Anwen Mahariel: The Slow Arrow chp15

Chapter 15

Panting softly, face beading sweat, Saffron moved on top of Solas. Her fingers were tight within his. He watched her intently, and disentangling their fingers, he touched her face and drew her down to him. Their gasping lips brushed, then his tongue flicked her lip and he kissed her. She moved her hips slower, and her lashes fluttered when she felt it happen. His hands tightened on her naked hips, and his stifled cry vibrated against her mouth. They sagged together on his bedroll.

Saffron closed her eyes, feeling tired and content as Solas stroked her hair. She could hear the steady thrum of his heartbeat, and his warm wet skin against her warm wet skin was the most wonderful thing in the world. It suddenly occurred to her that he really wasn’t so different after all. Reawakening him as Fen’Harel wasn’t the end of the world. In fact, he was the one person all along who could save them.

“You . . . make me feel . . . sixteen again, da’len,” Solas panted. He kissed her head.

Saffron laughed softly.

“What?”

“I’m trying to imagine an immortal god at sixteen.”

Solas smiled. “I keep telling you I’m not a god. Only the stories made it so.”

“But you are immortal. You are one of our immortal ancestors.”

“Still prefer someone closer to your age? Didn’t your keeper have a boy lined up for you? That’s usually how the Dalish do things, isn’t it?”

Saffron smoothed her hand over his chest. “Solas?”

“Mm?”

“Were you really going to fight the Elder One alone? And trap yourself in the Beyond to do it?”

There was such a long pause, she didn’t think he was going to answer. When he did, his voice was hoarse, “Yes.”

It was several days after the battle with the Elder One.

When Elgar’nan finally fell, Saffron found herself running through the Veil and back to the battlefield. The sky swirled green and white, folding and shaking as the Veil threatened to permanently tear. They had lured the Elder One into the Beyond and left him there, weak, injured, and dying. Saffron could see her friends on the field, limping and bloody after a long and gruesome battle against demons, spirits, and those ancient beings who attempted to fight their way out of the Beyond.

Saffron was surprised to see that the Elder One and his accomplices looked like simple elves. They each had vallaslin. The Elder One himself had the blood writing spreading along the bridge of his nose and up his forehead. The immortal elves who fought at his side looked like any ordinary elves Saffron might have seen among her clan. But for their eyes. Their eyes swirled like black pools and sparkled like the night sky when it was scattered with stars.

They came one after another, and as Saffron fought desperately to send them back, she recognized them from Solas’ story. Mythal, the queen of Arlathan. Princes Falon’din and Dirthamen, her children. God after god attacked, living legends striking with fury. Saffron gritted her teeth and waved her staff, trying not to let it sink in that she was battling the Creators. She was killing . . . her gods.

When the Creators lay dead in a river of blood, the battlefield seemed to fall still. The wind picked up, dragging across the scorched grass. Faces lifted in a ripple to watch as the tear in the Veil twisted against the sky.

“You’d best lay ya whammy on the Veil, mum,” Sera said beside Saffron. She blew a stray lock of uneven hair out of her face.

Iron Bull came up beside Sera, his head tilted back, his horns glinting in the eerie green light of the Veil. “She’s right, Saffron. Go on. We’ll hold the fort down here.” He jerked his head at the bridge behind them.

Solas didn’t wait for Saffron to agree: he grabbed her arm and pulled her after him. They ran across the field, stumbling over fallen comrades, splashing in the murky red pools of Vivienne’s melted enemies. Up the slippery hill they went and to the bridge. Miraculously enough, it was still intact. They ran up the center and turned to face the torn sky.

Saffron swallowed hard. “But I can’t close all the tears at once!”

Solas smiled. “I can.” He snatched Saffron’s wrist and held it to the sky. Her head snapped back as the green light shot out of her. It had never been this strong before, and looking over at Solas as the power vibrated through her, she knew it was because of him. He may not have been a god, but he had the power of a somniari.  Like the Elder One, Solas could bend the Beyond to his will. That included the Veil tears.

The Veil tears sealed like water finding water. Once connected, the green light shimmered until it was white, then faded away, and the sky blared through again, such a bright azure blue that Saffron’s eyes were pained in the sudden light.

Below on the battlefield, a cheer went up.

Saffron looked at Solas, breathless and smiling. “You could have closed them all along,” she said with a weak laugh. “All this time . . . you could have closed them!”

Solas shook his head. “Not without you, da’len. You survived the first breach because I gave you some of my power.” He smiled and brushed a strand of hair from her face. “I was there on the other side, watching right before it happened. Elgar’nan had neutered me with my murder in the Beyond. There was nothing I could do except . . . give you a bit of me.”

Saffron frowned. “Why me? Because I’m Dalish?”

“Ha. Gods no. Because . . .” His violet eyes softened. “You caught my attention when you were sneaking around, spying on the warmongers. Everyone gathered for the meeting. You came down the stairs . . . and I loved you.”

Saffron’s lashes fluttered. “. . . what?”

“I walked this world when it was new, when it was ours,” he said. “I witnessed the ages indifferently. And then there was you.”

“I . . .” Saffron stared at him, heart fluttering. “I don’t know what to say.”

“You never do.” He took her hand. “Come on,” he said, jerking his bald head. “Let’s go home.” He started off.

Glad to feel his warm hand in hers, Saffron followed. It took her a moment to realize she couldn’t hear the sound of her own feet. She looked down and jolted. The bridge had collapsed several minutes ago: they were walking across the air.

The battle itself had been one the bards would be singing about for ages. Days later at one of the many feasts that were thrown, Saffron playfully asked Leliana if she wasn’t going to write a ballad. The spymaster smiled at her sadly and answered that she had written her last ballad when the Hero of Fereldan died. As people laughed around them and music rose to the high ceilings of Skyhold, Saffron nodded respectfully and couldn’t help but feel a little sorry for Leliana.

The spymaster smiled to reassure her. “Go,” she said, pouring herself a glass of wine, “your adoring public is waiting, no?”

Saffron only attended the first feast. Just to keep the public from ramming in her gates to see their hero. If some had called her the Herald before, now everyone was doing it. It was enough to give her a headache. As soon as she could slip away, she locked herself in her bedroom. With Solas, of course.

They had been in her bedroom for two weeks.

“Why were you going to face him alone?” Saffron whispered, her cheek on her lover’s bare chest. “Was there some way you could have gotten out of the Beyond?”

“No, ma vhenan.”

His voice cracked a little, and she looked at him quickly. Her slender fingers had been twirling on his chest, but they stopped.

“The longer I stay here,” Solas said heavily, “the more my blood quickens. I’ll lose my immortality. . . . I’ll die.”

Saffron’s lips parted and her brows rushed together. She sat up, black hair tumbling around her. “What do you mean?” Her eyes darted over him, as if looking for some sign of aging.

“I’ve got maybe thirty years? Twenty? Not so bad, I suppose.” He tried to smile but couldn’t hide the sadness in his violet eyes.

Saffron frowned. “You gave up your immortality for me?”

Solas sat up and leaned forward, bowing his head in thought. Saffron waited.

“I wasn’t going to,” he said at last. “I . . .” He frowned and looked at her unhappily. “I didn’t want you to watch me get wrinkled and ugly and die. I wanted you to remember me the way I am now: damn handsome.”

Saffron laughed and tilted her head, touching his cheek affectionately as her black tresses tumbled again around her.

“So I was going to go back with Elgar’nan. Hang out in the Beyond. Maybe play cards with some of the Forbidden Ones.”

“But the Mask of Fen – your mask was broken. So you had to stay and help me.”

Solas smiled at her. “No, I didn’t. You could have closed the tears, Saffy. Maybe not today, but given time, your power would have grown. Eventually, you’ll become somniari, da’len. You will be able to shape the Beyond . . .”

“And I would have been able to visit you,” she realized.

He smiled. “In a sense. I would have waited for you.” He took her hand. “I would have waited forever.” He shrugged and his lips pulled in a half-smile. “All I had was forever. Kinda goes with the whole immortality gig.”

“And now you’ve got twenty years. Oh gods. Sol --”

“Don’t apologize to me,” he said over her. “I made my choice. I could have kept my immortality, but I would have lost you. I’d rather have you. Every time. You feel the same, right? Tell me I didn’t just give up living forever so we could break up.”

Saffron laughed. “I feel the same. I could give you another demonstration . . .” She rubbed her nose against his. They smiled at each other.

“Hey!” called a voice. “You’ve been in there for two bloody weeks! Enough’s enough!”

Saffron laughed: Sera.

“Oi!” Sera shouted. “I’ve brought Bull to break down the door! You’ve got till the count of ten! One . . .”

“She’s not kidding,” called Dorian, his voice slightly muffled given his general distance from the door. “Bull has got his axe raised. I’d hated to see him destroy yet another of our exquisite doors – what is this? Ash wood? Please, Bull, just turn the knob like a normal fellow.”

“I already tried to the pick the lock,” Sera said shamelessly.

“What is this?” laughed Varric. “An intervention? I’ve got dibs on the Concerned Mentor role. Who wants to play Bitter Sister? We also need a Weeping Mother and an Addict Counselor.”

“They’re having sex, Varric,” said Dorian in amazement, “not hopped up on lyrium.”

“Madame Horns can do Bitter Sister better than me,” piped Sera. “Someone go get Horn Head.”

“He’s standing right here, about to break in the door,” said Dorian.

“Nah,” said Varric, “she meant Vivienne.”

“Ah,” said Dorian.

“Are you coming down today, Herald?” Cassandra called through the door. “I can not stress how important it is that you do. His majesty, king of Fereldan sends his regards –as well as a smelly mabari hound. I had it shut in the stables until it can be washed. The new Viscount of Kirkwall also expects you at the luncheon today. The stairs of the west wing collapsed on top of Cole. And there are many papers regarding --”

“Geez, Cassy,” muttered Varric. “You’re the wettest blanket I’ve ever known. And as much as that sounds like a sexual innuendo, it’s not.”

Saffron looked at Solas. “Maybe if we stick our fingers in our ears and hum, they’ll just go away.”

Solas extended his hand. Violet flames leapt from his fingers and smacked the door, effectively sealing it. Saffron heard the others pounding on the other side, but their voices were now muffled and indistinguishable. He looked at her. “That’ll give us . . . fifteen minutes? Whadda ya say? I can do a lot in fifteen minutes.” He wagged his eyebrows and Saffron laughed.

She pinched his chin and kissed him softly, warmly on the lips. “And we’ll make every second count, ma vhenan.”

Solas smiled and pulled her under the covers. Saffron’s laughter rose girlishly as sunlight streamed through the open balcony doors.

The End