Chapter Text
The basement bar is dim and smoky, its twilight haze gentling the sharp edges of the secrets whispered in amongst faded velvet booths and occluded corners. Shadows, shifting like curtains of heavy gauze, divulge spindly tables pushed too close together, patrons speaking in low, confidential murmurs, the yellowed keys of an ancient piano. The bottles arrayed behind the counter glint softly as if underwater, and the atonal chink of glass against glass rings out across the husky croon of the singer warming up at the front of the room.
A flight of well-worn steps lead down from the street, and at their foot a tall, slim elf leans against the doorframe, holding a lit cigarette coolly between his fingers as he gazes out over the bar. He is dressed in a double-breasted black overcoat, his collar turned up against the chill outside, reaching almost to the tips of his long, elegant ears. He wears a little trilby too, but when he reaches up and removes the hat it can be seen that his head is shaved, so precisely done that even when the light of the gas-lamp flickers over him the shadows of the day’s growth are only just visible at his temples.
The bar is named the Deep Roads, a nod to its dubiously legal status - the proprietor Bodahn Feddic has an approach to licensing laws which could be summarized as ‘ask forgiveness, not permission.’ Bodahn himself is a jocund dwarf with a salt-and-pepper beard who weaves expertly between the tables, stopping to speak to the most distinguished of his patrons before finally making his way to the back of the room to greet the elf waiting silently there.
‘Messere Solas!’ he says delightedly, butchering the Orlesian accent in his own inimitable way. ‘What a pleasure to see you again!’
‘Do you have a table?’ Solas asks. It is of course only a formality; he knows that for him there will be a table. A few years ago he got Bodahn out of quite a curious scrape involving his son and an inexplicable series of dead bodies, and ever since then the doors of the Deep Roads have always been open to him.
‘Certainly. Are you here alone?’
‘I am,’ says Solas says shortly.
Bodahn smiles. ‘Very good, messere. Then there will be nothing to distract you from the music. We have a very fine singer working tonight.’
Solas expected nothing less; the ambience of the bar is a little too grimy for his taste, but he comes for the music, which is reliably excellent. ‘Good,’ he says, and he stubs his cigarette out on the ash-tray on the bar before removing his overcoat to hand to Bodahn. Beneath it he wears a very neat three-piece suit; its precise tailoring accentuating his slender waist, its creases pressed to such a degree they are almost blades.
At Bodahn's urging, Solas takes up a seat in one of the leather armchair on the corner, placing an order for a whiskey and then stretching his long legs out in front of him. At this hour the haze of the bar is almost restful, and the low murmuring voices mingle pleasantly around him, with a few more notable words emerging slyly out of the gin-soaked shadows: Murder. Detective. Alibi. He suspects that he has been recognized. He does not mind, as long as none of them try to approach him for autographs.
By the stage, the singer is preparing to begin her act. She is a small woman with an untameable mop of curly dark hair, and she wears a fringed red dress which only just grazes her knees, divulging shadowed glimpses of her lower thighs. Her arms are bare, revealing a sprinkling of freckles on her shoulders; hazy shafts of light limning the muscles of her forearms as she adjusts the microphone, quiet motions like shifting leaves dappling the smoky haze all around her.
Then she turns and Solas notes with a little jolt of surprise that she is an elf - not only that, a Dalish elf. It is unusual to see a Dalish elf in Val Royeaux at all, let alone performing at a venue such as the Deep Roads. Her talent must be considerable, he thinks, if it has induced Bodahn to look past the vallaslin on her face. The curled figure reminiscent of a treble clef across the right eye is the symbol of Sylaise, he remembers, and then quickly turns his mind aside from the thought.
When his whiskey arrives he swirls it irritably in one hand - the performance is late beginning, and Solas detests unpunctuality with a passion that he otherwise reserves for his most dangerous enemies. But the cool, clean clink of ice against glass is one of his favorite sounds, and when he tastes the drink he finds it full-bodied and smoky, and the quality of the vintage goes some distance toward relieving his irritation at Bohdan's lax timekeeping.
He drinks pensively for a few minutes, then withdraws a gold pocket-watch from his waistcoat and consults it, wrinkling his brow when he perceives the time reported there. Indeed, he is just on the verge of going up to make a complaint when there comes a crackling of static from the microphone, followed by a succession of chords from the piano, falling like wintry raindrops into the dim miasma; an expectant silence rippling out in their wake.
Then the Dalish woman begins to sing, and Solas sits up. That voice. It's deeper than he would have expected from the size of her, and buttery smooth but for an edge of huskiness around the curves of the syncopated crotchets; he thinks, irrationally, of spiced honey. Her delivery has great technical precision, but her mastery is such that she allows herself to relax a little at the peaks of the cadences, letting the phrases grow and breathe. Her dark eyes wander over the crowd as she sings, and her gaze is so intense that he finds himself shifting in his seat when it passes briefly over the corner where he is sitting. He has the impression that she lingers for a moment on him, and he looks away, oddly unbalanced.
The way the pleats of her crimson dress fall over her hips is utterly devastating, but Solas is only here for the music, so of course he does not notice that for more than a moment.
She is singing a love song, and there is a shuddering, aching tenderness in the way she handles the language of love. When he holds me in his arms, she sings, and then, He said that to me, swore it for life. When she begins another song it is a love song as well, the opening syllables burrowing down beneath Solas' ribcage and settling there like a bruise. Indeed, all of the songs she sings are love songs, and he finds himself wondering who she keeps in her mind as she performs them.
He does not have to wait long to find out. As her performance finishes she offers one last lingering, absent smile to the audience, and then she turns away from the stage. A tall human man approaches her – blonde and curly-haired, bulky, impossibly square. Solas can tell from a single glance that he is the kind of man who is very good at repairing cars. He puts a careful arm around the singer's shoulders, and she smiles up at him, and her mouth shapes a word – an endearment, Solas knows, because he has been watching her lips shaping endearments for the last three songs. Suddenly he notices that there is an engagement ring on her finger, and he feels his own lips purse involuntarily.
The couple stands motionless, smiling at one another, and the the room shifts and moves and wavers around them, as if in orbit. Motes of light stretch through the filmy haze to lie gently across that upturned face.
Then the singer puts her hand on her fiancé’s lapels, drawing him in for a kiss; when he detaches himself and laughs cheerfully at something that she has said, his laugh carries right across the room to stir the paper napkin sitting on Solas' side table. Solas finds himself wondering what this woman could possibly see in such a man. Oh, he is attractive, in an obvious way, but an artist of her calibre would surely want something more than a pair of broad shoulders.
'Cullen Rutherford,' says a voice at his shoulder, and he looks over to see that Bodahn has arrived to bring him another whiskey and a pack of his favorite Amrita cigarettes. 'New money, but money nonetheless. She’s done well for herself.'
'I did not know you had any Dalish entertainers,’ Solas says stiffly.
'We didn't, before her. But Jacqueline Lavellan is special. You must have seen that.'
'I did,' Solas says tersely. 'Lavellan, you say?'
'You know the clan?'
'Only by reputation,' Solas says sourly. Across the room the pianist has begun to play again, a soft swaying waltz which emerges with implausible delicacy from those ancient keys, and Cullen is guiding Jacqueline into a dance. She is a better dancer than he, but there is an attunement between them which makes up for the disparity in skill. His hips move against hers in slow circles, his head bowing so their foreheads are pressed together; those dark eyes lowered, but flickering up to his face and then away, the heartbeat tremor of her lashes against the shadowed curve of her cheek.
Solas finds his eyes drawn back to the way Cullen’s fingers trace along the curve of Jacqueline’s waist. It has been a long time for him; sometimes it feels indecent merely to watch two people hold one another. He tips his glass to let the last drops of whiskey sting like tiny points of light against his lower lip, but there is a thirst deep in his bones that the drink cannot shake.
Settling back in his chair, he tells himself with a smug little shake of the head that Jacqueline will certainly get bored of this man within a year and regret her precipitous marriage. He looks at his pocket-watch. Perhaps she will perform again later?
But he is beginning to perceive a disturbance from the back of the room – a sense of motion, whispers spreading, heads turning. Clearly a person of importance is arriving. Solas tuts impatiently; while he is not blind to the surreptitious pleasures of observing the rich and powerful at play, he is here tonight for music, and he finds that celebrated guests have a tendency to disrupt the atmosphere.
Still, he turns to look, and when the crowd clears a little he catches sight of a tall woman standing in the doorway at the back of the bar, a satisfied little smile upon her lips as she surveys the stir that her arrival has provoked. She has dark blonde hair with a little grey at the roots, set into perfect gleaming waves that cascade into a glorious scaffolding all around her face, casting the mascara that highlights her eyes into sharp relief. Her dress is pure white with red accents at the wrists and hems – it looks simple, but Solas knows it is the kind of simplicity that one pays enormous sums for in the boutiques of Val Royeaux, and judging by the precise and flattering way it accentuates her figure it was worth every penny.
‘Justinia,’ Bodahn whispers as he passes back by Solas' chair. ‘The Chantry heiress.’
'Ah,' Solas says, and he drinks the rest of his whiskey in a single mouthful, his frown deepening. The Chantry is perhaps the most profitable conglomerate in Southern Thedas, principally famous for its cosmetics but also very successful in a number of other markets, including an offshoot surveillance company known as the Templars. From the papers Solas knows that Justinia has recently inherited the company after her mother's sudden death; before her succession to the role she was well known for her good works, and he is waits with interest, though admittedly not optimism, to see if her purported virtue will reveal itself in her stewardship of the Chantry.
The heiress sails elegantly past Solas' chair, leaving a faint trace of jasmine in the air around him, an odd juxtaposition against the burn of the whiskey on his tongue. At the front of the room Jacqueline Lavellan turns away from Cullen and catches sight of Justinia, and her eyes widen with delight. Letting go of her fiancé’s hand, she hurries across the dance floor and throws her arms around Justinia – who, rather to Solas' surprise, does not object to the familiarity, but rather embraces Jacqueline in return. He sees what is surely an unusually genuine smile on the heiress’ face, and decides that they must have a longstanding friendship of some kind; there is the weight of a shared history in the way that they look at each other, the fond little way Justinia's hand lingers on Jacqueline's arm as she bends to allow Jacqueline to speak into her ear.
Despite himself, he is intrigued. The little group is close enough that he can pick up some words of their conversation, and he leans forward to hear more – a habit acquired from his occupation, naturally. It is professional curiosity, he tells himself, nothing more.
Jacqueline is talking happily, '… meet my … Rutherford … '
Cullen has been hanging back, but at this point he seems to pick up some kind of otherwise indiscernible signal from Jacqueline, and he hurries forward obediently, his eyes lowered. Justinia puts out a hand, and Cullen looks anxious for a moment, but then takes it and bends his head to kiss it, his lips hovering lightly over her pale knuckles. Solas sees Justinia's eyes lingering on Cullen for a moment, and he fancies that he catches a glitter of appreciation in her eyes. He shakes his head. Really, there is no accounting for tastes.
But he watches as the heiress casts another sideways glance at her younger friend's fiancé, and thinks to himself: that, surely, is asking for trouble.
The pianist has begun playing a different song: low and sultry, somehow managing to sound almost like a saxophone, ripples pouring themselves over the room like molten folds of glass. Justinia extends a hand to Cullen, and he looks startled. His eyes flicker to Jacqueline's face, and there is a moment of unspoken communication between them, like quick lightning against the melancholy sky of the dim little bar. But then he smiles, as if carefree, and takes Justinia's hand, and leads her onto the dance floor.
Solas leans back, languid, and watches as the pair begins to move. They make a handsome couple, there is no denying that. There is nothing at all improper about the way Cullen holds Justinia in his arms, and yet - the room’s flittering motion seems to narrow to a point all around them. As if a spotlight follows them; and yet there is no spotlight, only the intense focus of their own eyes fixed on one another. The low throb of the music expanding and contracting about them, the night's velvet opening up to their passage.
Solas looks back at Jacqueline Lavellan, standing on her own by the side of the dance floor. Her expression is frozen, immobile. But somehow Solas is able to see the slow, awful realization within her, rippling rain-heavy behind the shadowed glass of her eyes. He knows it well - the urgent need to pin down the precise moment of displacement, to find the instant that a life changes key. And he knows, too, that it is always futile; these transformations are visible only in retrospect, when you look back and discover that love is already lost.
***
Solas watches from his window as Felassan strides down the lane toward the entrance of the apartment block, his characteristically buoyant stride evident despite the distance. It is quite unfair, Solas thinks to himself, that even the way that Felassan walks is charming. He did not ring ahead to announce his arrival, but somehow Solas always knows when he is on his way.
He looks around his apartment, but concludes almost immediately that there is no need for further tidying. As always it is admirably neat and clean, though perhaps a little impersonal: the overstuffed white armchairs and carefully geometric end tables are exactly as they were when he purchased the apartment, the walls the same birds-egg blue, undecorated and appearing far too large in the absence of any adornment. On the coffee table stands a bowl full of unreasonably perfect pine cones, a bergamot-scented candle that has remained unlit for nearly a decade, and a book of nature photographs that Solas has never opened. The only touch of his own taste in the room is the easel standing in the corner, complete with some unfinished sketches of sunsets which Solas is deeply dissatisfied with and yet loath to give up on entirely. He will make one more attempt to remedy the flaws, and then he will inevitably throw the sketches out and begin something else.
The elevator doors open directly into the apartment; they slide apart to divulge Felassan, who strides out, tossing his hat toward the hat-stand. He misses, and it falls upside-down to the floor; Solas sighs and goes to pick it up, while Felassan throws himself haphazard into one of Solas’ clean white armchairs, pulling a newspaper out of his pocket. ‘Damn it. Too much of a good time last night.'
Felassan wears long canvas slacks and a tennis shirt open too far at the neck; his hair is twisted back into a bun behind his head, and his twining golden vallaslin glitter with a soft, winking light in the morning's dilute sunshine. He wears a wedding ring too. Solas does not look at it; he straightens the brim of the hat severely, then deposits it on the stand and goes over to the side table. 'Your tea is ready,’ he announces. Solas does not drink tea himself, but he keeps it in stock for Felassan's visits.
‘Perhaps I might actually need coffee today,’ Felassan says, grimacing as he rubs his temples, and then he opens the paper with a snap and begins to peruse it, vanishing behind the smudged, inky pages. But only moments later he peeps at Solas over the top of the paper, ‘Oh! Didn’t you tell me you met the Chantry heiress at the Deep Roads a few weeks ago?’
‘I did not make her acquaintance,’ Solas says drily, pouring coffee for both of them. ‘I simply watched her capture the room, and then took my leave when it became apparent that the music was not going to resume.’
‘She’s in the papers again.’
‘She is often in the papers.’
‘This time it's because she’s getting married,’ Felassan says. ‘To a fellow called Cullen Rutherford. It's rather a scandal - he’s significantly younger than her, and was recently engaged to someone else.’
Solas looks up, his attention captured. ‘Cullen Rutherford? You are sure?’
‘Come read the announcement if you like.’
‘I will take your word for it.’ Solas deposits Felassan's coffee on the little table beside him, placing it carefully on a triangular white coaster, and then takes his own over to the other armchair. He does not, however, begin to drink it, preferring to light another cigarette and smoke pensively, the fumes etching sinuous curves into the golden light pouring across his insipid beige carpet.
‘You are surprised?’ Felassan says, putting the paper down and delving gratefully into the coffee.
‘Mr Rutherford was at the Deep Roads that night too. With his intended, at that time. They seemed very much in love.’
‘Sometimes the heart changes quickly when large sums of money are involved.’
‘Well, quite.’ Solas says, and then second-guesses his own tone; he did not intend to sound bitter. Indeed, he is not bitter, and in any case his own trifling disappointments have never had anything to do with money.
Felassan regards him a moment longer, his forehead creased, so the vallaslin seem almost to move of their own accord beneath his dark brows; but then he puts the paper aside. ‘Anyway. Last time we spoke you said you were taking on a new case?'
Solas sighs. ‘I am undecided. The case is certainly intriguing, but it would be considerable trouble.'
'Trouble?'
'It would require travel.'
'You enjoy travel.'
'It would require that I embark on a cruise along the Enavuris river, through the Exalted Plains.'
'Ah.' Felassan grins widely. 'Yes, I recall our trip to Seheron. You were sick as a dog the whole way across.'
Solas frowns. 'I was merely a little indisposed.’
‘If you had been any more indisposed you would be dead.’ Felassan's dark eyes glitter with mirth, but then he says, ‘In any case, a river cruise should be different. The Enavuris is placid enough, and I've heard nothing but praise from people who've travelled that route. What's the case?'
Solas sighs, folding one slender ankle over the other and reaching for his little round glasses, the better to peruse the telegram that stands on the table beside him. ‘Well,’ he says, looking down to remind himself of the details. ‘You recall the recent death of Bastien de Ghislain.’
'Ah yes. Rather sudden, wasn't it? Not that anyone is likely to mourn him.'
‘On the contrary, my prospective clients are his children, and it appears that they do mourn him. More to the point, they believe that his mistress had a hand in his death. I have been asked to investigate.’
‘Vivienne de Fer? What possible reason could she have for doing such a thing?’
‘I’m told Bastien left rather a large sum of money to her in his will. Much to the delight of his wife.’
‘I’m sure,’ Felassan mutters.
‘At any rate, my clients have learned that Madame de Fer will celebrate her inheritance by embarking on a cruise along the Enavuris. They suggest that I take a berth and represent myself as being on vacation, so I can make an assessment of her without drawing attention.'
'This is the route that passes near the Veil, is it not?’
‘Yes, I believe so.’
'I have not been in that region for many years. Have you?'
'Of course not,' Solas lies smoothly. What Felassan does not know will not hurt him.
Felassan considers for a moment. ‘Will the Ghislain children pay for your berth?'
'Naturally they will cover expenses.'
'Will they pay for a second berth?'
Solas narrows his eyes, and reaches down to adjust the little wolf-shaped cufflinks on his crisp white shirt. He is already wearing his waistcoat, but his jacket is still slung over the back of the armchair, and his cravat hangs loose about his neck. 'Felassan,' he says wearily.
'What? People will think it's odd for you to go alone. Particularly since you will certainly not be able to hide your distaste for sailing.'
'Well – '
'But if your old friend dragged you along then it all makes sense! We are simply revisiting our old haunts. You're a curmudgeon, of course, but you're tolerating my whims because I'm simply too charming for you to resist.'
'I will concede that it would take us little effort to play those roles.'
'You see? You get a cover story. I get a free ride on a luxury cruise. Everyone wins.'
'Won't Abelas – '
'He's in the Arbor Wilds working on the excavation of that temple,' Felassan says, a trace of irritation in his tone; he and Abelas have been married less than a year, and Abelas seems to have spent much of that time away at the dig site. On balance, Solas thinks it is probably better not to ask for details.
‘You must have work,’ he says instead.
‘I can work on my next piece from the Exalted Plains. My editor won't mind.’
Solas rolls his cigarette between his fingers, and takes a long drag. Despite the sunshine, for a moment the air between them feels very cool and still. 'Felassan. Are you sure it is really a good idea?'
Felassan looks at him, the picture of wide-eyed innocence, and Solas honestly cannot determine whether or not it is an act. 'Why wouldn't it be?'
Because, Solas thinks to himself, there is a very specific kind of grief that comes from realizing too late that you were once in love with someone.
Looking at Felassan now, trying to decipher the little line of puzzlement at his temples, he remembers the delicacy of the tenderness between them when they fought side by side all those years ago. The way Felassan would sometimes look at him, the air seeming to pull tight between them - gentle, and yet somehow unyielding. It was merely a comfort in the darkness, he told himself at the time. They slept together only once and it felt ambiguous then, though in retrospect he can see that it was not. He thought he had all the time in the world to figure out what they were and what he wanted.
But somehow the moment slipped through his fingers. The circumstances were never right; Solas had his duty ahead of him; Felassan had his life to live. They did not agree about the Veil. Their parting was splintering, ambivalent, its aftermath unexpectedly painful because Solas did not know how to mourn something that had never truly begun. He has always grieved best by means of articulation, and here, without the capacity to articulate, he was merely helpless and bereft.
Many years later, after Solas returned from the other war and they rekindled their friendship, he watched Felassan fall in love with someone else and saw it all again in the cold light of a loss now rendered irrevocable. Solas has always been one to hold tightly to his might-have-beens: he does not want Felassan that way any more, but the unsaid words have become an unhealed wound, and he still does not know how to move past them.
Felassan is watching him. 'Solas?'
Could he explain? Certainly he has thought about it. Sitting Felassan down, a solemn confession: You know, back in the war, the first one, I was in love with you. What could Felassan possibly say to that? He does not even know which would hurt more: I was in love with you too, or I never felt that way about you. Nor does he particularly wish to find out.
'All right,' he says in a low voice. 'If you truly would like to come, it could be amusing.’
Felassan beams. ‘Naturally it will be amusing, if I am there.’
Despite himself, Solas feels the beginnings of an answering smile pull at his lips. Perhaps this trip will be exactly what they need, he thinks to himself. Perhaps there is yet a way to return to what they once were, before the wars left all of these scars between them.
***
On the shores of the Enavuris river, Solas stands with a glass of champagne in his hand, looking out over the city of Serault and the waters moving restlessly below. The river is black and choppy and endless, its gold-gilded waves beckoning like a silent invitation - a road stretching out before him, a journey he is still not sure he wants to take.
Behind him, a cocktail party is in full swing. Gentle jazz drifts out across the river, from this distance seeming out of tune and distorted into an excessive rubato. The courtyard in front of the hotel is full of men in suits and women in soft pastels, voices rising through the night and folding into one another in effervescent tumbling waves. To Solas’ dismay, it appears that half of Val Royeaux’s elite have chosen to summer in the resort town - chief among them the famous Justinia, now Justinia Rutherford, honeymooning with her young husband.
When Solas looks back he can just make out the couple standing at the top of the steps leading down to the courtyard - Justinia arrayed in glorious light blue silk that clings like metallic paint about her impressive curves, and Cullen on her arm in a wildly expensive navy suit, still looking a little dazed. Justinia wears an expression of smug, glowing satisfaction and Solas thinks to himself that it is really not surprising at all that she would covet a husband like Cullen; someone pretty and biddable.
When he squints he can see Felassan flirting shamelessly with Justinia’s bodyguard, a severe-looking woman with short black hair; she's dressed in an open-collar coat bearing the insignia of the Seekers, which marks her out as belonging to the upper echelons of the Chantry's surveillance wing. Solas is very well aware that if he goes back to the party Felassan will flirt with him too, so he judges it better to remain where he is. He turns the champagne in his hands but does not drink it.
His solitude is interrupted by a dwarf dressed in a black shirt open far enough to reveal some truly impressive chest hair, together with a gold ring hanging on a chain around his neck. ‘Good evening,’ he says, extending his free hand toward Solas - the other being currently occupied with a tankard of ale, which he has managed to procure from somewhere despite the fact that the waiters are only serving champagne. ‘I’m Varric Tethras. And you're the famous detective, aren't you? I might have to grill you for ideas for my next crime procedural.’
‘Hardly famous, I think,’ Solas demurs, with entirely false modesty. He knows very well that he is famous, and that the fame is well-deserved. ‘And I do not believe that you are in need of ideas from me. I very much enjoyed the most recent volume of Hard in Hightown.’
Varric raises an eyebrow. ‘I wouldn't have thought a real detective would like my nonsensical murder books.’
‘Well, they are certainly not realistic, but that need not detract from my enjoyment. You are a talented storyteller, and I am a great believer in the power of stories.’
‘Now that’s what I like to hear,’ Varric says cheerfully. ‘Are you traveling alone, Solas?’
‘I’m here with my friend Felassan. We were stationed on the Exalted Plains during the war, and we thought it would be nice to see the place restored to its former glory, now that most of the damage has been repaired.' He clears his throat; he does not want to talk about the war. 'What about you, Master Tethras?’
‘My secretary Marian Hawke is with me. I have to hand in the next issue of Hard in Hightown shortly, so I’m afraid this will be something of a working holiday for us both - but I do find a change of scene to be good to shift my writer’s block.’
‘Ah, good,’ says Solas vaguely, but his attention has been caught by motion down beside the water. There is someone walking up the promenade toward the courtyard - a woman, striding determinedly, dressed all in white like a solitary, tragic bride. In the brief glimmer of the light reflected off the river she looks pale half-drowned, a cool aura of moonlit mortality gathering about her.
Then the light from the bay windows falls across her, and he sees with a shock that it is Jacqueline Lavellan. He does not know why it is such a shock; only that he never expected to see her again, and yet here she is, in this place where he once suffered so greatly. It is a bizarre and yet somehow not entirely unwelcome collision of these fragments of his past.
‘Something is afoot,’ he says abruptly to Varric. ‘Let us go see.’
Varric raises an eyebrow, but shrugs obligingly and falls into step behind Solas as he walks quickly back toward the courtyard. Across the way, the wind takes the wings of Jacqueline’s gown, whipping it about her in a fluttering frenzy; but above the white storm of her garments her face is perfectly calm, her expression blank and smooth. Her lips are etched with a swipe of crimson lipstick applied like armour, and her eyes are fixed ahead, on the place where Justinia and Cullen Rutherford stand together - frozen, as if transfixed, in the cold fury of Jacqueline’s gaze.
The other guests part like water to allow Jacqueline to pass, and she marches across the garden and comes to a halt at the foot of the stairs. Somehow, although Justinia and Cullen stand on the landing above her, it is as if she is looking down at them from a great height. 'Hello, Justinia,' she says, and then, 'Hello Cullen. My congratulations to you both.'
Justinia’s face is tight, lines of frustrated embarrassment standing out around her eyes, and meanwhile Cullen's expression is simply terrified. 'Jackie,' he says unhappily. 'What are you doing here?'
‘Don't you remember, Cullen?’ she says. ‘I’ve always wanted to take this trip. I meant to come here for my honeymoon. Since that won't be happening, I thought I’d come by myself.’
‘You have no right to be at this event,’ Justinia says coldly. ‘My security will - ’
‘You don't need to disturb Cassandra,’ Jacqueline says. ‘I’m a guest at the hotel. I have as much right to be here as anyone.’
Justinia’s mouth thins. ‘You’re making a fool of yourself, Jackie. What's done is done. There's no need to make a scene.’
Jacqueline's smile is narrow; predatory. ‘I have no intention of making a scene. I’m simply enjoying the party.’ She reaches out and takes a glass of champagne from the tray carried by a passing waiter, raising it to her mouth, and then tips her head back to drink, exposing the long elegant line of her neck to the silver light of the stars. When she takes the glass away there is a scarlet kiss upon the rim.
‘You can't follow us forever, Jackie,’ Cullen says roughly. ‘And this won’t get you what you want. You’d be best to give it up and go home.’
Jacqueline looks coolly at him; and then she gives another slow, cat-like smile. ‘No,’ she says. ‘I don't think I will.’
Justinia’s eyes narrow, and she whispers into Cullen's ear, and then turns on her heel and departs, followed by her impassive bodyguard. Cullen casts one last frustrated look in Jacqueline’s direction, but then he shakes his head and follows his wife into the hotel.
Left behind, Jacqueline laughs beneath her breath, low and dangerous; she drinks the rest of the champagne and then puts the glass down on a nearby colonnade and turns away. The crowd parts again for her, and she raises her head high and walks steadily across the courtyard into the little walled garden beyond. Around her, the hush left by the confrontation is lifting, and the remaining guests are descending into delighted chatter about what they have just witnessed.
Solas sees Felassan talking rapidly to a man with an impressive moustache dressed in an elegant purple jacquard overcoat, who appears to have a great deal to say on the matter. Catching Solas’ eye, Felassan tries to beckon him over. But Solas shakes his head and then, drawn on by an instinct he does not fully understand, he turns on his heel and follows Jacqueline Lavellan into the garden.
Here at least it is quiet: purple wisteria tumble from cast-iron arbors, and little rosebuds rustle softly in the faint breeze, which carries the heavy iron scent of the river up to mingle with the smudged floral perfumes of the garden. The symmetric ranks of Serault's townhouses lie beyond, bowing to meet their own shivered reflections in the quickly-moving waters below. There is a fountain at the centre of the garden but it is dry, its copper accoutrements a dull oxidized green; and at its dusty rim Jacqueline sits, her legs crossed in front of her as she gazes out into the darkness.
For a moment she was as a vengeful goddess, but here, now, she is just a person. She is thinner than Solas remembers, and beneath the vivid scrawl of her vallaslin he can see lines that were not there before. In the soft glow spilling from the hotel windows behind her she looks very tired and sad.
Her dress is sleeveless, and Solas notices goosebumps on her arms. He contemplates removing his coat and offering it to her, but suspects she would not welcome the gesture. ‘Miss Lavellan,’ he says instead, inclining his head politely. ‘Are you all right?’
She looks up quickly, and then gives a strained little laugh. ‘Of course. The detective. Did Justinia send you? That was quick.’
Solas is startled. ‘Oh,’ he says. ‘Do you - ’
‘Not such a brilliant detective then,’ she says. ‘Solas, is it? I’ve been watching, Solas. Getting to know the assembled company. I had to pick my moment, after all.’
‘Well,’ Solas says. ‘You certainly succeeded in making quite the entrance.’
‘I did, didn't I?’ Her laugh is just a little unsteady, but she hides it well. Too well, Solas thinks: she is evidently much practiced in such concealments. She traces her index finger along the mossy curve of the fountain edge, and he sees that her fingernails are short and unpainted, and the nakedness of her touch twists at something low in his chest.
Then she sighs, and looks back up at him. ‘Do you have a cigarette, by any chance?’
Solas offers her his silver cigarette case, and she takes one and puts it to her lips. He removes a lighter from his pocket and flips it on, holding the flame to the cigarette until it ignites; its little red circle pressed into the air like a raw wound.
She gives a long sigh, breathing out smoke, and somehow the sound insinuates itself into his bones, as if he has touched his fingers to a resonating bell. Unexpectedly, he finds himself wanting to help her.
‘You know,’ he says, ‘Love is not everything. It is only when we are young that we think it is.'
She looks up at him, and suddenly her eyes spark with a bright, flinty rage. ‘Oh, is that so?’
He frowns. ‘I only meant - ’
'Perhaps you would not be alone, Messere, if you were not so dismissive of love.'
He stares at her; surely he did not hear her correctly. ‘I beg your pardon?’
‘As I say, I have been watching. The man you travel with is married, but clearly not to you.’
This time he feels the words like a physical impact in his body, the very breath knocked out of him. He draws himself up. 'That you consider solitude to be such a terrible fate entirely proves my point.'
'Ah!' she says. 'Are you happy, then? Going home to a pristine empty apartment each night? Drinking alone in basement bars so the music can keep you company in your loneliness?'
Heat rises up his neck. 'Excuse me?' he says stiffly.
'Oh yes, I remember you,' she says, rising to her feet; little spots of red rage burn in her cheeks. 'You presume to lecture me on love when you are forced to seek it in a stranger's eyes and a basement love song.'
He intends to step back from her, but for some reason he steps toward her instead, so their chests are almost touching; the light lying unquiet along her collarbones, the white wave of moonlight across the exposed skin of her throat. 'You only reveal your own ignorance with these childish assumptions,' he snaps.
'And you imagine that you are not revealing anything?’ She laughs in his face - why are their faces so close? - and then says, ‘You regret your choices, and so you must convince yourself that they were right by offering unsolicited advice to anyone who seems liable to choose differently.’
Solas is not often moved to anger, but he is certainly angry now; he trembles with the quick pulse of his fury through all his veins. Her petulant accusations - her unbelievable impudence -
‘You know nothing at all of my choices, or what they have cost,’ he says, his voice low and deadly. ‘You wear those cursed markings as if they are a badge of honour. You come here chasing after a man who does not want you, parading around as if your silly little heartbreak is some great tragedy.’
‘Oh!’ she says. ‘Let me say, then, that you know even less of my choices!’
‘It is quite as Mrs Rutherford said. You are making a fool of yourself.’
She rocks back on her heels a moment, and her crimson lips round in a moue of fury; he does not know why he is even looking at her lips. ‘If I am, what business is it of yours?’
‘None!’ he says, too loudly, and then - though it takes a curious effort - he steps away from her. ‘I thought only to offer comfort. Clearly I was misguided. I will not disturb you again.’
She gives a little scoff beneath her breath. ‘Good,’ she says, and then she sits back down at the rim of the fountain, turning her eyes back to the river. If there are tears in her eyes, Solas tells himself, they are no doubt tears of rage.
His heart pounding faster than the conversation truly warrants, he retreats ignominously from the little garden and makes his way back toward the party. Beyond the lights of the city he sees the Exalted Plains stretching into the distance, little marsh-lights glimmering toward the horizon. He looks down, shame already gathering about his temples. A pulsing against his skin, as if another foreign beat swims up between the gaps in the smooth, lascivious jazz. He should never have come to to the plains again; nothing has ever gone right for him here.
***
Felassan and Solas met for the first time on a battlefield in the Exalted Plains, not far from Serault. It was the first war, the one against the Evanuris. Before the war began Solas had been a scholar, a devoted student of ancient elvhen history, well on his way toward a professorship. But when the cruelties of the Evanuris began to overflow beyond the limits of what they could conceal by means of censorship and silence, his conscience would not allow him to be idle: he was forced to put aside his monograph on the past of the elven people in order to do what he could to secure their present and future.
In the end it was Elgar'nan’s own ambition that spelled the doom of the Evanuris. If he and his fellows had confined their attention to crushing the life out of the elves who languished under their rule, the other nations of Thedas would undoubtedly have turned a blind eye to their transgressions. But Elgar'nan's expansionary ambitions led to incursions into Orlais and Tevinter, and the human nations took notice. An alliance quickly formed to stand against the 'elven threat,’ as the remainder of Thedas insisted on calling it.
The Evanuris were fearsome enemies: it took the united power of Orlais, Ferelden, Tevinter, Antiva and Rivain to depose them. Solas was deeply troubled by the necessity of this alliance, but he saw no option other than to join up and fight side by side with humans and dwarves and qunari in order to remove the tyrants. He did not trust the other nations to have the best interests of the elves at heart, but nor could he stand by and watch as the Evanuris ground their people - his people - into the dust.
He will never forget the wake of the victory; the triumph that rippled through the human armies, all the painful complexities of his own griefs and dilemmas reduced down to coarse, gleeful cries: the war is won! The elves are defeated! Hours upon hours of heedless carousing all across these very plains, songs and drunken shouts rising into the open sky, brittle white fissures clashing against the unfeeling stars. And meanwhile Solas sat with Felassan in a trench in the darkness, urgently twisting knobs on the radio, dread burrowing a fearful weight into his chest; his fingers shaking from the cold and the shattered, conflicted triumph.
At last they found the station, just in time to hear King Maric's voice echoing over the airwaves: 'From Andoral’s Reach in the Tirashan, to Ansburg in the Free Marches, a Veil has descended across the continent.' Solas heard those words, dim and crackling and broken apart by the poor transmission, and felt already the weight of history in them; imagined them as a punctuation mark, separating one side of his life from the other.
He had been right to distrust the human nations. In the wake of the victory, Tevinter acted ruthlessly to take over disputed territory in the north, seizing large tracts of land across Rivain, Antiva and Nevarra. And of course the entirety of Arlathan, the land that Solas had been fighting for in the first place. The very day that the armistice was signed Tevinter closed the border, sealing the majority of the elvhen people inside its new domain.
And then - silence. Word of the fate of the elvhen trickled slowly down to the south: their cities plundered, their people seized and put to work all across the new Tevinter empire. But the news arrived unreliably and seldom. The Veil, as it had come to be known, was impassable and in any case what lay beyond was no longer Arlathan at all.
Now, standing at the balcony of his hotel room and gazing bleakly out over the Exalted Plains, Solas remembers. The war is over; it has been over for many years. Behind him, his hotel room is cold and still, the bed precisely made, his clothes precisely folded. The war is over but Solas cannot go home. He will never go home again.