Chapter Text
The prisoner is...strange.
He prods magic into the mark, into its flickering green light, bright and cold against torchlight-splashed dungeon walls. They recovered remarkably quickly from the shock of the orb’s imprint -- they no longer were sweating or breathing heavy, no longer in distress, which was why they were placed here and not still in the hut as before -- but there was an...emptiness, now, in their breast, and their pulse had grown slow and sluggish over time.
It is a stark contrast to how it had raced and thumped that first day in, how the prisoner had made small mewling cries, almost like a newborn babe. Their eyes had flickered back and forth behind their lids, even fluttering slightly open. But now --
Solas presses more healing into the fragile, fade-bleeding skin of their palm; tries to soothe the angry black and green crawling through their veins in their wrist, but nothing helps. When he brushes his glowing fingertips to their temple, they do not stir. The magic repels itself away from their mind, leaving an echo like that of in a long abandoned cavern, bouncing endlessly until it fades.
Disappointment and frustration war with themselves as he sits back on his haunches. His head bows slightly. His hand lifts to his forehead to rub away the throb.
Dead, then, he thinks. The anchor, the key, lost in a body still breathing but unmoving. Another, more literal mark of his long line of mistakes; another life snuffed out because of them. A mortal could never walk the fade and live, and this is proof. He had hoped...
But no. Solas grips the strap of his bag and slings it over his shoulder, standing in one fluid motion. He permits himself one last glance at the peaceful, blank expression of the unaware prisoner before he leaves the room. The two templars stationed outside the door cast him suspicious glances. He ignores them, however, and speaks to the Seeker waiting just beyond.
When he tells her of the prisoner’s health and chances, her jaw tenses. Anger flashes in her eyes, covering anything else she might have felt, even as she orders him and the Child of the Stone to the forward camp with a group of soldiers. He agrees with a dip of his head and turns to retrieve the staff he’d given up to remain in Haven.
Solas sends a searching stare up into the fade-torn sky while the well-worn wood is placed in his hands once more. Crashing thunder and boulders spit forth from the Breach, reflecting a frothing, wounded rage that claws at the edges of the Veil. Any help he might have asked for has already fled far away from the chaos for their own safety. He has no other options, and the thought is too reminiscent of other circumstances ages before.
But the decision is made: he will make one last attempt, and if he should fail, then he will retreat, as far away as he could. He cannot plan if he does not survive, and with this certainty, he falls into step beside the soldiers and the dwarf, and easily loses himself to thought.