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Chapter Text

“Quickly, before more come through!”

The words still rang in his head long after the grip of the bald elf had loosened and released him. The man had been so assertive, almost angry. There had been no desperation in his voice. No confusion. No surprise. After his act, his explanation was merely that he had hoped it would work. Yet he postulated nothing as they traveled, nor after they returned. He never showed even the slightest hint of excitement at the discovery or curiosity in the possibilities.

Conclusion: there had been no hope. He’d known.

Kios’ suspicions deepened as they traveled up the mountainside; Solas said his reason for being so near the mountain had been an interest in the conclusion of the Conclave. But Kios had been sent to the Conclave for the same reason, and he’d needed to get inside to have any hope of learning how the meeting would end. Solas would have needed to do the same. Unless he’d intended to enter, only for the Clave to blow up before he could – in which case, he would have been extremely late to the meeting – then he’d been lying.

Kios held his tongue, however. Even if he was right, there was no point in speaking his suspicions. If Solas remained, then he planned something, and Kios wanted to know what it was.

The humans, of course, would be of no help. They’d taken one look at Kios’ ears and decided his guilt. If he had any intention of learning Solas’ plans, it would be up to him to find out and stop him. If the humans found out first, Kios would be thrown on the pyre with the flat-ear.

It wasn’t until they returned from the mountain, the pride demon dead behind them, that he learned exactly what Solas’ game was. After an awkward initial conversation, in which Kios promised to defend Solas from the humans if necessary, he found he’d gained enough trust from the elf for Solas to incriminate himself. “Closing the Breach is our primary goal, but I hope we might also discover what was used to create it.”

For several moments, Kios thought he was the fool. Surely, he thought, there truly must have been something used to create something so enormous. Surely no one had that power on their own. But according to legend, several human magisters had managed exactly that, by spilling an ocean of elven blood. What if the ones responsible had merely used something of that sort? Or would that be the ‘what was used’ that Solas spoke of?

Then he realized Solas had once again failed to conceal his conviction.

There was no conjecture about whether or not there had been some sort of object used. There hadn’t even been a note that humans couldn’t harness such power without some sort of aid. Once again, Solas knew.

“Any artifact of such power is dangerous,” Solas continued, further nailing in his own coffin. “The destruction of the Conclave proves that much.”

Artifact? Even if something had been used, even if those responsible had needed tools, why on earth would such tools be artifacts? From what? From whom?

Solas, he realized, was working for the enemy.

It took only a thought for him to realize the reason Solas had chosen to join the burgeoning Inquisition. It was Kios. Kios himself, and the mark he now carried on his left hand.

“You don’t think whatever created the explosion was destroyed in the blast?” he asked, daring to act as if he, too, knew there was indeed an object involved. Solas didn’t catch it. He didn’t even blink at the question.

“You survived, did you not?” Solas asked. Just as Kios feared Solas considered him to be an artifact, as well, the elf continued. “The artifact that created the Breach is unlike anything seen in this age. I will not believe it destroyed until I see the shattered fragments with my own eyes.”

Amendment, Kios thought to himself: Solas was here for Kios and this ‘artifact.’ This artifact he knew of so intimately that he knew, without doubt, that it was not just an artifact, but one either hoarded by an unknown culture – unlikely, since Kios was Dalish and had attended the last arlathvhen less than a year ago– or lost to the annals of time.

Kios had to pretend he’d come for information, and he chose to question Solas about himself, pretending it was Solas being an unknown that made him someone Kios needed to get to know. Yet he’d learned much, and had his heart shaken once again. This time, however, it was his beliefs that he found himself questioned. And then he was rattled again, as Solas noted his interest in seeing Kios’ will dominated and Kios’ heart quivered, something within him longing so desperately for something he’d never heard of that it had shaken him to his core.

Not that it had mattered. The damage had been done.

He’d known since then that Solas was an enemy. He’d allowed himself to fall for Solas’ tricks, to believe Solas cared simply because Solas hadn’t betrayed him when Corypheus had attacked Haven.

No. Simply because he’d loved Solas. Somehow, despite being unable to trust him, Kios had fallen in love with him, anyway. Because despite knowing emotions were weaknesses, he’d still chosen to act on them, anyway.

Now here he was, in the middle of a snowstorm, desperately keeping the spiderlings that crawled through the rift back even as his chest heaved. Beside him, Cassandra struggled to keep up, her shield arm held tight to her side as she swung her blade, having to dodge back without her shield to defend herself. And Solas, to his left, pushing back the encroaching cluster with ice and steering clear of his usual rift magic, for some reason. Behind them all stood the Champion, his magic a searing hot wind that felt like it should have been melting the snow at their feet. Their exhaustion made them sloppy, leaving aches and pains that Hawke’s magic barely managed to heal. Kios estimated only a few more minutes before they collapsed and the cluster swarmed them. Before that happened, he would have to close the Rift.

“By the gods,” he growled, “if you can hear me in there, you’d better be hurrying up!”

No response. He gritted his teeth. It was looking like he was going to have to make the call. If he had to leave the rest behind, he would do it. He would just never forgive himself.

“No! No, Fenris, please, Fenris, let me stay, don’t do this, please, please–”

“Spirit! Get him out of here!”

“No! No! Don’t – get off me! Don’t make me do this again! Please. I can help. I’ll use my magic. Just please – don’t make me see – no! No! No!”

Fenris’ ears still rang with Azzan’s last screams. He wished what he heard was only in his mind, but the demon kept playing it on repeat, forcing him to watch those moments over and over again as they fought; the demon’s baby spiders danced around them, enacting the scene over and over again. One – the one that had taken on the illusory image of Fenris – turned away even as Hawke screamed, his eyes wide and hair in his face, one hand reaching out for him even as the rift pulsed and they passed through. “It will take too long for the Inquisitor to close that thing again! We need to hold the demon off as long as possible.”

Varric’s image, moving until it stood only inches from where Varric stood now, readied its crossbow. “Was just thinking the same thing.”

Varric shot another arrow, his lips thinning as he reached for his quiver and heard the bolts rattle loudly, marking the empty space within. “Don’t have much left!” he snapped, even as he aimed and shot the demon’s front leg again. It kept reaching for the entrance, almost not caring about their interference. Fenris stabbed its other foot straight through, trying to lodge his sword into the ground and force the demon to remain in place. Instead, it screeched and reared back, nearly pulling both him and his sword into the sky. He barely wrenched his blade out in time.

Around them, the Inquisitor’s spirit friend flitted back and forth, no longer seeming to disappear and reappear, but always, always visible. It was tiring. They all were.

His lyrium no longer lit the green earth around them. He held no more stamina to keep it active, and no healing to rejuvenate him. They wouldn’t be able to last much longer, and the rift was no smaller than before. He scowled. “They’re still not closing it? What’s wrong with your Inquisitor?!”

Varric laughed. “I don’t know! I guess he likes us!” A moment later, the frivolity left. “You know Hawke wouldn’t leave us behind, either.”

Fenris blocked the demon’s next attempt to step through the rift with his sword. The pressure of its simple step forward pushed him back nearly to the rift’s edge. All around him, the earth warped and crumbled beneath the rising green miasma that lay beneath. “If they don’t close it, the demon will get through, too!”

Varric shot cover fire for Cole, depleting his store of bolts further. “You know as well as I do that if you stay here, Marshmallow will just come racing back in. It’s time for you to go.”

“He’ll come back for you, too, you ugly ball of chest hair!” He ignored Varric’s affronted shout and stood before Varric, holding his sword before him as Nightmare tried to squash both him and Varric like bugs. He could see the creature’s gaping body, the wide expanse of its abdomen and the pincers longer than Fenris’ sword. The creature could have easily stepped around them and chased after Hawke and the others, just as its spiderlings did. Instead it fought with them, nearly toyed with them. Once again, Fenris thought of its end goal – to capture him and bleed him out in front of Hawke. His heart twisted as he realized a second reason for it to constantly play those last moments over and over again. Hawke was only a single step from being broken by this beast. He’d already sworn to use his magic, so long as he didn’t have to watch Fenris die again.

Fenris snarled and pushed the leg back. The demon tottered for a moment on its other five legs. Fenris cut forward, slicing the leg in front of him off completely as the spirit flitted over to its next right leg. Varric managed to shoot the closest one on the left. “Besides,” Fenris said, responding again to Varric’s words, “I have no intention of either of us – any of us,” he amended, watching the spirit dart behind the leg bearing down on Fenris to cut high and wide, making the monster scream, “remaining here.”

“Oh?” Varric scooted close to Fenris’ elbow, aiming below Fenris’ arm. “Is that the sound of an idea I hear?”

A long bead of sweat snaked down his temple as he grinned. “That spirit gave me an idea.”

Cole barely evaded a swipe from an arm that hadn’t been there seconds before. “I don’t want credit for that.”

Varric grunted. “Great. I love it already.”

It had been too long.

They were getting swarmed. They were too tired to take care of even these small nuisances anymore. Azzan’s healing aura felt like a blaze, and it dipped and died off and felt skewed, because he held no foci to center his mana. Kios was doing his best to keep up with the scuttling demons the way Cole always had, but no matter his skill, he wasn’t as fast, and with only one dagger, he couldn’t slice as quickly. Slowly, the demons became too many, their webs gunking up his feet, their tiny bodies launching themselves onto him, dragging him down even when he used Cassandra’s shield to shove them off of him.

Cassandra herself fell further and further back, her arm still clutched to her side despite Hawke’s attempts to heal her. Solas kept creating barriers and freezing opponents, blocking the creatures off with ice walls as often as possible, forcing them into lines that made Kios’ job momentarily easier. But he was clearly exhausted, as well; his usual smooth movements were sloppy; he threw his magic instead of pushing or gliding it along. His breaths came more and more labored; his walls got thinner and thinner, shorter and shorter.

He had to do it. He had to make the call. He had to leave them behind.

He turned to the rift. He’d let Cole go, and he wasn’t sure anymore if it was because he’d trusted Cole to come back or if he’d simply wanted. He’d wanted them to come back. But they were facing defeat, and they would lose everyone if he didn’t do something about it. Half the team lost to retrieve one person. Some might call that a victory.

He gritted his teeth. He felt like he’d been impaled all over again. He raised his hand. “Mythal,” he whispered. “Judge my heart. Do not find me wanting. Please.” It was his job to make the hard calls. To do the things no one wanted to do. To abandon the templars. To force Orlais to acknowledge elves. To spurn the humans’ Chantry. To choose the fate of the Grey Wardens. To drink from the damned waters of the vir’abelasan and accept Mythal’s curse. Over and over again, the hard choices had fallen to him.

One more time. He would carry the choice one more time.

He winced as the mark sparked, responding to the rift before him. It hurt like he’d pulled a muscle, stretching along the canvas of the scar. He heard Hawke scream when the man saw what he was doing.

It hurt. Hawke was the only person he’d ever known to get it right. To find something as amazing and rare as love and to receive it in return. Simply seeing Hawke speak of Fenris, simply watching Fenris’ devotion to Hawke, had been enough to make him believe in it all again. Despite his own experiences. Despite his own shattered heart. And here he was, about to destroy that beautiful bond all over again.

Someone grabbed his wrist.

Gods help him, he recognized the feel of Solas’ fingers, the look of them, without ever having to look. He snarled. “We’re dead if this continues,” he snapped. “And I’m not letting it take the Champion again.”

“I will go.”

Some wordless sound tried to crawl its way out of his throat. The idea of leaving Solas behind caused a fear unlike any felt before. His instinct was to refuse, to demand Solas remain out of the Beyond where he was, if not safe, then safer. Then, after that hideous moment of instinct where his body betrayed him, his mind finally kicked in and realized that Solas was an enemy, that he shouldn’t fear Solas’ death, that he was being an idiot. Again.

If Solas was their enemy, then he was Nightmare’s ally. Letting Solas enter the Fade again would mean giving Nightmare back-up. Any slim chance the others had would disappear. He forced himself to recognize that fact and acknowledge it, told himself it was the only reason he scowled, still wide-eyed, and said, “no.”

Solas was no fool. He must have known everything that had happened. The instinctive reaction. The subsequent suspicion. He slid his hand off of Kios’ wrist, leaving nothing but an echo of warmth behind. He said nothing. Just stared. Kios had done so many scenes with him, however. Hours of watching Solas’ every movement. Every step, every glance, every flick of his fingers. He’d knelt, poised and ready, for the instant Solas showed displeasure or triumph or curiosity or satisfaction. He’d hummed with the need to receive that thin-lipped smile that told him he’d done well, that Solas was proud of him. That told him he’d aced the scene.

He knew, almost before Solas moved, that he would turn to the rift, ignoring Kios’ order.

“Solas!” He reached out and grabbed Solas’ wrist. It had been instinct again. His voice had not sounded like someone giving an order, but instead someone making a plea. He froze, furious with himself for reacting in such a way once again, even now.

Solas stared at him. Solas’ eyes always seemed to soak in the world around him. It was the gray in them, he knew, but it felt more ethereal than that. Like now. It felt like Solas’ eyes captured light. The Fade’s green glow echoed in those irises as he pushed off Kios’ hand. “If I don’t go,” Solas said quietly, “Then he will.”

Kios reared back. His head began to turn and look back, toward Hawke, even as his mind screamed at him to pay attention. It was a clear distraction. Obvious. Solas would leave while he was turning away.

He caught himself. Head half-turned, left foot shifted toward the side to balance him as he looked back. He just didn’t stop himself quickly enough to do more than watch Solas head toward the rift out of his peripheral vision.

And to see the long, hairy leg of a spider writhe out of the rift, moving blindly to crush Solas as he reached the edge of that green light.

He screamed. Moved again, on instinct, cutting through this side and the Beyond, Cassandra’s shield in his hands. He returned to this world with the shield up, barely inside the leg as it crashed down. Nightmare reared back at the pain of Kios’ return to corporeal form, then struck down. Kios took the full force of the hit with a groan, buckling beneath the weight.

Then it was gone. He felt pressure against the shield, but nothing else. He looked up to see the leg frozen above him. An instant later, Cassandra ran in, cutting the limb off entirely. If Nightmare felt it, they couldn’t hear.

Cassandra yanked up the dead limb and tossed it into the rift. For a short moment, no more spiderlings chased after them.

“Start closing the rift!” Solas said, still heading inside. Cassandra made a wordless balking noise around the same time he did. “I’ll bring them back out, I swear it!”

He’d already told himself he would lose everyone still within the Beyond; he’d already mourned the decision to let Cole go inside, believing that he’d killed the spirit with the choice. If he sent the traitor in, would there really be a difference? Unless he was still holding on to hope, even now? Which was illogical. He needed to accept reality.

If only his body hadn’t just proven that it was still prone to hoping for the impossible.

He didn’t try to stop Solas this time. There was some sort of sad acceptance there he couldn’t accept – as if Solas knew he was walking to his own death. But that couldn’t be it. Nightmare wouldn’t kill him. Perhaps it was the end of all of this, this entire farce, the way he’d planned. Perhaps he only mourned he hadn’t managed to kill Kios.

He turned away. He couldn’t bear to think like that, even when he knew it was true.

He heard the rift expand and contract. Instead of footsteps receding away, however, something crashed down behind him. It started cursing liberally.

“I can still fight, you walking moonbeam!” He turned, wide-eyed, at the sight of Varric scrabbling onto his feet, Bianca still in his hand. The quiver on his back, however, was empty.

He sucked in a breath.

“Varric!” The Champion raced past him, grabbing Varric’s shoulders and sizing him up. Despite how exhausted the Champion must have been, he pulled at his healing aura to wrap around Varric’s form. It surrounded the dwarf in golden light.

“I’m fine, Marshmallow, I’m fine. Save your energy.” If anything, the words made the Champion stiffen further. “So’s the elf and the kid.”

Even with that said, the Champion’s face hardened. Kios grabbed the man’s shoulder, forced to have to choose who he stopped. If nothing else, he needed to make sure Hawke did not return to the Beyond. Even if they all died, it was better than the alternative. A Nightmare that could heal Corypheus and his army.

The Champion turned on him, but it was long enough for Solas to hurry inside. Varric made some sound of distress at the sight. Cassandra just came up on the Champion’s other side. “Solas is strong,” she said, even as she helped Kios wrenched Hawke away from the rift. “He will get them.”

“He’s weak,” Hawke argued. “And he can’t heal.”

“You’re weak,” Kios snapped. “And everyone here has risked their lives to save you. If you go in, you’re dooming those of us who remain.”

Logic. He wasn’t surprised that it didn’t work. Hawke looked like he’d been the one stabbed, as if he could barely move under the weight of the pain. Kios was forced to stand before the human and take up arms again; spiderlings came out in droves, heralding the nearness of the demon they suckled from. His muscles ached. His back slouched. The spiders gnawed on his legs as he stabbed them through.

“Cassandra,” he said, panting. Solas had ordered him to begin closing the rift. Gods help him, he had to do it.

Seal away Solas. Seal away those still inside, still trying to survive. He raised his hand. Hawke screamed. “No!” Cassandra barely stopped the Champion in time. Varric bashed the spiders trying to reach Kios with Bianca, murmuring apologies to the crossbow with every hit, promising even better upgrades for her when they got back to Skyhold. If they still made it back to Skyhold. “Don’t!”

Despite logic. Despite common sense. Despite the last several hours, in which he’d had it proven to him just what Solas was. Despite it all, he found himself wishing Solas might bring them back, after all. Just to save Cole and Fenris from his mistakes.

But since trusting Solas had been his biggest mistake, he didn’t hold any hope.

“You have to go!” the spirit shouted, trying to push him through with Varric as Nightmare snapped its mandibles down on them, pushing them back. They'd used the mist around them, kicking it up the way it had swirled around the spirit as he'd attacked. Varric had been able to hide most easily, and Fenris had managed to slide in some well-aimed slashes at the demon's legs and underbelly. Because of their efforts, the spider had lost its front legs entirely. The one they’d failed to stop had been halted by those outside and thrown back in, the weight and heft of it too great to be fake. They had been the ones to take the other, and had desperately tried to take a second before Varric had run out of arrows and elemental mines, and Fenris had shoved him through the rift.

Their actions had managed to push Nightmare momentarily back, but the demon seemed to answer it all with a new level of fury. The spiderlings that had ignored them now turned on them. The demon which had largely been toying with them now reached out with mandibles outspread, legs grasping, webbing spraying around behind them, encasing them within this frontal assault they couldn’t possibly win. Fenris gave an optimistic estimate of perhaps a minute before they fell.

But it was all right, he told himself. Varric was safe; he would help Azzan cope with his loss. And finally, the Inquisitor had gotten his head on straight and begun to close the rift.

If he could just hold on for that one minute, then Azzan would be safe.

He stepped before the closing rift and held his sword aloft.

“No! Run forward!”

The voice was not that of the spirit’s, nor of Varric’s. It was the voice of the Inquisitor’s lover, the one who had betrayed him. Fenris turned on his heel and snarled. “Get out!”

“Run forward!” the elf shouted again, his staff held before him, nearly horizontal. “We only have one chance!”

“Not the left!” Cole shouted. “The right! The right!”

“Go!” Solas snapped, his head still turned toward Fenris. Though Fenris instinctively chafed against a mage other than Hawke giving him orders, he ran. The thought of having a chance, even the slimmest, of meeting with Azzan again made his feet move even as he snarled at the command. He had no idea what he was supposed to be doing, but Cole’s shout still rang in his ears. The right! The right!

He ran right.

He didn’t know what the hell he was supposed to do; leaving the rift to be guarded by the mage alone made his shoulders ache as he moved forward. He could hear the rift behind them all, louder than ever before despite the fact that he knew it was shrinking. He watched the shadow of the demon above him move, felt its looming movements like a weight upon his back. The demon threw itself at him. He tensed as it moved, ready to be split open, certain in that instant that he was being used as a diversion.

Then the ground turned slick around him, the rock turned a bright sheen that made it more teal than green, and the monster’s weight slid and fell wide. The creature’s legs splayed so wide along the ground that it needed to hold off its assault or else risk falling. The leg Fenris, Varric, and Cole had managed to injure buckled.

Fenris leaped up and swung his sword.

The sword stopped on the demon’s unnatural exoskeleton, as usual, but this time, his momentum had gotten his sword deep enough into the armor that he got caught within instead of ricocheting off. The demon shrieked and shook its leg, trying to fling him off. He swung like a fool for a split second before Cole slid across the icy ground and stabbed into an area where Varric’s arrows had dug into the demon. With another scream, the demon’s leg finally crumpled. His feet touched the ground. He used the new position to give himself enough stability to slice through, nearly completely severing this leg, as well, and got himself and his sword free.

Cole grabbed him by his arm, dragging him back toward the rift. “Now! Now!” the spirit hissed, its hat banging against the side of his head as the spirit yanked until he could get himself turned around properly and run. The elf, Solas, stood before the rift, his hands out. Fenris felt a barrier form around him just as he reached the elf’s side. Cole clasped Solas’ shoulder, pushing him, as well. Solas dropped his hands and turned around. The rift was still wide enough for them to dive through. Cole dove first, shivering as it passed through. He watched its body disappear. Then he turned to the elf.

“Go!” Solas shouted. Behind them, Nightmare shouted in fury. He heard the spider scrabbling back up.

Fenris went, grabbing Solas’ wrist in a bruising grip. The elf jumped. “Whatever’s going on between you and the Inquisitor,” he said, his gaze sharp, “you face it.”

The rift was small enough now that he had to bend at the waist and lift his legs, one hand still around Solas, the other dragging his sword through with him, in order to get through. He high-stepped through the rift, jolting at the shock of cold and wind on the other side. Perhaps the spirit had been right to just dive through like he was entering a lake.

He pulled Solas closer, even as the elf threw a tiny shard of ice toward Nightmare’s face. The demon had gotten back to its feet, its beady eyes all trained on them. It reached out with its closest feet. Fenris levered himself through the rift onto his cold leg and threw himself to the other side, dragging Solas with him like a club. Instead of green rock and stagnant air, he found himself suddenly surrounded by a whirlwind of white. He stumbled through, still pulling Solas. The mage pushed himself through, as well; Fenris could feel a slight lessening in the weight in his hand and knew the elf had tried to jump through. He grimaced and yanked harder, nearly scraping Solas against his blade in the effort. Solas screamed, stiffening in Fenris’ grip, and he yelled, too, desperately trying to get the elf through before the rift became too small and Solas was crushed and torn apart by it.

They both stumbled onto the other side. Solas fell to his knees the instant his feet hit land, and blood colored the ground beneath him. Fenris pulled his sword through and sagged to his knees, trying to find the energy to move to the elf’s side but unable to get his feet to cooperate.

“Fenris!”

He barely had time to look up before Azzan was on him, arms wrapped around his neck. Fenris sighed. He let go of the elf, dropped his sword, and wrapped his arms around Azzan. The man was sobbing, clutching him tight enough that his armor chafed, pressing so close the metal of Hawke’s chin guard was digging into his neck, into the lines of lyrium following his arteries, and it hurt. He clenched his hands around Hawke’s, trying to bring him even closer.

They’d done it. They’d made it out of the Fade.

“As touching as this is,” Varric panted, “we need some help!”

Just as the words filtered into his mind, he felt something grab at him. Pressure dug into the back of his armor, into the leather, trying to breach it and reach skin. An animal bite. He curled his arm around Hawke until he could hold the man up with one hand, then grabbed his sword. The handle felt like ice; he became aware enough of his surroundings to realize he knelt in snow, and more of it was swirling around them in giant clumps. Yet somehow, the ground was mostly brown. Brown and… writhing.

He slid his sword behind himself, hefting its weight horizontally so he sliced whatever was trying to eat him. His sword came away slick with juices. A spiderling fell to the ground.

Spiderlings. They were everywhere.

He stood up. His legs trembled, yet despite the battle still raging around him, Hawke did not activate his healing aura. Fenris grimaced, forced to push Hawke back and stand in front of him, trying to shield him from the bugs. Spiderlings weren’t powerful, yet the idea of fighting the tiny army made his arms shake as he lifted his sword. He saw the others around him; the spirit was already slashing his way through, his thin chest heaving from exertion. The woman, the female warrior, fought without her shield, stabbing over and over, creating a pile of the dead things as they raced toward her. And then there was Varric, standing with the woman’s shield before the Inquisitor, his feet gouged into the snow as he tried to stop the things from chewing on the man as he held his hand out to the rift, that green arc of lightning spasming between him and the rift.

It was dwindling even as he watched, though the Inquisitor seemed to be struggling with it far more than he had the first time. Beside him, Solas wrapped one hand around his leg, trying to stifle the blood loss. He held his staff in his other hand, using it more as a cane than a staff. He looked back, teeth pulled back, and watched the rift as it shrank to the size of a man’s head.

Two legs breached the rift, looking less like oddly armored insectoid features and more like scythes. They rose high into the sky. “Everyone get back!” Fenris shouted, already grabbing Hawke’s arm and running. Hawke stumbled, the legs he hadn’t used for days failing him in their weakness. Fenris stumbled with him, too tired to continue further. He chose instead to use his last remaining strength to pull Hawke by his side and fell to the snow, quickly rolling over Azzan and curling himself over Azzan’s head. Azzan screeched in his ear, some wordless wail of impending loss.

No one passed them.

He heard the riotous tumult behind him as everyone tried to react in time; spiderlings danced over his legs, grabbing at him and biting, this time reaching past his armor into skin. He heard Solas shout for the Inquisitor before the scythes slammed into the ground and the world shook. Something slammed into the back of his head. The snow-white world around him turned black.