Chapter Text
Everything was a cacophony of light and chaos. The Fade's familiar unreality tore at the edges of perception as Magda and Solas plummeted through the rift. Her grip on him was iron, her bloodied fingers pressed against his breastplate. Emmrich's final scream still echoed in her ears, louder than the roar of magic or the pounding of her own pulse.
They hit the ground with a bone-jarring thud, knocking the breath from her lungs and tearing Solas from her grasp. They both went rolling, body over body, limb over limb. A sharp, involuntary cry escaped her as the knife wound in her side tore wider.
The dull expanse of the prison stretched around them, shifting and alien, but eerily silent. Even the Fade seemed to be holding its breath.
“You,” Solas spat, his voice rough with unbridled fury. “Have you any idea what you’ve done now?”
Seething, the metallic tang of blood filled her mouth. Even in his rage and desperation, he had so neatly slotted the lyrium dagger between her ribs. Though she still drew breath for now, she wasn’t sure how much longer that might last.
“I kept you from plunging the world, as we know it, into ruin,” she rasped, fighting to push herself up off the stone floor.
“The world, as you know it, is already ruined!”
Magda coughed, the motion wrenching a fresh wave of pain from the wound in her side. Warm blood slicked her fingers as she pressed them against it, trying—and failing—to steady her breathing.
Solas loomed over her, his fury crackling in the air like a storm about to break. His hands clenched at his sides, trembling, as if he were holding himself back from doing something irreversible. His gaze burned into her, sharp and unrelenting.
“And whose fault is that?” she spat back, forcing herself to meet his eyes even as her vision swam. “Your arrogance has cost more lives than I can count. You killed them, Solas. Lucanis, Emmrich...” Her voice broke on his name, but she forced herself to keep going. “All to soothe your wounded pride.”
His jaw tightened, the rage in his expression flickering, fracturing, before settling into something colder. “I am finished trying to explain myself to you, Rook. You cannot even begin to comprehend the gravity of what my mistake cost.”
Her breath hitched, each inhale a struggle against the searing pain in her ribs. Around them, the prison pulsed faintly, as though it were alive—watching. The air was heavy, thick with something oppressive and otherworldly, but still she forced herself to sit up, meeting his gaze with defiance.
“I understand enough.” She pushed herself up onto her knees, one hand still pressed to her side, glaring at him with everything she had left. “I understand that everyone I’ve ever cared about is dead because of you. I am alone, and in a few short minutes, you will be too.”
The silence that followed was deafening. Solas’ posture stiffened, his lips parting as if to retort, but the words didn’t come. She could see it, just beneath the surface of his anger—a flicker of something like grief. Or guilt. Maybe both. It didn’t matter, though.
It wouldn’t bring them back.
Grimacing, a shallow, wet wheeze rattled through her chest. This wasn’t her first brush with death, and though it was certain to be her last, she wasn’t afraid. The world was safe and her work was done. Her vision blurred, edges darkening, but she forced herself to keep her focus on him. If she had to face oblivion, she would do so looking him in the eye.
“No.”
The single, simple word was rife with so many unspoken things. It was just as much a plea as it was a declaration.
Magda flinched when Solas moved to kneel at her side. Stubborn and proud, unwilling to grant him any hope in the desolation of his regrets, she tried to push him away. Even in spite of his own injuries, he easily deflected the feeble swat, grasping her wrist.
“I will not suffer the consequences of your foolishness alone,” he murmured begrudgingly. “This place is your punishment as much as it is mine.”
Hissing as Solas’s grip tightened around her wrist, a fresh jolt of agony surged through her body. His movements were precise, clinical, as he held her bloodied hand away from her wound to inspect the damage. The look on his face was inscrutable.
“Don’t,” she barely managed to rasp, trying to twist free, though her strength had all but faded completely. His magic flared as he pressed his hand to her side. A shudder rippled up her spine, the icy burn of mystic healing threading through her veins. It wasn’t enough to close the wound entirely—she could feel the edges of it still, stinging and raw—but it stemmed the bleeding.
It was enough to keep her alive.
Strength spent, she sagged, but the defiance in her eyes didn’t waver. “I assume you have a plan for me then? Or is this an attempt to ease your conscience?”
Solas stood abruptly, his expression darkening once more. “You will die when this place allows it, not a moment sooner. Until then, we endure.”
“You mean when you allow it.” She snapped, doubling over to brace her hands against the stony ground. “Because otherwise you’re alone to face your guilt until time ends.”
In his silence, she could feel his eyes boring into her with a near unbearable intensity. This place may have reflected regret, but she was going to call it out until her voice gave out, and the echoes of it lingered. If she had to live under the weight of her own regrets because he was afraid to be alone, then her survival would be an addition to his long list.
“Can you stand?” His voice was tight and his words clipped with frustration.
“Fuck off.”
Even over the ringing in her ears, she could hear the soft growl he let out.
“You are insufferably stubborn,” he muttered, making her choke out a bitter laugh. If he hadn’t already learned that about her after the amount of time he had spent in her head, she was going to have to school him more thoroughly. There was a reason Varric called her Rook. She had always been an unshakable bastion in her resolve.
Though, before she could attempt to force her quaking form upright once more, she felt his arms snake around her and pull her from the ground. A startled yelp rushed past her lips as her eyes flew open, the dull landscape still blurred at the edge of her periphery. Her strength was too far gone to fight him as he shifted to cradle her in his arms as if she were no more than a child.
“What are you doing?” She demanded. “Put me down! I don’t need your help.”
For all her anger and sharp words, she hated how small she felt in his grasp. Even more so, she hated the way the warmth of his magic lingered where his hand had touched her, even as the rest of her body ached with cold.
“I am taking you somewhere you can recover without doing further harm to yourself,” he snapped back. “Now stop your squirming, lest you break open that fragile wound again.”
Though coiled and ready to lash back, Magda’s protests died in her throat as the air around them began to shift. The dull, oppressive glow of the Fade prison shimmered, the uneven expanse underfoot distorting with each step Solas took. She blinked, her head lolling slightly, trying to force the world into focus.
The ground beneath them smoothed out, the fractured edges of the prison giving way to the suggestion of cobblestones, slick with mist. Solas slowed, his arms tightening around her slightly, his sharp gaze darting across the newly forming landscape.
Ahead of them, rising out of the fog like a not-so-distant memory– soft at the edges– was a structure she knew too well.
“The Lighthouse,” she whispered, the words leaving her lips unbidden.
Solas’s jaw tightened, but he said nothing.
It was unmistakable. The weathered stone tower stretched upward, its silhouette fractured against the ethereal glow of the Fade. Its light—once a warm, welcoming beam—flickered erratically, casting long shadows that seemed to twist and writhe.
As painful as the barely mended gash in her side was, the pang in her chest clawed at her even more. The place she called home until then stood, as it had, the last time she’d seen it. It was now a monument to a failure she could never quite erase. The faces of those she had lost blurred at the edges of her mind, like specters just beyond reach.
But then she looked at him. The set of his jaw, the slight hesitation in his steps, the way his gaze lingered on the tower as if it, too, had a hold over him.
“This isn’t just mine.”
His silence was telling. He continued forward, carrying her toward the tower, his eyes fixed on its flickering light. “It does not matter whose memory it is,” he said finally, though the tension in his voice betrayed him. “The Fade has chosen this place for a reason. It may provide shelter, for now.”
The cobblestones beneath them solidified fully, and the mist parted as they reached the base of the Lighthouse. Up close, it loomed impossibly tall. The large double doors creaked open without prompting, giving way to an interior that felt as foreboding as it was familiar.
She stiffened in his arms, her fingers curling into weak fists. “I don’t want to go in there.”
“Neither do I,” Solas admitted, stepping inside regardless. “But this place cares little for what either of us wants.”
The library was exactly as she had left it in the waking world. The chairs and sofa around the small table in the center of the tower were empty, and a handful of books were left on the tabletop beside Lucanis’s empty coffee cup. He’d said he would return it to the kitchen when they returned from Minrathous.
She wondered when the crows might find him, petrified alongside Emmrich at the Archon’s palace. There had to be so many dead and wounded to recover already. For all she knew, her allies could still be fighting Elgar’nan’s forces. There was nobody left that witnessed it to tell them they had won the day.
Though, victory felt hollow.
The stairs to the second floor wound steeper than Magda remembered. Each step Solas took sent a jolt through his body, his breath shallow and uneven. Blood seeped through the rents in his armor, but he didn’t falter.
Markedly subdued in his arms, her breathing was a shallow rasp that broke the otherwise oppressive silence of the Lighthouse. They passed Taash’s room first, her thoughts snagging momentarily on her friend’s fate. Perhaps they had made it out alive. They were the only remaining member of her team that hadn’t followed her up to the palace.
Magda’s eyes fluttered as they passed the infirmary next, her gaze unfocused. The siren call of unconsciousness beckoned sweetly to her, tempting her to rest her weary soul. The weight of her own body felt unbearable, the pain in her side a dull roar that drowned out everything else. Even the anger that had sustained her this long was beginning to fray at the edges.
The next step made Solas falter slightly, a sharp intake of breath betraying his pain before he forced himself forward. Magda felt the hitch in his movements, the way his arms tightened around her almost instinctively, as if he feared dropping her.
Her lips parted, dry and cracked, but no words came out. What was there to say? To ask if he was all right? To accuse him again of everything she’d lost? It all felt distant, blurred by the murmur of her heartbeat in her ears and the soft, incessant pull of sleep.
Every blink brought her closer to the meditation chamber she’d inhabited than she anticipated. It felt wrong now. It had been her refuge on hard days. It was where she would go to seek guidance from Solas when she was lost. Now, it might as well be her tomb.
He crossed the room in silence, his steps slower now, uneven, though he betrayed no further sign of pain. Magda stirred faintly in his arms, her head rolling against his chest, but her eyes stayed closed this time. His movements were careful, deliberate, as he laid her on the couch. He adjusted the pillow beneath her head, his bloodied hands leaving faint smudges against the fabric.
She felt his fingers graze her wrist briefly, as though checking for something—her pulse, perhaps. She wanted to say something, to push him away, to remind him that she didn’t want his help. But her body refused to cooperate, her voice catching in her throat.
“Rest,” he said simply, his tone weary. “You will need your strength.”
Her eyes fluttered open briefly, watching him through a haze of exhaustion. He stood with his back to her, his posture rigid, his shoulders tense. She could see the blood staining his hands, his armor, the faint tremor in his movements as he turned to leave the room. For a fleeting moment, he didn’t seem like the powerful, arrogant figure she had known him to be. He looked… fragile.
She closed her eyes again, letting the silence stretch between them.
The door creaked faintly as it closed behind him, and only then did she let her breath hitch, the sound breaking like glass in the stillness. Her chest tightened, the gravity of everything finally crashing down on her. Tears sprang to her eyes, her face scrunching as she fought to stifle the ragged sob that forced itself from her lips.
Emmrich’s smile flashed behind her eyes—his laugh, his voice, his warmth. Death had terrified him so much, and she’d led him straight into its crushing embrace. The things she had loved so much about him were nothing but memories now, and she had been pulled away from following him into oblivion.
Solas was right. This place was just as much a punishment for her as it was for him.