“I should have killed you when I had the chance.”

He had a plan. He always had a plan, it was perfect. And then Rook had to come and mess it up. Now they were both trapped in the Fade and solas couldn't think of a worse ending for this story.

TW

MAJOR VEILGUARD SPOILERS. ANGST. SO SO MUCH ANGST.

You dug your own grave, now lie in it

I don’t forgive, I don’t forget

I see the anger in your eyes, and it makes me burn

You made your bed when you broke my trust

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Solas had known fury before. He had known betrayal, pain, and the slow, festering ache of loss stretched over millennia. But this—this was something else entirely. This was hatred, raw and unfiltered, burning through him like molten lyrium, searing away every ounce of patience he had left.

He had almost done it. After centuries of sacrifice—his people, his name, his very soul—he had almost undone his greatest mistake. He had suffered, bled, and burned for his cause. He had prepared for every variable, every possibility. And at the final moment, Thedas had been seconds away from salvation.

Then they ruined it.

Rook. The fatal flaw in his plan. The arrogance he had failed to predict.

Their companions lay frozen in eternal agony, twisted and contorted in the throes of their final moments. He hadn’t even thought about them when he did it—had barely noticed them. They were nothing. Obstacles in his way, swept aside like leaves in the wind. But Rook? Rook had made it personal.

They had done something far worse than fight him. Far worse than betray him. They had used their own blood to bind them both to this wretched place. The Lyrium dagger, slick with their life essence and his, had sealed their fates. The Veil was stabilized, the world was saved—and now they were trapped inside it.

For eternity.

Solas turned to them, and for the first time in ages, he did not hide his rage behind careful neutrality. His mask of calm was gone, shattered, and in its place was something terrible. His hands shook from the sheer force of restraint, nails digging so deep into his palms that they cut flesh.

His voice, when he spoke, was a quiet, deadly thing.

“This is your fault.”

The Veil’s endless expanse swallowed the words, yet they struck like a blade between ribs.

“You did this.” His breath was slow, measured, but his fury cracked through every syllable. “Tell me, was it worth it? Was your blind, pathetic defiance worth the cost?” His lip curled, dripping with contempt. “You won. The world is safe. And all it cost was your friends. The people who stood beside you. The only ones who would have remembered your name.”

His eyes burned like embers, his voice dropping into something cold, razor-sharp. “Do you think they’ll mourn you? The ones you saved? Do you think the world will care?” A bitter, humorless laugh escaped him. “A statue, perhaps. A story. A passing mention in the pages of history. And then? Nothing.” His expression darkened, disgust twisting his features. “You will be forgotten.”

He took a step forward, his presence suffocating, his gaze burning with something cruel. “I could have saved them. I would have saved them. And you—you—in your ignorance, your arrogance, destroyed everything. Because you thought you knew better.” His breath trembled with rage, but his voice remained dangerously calm. “You never did.”

Solas exhaled slowly, his expression shifting into something almost...pitying. “You are nothing,” he murmured, voice devoid of warmth. “A child playing at heroism. A fool too blinded by self-importance to see the devastation they leave in their wake.” His gaze flicked over them with unmasked disdain. “You never had the strength to stop me. You never even understood what you were fighting for. And yet, here we are.”

A slow, measured inhale.

A pause, stretching unbearably between them.

Then, softly, almost thoughtfully, he said,

“I should have killed you when I had the chance.”

Testing w/ JLLM: