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For once, Ellana thought she’d have a dreamless sleep. She’d just emerged physically from the Fade for the second time thanks to Stroud’s sacrifice, and the battle against Nightmare and the subsequent chaos of recruiting the Wardens into the Inquisition had left her more exhausted than she knew she could feel. Yet, despite the fatigue that weighed on her, when she finally closed her eyes, she found herself once again in the Fade—and she wasn’t alone.
There stood Solas, searching the memory of the walls of Adamant where they’d fallen into the Fade.
“Solas?” Ellana called out. “What are you looking for, hahren?”
He whipped around at the sound of her voice. For a second, she worried that she’d intruded upon him here or that he was still disgruntled with her for recruiting rather than banishing the Wardens, but then he smiled, and her worries melted away. “Ellana,” he said, his voice even warmer and more melodious in the Fade than in the waking world, “you continue to surprise me, lethallan.”
She grinned at him. “You know,” she said. “I still want you to teach me to Dream.”
“I haven’t forgotten.” He stepped closer to her, bringing one hand from behind his back to tuck a lock of hair behind her ear. “There is much I still wish to teach you, da’len.” The corner of his mouth twitched when he used the endearment. Even after their kiss, he seemed uncertain what to call her: lethallan felt too familial, but da’len felt too infantilizing. Ellana thought it was adorable, and she wondered whether the language of her ancestors ever contained an endearment that could encapsulate everything that she felt when she looked at Solas. Of course, she could call him hahren or lethallin given that he was her teacher and friend, but what she wanted to call him would have to wait. This connection between them was just a tender shoot of a thing, far too new for her to risk naming it, only for Solas to crush it underfoot by spurning her feelings.
“I look forward to it,” Ellana replied, leaning into his touch.
Solas hummed in agreement before changing the subject. “To answer your question,” he said, “I was looking for answers about the Anchor.”
Ellana brightened. “Perhaps I can help you with that.”
The corner of his far-too-kissable mouth twitched again. “Perhaps you can. You have a thirst for wisdom I find…compelling.”
“We have that in common,” she pointed out.
“That we do,” he agreed, straightening and gesturing toward the memory of the breach she’d opened mid-fall as if he were inviting her on a pleasant summer stroll. “Come with me, Ellana.”
Every fiber of her being replied, “Yes,” in chorus.
They stepped through the memory-breach as easily as they would walk through a door, and the Fade swirled and changed and reshaped itself into its own memory around them. There—she remembered the sight of the Black City in the distance, the stormy green light, the slightly topsy-turvy sensation of not quite knowing which way was up. A memory of Nightmare’s realm but without the demon’s power. This should be safe, she told herself. Well, at least as safe as the Fade usually is.
“Nightmare cannot harm you here,” Solas reassured her. He was no longer touching her, his arms folded behind his back as he walked beside her. “This is but an echo of its domain. In time, something new may arise here, but it would take centuries for it to regain even a fraction of such power.”
“I’m not worried,” she replied, grateful that she could at least conceal her blushing in the Fade, “especially not with you here.”
Solas stopped for a moment, a grave look on his face. “I would not allow harm to come to you,” he said seriously.
Ellana’s heart skipped a beat. Somehow, the simple way he said that—as if stating a fact—felt as romantic as the kiss they’d shared. “I know you wouldn’t,” she said. “You’ve protected me before—just as I would protect you.”
“Just as you have protected me,” he corrected her gently, a slightly mischievous half-smile tugging at his mouth, “or do you think that I’ve forgotten your promise at Haven—that I don’t know the caress of your barrier magic as well as you know mine?”
Oh, by the Creators, she wanted to kiss him again! Instead, she contented herself with reaching for his hand and smiling when he threaded his fingers through hers. “You said the orb was ours,” Ellana recalled as they walked together, “something from the time of old Arlathan.”
Solas nodded. “That’s right—foci of power, said to be dedicated to individual members of our pantheon.”
“Do you have any idea which one?”
Solas paused. “Why do you wish to know?”
Ellana smiled. When they’d first gotten to know one another, she thought that he would reply to her questions with more questions because he was challenging her, and perhaps that was still the case to some extent. Now, though, she saw that he truly sought to understand her, following the paths of her thoughts through all their twists and turns like halla leaping through the forest. “Well,” she explained, “if Corypheus knows the orb’s history, then perhaps knowing more about it, like the god it’s dedicated to, will help us understand him—maybe even anticipate his next move.”
An approving smile tugged at the corner of Solas’s mouth. “It is wise to seek to understand your enemy,” he said, “but I doubt Corypheus cares much for the orb’s origin—only its power.”
She sighed. “That wouldn’t surprise me. He’s not the first Tevinter magister to scavenge something from our people, and he won’t be the last.” At least not until Tevinter looks more like the one Dorian imagines than the one it is now, she thought.
“There have been countless such vultures through the ages from all lands and walks of life,” Solas pointed out, “and every age has seen those fools who seek to return to some imagined glorious past at any cost.”
Ellana stopped for a moment. “Are we any different?” she asked softly, looking up at Solas, who raised his brow quizzically. “The Dalish, I mean. My clan.” Me. “We try so hard to keep what we can of Halamshiral—and Arlathan before it—but how much of what we remember is true?” She recalled what Mother Giselle had told her once: the Maker works both in the moment and in how it is remembered. As much as some part of her had begun to hope that she could bridge her world and the humans’, Ellana knew now that she had gained the power to close rifts by chance, not by Andraste’s intervention. How many of the legends she’d studied as First were the same, allegories told to explain the unexplainable—to make sense of the collapse of Elvhenan and the kingdom of the Dales? “You’ve seen more in your journeys in the Fade than I knew was even possible. Are we trying to remember something that never existed?”
Solas stared at her, unblinking, his expression thunderstruck. “I wish all Dalish would ask themselves the same,” he said after a moment. “No, I wish all thinking beings would ask themselves the same.
“I cannot answer your question, Ellana,” Solas continued, “at least not in a way that will satisfy you. Perception shapes memory: no two people will experience something exactly the same. It is as I told you: the memories I witness in the Fade differ based on the thoughts and impressions of those who leave those memories behind. A noble will remember Arlathan differently than a slave.”
Ellana started. “A slave? There were slaves in ancient Arlathan?!”
Solas gave her a rueful smile. “There have been slaves in every empire in history,” he said, “even in those that claim it does not exist. Sometimes, they are called servants. Sometimes, they even have what the powerful call freedom, but they lack the power to change their circumstances materially.”
Ellana frowned. “An empire full of magic, where spirits flocked as freely as birds, yet the nobles kept slaves?”
“Is it not so different from Tevinter,” he challenged her, “albeit with more spirits?”
Ellana sighed and nodded. As always, he had a point. “I understand.”
“That you even thought to ask is a credit to you,” he said, squeezing her hand, “and it shows great wisdom that you seek truth rather than ill-placed nostalgia. You are a rare light in this world, Ellana.”
Ellana swallowed, the earnestness of Solas’s words rendering her temporarily speechless. Already, he'd taken root in her heart. That he could say such things with a straight face! I’m only mortal. “I don’t think I’ve ever met anyone quite like you,” she said finally.
Solas laughed. “I should hope not,” he teased her.
That piqued her curiosity. “What do you mean, hahren?” she asked.
He smirked, his full lips practically taunting her with their kissability. “I mean that I would hate for you to see my jealousy.”
Oh, Ellana very much liked that idea. “I wouldn’t,” she muttered. She wouldn’t want him to be possessive of her, but protective…she could enjoy seeing him protective of her affections. My very own Emerald Knight.
Solas laughed. “You may change your mind if we encounter a desire demon.”
“I don’t know,” Ellana mused. “Can you desire what’s been given freely to you, or is that just finding your own purpose?”
He nodded approvingly. “A sage insight,” he said, a hint of mischief in the quirk of his mouth, “one that we hopefully needn’t test tonight.”
She laughed and glanced down at their joined hands. Here in the Fade, the Anchor felt different, humming rather than the buzzing it did in the waking world. Another memory stirred, and her smile began to fall. “That spirit—the one in the Divine’s form—said that the Anchor could only be removed if I died,” she recalled.
Solas grimaced. “The spirit could have been wrong.”
Ellana gently squeezed his hand. How steadfastly he held her marked hand in his—and how desperately she wanted him to hold her like this for a lifetime! “Maybe,” she mused, “but it nearly killed me before, didn’t it? You said you ran all the tests you could think of when I was asleep.”
“That was when I couldn’t consult my spirit friends,” Solas replied, “but you’ve since closed the Breach. It should no longer frighten away the gentler spirits whose counsel I sought. There will be another way to rid you of the Anchor.”
He spoke with such conviction that Ellana couldn’t bear to contradict him. “I hope you’re right,” she said sincerely.
“As do I,” he replied. “You’ve no idea how much I—” He cut himself off, agony flashing in his stormy violet eyes.
Her heart lurched. “What is it, Solas?” she asked gently.
Solas sighed, and his expression turned tender and wistful. “Walking physically in the Fade with you was a miracle,” he said, his hand moving to caress her cheek. “To Dream with you now…” He trailed off for a moment and chuckled when Ellana practically nuzzled his palm. “You remain a most mesmerizing mystery, Ellana—one I would dearly love to unravel.”
Ellana bit her lower lip to stifle a needy gasp. She'd been trying so hard to be patient ever since their kiss—to give him the time he'd needed to think about whether to take a chance on them—and now here he was, so wise and kind and wonderful and sad, and she ached for him. “Would you unravel me, hahren?” she asked, unable to conceal the yearning in her voice.
“Oh, yes,” he murmured, his voice dropping an octave and his hand moving to the side of her throat, “slowly and carefully, until I know every fascinating part of you as well as I know myself.”
“I look forward to it,” she replied breathlessly. Then, because she suspected he liked it, she added, “Hahren.”
She was right: no sooner had she said the word than he pounced, and they were once more falling through the Fade. A split second later, her back hit a plush mattress that materialized beneath her as Nightmare’s realm shifted into what seemed like a well-appointed bedchamber in a style of which Ellana had only ever seen fragments. An ancient elvhen ruin, she realized, one he must have seen in its prime in his journeys. Even Ellana’s and Solas’s own clothes had transformed into sheer silk robes, finer than anything she’d ever owned in the waking world. She would’ve enjoyed pausing to take in how Solas had transformed their dream, but he was on top of her, and his mouth found her neck, and her focus narrowed to Solas—the weight and the heat of him, so solid and warm when all around them was mist. He groaned and began to kiss and nip and suck his way down the column of her throat, as if determined to leave his mark on her here in the Fade. “Dearest Ellana,” he murmured against her skin, “you are an utter temptress.”
“Says my shameless seducer,” she teased him, caressing his head with one hand, “not that I’m complaining.” She traced the edge of his ear with her other hand, briefly admiring the golden piercings that glinted in his ear. He looks like a rebel prince, she thought, head swimming with desire, like a hero from one of Deshanna’s fables.
Solas chuckled, his mouth moving down from her clavicle to the valley between her breasts. “This is a wedding bed,” he explained casually, as if they were conversing over hot cocoa rather than intertwined half-disrobed in the Fade, “in the style of ancient Elvhenan. Newlyweds could spend years learning one another and celebrating their union in such a bed.”
“Is that what we would do, you and I,” Ellana panted, stroking every square inch of his skin that she could reach, “in old Arlathan?” This was fast—faster than she’d expected, even after the passion she’d tasted in his kiss—but, by the Creators, she didn’t want to stop. She wanted more—more of this, more of him.
He chuckled as he moved further down, his mouth now at her navel. “Oh, Ellana,” he murmured, “an age in this bed with you would pass in a moment, and I—” He cut himself off again, exhaling with a sigh, and he rested his forehead on her belly. “Ir abelas, Ellana,” he said, lifting his head to meet her gaze, his eyes alight with ardor and his muscles tense with restraint. “I should have never—I swore not to endanger you.”
Ellana took his face in her hands. “You’re not,” she rushed to reassure him. “Nightmare is gone, and I—I trust you. I want this with you.”
“But you do not yet know—not here,” he said with some difficulty, “not where I cannot guarantee your safety.”
She smiled. My own hero indeed. “I thought you said things were easier for you in the Fade.”
He let out a huff of a laugh. “That is true,” he allowed, “but I would rather not make love to you in a place where a desire demon could interrupt us.”
Ellana flushed, and her smile widened to a grin. A Dalish maiden, especially a First, didn't let just anyone into her bed, and Ellana herself had always been a romantic. Even despite his criticisms of her people, Solas seemed to understand what sharing this intimacy with him would mean to her, both as a Lavellan and, perhaps more importantly, as Ellana. By making love to her, he would be declaring his desire to bond with her—and she with him. There was something refreshing and deeply moving about the forthrightness of his intentions. No one has ever made me feel like this, she thought, and I'm starting to think that no one else ever will. “When we wake, then,” she murmured, caressing his cheek.
He laughed again and moved back up to press a kiss to her lips. “When we wake, vhenan.”
For the second time since she’d met him, Ellana jolted awake, the ghost of Solas’s kiss still tingling on her lips and his words of love still echoing in her ears, and she smiled.