Solas had gone outside the village of Haven around midday with the intention of gathering special herbs that would ease his access to the Fade that night. Too many thoughts disturbed his waking hours, and he knew that if he wished to delve into old memories, he would need external help.
However, he had not expected the search to force him to travel so far to get results. When he started the return journey, late in the afternoon, he was caught in the middle of a blizzard. Visibility shrank so much that he could barely make out what lay ahead. He was then forced to expand a protective barrier around himself in order to move forward, and he requested the aid of a luminous wisp he knew very well; that small entity had crossed the Veil on numerous occasions to light his way when he required it.
Solas had spent the entire walk thinking about his past. About him… and, again and again, about her. Elentari.
The night before, the Dalish woman had come to his room in search of lucidity. He had understood immediately that she did not need empty comfort, did not seek phrases like "everything will be fine," but to know where she stood. So he had told her with brutal honesty… that she was on the edge of a shadowy abyss. They meant to turn her into a narrative capable of forging realities.
And Solas knew far too well the power of a narrative…
The Empire of Elvhenan had been born, for the first time, in Mythal's imagination. She had dreamed of a benevolent, wise, and just world, where elves and spirits could live in absolute freedom. And under that narrative, some powerful spirits chose to take physical form from the flesh of the titans and become the first elves: the Evanuris.
When that happened, the titans attacked. The world Mythal had dreamed was immediately threatened by an unexpected reality: the resistance of the Pillars of the Earth. From there, multiple stories began to be born, lamenting the persecution suffered by the young elven people at the hands of the supposed evil of the titans. Those narratives drove an urgency: that the elves had to defend themselves, seize their destiny, build their own military power.
Solas did not know it then, but the fact that the Evanuris remembered their own suffering so vividly and, at the same time, almost completely ignored the reality of the titans, contributed to the conflict that tore them all apart.
The narratives had inspired the elves to see themselves as victims… and the titans as monsters. But almost no one considered the catastrophic consequences that would have for the Pillars of the Earth. For the world… For him.
Solas had taken elven form because he believed in those narratives. Because he believed in imperialist myths that he himself helped spread across the lands of Elvhenan as an arcane warrior of the Enlightened Armies, wielding violence in the name of a false cause. He knew too well what it was to believe in a narrative… and become the weapon that made it real. He knew what it was to be used. He knew the weight of aberrant acts. He knew what it was to stand at the edge of an abyss and, at last, throw himself into the depth of his shadows.
What he had not known, however, was that all military action is irrational if it does not serve a dominant political objective.
At first he had been incapable of seeing the truth: that the victory of his battles had only served to exalt as gods simple egotistical elves, incapable of accepting their worldly limitations. He, naive as he had been, ensured the creation of the Empire of Elvhenan and the "divine" leadership of the false elven gods.
Under that premise, he could not help asking himself these days:
What political objectives would be fulfilled by the Inquisition's military success? Would they drag Elentari to the edge of the abyss? Or, as with him, would they finally push her to leap into the depth of her own shadows?
The wisp and the elvhen had walked for hours while Solas's shadowy thoughts engulfed him without respite. Night was beginning to fall, naturally thinning the Veil; at that hour, spiritual activity increased in its longing to connect with sleepers. Today was no exception.
Above him, the Veil contained an unusually large cluster of spirits pressing against the metaphysical barrier he himself had raised between worlds. The lands of Haven, witness to countless battles past and present, often had the curtain especially thin… but even so, spirits rarely gathered in such numbers. That activity was anomalous. They seemed to be following him. Solas knew why. Fatalistic thoughts attracted them, and though he would have preferred to contain them, he simply could not. Elentari awakened in him reflections too deep, too old… and that, had he been able to choose, he would have kept sheltered in a dark oblivion.
- Return to the depths of the Fade… I will be fine… - he whispered uncomfortably to the dream-entities.
He knew the secrets of the Veil because he had created it. He knew it was a metaphysical curtain whose arcane vibration repelled the forces of the Fade and contained them in the Realm of Dreams. But he also knew that since the opening of the Breach high in the sky, that vibration had changed. Arcane currents now moved like raging tides; the barrier was more unstable, more unpredictable. That was why he could not communicate with his agents and had to make colossal plans to get news of them.
- If you keep crowding together in such a reckless way, I will have to release my spiritual barrier… - the Herald warned.
But he knew they would not listen. He spoke to them from the waking world; he could only fully command them within the Fade. And yet, his warning was not a bluff. If they kept accumulating above him, he would have to cease all use of magic to avoid a rupture… and with the storm lashing him, he could not calculate how far he was from Haven. He was close, yes, but not close enough to risk it.
The idea of freezing did not appeal to him in the slightest.
Focused as he was on protecting the spirits and preventing his magic from causing an irreparable separation between the alchemical components of the curtain, Solas did not become aware of the danger (the very one his friends had warned him about) until it was directly in front of him.
The snow pierced his bones and the storm roared without ceasing; that was why it was impossible for him to distinguish the men who had taken shelter beside the Inquisition's tents. He did not see them… until a brutal hand clamped around his arm and a hard blow exploded in his abdomen without warning.
He felt how a claw seized him and, an instant later, the sharp pain over his ribs as he took a blunt impact that tore the air from his lungs.
Immediately he cut all connection to his magic, releasing the wisp from his will and allowing the dark night to swallow him completely. The spirits crashed furiously against the Veil, agitated by the unexpected attack. Perhaps the people of Thedas feared them… but to the Dread Wolf they were loyal allies, friends ready to defend him without hesitation.
Even so, this time he did not want their help. He did not want the emotional surge to spill them over, the impulse to protect him to drive them to cross the Veil… and, in their confusion, twist their purposes.
- This maleficarum comes back from making pacts with demons! Kill him! - he heard the voice of a man who grabbed him by the neck and struck him again. He registered the hardness of metal from the gauntlet of heavy armor, then the knee—also metal—into his abdomen, and then a rain of punches, sword hilts, and kicks from a number of people he could not discern.
It was not the first time Solas had taken a beating like that; in fact, he had suffered tortures in ancient Arlathan and survived... though there had been a fundamental difference: in those days, there had been no Veil preventing him from exploding into magic. Now, he felt the spirits swirling above it, trying to break it.
Solas rolled over his body, threw himself into the snow, sprinted, and broke free of his tormentors, gaining some distance.
He was still confused by the speed of the events when a sharp pain tore through him with brutality, making him feel the oppressive heat that flooded the corners of his eyes with tears. Little by little, his whole body began to sweat despite the cold and tremble with suffering. From the lacerating pain ripping through him, those idiots must have pierced his abdomen (and some organs) with some cutting blade, and he had not even noticed.
- I am not a maleficarum! - he roared when he could use his voice.
Blood bore silent witness to the wound Solas had just received. An instant later, the snow was covered with a scarlet mantle and rage flooded Fen'Harel completely.
All at once, Elgar'nan's voice resounded in an ancient memory, when he had been the elvhen's military mentor in the past.
"Picture your enemy, Solas. And have no mercy. The titans kill our brothers, our friends, and our families... Do not look at the blood on your hands as if it were your sin. That blood is the sentence they signed when they attacked us.
>> They chose war; we only chose to survive. They have cornered us until they turned us into this. Turn your pain into fury, Herald. Let that wrath burn you from the inside until there is no room left for compassion. Today you are not a spirit of Wisdom; today you are the punishment they sought."
Suddenly, Solas felt the heat of fury cover him. Not for his attackers tonight, but for the memory of Elgar'nan, who had made him believe the titans had been architects of his cruelty.
The Dread Wolf felt his mana boil inside him and the Veil struck harder. The spirits saturated with his emotions and hammered again at the metaphysical barrier. Unable to contain the surge of baleful memories, the moment seemed to dissolve into another reality, one where he had been a monster.
This time it was no longer a battle against titans, but Fen'Harel against the Enlightened army of the self-proclaimed god of Creation—Elgar'nan, the Sun-Tamer.
A jet of blood had smeared his face; he opened his mouth and tasted it. Then he spat it out and tried to wipe it away, and he saw the soldier it came from. He was an elf of the Enlightened Army. Blood ran from his eyes like water—had he attacked him? When? The elven soldier stared at him, petrified. One of his eyes was a red socket, as if it had been torn out; the other bled, but it also shone... with that glow so typical of a body whose spirit has left its interior. He was going to die... no, he had already died.
Then, almost because his muscles still had not fully yielded to the previous state of bipedal stance, the body remained standing, watching him...
It looked at him as if judging him for all those he had killed.
It looked at him demanding justice for his past errors and all the lives Solas had taken because of them.
It looked at him because it still could, because it still stood...
It looked at him because Solas deserved sentence...
It looked at him until, at last, it fell to the ground.
And Solas was paralyzed.
The corpses were piled one on top of another near a shrub, its leaves dripping blood. Had it been he who had killed them?
He no longer remembered...
... He had forgotten.
Another soldier lunged at Fen'Harel; Solas released a fireball. The arcane impact lifted his attacker off the ground and hurled him onto a fallen trunk. He kicked his legs until the screams gradually quieted. There was blood everywhere. One more life taken.
"Picture your enemy, Solas. And have no mercy."
- NO!! - Solas roared, but this time, returning to the present. - I AM THE ONLY ONE RESPONSIBLE FOR THE DISASTER.
He heard a man's shout... a shout that sounded distant:
- HE'S A BLOOD MAGE WHO BROUGHT US DOOM!!
No. They had not been elven warriors... Solas had attacked these men...
Suddenly his head vibrated to the point that he felt something strange happening inside his brain. He stopped hearing what was around him; it was as if his heart had stopped and the entire world became motionless. The Veil thickened, the spirits held.
- I am a member of the Inquisition!
In front of the mage, his attackers gleamed with a faint whitish light. He felt that something or someone pulled at him, said something he did not understand, and suddenly a powerful disruption of his magic made his eyes hurt. The sensation was strange, anomalous... nauseating... What began as pain in his eyes soon climbed into his brain. His ears grew hot and tears ran down his cheeks, though he was not crying—he was suffering.
Solas screamed and the men lunged at him. He needed no more information... these attackers were templars and they had just blocked him. However, thanks to the whitish coloring of each of them, the mage now knew there were five and that he was wounded. Now, yes, he could say he was facing real danger... and these idiots had no idea they had just provoked the Dread Wolf's wrath.
"Picture your enemy, Solas. And have no mercy."
Fen'Harel dug into the reserves of mana inside him, deeper than he had ever done in Thedas. With a furious roar, he raised his hands and unleashed chaos.
The Veil opened, the spirits pounced, and the shockwave that expanded from the mage sent each templar flying backward, as if they weighed nothing. Gusts of wind swirled around the Dread Wolf... power flowed beastly through his blood because the spirits were feeding him. They made him feel whole... It would have been easy to do more... much more—to tear those imbeciles apart, crush them and turn them into particles too small to receive a proper funeral rite, take the entities around him and exact his vengeance... but he knew he must not... He knew raw arcane currents were flowing into him and answering his will... and he had to minimize the damage.
So he focused.
He mastered the arcane forces as he had in another era, another world, and drove almost all the spirits back into the depths of the Fade...
Everything around began to blur; he had used far more magic than he should in this world to rein in the spirits, and he had lost too much blood.
Solas let himself fall onto the snow, coughed, and his entire body shook in agony. More blood pooled in his mouth and he choked on it. The arteries of his neck throbbed as if breathing of their own will. He no longer felt his head being squeezed; he no longer saw the men's whitish glimmer. Had he killed the templars?
Unnecessary...
A certainly unnecessary slaughter...
... but... after hearing, once again, Elgar'nan's voice, his orders and his training... suddenly, all the massacres Solas had witnessed since the day wars had touched him seemed to surge back toward him in a rush, as if someone else were killing again the way he himself had in the past.
Grotesque.
He did not want to be that man. But he was.
Something stirred inside him. It was his conscience, but Solas was not willing to hear it. Though, this time, it was going to be heard... and it spat directly in his face:
He had destroyed his world... he was the culprit... he had created the Blight, enabled Mythal's death, created the Veil and, finally... he had guided Corypheus to his Orb...
He… was his People's greatest failure.
He was tired. No—exhausted... his spirit broken... into multiple fragments impossible to stitch back together.
Solas struggled to breathe. The effort made his stomach contract and a spasm caught him in agony. A contained wail escaped his throat, and just as everything began to darken before him... a familiar voice seemed to sound in the distance... it was a woman... but...
- Solas!
... everything went dark.