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Solas was not entirely certain when he first noticed something was wrong.
During his time tied closely to Rook's mind, he had become familiar with most of the landscapes of her dreams. Some were pleasant enough. Others were little more than fading memories given a rough form by the Fade. Most who are able to dream dream in fragments, their thoughts wandering without purpose.
Rook's mind was different.
Her memories possessed a stubborn resilience. Even the oldest among them remained vivid, clinging to life with a determination that mirrored the woman herself. He had seen moments of happiness. Children racing through the halls of the Necropolis. Shared meals around a crowded long table with a stern-looking woman at the head of it. Laughter echoed through stone corridors that should have felt cold but did not. He enjoyed those moments when memories gave way to Rook’s personality.
But he had seen pain as well.
A mother who viewed her daughter as a means to an end in an unhappy marriage. The scars left by betrayal. The countless wounds inflicted by being treated as something less than a person. A tool. A lump of flesh with no mind to the soul within.
Yet what intrigued him most was not the suffering.
It was what came after.
Most who endured such hardships learned to build walls around themselves. Rook did the opposite. She gathered people around her. The broken, the forgotten, the unwanted. What others dismissed as flaws, she seemed to view as reasons to stay. And they followed her so willingly. Not because she demanded it. Not because she sought admiration. But because she offered them something Solas had rarely seen in mortals.
Belonging.
It was a quality he found both admirable and deeply concerning. The darker corners of her mind, however, were far less welcoming.
There was one nightmare in particular that returned again and again. Damp stone walls stretched endlessly into darkness. Iron bars lined the corridor, separating dozens of children from a world that had already forgotten them. Some sat motionless in their cages, their eyes void of any life, while some were more sunken in than others. Few huddled together for warmth; the rags they wore did little to hinder the damp of their cages. Every race, every age, but no older than say fifteen, reduced to little more than frightened bodies waiting for the next cruelty.
Screams echoed through the halls.
So did prayers and begging for the pain to end.
Neither seemed to help.
Solas walked slowly down the corridor, passing Tavinter guards who paid him no mind. Red-robed figures drifted through the dream like ghosts, forever trapped in the memory of their own sins. At the end of the hallway sat a single door. Blood seeped from beneath it. Soft whimpers could be heard on the other side.
He had only reached it a handful of times.
Every attempt ended the same way.
The dream shifted.
The corridor twisted.
Something pushed him away.
The sensation always arrived as a faint tingle at the back of his neck before escalating into something far more forceful. Violent, even. Solas knew it was not Rook. Dreams did not defend themselves.
Not like this.
Which meant something else was hiding within her mind. And for the first time in a very long while, Solas found himself confronting a mystery he could not solve.
“You shouldn’t be here.” Solas’s hand freezes on the door handle that leads deeper into whatever pit he was currently in. Looking behind his shoulder is a small child, dressed in rags, their head shaved and scabbed. The child’s eyes are sunken, ribs prominent beneath ragged clothing. “Go away, Fen’Harel.”
“I was wondering if something was going to force me out again.” He let go, turning around to face the child. “You speak Elven. Are you a spirit?”
“And what will your answer be to mine? Friend or foe? You hurt this child and call it necessary.”
“A protector, then? I sense no enraged spirit or demon. It seems Rook is unaware of your presence.” Solas chuckles. “I wonder what you will do if I inform Rook.” Solas turned around to pull open the door when the room violently shifted, the memory being pulled out from under his feet. Solas’s mind goes fuzzy, and he feels ill. He clutches the door handle just as the feeling forces him to kneel.
“We said get out!” The shout scared him, a shiver running down his spine, a cold feeling washing over him. The floor opened up beneath him, bits of the fade leaking out from the black void of the hole as his grip became weak. His fingers slid off the handle, sending him down into the dark, but it was a quick fall. Ground met him with a hard thunk as he landed on his stomach. Getting to his hands and knees, Solas shook his head to clear the stars behind his eyes, but the cold feeling was back. Turning his head, he saw five children standing behind him. The one from before stood at the end of the line, their face stern and unfeeling. “Why do you insist on causing harm?”
“Face me plainly, spirits. I know what you are, and you know of me. Show yourself.” Solas got to his feet, dusting himself off with a scowl as he turned to face the children. Spirits taking the form of emaciated children would not shake his resolve.
The children stayed motionless, but the air around them tightened as though the Fade itself took offense to his command. This prison was meant to contain gods and regrets alike, yet these spirits moved through it freely.
The floor beneath him cracked and rippled like black water. Brief memory fragments surfaced, then sank into the dark. A Tevinter hallway ran endlessly behind the children, but quickly twisted into the crumbling Necropolis stone. Doors lined the walls, leading nowhere. Some opened into darkness, others flashed with Daisy’s memories before slamming shut. The sound echoed like thunder. Pale wisps of Fade energy drifted lazily through the air, carrying distant voices from no clear direction. Nothing remained stable for long. Only the children did.
“Why should we?” one child asked. “You who betray those in the name of freedom.”
“Justice.”
“Peace.”
“Responsibility.”
“Love.”
Each word cracked against his skull, and Solas felt his hands tighten into fists. He saw flashes: spirits falling in battle, friends dying at his feet. “They knew the risks,” Solas hissed. The Fade crackled violently around them as he continued, “I did what I must.”
“Did you?” The child in the middle, a slightly smaller elven child, spoke with tears in their eyes. “We all make choices, but which choice are you making now, Fen’Harel? What choice are you making for the sake of others?”
“I am trying to save my people,” Solas snapped. “I am finishing what I started. I created the Veil to trap the Evanuris. In doing so, I stripped the elven people of their magic and immortality, destroying their society.”
“That was then. This is now,” another child said, a tall human child stepping forward. “You already destroyed one world. Why destroy another?”
“To bring back the elven people! They have lost so much!”
“They are not the same people you tried to save before!” one child cried, tears streaming freely down their face. “They are gone. You cannot bring back the dead!”
“I can fix it.” Solas stood firm, his look hardened. His patience is wearing thin with the spirits before him. Who were they to judge him? After all he has done, after all he has lost…
“Lost?” The middle child stepped forward, the Fade moving about the child like water, twisting the surrounding area to reflect a more peaceful setting. The laughter of children running down a hall, a much warmer time. They were in the Necropolis, yes, but it wasn’t one of its’ darker halls. These halls were those of a home. A short-haired Daisy is being chased by other children in Navarran clothes. “And what of Daisy? Does your loss involve the hurt you are inflicting upon her? What has Daisy done to you that warrants such blind pain?”
“The Evanuris will infect everyone with the blight if I don’t put them back,” Solas murmured, voice breaking with the strain of fear and hope. “Rook…I make things right.” His words trembled, softer than before, as if grasping for reassurance he didn’t feel.
“And what of Daisy?”
“Collateral damage…that is what they call it? Described as unintentional deaths, injuries, or other incidental destruction inflicted on civilians?” The Fade shifted once more, and this time…it was the ritual site. Daisy, Neve, and Harding were trying to get Varric to see reason. That his friend was gone. “Was Varric collateral damage?”
“Thanks, Rook. Whatever else he is, he’s still my friend.”
“And if he won’t listen to me…then he’ll hear from Bianca.”
Solas was quiet.
He watched Varric climb the steps toward his death, still trying to reason with him even as the ritual collapsed around them. For a brief moment, Solas stepped ahead instinctively, the urge to stop it clawing at his chest.
“You need to listen.”
Fen’Harel chose otherwise.
The dagger drove forward.
“He…” Solas stopped and opened his mouth to say more, but they died as Daisy’s screaming Varric’s name echoed.
“Varric…Varric!”
“You lie,” a child spoke. “You lie to yourself and Daisy. He did not need to die.”
“It wasn’t my intention!” Solas shouted in anger, and a heavy feeling settled in his gut.
“And your intention is to draw out her pain? To use blood magic on her? Make her see what is not there?” A child spoke, and their voice was angry. The other children turned, together, toward the child who spoke. “What of that? Is that kindness?”
“Compassion.”
“Sympathy.”
“Mercy.”
“I am not here to be judged by spirits who are inhabiting a mortal body.” He glared and stood his ground. “Rook is not aware of you. I can assume that, but to have so many.” He scoffed. “She must be a special mortal. Some sort of pet?”
The children turned silent.
The Fade around them darkened, the warm halls of the Necropolis twisting slowly into something colder. Cracks spread along the stone beneath Solas’s feet as the children stared at him with quiet disbelief. “A pet?” The word rang strangely through the Fade.
The children looked at one another before turning back toward him as one. “You sent countless spirits into death.”
“You asked for devotion.”
“Loyalty.”
“Faith.”
“Courage.”
“And now you look upon us with disgust for loving one child?”
“And all those who came before chose to follow me,” Solas snapped.
“Some did,” the child answered. “I did not.”
Silence fell heavily over the Fade.
“You begged me to help. Begged me to aid those in your quest to make right a wrong that you created. That you started.” The children’s bodies fell one after one, falling to the ground in ash and dust. In their place rose something else. It did not possess flesh, but a body shaped from thought and memory. The entities towered before him as translucent silhouettes of different pale hues, their moving forms threaded with glowing lines resembling a vast nervous system made of starlight. Soft pulses of radiance traveled below its surface like living currents, branching from its chest down through its fingertips. It smelled of ozone coupled with old parchment, and its presence carried an unnatural calm that fell heavily over the room.
The smaller form, still a child, stepped forward, their pale eyes fixed upon him. “I do not regret not aiding you brother, but you know what you are doing is wrong. It won’t stop the pain. It won’t bring back those you lost.” The child reached out to take his hand, but Solas pulled back. “Hurting her won’t ease the guilt.”
Solas scoffed, though the sound lacked its earlier confidence. “You speak as though I enjoy what must be done.”
“No,” another spirit answered. “You call cruelty necessity.”
“Sacrifice inevitability.”
“And ruin mercy.”
The Fade cracked loudly around them. Solas straightened. “I do what is required to save my people.”
“And where did your choices leave your Inquisitor?” the smaller child questioned softly.
Solas froze.
“You once had trusted her. Cared for her. And yet you left her.” The words pricked, making Solas clench his teeth.
“Quiet.” He commanded.
“Do you even recall her name?”
“Her face?”
“What she sounds like?”
“Solas, var lath vir suledin…”
“ENOUGH!” Solas yelled, shaking the room around him. The inquisitor’s voice came from a green spirit, her tone exactly the same as when he was standing before her, her pleading look for him to go with her. “Don’t you dare use her here spirit.”
“Why not?” One the color of a deep purple spoke. The spirits fell silent. For a moment, the Fade seemed to hold its breath. The shifting memories around them slowed, fragments of Daisy's life hanging motionless in the air. No one answered immediately. Solas stood his ground, jaw clenched. He had heard these accusations before. Regret. Guilt. Failure. The prison fed upon such things. Yet the words lingered.
A spirit, deep gold, stepped forward. "You left your spirits."
Next, the color of light green. "You left your friends."
The deep purple spoke. "You left your Inquisitor."
Each word struck harder than the last. Solas said nothing.
The Fade shifted around them once more. Memories flickered at the edge of his vision—faces, voices, promises made and broken. He refused to look at them. "How many more hands must reach for you before you take one?"
Silence.
The question lingered between them. For the first time since their conversation began, none of the spirits looked angry. There was no hatred in their eyes.
Only disappointment.
The smaller child took a step back.
The Fade began to unravel around them. Solas was yanked back, being drawn back further into his prison before disappearing altogether. The spirits watched as Solas left the ripples of Daisy’s mind. One by one, each spirit standing beside it disappeared until only the child remained. "Oh brother..." It whispered softly, watching the place where Solas had vanished.