time, and I know I’ll always carry it. There’s no cure,” she sighed. “But it's better to feel things, even pain, fear, than basically cancel yourself, destroy yourself. It is what he did, you know? Elgar’nan?"

Hearing his name had a peculiar effect on her, and Bellara appeared keenly interested in the reaction it sparked, prompting her to continue.

“Speaking of which, Emmrich told me you’ve actually been spending time with him?” Bellara whispered, something for which Rook was very thankful. “Rook, why?” She asked, her voice rising to a higher pitch.

“He cannot hurt me, if that is what you are worried about,” Rook dismissed the other woman.

“That’s not why I am asking. Remember, it was my idea to use the magic dampening device, and I trust Emmrich. It’s just that we’re both worried, but he avoids telling you anything because he also believes you need to get that revenge and some closure.” Bellara sat back in her chair, making a pause in which she probably hoped Rook would say something. When that didn’t happen, she groaned, but continued. “You know what I believe?”

“No, I do not, but I am certain you will tell me,” said Rook.

“That both you and Emm are blind and stricken with pain because people you had fallen in love with were killed by the same person...being...thing. Whatever he is. Anyway, you are blind and all you see is revenge. And you know what’s the funniest thing in all of this?” scoffed Bellara and leaned closer over the table to half whisper, half hiss at Rook. “That’s the most Elgar’nan thing you could do.”

Rook bristled, and the food felt like bricks in her stomach. Anger rose within her.

“How dare you? I am nothing like him! I loved someone, I still do. I simply want him to pay and to be reminded every day…” she trailed off, looked away, took a sip of the warm beer, and grimaced. It was disgusting, or rather, everything seemed disgusting now.

“Yes, but why? You can be angry at me, curse me, whatever. I am simply worried. Especially after what you’ve been through with him when he captured you all that time ago in Arlathan… You may not see it, but it changed you. He did something to you then.”

Rook didn’t want to hear all of this, so she pushed the plate of food away.

“You found the worst time to talk about this, you know that? I needed to eat, not to be lectured.”

“It’s not a lecture. Just a warning from a friend who cares.”

“I wish I could kill him…” she whispered, eyes lost among the crowd of people.

“But you can’t!” Bellara’s voice grew high again. “Rook!”

“What?” she ground out between her teeth and focused back on her friend.

“This is another thing I’m worried about.” Bellara searched her eyes. “Where is the dagger?”

“The lyrium dagger? It is safe at the Lighthouse. Do not worry,” she dismissed her again.

“Do you bring it with you when you go to him? And do you go in dreams or physically to him?”

“Ah, Bellara, stop! No, I do not! Why would I?” She raised her voice, but had no regrets afterwards. Maybe she should bring the dagger to their little rendezvous. Why not, she asked herself, glee blooming in her chest.

“Rook, please don’t do something stupid.” There was fear in Bellara’s voice, and Rook wondered if that glee had been etched all over her face.

“If you continue like this, you are only going to make me want to do it even more,” she hissed.

“Oh, by the gods that I do not believe in, this is Cyrus all over again,” she said, rubbing her temples with a gloved hand.

Rook groaned and sighed, and in that moment, all she wanted was to actually run back to the Lighthouse and threaten Elgar’nan with the dagger. Yes, absurd and childish, but she was so done with people always trying to steer her, control her, calm her. Irritating.

“Bellara, do you think me insane?”

“Well, not insane, no, but I will be honest, you are changed, and it scares me, and I just want to make sure the Veil stays where it is. Remember, Solas created it exactly after Elgar’nan killed the one he cared for.”

“I am not Solas, and I am not Elgar’nan, and I am myself and not changed, or influenced by any of them or whatever else you are suggesting,” rage so deep flared within her that magic sparkled around her clenched fist.

Bellara gave her a look that, for one fleeting moment, broke Rook’s heart. Disappointment and, worst of all, fear and surprise.

She was a powerful mage indeed, but hadn't lost control over her magic in so long. It wasn't normal.

“I… I am sorry, Rook. I simply…” Bellara trailed off and shrugged in defeat. “It doesn’t matter. I will trust you.”

She didn’t trust her. Rook knew what Bellara had just done because she herself had been in the same place over a year ago with Solas. The choice to trust someone you admire, against your better judgment, was a heavy burden to bear.

“I need to go back…” whispered Rook, and Bellara silently agreed.

She gave her one last pained smile and stood from the table, swiftly walking through the crowd that had become silent. Their fight had been obvious to all, but Rook didn’t really care. She let all of those cares wash away with each billow of her bright red Veil Jumper cape.

Next time she emerged again from the Lighthouse, she’d go to Minrathous, the place where everyone hated her. She needed to face it all and let it wash away as well.

She swore she wouldn’t wear a hood, nor hide her identity. No, she would proudly walk through the crowd and maybe even find Neve.

Such burdens had to be faced, guilt had to be banished, heart hardened, so that she may endure and gain the strength she craved.

Passing through Eluvians was a comfort she always welcomed, and Vi’revas was the highlight of it all. There was something about this particular eluvian. She knew how it felt, she could smell its magic and recognized it, for it was Solas’s. It felt and tasted like him, and stepping through it was a remembrance of him, even more so than the entire Lighthouse, for it concentrated his will and power in one single place. Stepping through it was his embrace, safe, but fleeting.

She left the light of Vi’revas for the oppressive silence of the Lighthouse.

Days passed. She had no idea how many, for she had not counted them. All she knew for sure was that she drifted, lingered, and waited for something she did not understand, yet yearned for.

Some silent hours would be broken by discordant piano notes that she fooled around with, having no experience with musical instruments.

Other hours drifted by with the never-ending supply of books left at her disposal.

She would read and read, until she couldn't see straight, until the words crawled upon the pages like armies of ants, and the tower of books by her bed grew ever taller.

There were dark, rapturous nights when she heard his voice on the Fade’s breath, and she found the strength to accept it, rather than succumb to denial.

He was there, in the back of her mind, waiting in endless patience, as he had sworn he would. He had been there ever since the capture.

She feared the lingering thought whispering to her that he had been there for far longer.

She feared many things these days, and each fear had to be swallowed, consumed, and conquered until release was attained.

To follow the deepest desires of the heart. Truthfully, hungrily, fearlessly. For what is there to fear when all is lost...

The words wrapped around her as she was dozing off with a large tome in her lap. She woke up startled, as if she had slipped on ice. The book lay heavy upon her thighs, and she looked at the words again, trying to catch up where she had left off. It was a tome on magic that had been taken out of use, or even banned, during the many societal upheavals in Thedas. She had dozed off just before having to turn another page, and when she did turn it, her interest was piqued enough for sleep to leave her.

The chapter was named History and Practice of Amorous Magic, and quite a lot of pages were dedicated to it. Not at all unexpected of Solas to have such dirty things in his collection, she thought with bitter amusement. Beneath it, something urged her to keep reading, and what she uncovered sparked thoughts that might have been better left alone.

The nature of this magic was explained on soft pages yellowed by time, and she absorbed each word greedily.

"Thus it is a force and purpose independent of that who wields it. Magic is personal, and for ancient beings borne within and of it, it springs from their very being, directed forth by the flesh they have fashioned for themselves. A mage who harbours hunger to attain will and power faster and through far more pleasant means than books and practice, may seek out a willing fount. A fellow mage of higher skill is a good choice, but there are superior ones. In ancient times, before their fall, the elvhen of old would create magic by their mere union and it was fearsome and extremely potent. A mere mortal could not withstand such force in our times, but it would be a lucrative test nonetheless, if a willing sacrifice would present themselves.

The element of willingness is essential. Magic is will and the flow enmeshes the two mages in ways we are yet to understand, but it is fair to presume the resulting force outweighs the drawbacks."

She read and read throughout the night until sleep, and the same dreams, guided by his voice, took over her once more. It was a safe, dark place, imbued with the fear of the unknown, and yet so familiar - comfortable. There was so much paradox when it came to her life, and especially to him. It only served to ensnare her tighter.

One day, after a solitary walk through the Crossroads, she returned to the Lighthouse with a new resolve.

Something had broken inside her, a tether that kept her prisoner snapped, and she was yet again free of her own guilt, as she had wished.

Her boots clicked on the polished stone, and only the groans of the masonry accompanied her as she climbed the stairs to the Infirmary.

There, hidden in an inconspicuous drawer by what used to be Varric’s bed, the lyrium dagger waited for her.

She had decided to keep it there, rather than in some complicated chest with magical traps. Hidden in plain sight was far better than such an obvious complication.

After the war, she couldn’t bear looking at it, and touching it was even worse. It was another Solas reminder, but not a comforting one, like Vi’revas.

No, it carried all the darkness she associated with him and the betrayal, the torment, and the pain he had put her through, driven and obligated by the bindings that had held him in place for millennia. The bindings that she had failed to release him from, she reminded herself as her fingers wrapped around the hilt.

Energy flowed through her at its touch. It answered to her like an old lover, and she caressed it softly, a sad smile on her lips.

“As if nothing had ever changed…” she whispered to herself in the stillness of the Infirmary.

And yet change is all you are. You have embodied it.

The stray thought ran through her mind, filling her with something akin to excitement. She had been on the precipice of change for so long, dragged through it by force, opposing it every step of the way, never truly taking the plunge.

The past and present are within our grasp, but the future requires shaping. Nothing is unconquerable. Not even your own soul...

She released a breath she had been holding within for far too long, closed the drawer, and headed for the Aquarium chamber.

She let the bright red cloak fall off her shoulders, to hang it on a peg which was not far from his own. Her cloak looked tiny next to his and stood as a reminder of the power she truly wielded.

Indeed, everything was in her grasp if she could do that to him. She just needed a confirmation of what she had, only needed to see him squirm with the dagger at his throat. Only needed…

What is it that is standing in your path? You desire power, the strength to bend matter itself to your will. Magic unfathomable... You need only take it.

She slipped out of her leather breeches and loose shirt, throwing them carelessly on the backrest of a chair, and went to her bath, a favoured place for her lately.

This time, she savoured every moment, for her mood was lighter, and her spirit hardened. Herbs were added to the water, spindleweed and blood lotus, to strengthen her body, but also heighten her senses and deepen the Dream that would follow.

She entered the water, her heart racing at the searing heat, but ignoring the discomfort nonetheless.

A blanket of alert calmness wrapped around her at the sheer presence of the herbs, and she revelled in it.

Yes, it was false in a way, brought upon by the spirit of the plants, but that didn’t mean she couldn’t enjoy feeling in control at last.

Towel wrapped tightly around her body, not bothering to wear anything else this time, she grabbed the dagger and slipped into bed, clutching it tightly, knowing the ghost of it would follow her beyond.

The bitter Dreamer’s tea saturated every limb and every breath, soothing her further, while at the same time awakening senses that lay dormant otherwise.

When she arrived, the Prison was unchanged, and so was he.

They made eye contact, none saying anything as she walked to him, her glowing, thriving, him darker and more monstrous than ever.

There were few things she loved more than circling him like prey, slowly, languidly, the ghost of a touch here and there, before savagely grabbing his hair to pull his head back with all her might. It was more pleasurable than the orgasm he gave her days ago. Or was it weeks? She lost track of time.

His hair was still soft, and everything about him stayed the same in the stasis of the Prison, only the darkness around him grew, and so did the intensity in his eyes.

He growled up to her, his lips in a snarl like some base animal. She gave him a look of false pity.

“Oh, I am sorry, Allfather. Truly. You see, the outside world is so lovely and bright that for some time I forgot about the false sun I have hiding here in the darkness.”

“Liar,” he growled, voice so powerful and deep, garbled almost, that it sent echoes through the entire prison.

“I do not lie. The outside world is truly beautiful. Thriving after your fall,” she released his hair and ran feather-light touches up his absurdly prominent cheekbone. “Mmm, you really overdid many things about yourself, haven’t you…” she whispered as an afterthought. "So insatiable, lacking control…"

His eyes were still, face a marble statue locked in a sneer, "You and I," voice rolled thick up his throat, "So alike, are we not?" A soft smile made him even more sinister, and she splayed her fingers over his cheek and jaw, saying nothing, just keeping her gaze on him, desiring nothing more than to enter his mind, rummage, tear through, and collect all that was valuable.

"I am nothing like you," she said dispassionately, and even more amusement appeared on his face.

“You forget I can feel you, that I can smell you. I know when you are near and when you are not. I know it all and far more than you can comprehend, wretched liar!” he said.

For a fleeting moment, fear passed through her. Fear of the obvious. Fear of what everyone knew, including him, and that she refused to believe. Maybe it was time to admit it, own it, and work with it.

He had left an imprint on her when he captured her. He had not severed her blood bond to Solas, but he had tethered her to himself in other ways. And now that the bond to Solas was gone, all that was left within her was him.

“A pity then that you manage to whisper such sweet, wise words when I am away, yet when I’m here, you are no better than an animal,” she said, her fingers tightening around the dagger that she held behind her back.

“An animal you nonetheless desire with all your being, while trying to hide said desires behind the blade of your beloved.”

“You mean this?” she asked, and pulled out the dagger, released it, let it hover over her palm, before catching it again. “And you seem to forget that this lovely little thing actually belonged to your beloved, not mine. That beloved who found comfort in Solas’s arms.”

His laugh almost startled her.

“Ah, so you also believe it was comfort she sought in him. Is that what he told you?”

“Nothing is clear in this cursed land. There’s no absolute truth. All I can do is choose trust. I know that’s an alien concept to you.”

He shook his head with mock amusement.

“Then choose trust again, da’len, or rather, bravery. You are a remarkably capable dreamer, yet you forget that the dagger cannot harm me unless you join me. If a sliver of bravery was within you, you would be here wholly, body, soul, and dagger.”

“You still think me stupid? Why would I do such a thing?”

“Stupid? No! Craven! Incapable of assuming the obligations of your position. Unfit to rule and undeserving of your victories.”

She gave him a sweet, innocent smile.

“Ah, well then, we are alike, Allfather, aren’t we? You were right!” She lowered her face to breathe each word upon his skin, spitefully, with a passion she hadn't felt in an eternity, “...made for each other.”

An obvious shudder ran through him, and it excited her in unspeakable ways. She slipped the tip of the dagger along his shoulder, making him flinch at its touch.

“Hm, you say it doesn’t affect you, yet you are scared of it…” she pondered. “Shall we test it then?”

“I am not scared of it, you utter child,” he said and looked away from her. “I dare you again. Step into the prison fully, rather than in slumber. Test it by plunging it into my chest.”

She faced him and, without hesitation, straddled him.

It felt so freeing to simply hold her towel with one hand and climb into his lap, knees on each side of him, knowing on their own where their place was.

Revulsion ran through her at the realization, but as it often happened lately, she snubbed it like a flickering, dying candle. She did not need such complications; she needed absolute freedom from herself.

“Hm, maybe I will,” she whispered and leaned over him, running the dagger from his neck down to his chest. It hissed and burned a dark line on his skin, and he sucked a breath through his teeth. “Oh, so it does affect you. Who’s the liar now?”

“Put it to the test, da’len,” he said, looking down at her, leaning against the headrest, neck exposed.

Her hand had a mind of its own as it continued dragging the blade lower and lower, the laces of his shirt giving way one by one, then the rest of the shirt, slashed all the way down to his stomach, dusky skin bared to the low glow of the dagger. He didn’t oppose it, just watched her with a dark, satisfied smile.

She raised her eyes to his, something unnamed passing between them. Light around them grew, as his magic flared in his bound hands. It felt stronger than before, warm, and so powerful that it energized her, absorbed within her through her skin, and as before, she took it all, letting it flow through her veins.

Her hand lifted the dagger, hovering over his neck, but eliciting no reaction from him. The light of his magic was bright enough to chase away all the shadows she had been wrapped in. He tilted his head in appraisal.

“And now I can look upon you…” He said, hooded eyes taking her in. “Take it off…” he commanded. “Prove your bravery.”

A knot formed in her belly, a snake coiling and tightening her insides, filling her with anticipation and a deep desire to make the worst possible choice.

The hand that had been clutching the towel at her chest relaxed slowly, giving way and falling to rest on his thigh. The fabric still held for a few moments, as if it was the last voice of reason and decency left within her, before opening and spilling around her.

A surge of desire ran through her as she sat there completely exposed to his dark eyes, the brightness of his magic revealing it all.

He released a breath so deep that she felt it skittering hotly across her naked skin. “Such a splendid creature, such rotten spirit…” he uttered softly, wandering eyes returning to her face.

“I cannot return the compliment,” she finally let the side of the blade touch his skin, and it hissed like ice against red-hot iron.

He groaned, his entire body flexing beneath her, but not recoiling, rather letting it consume against his skin.

“Incapable of staying away from me… Always returning. I do not need compliments to know how deeply I stir you.” he strained against his bindings, chains rattling in the pulsing silence of the Prison, leaning in as close to her as he could, the flat side of the blade digging deeper into his skin, but not doing more damage than a faint mark. So it mostly offered pain, not true damage. Just as he said.

“I see you wholly, and I know what you desire. Release me, da’len.” his voice was smothering her, crowding her, and she leaned into him a little, almost closing the gap between their lips. She didn’t even know when it happened, but she let the hand that held the dagger fall away from his neck.

“I can take what I want without setting you free,” she whispered, voice slightly shaky. She leaned in as well, finally letting her lips touch his in a slow kiss. He didn’t react at first, but when he did, following her and trying to capture her mouth, she pulled back laughing.

“Remember what I told you last time? That I will offer you release if you beg for it.” She shifted into his lap and let her free hand fall softly down her chest, then her stomach, until it stopped where their bodies met.

His eyes trailed after her with each move, jaws clenched, lips a tight line. “I shall not beg for anything…” yet his voice wavered.

“Then I will make you beg,” she said and crushed her mouth to his so suddenly that their teeth clattered.

He grunted deeply and kissed her back just as violently as before, tongue shoving deeply into her mouth, sharp teeth into her lips, and she answered in kind.

She didn’t let go of the dagger, held it tight as her body moved closer to his, legs wrapping around his waist, arms around his neck. He broke the kiss to ravage her neck once more, but this time, he had access to all of her, and a breath later, his mouth was on her chest.

Trailing lower over the curve of a breast, she let out a desperate moan as his lips wrapped around a nipple, sucking hard, sending ripples of pain and pleasure through her entire body.

There was no reason to hold back. Why had she held back before? She asked herself as her hand drifted lower, desperately pulling at the knot she had done herself last time she fell into this reprehensible darkness.

His clothes gave way easily now, and she pulled him out, igniting a low his from him as her hands touched his eager skin. That snake coiled tightly within her as well, and she knew she was in over her head in this whole plight, so far gone that she could only go further.

The pain returned, hard, relentless, but so was the ecstasy as she impaled herself onto him with a desire that had a mind of its own.

Crackling energy flared around them, carrying the scent of smoke and herbs, and ether. Exhilarating in ways she could not understand, it tore through her chest, climbed up her skin, somehow entered her mouth, and she drank it all, filling her lungs and chest with it.

Her heart raced so fast that she feared it would explode, and she all but begged, “It’s too much. Stop, stop...”

“This cannot be stopped, da’len,” his voice enveloped her, carried by his magic, entering her as well. “Power unfathomable. It is all yours, my greedy, rotten little thing…” He was tender, raw, and more frightening than ever.

They moved together as one, as if they had been one for eternity, as if nothing had been more innate, as if she didn’t exist before this very moment.

Her skin shone like fractured light, and her bones were lighter than feathers.

“Release me,” he whispered, his tongue wet and hot upon her ear, before biting down on the soft flesh where her jaw met her throat. “Release me,” he repeated, voice almost breaking.

She weakly moved the dagger that had been hanging loosely in her boneless fingers and placed it on his exposed shoulder. A last grasp at control.

“Beg…” she whispered. The blade hissed like ice upon coals, and she sank her teeth into the side of his throat along with it.

They were beasts, teeth into each other’s flesh, and she felt his blood upon her tongue, like bitter iron. His body shuddered at the pain, but he only pumped harder, bit harder, until her first peak wrapped around her, the coil within her releasing into aching orgasms that she couldn’t control. One after the other, waves washing over her, suffocating her, pulling her down.

When she felt him chasing his own pleasure, she turned the blade and ran it over his skin, blood as dark as tar spilling over, before the wound knitted itself back together. She knew that wouldn’t happen if she were here “wholly”, as he said...

“Beg,” she whispered, voice weak and shaky. “Or I will leave again…” she stilled above him, unwound her arms from around his neck, and moved back, legs trembling beneath her, but just far enough that he slipped out, his hips chasing hers, a low growl of frustration in his throat.

He was a sight… Utterly dishevelled for once, heaving deeply, each breath sending tremors through his chest. Desperation was on his face before he schooled his expression into anger.

“Sathan…” he hissed, angry but also impatient, eager, and so full of want that she could feel his desire within her. “Nuvenan rosa'da'din in ma sule enan'ma…”*

“Again that filthy mouth of yours… and in Elvhen no less...” she said, trying to sound confident, but knew she was ruined already.

And he knew it as well, because despite his state, satisfaction twisted his lips.

“Ah, another who labours under the delusion that our ancient tongue was used solely for flowery verse and lofty ideas. Tell me, did you perchance believe we did not take part in the pleasures of the flesh as well?”

She didn’t bother to dignify that with an answer. She could only offer a broken smile as she turned her back to him, straddling him once more, and lowering her hips, gasping in relief, she didn’t care hide when he was fully sheathed within her again.

Each relentless thrust made her more desperate, and she couldn’t, wouldn’t resist any longer, so she did the unthinkable – released the blade from her grasp, directing it further away from them both, out of his reach. Then, with a soft wave of her fingers, she unbound the chains that tied his wrists, the low rattling a confirmation that he was at least half free.

His legs were still tethered to the armchair; she had complete control over the chains and could tie him back at any moment. She held onto that knowledge tightly and desperately, as she felt him shift behind her, the light appearing first, then his hands running up her ribs, cupping her breasts, first softly, then harder, painfully pinching her nipples and kneading her flesh.

“Vin, ma’lath,” he whispered into her ear, such tender words sounding absolutely obscene on his tongue, but they were only vines wrapping around her tighter. "You are so good… So brave."

Her head fell back against his chest, back arched, thighs opened wide, lost and gone. A hand slid over her stomach, dipping between her legs, rubbing circles into tender flesh, making her convulse at the agony of being filled and overstimulated at once.

Shaking and sobbing, nails digging into his skin, she came yet again. Fingers wrapped around her jaw hard and painfully, and he turned her face back towards him to devour her mouth and frenzied cries.

“Again,” he growled against her ruined lips, and again she unravelled at his command, guttural moans ripped from her throat and into the endless void around them. “Again, and again and again,” and so she did. Over and over until her vision darkened and stars popped around the edges.

His fingers dug into the softness of her hips, and he pulled her even closer if that were possible. Everything frayed into black around her as a deep groan escaped his lips, and he finally came, releasing into her erratically, each thrust, pain and pleasure renewed.

She didn’t move. She couldn’t move. She didn’t even know if she was still alive. The only thing that was real was his cock inside her, still buried to the hilt, pulsing in answer to her uncontrollable, full-body spasms.

His hands ran softly up her body. They didn’t hurt, nor did they dig into flesh. He was...tender, soft. Utterly fucked up, she thought. This was worse than being insulted, bit and ravaged by his hateful mouth.

She left with a single glance back at him, which he shared with an unreadable expression.

The following days went by in a blur. All she knew for sure was that she needed at least a couple of them to recover. The aches and pains left no marks upon her skin, as usual, but they hurt deep into her flesh just the same.

The real difference was in how her very spirit felt – lighter, more powerful, and finally free of pain. She knew what it was, for magic more powerful than ever before flowed through her veins. Strange, alien magic. Not hers.

His.

She would not cower away from reality again. She knew exactly what was happening. She probably even did it intentionally. She’d never admit that, though. That was the last boundary, and she should not have crossed it even in the intimacy of her own mind. And yet…

Denying herself the truth indefinitely was against her nature. There was a stillness to pain, and there was rest and peace in its wake. Like a long autumn twilight that comforts with its warm light, while carrying the bloody knife of the dying light of summer.

The Lighthouse mourned with her; the beautiful skies seemed just a little bit darker, and the light had slanted, flickering golden between the stillness of the leaves. Every corner carried memories, every stone was imbued with melancholy, and she was a part of the ghosts haunting it.

He had been taken too abruptly. She had watched her mother withering away, had lived with the knowledge that she would lose her one day. She had been prepared. Solas seemed invincible. He had been invincible in her mind and deep in the darkest recesses of her consciousness; he still was. She had grown accustomed to his presence, had clung to it so tight that her being still waited for the tug of his mind in the back of her own. A ghost that wasn't there, and she followed that ghost through the winding paths of the Lighthouse.

Would he approve, would he agree, would he praise her for the thoughts that had started growing deep roots in her mind? Did it matter?

She found herself in Solas's study, silence and echoing memories surrounding her. As if guided by an unseen force, she riffled through the documents and scrolls. Some were old, some were new, but they were all like bricks to what she wanted to build, or rather, small pieces she could use to assemble a step ladder.

She read everything and looked through everything. It brought a sense of peace that she had not had in so long. Books, scrolls, knowledge, her refuge, her shelter. The second thing, after magic, that made her feel powerful and, most of all, safe.

Sometime in the blur of hours and days flowing by like water, the Caretaker, that silent, yet strangely unnerved watcher, brought her a single small note scribbled on a crumpled piece of parchment she knew all too well.

“Rook, we have to talk.

Meet me at the Swan any evening.

Neve”

She could taste the adrenaline in the back of her throat.

Any evening? That almost tempted her to delay the meeting indefinitely, but she didn’t. She didn’t really feel the need to hide anymore. On the contrary, she wanted to right the injustices, clear out misunderstandings, and, most importantly, tie up all the loose ends.

After a calming walk through the ruins of Arlathan, she sat on the side of a bubbling creek, waiting for the sun to set, and when the shadows got long, reaching to her like fingers, she entered an eluvian to Minrathous.

She had promised herself that next time she goes out into the world, she won’t hide under a hood nor avoid the crowds. She kept that promise, wearing her best Veil Jumper leathers and proudly walking the ruined streets of the one city that hated her most. She almost felt the stones and metal desiring her death. As if any moment they’d bend to her and rip her apart.

For a while, not many paid her any mind. They probably didn’t even imagine the Hero of the Veilguard would walk with such hubris through the city that was ruined twice because of her actions.

After a while, whispers followed her, heads turned, and then insults were thrown in hushed tones. The city hadn’t changed much, she noted. They didn’t manage to rebuild all of it, and there were even blight remains in places, mocking her even deeper.

She had never really held any love for this dump and not necessarily for the way it looked, but rather the history it carried. She had purposefully chosen Treviso over it, and as an elf, she considered it the rightful thing to do. She was even secretly happy when she heard that it was the city Elgar’nan chose as his centre of command. She wanted it ruined well before she defeated the Evanuris. They’d do the dirty work before she came to offer the mercy killing. A wonderful way to keep her true feelings about the place secret, while her image stayed as pristine as ever.

That didn’t go well because of the tremendous loss of life at her command. She considered it a personal failure, but in the end, she did achieve what they asked of her. She defeated the blighted gods, did she not?

Lost in her thoughts, she arrived at the sloped, winding streets that led to the Cobbled Swan. Piles of garbage were taller than ever before, and the beggars all but made homes out of them. More empty houses than there were people on the street. Wonderful leadership, but it was nothing she didn’t expect.

The most ironic thing was that certain types of blight grew hard after its force had seeped away, and it became shelter from the droning rain that came and went here every few hours.

It was indeed an odd thing that the blight on this side of the Veil seemed to have died away, even though Elgar’nan was still alive. They had expected to have to fight it still. It didn’t make sense, though nothing made sense since the war ended. It was all a fever dream.

Blood flows through your veins still. Nothing else matters...

The thoughts tumbled through her mind, and she had to stop, just as she was about to take the last turn to the tavern.

“No, stop. You’re not supposed to…,” she whispered to herself. These thoughts only came at the Lighthouse. There was silence outside of it.

Nausea and waves of heat ran through her, and she had to brace a hand against the nearest wall to keep herself standing.

Her eyes fell on posters that had been glued to the buildings. Posters of her. Crude drawings of her face, caricatures, with absurdly huge, pointed ears and upturned eyes as if she were some insect. She wore Veil Jumper robes, bright red with a deep cleavage exposing ridiculous, overflowing breasts. She clutched a gigantic staff with red magic pouring from it as if it were blood. Underneath this trash, written in stark black letters, the poster screamed “The Evanuris Whore” and below it, still, a whole wall of text on her supposed sins, and she read each word. It made her even sicker and angrier, but she couldn’t stop. Each "knife ear” and “whore” and “murderer” and “traitor”, a red balm to soothe her resolve. She swallowed the bile crawling up her throat and tasted the salty tears that ran down her cheeks and into the corners of her mouth.

Behold the gratitude of those you saved. Behold the fruits of your labour.

“Shut. UP!”

A group of men looked at her and then at the poster. She spoke loud enough for them to hear her, and she surely looked quite the sight.

Whispers of “it’s her, isn’t it?”, “Veilguard hero”, “Elgar’nan’s whore”, “wasn’t it the Dreadwolf?”. “Ah, she sucked the wolf’s cock too!” passed between the men, and her right hand twitched, eager to summon her orb.

"Fuck off!” she growled, and the yearning to obliterate them was hard to resist, so she directed it at the walls plastered with those abhorrent posters, singing them off and attracting even more attention upon herself.

She walked as fast as she could to the tavern’s doors, sweat running down her face at the chills and nausea that wouldn’t let go.

The tavern’s cool, musty air was startling when she walked in. Nothing had changed here. The Cobbled Swan was stuck in time. That eye of the storm where time stood still, while the entire world crumbled around it.

Soon enough, she saw Neve, sitting with her back to the entrance, at one of the furthest tables.

“Neve,” she said as she slipped as naturally as she could into the chair opposite the other woman.

“Rook…” was the cold answer.

Neve looked as put together as always, but Rook noticed the dark circles around her eyes and the small mountain of ash in the ashtray.

“Glad you came. I had doubts…”

“Glad to see you too, Neve,” Rook answered sarcastically, which earned her a tired smirk.

“Maybe you need a drink. You are paler than usual,” Neve said as she added fresh tobacco to her pipe.

She did need one, or maybe several, so she asked for chilled wine. It was as sour as expected, but maybe it would calm the strange sickness that had taken over her.

“Let’s not make this harder than it already is for both of us,” Rook said after a deep swig from her mug. “Tell me what’s on your mind.”

“Many things are on my mind,” Neve blew a large plume of smoke and looked down into her drink. “I’ve been thinking about a lot of things since we last saw each other.”

“It is what you do,” Rook gave her a half smile, and Neve returned it.

“It is what I do, to my sorrow,” she hummed. “I will be honest. I talked to Bellara, and she convinced me that we both need some sort of closure.”

“There can be no closure after everything,” whispered Rook, and her throat tightened. She cursed herself for the fragility that still lingered when she had thought it gone.

“There should be, though.” Neve looked at her, but Rook avoided her eyes. “And if we cannot find it in victories, maybe it is in the ruins.”

She looked back at the other woman, and she could see that her eyes were shining a little. For a moment, she felt sad, and her heart yearned for connection to someone she used to call a friend once, but after what she had seen in the city, rage drowned all those other, softer feelings. It did not matter.

“Neve, why did you ask me to come here of all places? Surely you have seen what’s displayed on the walls…”

Neve had the decency to look guilty, “I know, Rook. I’m sorry. The truth is, I am still not where I am supposed to be. I’m not treated any better than you, and I have overstayed my welcome at the Cobbled Swan…”

“You…” Rook started in bewilderment, “...are staying at the Swan?”

Neve sighed and took another drag from her pipe.

“Did you expect them to offer me a seat and a luxurious apartment? After everything?”

“None of the things that happened were your fault,” Rook said.

“Precisely. Yet none here understand nuances, and I’m tainted, according to them.”

“Tainted?” Asked Rook, and Neve gave her a look that she understood, but at the same time refused to accept.

You are the taint, da’len...

Rook groaned softly.

“So you are blaming me as well.” It wasn’t a question, but a statement.

Neve glanced to the side at the flickering lights above the tavern’s bar.

“Not quite. I knew what I was getting myself into the moment I accepted the gig. I knew even better the longer it went. I’d be a hypocrite not to acknowledge it. I’ve mourned everyone and everything for months, Rook. I have no more tears left in me. All I have left now is survival. Going forward. Cannot do that while on the streets.”

“I’m sure some of Lucanis’ family might be willing to offer a hand if I talk to them,”

Neve’s jaw clenched for one brief moment. “Rook. Please do not mention his name.”

“He is my loss as well, Neve, as are all the others, but you keep forgetting that,” Rook took a sip of her drink, struggling to relax.

She knows it all, da’len. Casting your pain asunder is a choice.

Rook took another sip, or rather a whole gulp this time. She wished she could yell at him, or slap him, or… somehow hurt him. Heat flared up from her stomach to her cheeks, and she released a quiet breath at the sensation. She could almost feel him inside her again, could almost taste the pleasure he had given her, or rather that she took.

And which you shall take again. And again… His whispers ran through her mind, and this time she could almost hear his voice, grating, yet utterly intoxicating.

“I would never ask the Dellamortes for help.” Neve huffed a small, sad laugh. “Imagine the gossip…”

You are less valuable than appearances...

“Stop,” she whispered harshly.

“Excuse me?” asked Neve, calculating eyes on her.

“Stop caring so much about what everyone thinks,” she quickly added.

Neve looked at her for a moment, “Rook. I cannot go to them. They do not know me well, and they probably blame me for his death.”

“Besides,” Neve continued, “you would be the last person who should mediate such a request.”

Digging a hole through a brick wall with her bare hands would have probably been more productive than trying to convince Neve.

Rook laughed bitterly, “Alright then. What is your solution? You must have one, oh ever resourceful Neve Gallus!”

Neve scoffed, “That is a low blow, Rook. Even for you.”

“No, it isn’t a low blow at all. It is an honest one, unlike the subtle, yet painful jabs you’ve been making since I arrived here.”

“You want me to be direct, then?” Neve leaned her elbows on the table, a look of challenge in her eyes.

“Yes, I would appreciate it. I am sick of all this unfair vilification, and seeing you join in just destroys me.”

“Very well. I will be honest. I called you here for two reasons. First and foremost, I want to ask you if I could return to the Lighthouse for a while, until I get myself back on my feet,” she took another drag and blew the smoke up to the ceiling. “Second, I need you to tell me if you need help with… anything,” she emphasized the last word, letting it hang between them.

She means to observe you, control you, for she distrusts your reasoning. She believes you are incapable of restraint.

“I am fine… And I refuse to believe that crashing at the Lighthouse is the main reason you wanted to talk to me. I know you well enough, yet you keep forgetting that.”

She could feel his thoughts stirring like serpents inside her mind. It seemed like the more she allowed him to eavesdrop and speak into her head, the more he did it, or rather, the more capable he became of doing it. But how would she stop him? How would she block him?

She could swear his laughter rang in her mind at these thoughts. Maybe she dabbled too much in ancient magic that she did not fully understand.

“Rook,” Neve called out loudly. “Are you still here?”

She shook her head and focused on Neve again. “Sorry, I was miles away,” she added.

“I could see that,” Neve frowned searchingly. “I was saying that loneliness is not healthy, and you’ve had quite enough of alone time to last you a while.”

After all your sacrifice, a leech upon your selflessness is a disgrace most foul. A child of those who enslaved your kind to find shelter at the Vhen’Theneras once more is an insult. Had she offered a shred of gratitude…

Rook groaned and clenched her fists under the table. Shut up, she screamed in her mind and drank once more.

You may disagree, but your heart is never blind to the truth in my words.

Perhaps she should listen to what he had to say, rather than just try to gain his magic. A being so old, maybe the oldest to ever exist in this realm, surely held deep knowledge that could be of use. Raw power was good, but without knowledge, it was a blunt weapon. Was it still time for any of that, though?

Regaining your wits, I see. I can offer forgiveness and a font of power, provided you come to me, Rook. In the flesh… “Flesh” was more than a thought, but his whispered voice, like a caress running through her mind. A long tongue flick upon tender skin.

She clutched the steaming mug so hard that she feared it would shatter between her fingers.

“I am fine, Neve. I don’t need babysitting…” she groused, placing the mug on the table and hiding her shaky hands in her lap. She couldn’t hide her flaming cheeks, though.

“It’s not babysitting, I know you don’t need it. It’s just a friend’s company. Nothing more…”

Her presence at the Vhen’theneras shall be a hindrance to us. All your desires and what I am willing to offer, she shall uncover. You cannot hide your deepest desires from me, ma’lath...

“There is no us. And don’t call me that,” she spoke in her mind. She wanted to cry every time he called her that. It hurt so deeply that her soul twisted in on itself. And he knew it.

“We can meet more often, if you are now open to that, Neve.” Her voice shook, and Neve was very focused on her. Too focused, just as all that pain bubbled up in her chest. There was no tenderness in her friend’s eyes, no understanding, just cold, hard calculation.

Hush, now, little bird. I am here and I feel your pain… They do not understand your heart the way I do…

The words flowed through her mind, down her throat, swirling into her chest. Something in her deepest being told her that he was saying exactly what she needed to hear, but then again, those she called friends didn’t even try. Bellara tried, she really did, but Rook ruined it all, and that only added to the pain and guilt.

A sob was drowned into her mug.

“The question is if you are open to that, Rook…” said Neve.

“Why else would I ask?”

“And my other request?” asked Neve again.

“I will think about it. Next time we meet…” she said quickly, suddenly incredibly antsy, her skin crawling with the desire to just leave. She needed air, and she hated the musty smell of this cursed place. She hated Minrathous, Tevinter, she hated...

“Rook, what have you been doing these past months?” Neve asked her directly. “There is something about you that I don’t recognize. It isn’t hard to imagine what is going on, but I refuse to believe my worst fears.”

Panic imbued her, and the room spun. Neve knew.

Hear me and breathe. Magic she shall never wield flows through you. Fear is useless, for none of them could harm you.

She did as he said, taking a deep, almost painful breath in, letting his presence sustain her. She hated it, feared it, yet her heart soared when she finally allowed herself to let go.

“I am certain your imagination is far more interesting than reality, Neve. You should, though, see the difference between dreams and reality and know that you’re not always right, nor are you able to figure everything out.”

Neve said nothing, but kept watching her.

“Are you really in such a dire situation, as you say?” Rook continued. “Or you’re just using that to come to the Lighthouse and spy on me?”

Neve gave an incredulous little laugh, “Paranoia doesn’t become you, Rook. You forget that I’m not just some little green, novice mage, and I can sense what others don’t. And I sense something on you that wasn’t there before. I sensed it before when you were far too entangled with Solas. This time, though, it's different.”

“Do not say his name,” she whispered, pain and anger lacing her words. His name triggered something unspeakable within her.

“See how that feels,” Neve said. “Certain names awaken such strong feelings in us that we cannot hear or say them. Speaking of which. We’ve been here for a while and haven’t addressed the elephant in the room…”

“What elephant, Neve? I see no elephant.”

“Oh, don’t be a child. Rook, please!” she flicked ashes in the ashtray and replaced the tobacco from the pouch on the table.

“Say it then.”

“Elgar’nan,” Neve said without preamble, her eyes on her face, examining her sharply.

She felt him stir again, this time with an emotion she couldn’t quite understand or name because she had never felt like this before. It was pride and anger, and laced with a strange dark pain that made her shudder.

Rook chuckled halfheartedly, choking the alien emotions within her, “Careful, Neve. He might hear you. You might summon him…”

Neve didn’t find it funny, “It is what I fear. That he does hear me when I speak to you.”

“Do you think me so naive?” Rook kept her eyes locked on Neve’s.

“Not naive.” Neve lazily blew smoke. “Hungry, insatiable for power, though, yes! Also vengeful, sad, lonely… Dangerous combination.”

“So you want to come over and watch over me. Babysit me?”

“If needed…”

Rook reached into her pockets for coins, threw them on the table, and prepared to get up. “It is not needed.”

Neve reached out and caught Rook’s hand, just as she stood, ready to leave the dank hole she had been dragged into, “Is a friend needed?” Asked Neve.

A feeling, this time truly her own, welled up inside her, and tears began to sting her eyes. It is a trap, his voice whispered, and her pain only got worse. She knew it was a trap. They didn’t care for her. No one did. They never did. Always a tool, a means to an end, someone to solve their problems, unwanted unless she could be of use.

“You were never my friend, Neve. None of you were. About time we stop lying to each other,” her voice came out choked.

“Do you really believe that, Rook?” Neve said softly, and it felt like the most disingenuous thing ever.

“I always believed it deep inside. I was in denial. Goodbye, Neve! Fair paths onwards...”

"Goodbye, Rook…" Neve called after her, voice defeated. "You forget I was in his mind and he in mine. I know him…"

Rook did not linger, no matter what Neve would have said to her, so she opened the heavy doors of the Swan and stepped out, to be met by the falling evening and the smell of rotten fish. The pier was teeming with life, and Rook’s mind with disdain. She needed solitude; she needed the living silence of the Fade, so she rushed to reach the portal that would take her back to the Lighthouse.

Fly, broken bird. Fly back to me, and I will mend your broken wings.

“You cannot mend anything,” she whispered under her breath as she turned another street corner, avoiding a suspicious, dark puddle. “Stop thinking so highly of yourself when you’re tied to a chair, at my mercy.”

His laugh, dark and sweet as molasses, enveloped her mind. And yet the desire to free me haunts your dreams. Tell me, ma’lath, how long will you resist? When shall you join me, be one with me, succumb to your deepest desires?

She coughed, nearly choking on her own saliva, but chose not to dignify that with a response. She took another turn towards a familiar shortcut that took her to the upper levels of the city. It was dark and silent, and just as she needed everything to be.

“There she is!” she heard a voice behind her, and before she could turn, an arm wrapped around her waist and a hand clamped over her mouth. It was so fast that she barely had time to register what was happening, and before she could fight back, another hand yanked away her mage knife, flinging it across the cobbled stone. She watched the blade bounce away like a ball, almost comically, as another blade was placed across her throat, “You’re doing what we say, whore.” was whispered in her ear.

“Let’s see what’s so special about Solas’s whore,” a man hissed, and when she looked up, she recognized him - one of those who had yelled after her near the Swan. All three men were there. One was behind her, holding her in a steel grip, the second had a blade at her throat, and the third was in front of her, leering as his eyes ran up and down her body. “Mm, I see it. Very easy on the eyes,” he said, and fell upon her, hands grabbing and kneading and pulling, while she could not do anything without her knife or staff.

She screamed and writhed away, her palms almost-barely tingling with magic, but the one behind her crushed her wrists together painfully.

When the front of her shirt was torn asunder, buttons jumping everywhere, and a deep scream escaped her throat, his voice returned. Trust me, let go, surrender yourself to me.

“No!” she cried out, and she didn’t know whether she was addressing Elgar’nan or the three men, but when one of them was pulling at the bindings of her trousers, her spine tingled and her skin burned so hot she could see it alighting the night around them. She closed her eyes and relaxed into the arms of the man behind her, who touched her throat but quickly yelped.

“She’s burning…” the one in the front barely had time to finish his sentence before she grabbed his arm, fingers wrapping like a vice around him, his clothes burning away, and his skin sizzling and popping under her touch. His body curled in on itself like a burning leaf, and she watched it all with distant horror.

They all dropped her on the cold cobbled stone, “Fuck! She got some demon in her! Look at that cursed thing,” screamed the biggest one, and turned to grab a nearby plank.

“You mean to use that for a weapon?” Words tumbled out of her mouth like water. Uncontrollable, unbidden. And then she laughed and lifted her hand, the wood disintegrating into floating ash in a mere breath. "Come to me!" A scintillating force flowed from her chest and down her arms, and she swung her arm at the man, sending him flying, engulfed in an explosion of light as if he had been struck by lightning.

The remaining men screamed in shock and ran off, a last “fucking demon whore” floating on the night wind before the silence descended again. She took a few moments to breathe in, as her skin slowly returned to normal.

“What have you done?” she whispered to the darkness.

What had to be done.

“You should have killed the other two as well…” she said softly, and he laughed.

No. Let them tell the story. Let it be fear if gratitude is beyond their mortal bounds.

“Let me guess, you also expect gratitude…”

I expect and desire nothing but your truest self… his whisper filled her mind.

A cold drizzle started, and shivers ran through her body. Her clothes were ruined, torn apart, and her cloak filthy with the eternal sludge that ran through Minrathous as if it were its very lifeblood.

“Not even I know who that is…” she spoke to the wind. She gathered the shredded shirt around her chest, tying its ripped ends together in a semblance of modesty. Her hands shook, and she realized so did her entire body. It was odd that there was no fear or pain within her mind, yet her body was in shambles.

She threw herself against a slick wall and took a few deep breaths to calm herself. What if they waited for her around the corner? What if others came? What if they went to the Swan and assembled a mob to get her? Surely Neve would help, maybe even lead the mob.

This wasn’t the best time or place for a mental breakdown.

Leave this foul city, da’len. Come to Vhen’Theneras and rest…

“You,” she choked out, between sobs, “You’re such a hypocrite! Talking shit about humans and this place when you worked with them, meant to reign from here…”

I did what I had to do. Used those who held the greatest potential. There is no shame in that.

“As you use me now...”

Because you are the one with that potential within your grasp.

“NO! It’s because I’m all you have left!”

And I am all you have left, Idunn…

“I hate you…” she sobbed and slid down the wall to her haunches.

And I do not… Come to me. Let me give you what you need. His voice wrapped around her mind like a warm, comforting cloak, like dark, suffocating wings.

“I hate it all…” she said, and sobs wracked her chest. “Everyone…”

As is right. This world is abhorrent, ma’lath. Fallen. A mere shadow of what it was meant to be. Close your eyes and see it all before you, death nonexistent, immortality within your grasp, no more pain, a body imbued with endless life-force… Beauty and wonder incomprehensible.

The sobs shook her chest, and she let them out, regardless of whether someone would pass by and see her like that. She was in a city of pain after all, where so many poor souls cried and died at the foot of its walls.

Solas and I disagreed on many things, yet not everything. The Veil. Had he surrendered to me, joined me, I would have done it all to bring it down. As he wanted.

“I wanted to let him do it too, but the Blight…”

He chuckled, and she could almost hear him sigh in delight. And yet there is no more Blight, Idunn…

“Nonsense,” she grumbled. “Of course there is. You are delusional.”

Come and see…

She... they had all expected it to linger while Elgar’nan was still alive, and yet it didn’t…

She wiped the tears with the ruined sleeve of her shirt. The stars twinkled coldly up above, and if she allowed the images he conjured in her mind to blossom, the sky took on a richer blue, the stars shone brighter, and scintillating magic flowed through the air, like curtains of aurora borealis. If she closed her eyes, letting tears run down her cheeks, magnificent gilded spires and tall pale trees rose before her.

She released a pained breath, and sadness she could not fathom fell over her like a dark cloak. Yearning for something she never really had, for a place she never saw, nor touched.

This world… he said softly in a voice so clear that she jumped and looked to her right, expecting him to be there. This world is only pain. A pale echo of what once was. We can change that, ma’lath… Can you comprehend the power you hold within your palms?

She stood slowly, almost afraid not to ruin the illusion that seemed to have knitted itself around her.

The Lighthouse welcomed her like an old friend, as it always had. The stones themselves knew what she needed and shared her desire.

“Dweller…” the Caretaker’s voice called from its booth as she passed by.

“Yes, Caretaker?”

“Emmrick Volkarin asked to speak to you…” The Caretaker stopped, made a pause as if analysing her, and she could swear she saw a frown in its very tendrils. “Are you in need of rest? Your spirit is heavy and your face pained.”

“I am indeed, Caretaker,” she answered with a small smile. “You are not wrong in anything, and you see me well, as is your way. My spirit is far from light… But I believe it will be. Soon.”

“What is it you require?”

She looked at the being, trying to decipher deeper meanings, or even betrayals, as she was used to. Everyone betrayed lately.

“Silence…” she said. “I will deal with Emmrich and then will need silence.”

“Ah, no need for that. I have dealt with him already,” it said, a small jump in its hover.

“What... what do you mean?” she asked, unnerved, half expecting the Caretaker to have murdered Emmrich, as absurd as that seemed.

“I simply closed Vi’revas to him. He is safe, do not fret.”

She didn’t push, but asked a soft “Why?” nonetheless.

“You need rest. He is invited another time.”

“Rest… yes…,” she whispered. “I will be in the Den, if you need me.”

“Dweller, I know where you are at all times. It is my duty.”

She swallowed and gazed into its glowing eyes, the many-faced helmet looking as if it was smirking. Of course, projecting the mockery she thought she deserved on a being that didn’t even have a face was a great way to get herself in an even better mood.

She gave the Caretaker a tight smile and walked towards the Wolf’s Den. Her body felt strangely light, floating, and her mind was empty. She knew all she needed was in Solas’s study, and when the doors opened by themselves at her presence, it felt like a sign that her choice was right.

Was it a trustworthy sign? No. It was mere superstition, but it didn’t matter as long as it gave her the will and courage needed to accomplish the task ahead.

The scroll shelf was huge, but the exact information required was on one particular roll, and when she flicked her palm towards it, it delicately floated towards her. She plucked it from the air and sat at Solas’s desk, unravelling several rolled, yellowing parchment papers before her.

Most people would have imagined Solas to be neat and orderly, yet he was anything but. All the order at the Lighthouse was the Caretaker’s doing. Solas did indeed love to document his knowledge, manifest his creativity and intentions, but his mind held so much of everything that mere quills or paint brushes could not keep up.

She smiled wistfully at the chaotic information on Veil rifts and rituals, her fingers softly trailing the scribbles and drawings. The information had been documented over several years, she could tell, because it was written in different inks and instruments, and the sketches were also of varying colours. There were stains, there were mistakes, there were texts that had been crossed out and corrected with new information underneath. It was him. All him…

It is what he would have wanted. Maybe not in the way she was planning to do it, but that was inconsequential. After all, the information on power gained through carnal union was right there in his library. He knew of it, had probably used it himself, or saw its merits, just as he saw the merits of Blood Magic. He saw nuance and was a being of nuance… she swallowed new tears and pain. They would only make everything harder.

One last time, she sighed as all she needed presented itself to her in his notes. She slipped the needed parchment away from the others, folded it, and took it with her back to her room. She needed a change of clothes and a bath to wash the rot of Minrathous and the breath of the drunkards and their burnt flesh off her skin.

When she was done, she dressed in some of her finest clothes once more, robes that she kept for important occasions, dinners, and balls. They would probably get ruined, but this was probably the most important occasion in her existence, and that of everyone living and breathing at that moment. Her physical aspect had always been important to her and also an armour. It would not be otherwise now.

A brush through her flaming hair, scented oils that felt more like a holy anointing, and one last look at her room and his hanging armour. She felt ready. She slipped the lyrium dagger in its old scabbard by her hip and smiled dazedly at the winding stairs that awaited her.

Strangely, the hardest was Vi’revas, this half-sentient portal that seemed to mourn her leave, but on the other side, the Crossroads seemed to shine brighter as she walked upon their crumbling stones.

“You know where to take me as you always do,” she told the Caretaker, and without any other commentary, the boat floated away through the nothingness of the Fade.

Elgar’nan was strangely silent, yet she could feel him in the back of her mind. A lingering, ever-looming presence that by now had started to feel oddly comforting.

How had she got here? How had she arrived at the strange threshold of feeling safe with him in her mind? What awaited her beyond this threshold, had she stepped over it? She would soon find out.

The ritual site, yet another memory of times that seemed more like a dream, opened below her as the boat took a gentle dive towards its pier.

It had been so long. So terribly long, and yet the smell was the same. Blood and electricity. The statues were as she remembered - crumbled, but between them she could feel the vibration of the fissures. They had not healed on their own, as she expected and desired, and she followed their pull, one step, another step, up the stairs where she had once first made eye contact with both Solas and Elgar'nan. That fateful day when her life was upended. Her very existence and purpose were sealed then, in these stones, with her blood.

The granite was stained black here and there, and she wondered whether it was hers or Varric’s blood, shed with so much pain and regret that the rains had not washed it away in all this time.

Solas had written in his notes that rifts can be found in places where blood had been shed and where the memory of death lingered. No wonder this place was so unstable after all that the stones had seen. Matter held memory. Matter could record memory, and everything here was imbued with it. She wondered what else these stones had seen, besides the blood she and her friend had spilled upon them.

He had also mentioned regret, even mortal one added to the ritual, but hers was numb, or rather so old that it just sat unmoved, like a wide, still sea. Maybe it was enough.

Darkness was setting in when she finally reached the round platform at the top of the stairs. The one Solas had stood upon. She could see so much from up here, ancient ruined towers, forest, and sunset alike. It was beautiful, and she was happy and once again wondered whether her regret was true, or maybe she had grown “callous”, as Solas said the Evanuris had, thus making their regrets far too weak. Of course, not everything he wrote there had to be a fact. He himself had crossed some of his own words off, as he made new information was revealed to him. And above it all, her own will reigned now that he was gone.

She would not know unless she tried, so she slid out the lyrium dagger and extended it towards some dancing green sparkles that she surmised must be released by the Fade tear. They did react to the blade, but only like flies to raw meat—swarming it, trailing after it, yet doing little else.

“Your life essence is needed,” his voice seemed carried by the winds, and she almost jumped. He did not sound as if he were in her head anymore. Not here. Here, his voice came from everywhere and nowhere.

“My life essence?” she answered back to the wind.

“Your blood, Idunn. Most precious of essences, the lifeblood of a living, breathing being. Yours above all is now more precious than all the gems.”

“I should probably not use the lyrium dagger to draw it,” she said and reached to her other hip for her mage knife, but he laughed softly.

“Inconsequential now what you use to bleed yourself, do you think not? There shall be no more binding and nothing to be bound to…”

“Indeed…” she said and turned the bright blue blade to her left hand, wrapping her fingers around it and squeezing until her skin burst against the sharp edges. Hot and strangely comforting, her blood pooled in her palm, and she let it drop at her feet, upon the stone.

The dancing lights seemed to vibrate faster, and then they multiplied, connecting to each other to create a thin slit of bright blue light into the very air before her. She reached the dagger towards it, and it reached back, bright tendrils that looked like cold blue fire wrapping around the blade, feeding upon the blood. They continued to ascend, first up the hilt, then around her wrist, creeping up her forearm, her neck, entering her skin, becoming one with her flesh. The Veil was tying her to it, feeding upon her, and when she moved the dagger into a slow slicing motion, the thin opening yawned larger, a gaping maw of light, through which she stepped. She expected something dramatic, like a fall, or at the very least a yank, but no, she just stepped on the other side, smashed rocks crunching underfoot. She opened her eyes to the familiar grey Prison.

“At last. I can feel you close. Closer than ever. Come to me.”

She followed his voice, not answering him, unable to find the proper words for what she felt. It was fear, it was courage, it was regret, it was hope, but also sadness and joy. She was insane.

She had been far too careful about where she was stepping to notice that the Prison had brought her before him, but when she looked up again, their eyes met.

“You are surely not insane. You are alive. That is all,” he said.

“So now you can read all my thoughts.”

“Our connection runs deep. I can do many things, just as you. You have willed the Prison into offering you a shortcut to me, and it obeyed.” he lifted his head and looked down her nose at her, but not with arrogance, rather with pride, strange, unnerving admiration. “Here you are. Flesh and blood before me. Wholly, as you are.”

“As you wanted,” she answered back. “I suppose I am to you what the Prison is to me. I obey. I obey a crownless king I myself defeated and tied to a mockery of a throne.”

“I presume you expected me to succumb to mindless rage.” He smiled a closed-mouthed smile and placed his hands on the sides of the armchair. “I see the nuances in existence and have dealt with mortals for millennia. You were a noble and worthy opponent and offered me all of yourself. And now, you have chosen the singularity of existence. To rise above all mortal bounds. You are far more than a tool.”

She approached, slowly, one step in front of the other, robes swishing around her legs, as soft and slippery as water, and she could finally look at him. Truly see him. No dreams and visions between them, no herbs to dull her perception. Just reality, flesh and blood, stark, heavy, material, for both of them. Frightening for her.

She followed the path from her dreams, moving around him, her fingers brushing lightly over the chair, up his arms and shoulders, soft and fleeting. But now, his presence was undeniable. He was there with her, and she with him. Dreams could not be a refuge anymore. This was real, and the way back was closed.

She pulled her hand away when she reached his side. “We are all tools to someone, All Father. Even you. Nothing more, nothing less,” she said. He could have reached out to her and caught her; she was close enough, yet he didn’t. He just turned his head, ever so slightly, gleaming eyes burning, yet not upon her own.

“The essence of it all,” he rasped. “Yet, tools are mindless, which we are not.”

Her hand seemed to choose for her as she reached out, tilting his face up to hers. A jolt of something indescribable coursed through her as those molten eyes locked onto hers. “I wish I could be. Mindless. Empty. Free of it all… Finally at peace,” she whispered.

He smiled softly, a barely there twitch of the lips, and his large hand wrapped around her fingers, “And you can be. It is why you are here. I know it well, ma’lath. I know all your darkest depths, and I can free you.”

“And I know you…” she murmured and walked that one step that separated them. His hand traced the hilt of the lyrium dagger, and there was silent approval in his eyes. He didn’t try taking it away from her, as she expected, but his fingers rose to her waist, curled into her clothes, and pulled her to him. She gasped as she almost collapsed against him, but he steadied her, and in return, her fingers danced in the air - a command, a whisper, and all his bindings fell to the floor. His other hand splayed on her stomach, sliding up, large and hot, against the silky fabric, until it rested between her breasts, upon her racing heart. She sucked air between her teeth and swayed again.

“Far too well…” he said as he let his hand travel higher, until it lightly wrapped around her naked neck.

She placed her hands on his shoulders, her fingers threading through his hair, the smooth strands slipping like silver serpents between them. “Why allow it?” words slipped out of her mouth as his fingers curled around the neckline of her robe. "Why allow me so much? A mere mortal?" With a swift, forceful tug, he tore the robe apart, the fabric splitting as effortlessly as if spun from spider silk.

The cold, still air of the prison bit at her skin as he slid his hand beneath the torn robe, cupping her flesh. His warmth made her sigh. "Why do you allow me this? Why do you return? Always, return," he murmured, placing a kiss between her breasts. "Incapable of resisting," he added, his mouth moving to her right breast as her breath hitched. "Insatiable..." he whispered against her flushed skin before his teeth sank into the side of her neck, and her eyes fluttered shut.

"I don't know," her voice broke. "Maybe I'm searching for atonement in someone worse than me."

He smiled against her neck, lips barely touching skin, "Ah, that is what many have said when I whispered to them before."

He stood, the remaining chains that had once been her safety line, clanking on stone, echoes of their finality bouncing through the ether. The cuffs around his wrists that dampened his magic, though, remained.

She looked up at him, wordless, speechless, as he cupped her face into his hands, long fingers curling all the way back to the nape of her neck, “I could so easily end you,” he said.

“I am not afraid,” was her answer, and he bent down from his great height to reach her, and their lips met, slow, the moment dragging into eternity, and her breath quivering, but then he crushed his mouth against hers, devouring her, as she held onto him, dizzy, lost…

“Nothing to be lost, when all has been lost,” he said. “Do you now believe my words?"

“What words?”

“The Blight. Naught remains of it…” he traced a finger across her bottom lip, his eyes following it. “It was tied to Fen'harel, following his life force, for it was he who took the Titan’s dreams.”

She gasped softly. “No…”

“Oh, yes…” he chuckled. “We perfected it, harnessed its powers, but it was he who brought it into existence.”

“You’ve caused so much pain. You…” she stammered, still held tightly in his grasp, far too close for comfort. “You enslaved, you killed, and… The Blight—it’s your creation. It should want to destroy you.”

He chuckled, the sound rolling darkly from his chest, “Poor darling. You are yet to understand the Titans, nor their trappings. The Blight does not care for others, sweetling. It does not care for your justice, but only for that from whence it emanates.” He stopped, bright, smouldering eyes boring into her, drinking her in, making her dizzy, then softly ran his thumb along her jaw, whispering, “It was Fen’harel who trapped their dreams, ma lath, not I.”

Something bubbled in her chest - tears, rage, pain, and something more. Hunger. Hunger, but not the mortal kind. Hunger she could not comprehend. Hunger for him, for something more than her mind could comprehend.

“All beings crave power, and what is magic if not power?” he spoke so softly that the rumble of his voice raised goosebumps on her flesh. "Ultimate," he murmured, lowering his head to trail his warm lips along her jawline, where his thumb had lingered just moments before, "unequalled power." She gasped, her knees weakening as his hot mouth brushed against her ear. “Ultimate control,” he breathed along the shell of her ear, her gasp impossible to control. “Fen’harel stripped them of power. He stole their magic. When Mythal claimed their blood, it was no more than a tick’s bite. When more of us fell upon them, drawing more of their blood, fashioning bodies and gaining powers and riches they could never attain, fear reached their unyielding hearts and they resolved to rain war upon us.”

His voice lulled her, hypnotizing her as she let her eyes flutter shut. His hand gently slid her cloak from her shoulders, trailing down to her waist, sending tremors through her with every touch, until he found the clasp holding her dress in place. He clicked it open, and the heavy dress, cloak, dagger, and belt all slid into a heap around her ankles. He released a long, hot breath that fluttered upon her shoulder. “Ah, it is truly mesmerizing seeing you, having you here with me. Whole. At last.”

“Mythal took the blood first…” she softly blurted out, voice almost a squeak, as his hands ran all over her, caressing so softly it made her tear up.

“Hm?” he hummed in question, pulled from his own haze. “Oh yes, she did. She was the first, not I. It was an understanding between us that I was to be called the firstborn. She did not care for such titles, so she acquiesced. In truth, we found each other when both had lost what mattered. Her spirit desired to be made flesh, to taste life as other beings had. Mine desired…” He fell silent, his fingers digging into the softness of her waist, his mouth brushing against her clavicle. Her spine arched painfully as he held her there, as though he might tear her apart.

The information was shocking, something that once upon a time would have had her excited at the sheer novelty of it. Now it meant nothing, for nothing mattered anymore.

Her hand slid softly upon his jaw, and she thought to herself that his skin should not have been so soft, silk-like, unbearably so. He was a brute, was he not? That skin did not belong on someone like him. Her palm should have scraped against his cheek as if against sandpaper, yet it did not. “What did your spirit desire…” she asked, looking into his eyes shamelessly, as was her way. Something she had always known affected him.

Pain flared as his fingers pressed into her ribs, and suddenly, she found herself sprawled on the soft pile of fabric that had once been her clothes. The dagger's hilt jabbed into her back, the belt pressed into her thigh, and his massive weight crushed the air from her lungs.

“Everything,” he rumbled into the crook of her neck and ground his hips into her. “I wanted it all,” he said, as his fingers wrapped around her thigh, legs pulled wide apart, wrapped around his waist. Did he do it, or did she? She could not tell. All she knew was that he was everywhere, overwhelming, suffocating, and her legs had never spread wider.

It hurt. It hurt everywhere, but she needed that pain, and she needed the pleasure and the magic. She needed it all and wanted it all.

“As I do…” she said and pulled at his shirt that she had sliced apart the last time she had visited him.

“Remove my bindings,” was his answer as he released himself from the confines of his clothes and fell upon her again, making her gasp at the feel of his hot skin upon her own. “Let me show you the highest magic, the unfathomable glory which only I bear…” he said, before a hard, all-consuming kiss that all but suffocated her. His tongue entered her mouth, his teeth sank into her lips, blood drawn, which he sucked away between her pained gasps. Everything spun, and her body was on fire with that eldritch hunger that only seemed to grow more consuming.

“Tell me more,” she whispered into his ear, her tongue flicking over the curved point, her arms wrapped around his neck. “Tell me everything. I want everything…” her words broke as his fingers slid between her lower lips, the intrusion unexpected and shocking.

"And everything you shall have, ma lath…" Hot, ensnaring voice wrapped around her mind, fingers moving in circles over that bud of nerves, making her twitch and spasm and cry out.

"More…" she begged and sank her nails into his hand, pushing it lower between her legs. "Please…"

He hissed between his teeth, "Such eagerness." He entered her with two fingers, hard, deep, while his palm pressed over her pubic bone. His hand was large enough that he could envelop her whole, and when a third finger slid inside, her back arched and heat bloomed in her lower belly.

"Tell me more… Tell me what did you want!" she managed to murmur as her hips moved in tandem with his hand. In and out, circles over circles, lips bitten and sucked, nails digging into skin. A hunger she could not fathom, a need she did not think possible to have ever been quenched.

"The world," he said, lips barely a breath away from hers, dark, hot breaths mingling with each other. She cradled his face between shaking hands, kissing him, as if this terrible, fallen being was the most wondrous thing that had ever happened to her. "More…" she said as her swollen lips dragged across his jaw. "I wanted the world, ma lath, and all that was beyond it. The ether, known and unknown. The endless eternity beyond the Fade. The one only my dreams revealed. I desired it, and the void did call back onto me… Just as you desire me and I, the void, answer…" His hand moved slowly, agonizingly so, but when he pulled it away completely, emptiness that felt almost painful filled her. "Don't stop," her voice was broken yet dark, not hers, and her flesh crackled with energy.

"Release me," he said again, as his fingers wrapped around her jaw, forcing her eyes on his. Look at me without even having to say it, and she looked, she drowned in his eyes, suffocated in them, that swirling gold like a whirlpool that she would spin and get sucked in until it filled her stomach and lungs. "Undo these shackles and we shall both have what we want…what we need. Forever…", words poured into her heart like molten metal, hot, searing, overwhelming. Impossible to resist.

Her trembling fingers lifted almost on their own, gliding upon his arm softly, caressing his hot skin, until they reached his hand. She cradled the shackled wrist with both hands, the gilded binding giving way under her touch and falling searingly hot on her chest. He ground into her, hard, and every muscle in her body answered to him, clenching, pulsing, blood raging like storms within her veins.

"Yes," he whispered in a voice that was barely there, and his free hand ran across her cheek so softly that it broke her heart. His eyebrows were knotted with thoughts that she could only guess, yet it frightened and delighted her in equal measure. Never had she been looked upon like that. "And now the other…" he murmured, as he reclined on his free hand, bringing the shackled one up for her to grasp. She did the same with his right hand, and then he hastily grabbed the shackles, throwing them into the darkness, metal clinking sounding disjointed through the prison as they bounced away. "Ma lath ina'lan'ehn," he breathed, his eyes closing as he released a breath that seemed to have been held since the shackles were first placed on him.

Something had changed, and as their bodies were almost one, she felt it. His magic, his power, flared like harsh, burning sunlight once the last shackle was removed. It crawled across her body, making her nerve endings tingle, while her own magic seemed to reach out to his, feeding off it. She breathed out, her legs wrapping around him, hips slowly swaying up, coaxing him in, and he answered with another slow thrust against her. He pressed against her for one moment, pain and desire making her gasp, but then pulled away with a chuckle that vibrated through her chest.

"Let us make this the sacred ritual that it deserves to be," he spoke, and his right hand moved just a little, to her left, beyond her line of sight. Light erupted, and the ground shifted underneath her, the rocks rolling away, the hardness of the ground turning soft, and her hands reached beyond her rumpled clothes to touch a familiar texture. Soft, slippery, silky. Her aquarium room bed.

She gasped and turned her head to see the pillows and comforter that she knew all too well. "What?" she choked out in awe. "Why?"

"To know how tightly entwined we have become since you gave yourself to me, and how I saw through your eyes and felt through your skin. Everything is in my power here with a mere thought and intention, and I can offer you all that you desire." His body moved, hips rolling hard against her, crushing the air out of her and driving her insane. "Reality is but an illusion, when anything can be created with a mere thought." His hand covered her breast, over her heart, and she arched into his palm. "And you hold incredible power, ma lath. Yet you are also a vessel," his words were punctuated with another thrust, this one hard, well aimed, entering her, but not fully. Her fingers twitched, clenching hard into the sheets, teeth clenched in pain that seemed to tear her in two.

Light too bright to be real danced behind her closed eyelids, and when she opened her eyes, the tops of trees swayed above her. He was still there, they were still on her bed, but…

"See, how easy it is," he spoke again, driving further into her, drawing out strangled cries with each slow thrust. "Anything can be formed and mended." His hand tangled into her hair, pulling her head back softly as he drove even deeper, her body clenching desperately and greedily around him.

Tears gathered in the corners of her eyes, and he kissed them, drank them away as light bloomed around them, blinding, tearing into a kaleidoscope of colours she had never thought even existed. Her mind emptied, and there was only him and the unfathomable light that swallowed them. He was buried to the hilt within her, and all control was lost; the last grasp on it faded into nothing, as she succumbed to this force that seemed larger even than him.

"There, there," he murmured as he stilled, pulsing within her. Her chest heaved, her hands shook, shallow breaths wracked her body, and he watched each reaction with the satisfaction of an artist in front of their canvas. "My wondrous, terrible creature. Look at you," his hand slid down her body, splaying upon her thigh, almost encircling it with his long fingers. He draped her leg over his forearm, bracing upon the bed and splaying her wide open. He pulled out slowly, making her feel every ridge of his cock, then slammed inside hard, the stretch and searing pain pulling out a strangled moan from her kissed and bitten mouth. "All can be mended," he growled as he drove again, over and over. Sometimes slower, making her writhe and beg, other times faster, pulling screams and cries from her raw throat, but he did not stop until he brought her to completion, making her mind shatter and her bones melt. And then he ordered more of her. More, over and over, again and again, until she was a rag, a motionless, sated, used-up thing in his grasp. And only then did he stop, pulled her up to him, and brought her up on her knees, turning her away from him, grasping her to him tightly as if she were to disappear if he didn't, thrusting in again.

She turned her head back, reaching out to him, and he kissed her hungrily, a hand splayed over her belly holding her in place, filling her over and over, until his rhythm turned erratic and his grunts no more than those of any other man desperate to reach his release. She was spilled onto the soft bed, which now felt insubstantial - an illusion - and as this thought crossed her mind, the bright forest around them dimmed, giving way to the sombre Prison with its restless grey clouds and ruins. The only source of light, the one emanating from their very union, the magic that they kindled. At the height of it all, pain and ecstasy and unspeakable power flowing like lava through her veins, her limp hand came in contact with the hilt of the dagger. Through the haze she had been shoved in, when another orgasm was and he was chasing his own ecstasy, she remembered her plan.

The end of it all.

His body strained, large hand grasping the back of her neck so hard that she feared he might snap her spine, and he spilled inside her with a grunt rumbling from deep within his chest. She joined him, coming again, along with him, welcoming him, drawing him in, her body greedily taking every last drop, her lungs aching with the effort, throat raw. The pain, though, did not matter, for her body was alight, bright and filled to the brim.

The end of it all.

Her shaky fingers snaked through the tangle of sheets and clothes, and somehow, they wrapped around the icy cold hilt of Solas's dagger.

Around the pleasure that he offered her, icy cold pain wrapped. He had collapsed on top of her, breathing heavily, at last sated, his light and anger dimmed. She knew him; she had never been so close and entangled with someone, so in tune with their feelings and desires.

She was him, and he was her, and that was not enough.

It had never been enough. Nothing was ever enough for her…

It was only a breath, a momentous second suspended in time and eternity that would change everything forever. The dagger seemed to turn like metal towards a magnet when she grasped it with the intention of plunging it into the man that she could now be honest enough to call "lover". The lover. Her one and only lover. The only one who matched her depravity and pain.

Ma'lath: My love.

Vin, ma’lath: Yes, my love.

Satha. Nuvenan rosa'da'din in ma sule enan'ma.:Please. I want to cum inside of you until I spill out of you.