Solas is quiet, thinking, for nearly a full minute, in silence. Felassan's hearthcake loses more of itself, frittered away by idle nibbling. His own remains untouched.

"What can I say?" He says, eventually, and it is an honest question. What words can heal a fatal wound? "That I knew, or thought I knew what you would say? That I understood myself, and our purpose, to be betrayed? You knew what you had done. You chose carefully what to say. You lied, knowing I would hear it as a lie. I was angry."

He had been in a towering rage. So many years, so much effort, wasted and lost. The security of the crossroads, once lost, could not be fully recovered— hadn't been fully recovered. Venatori and Anataam now stalked those pathways, bandits, Darkspawn, and worse, with the secret now spread to too many ears, too many lips. What had once been safe passage was now a road no less fraught than any other, except that it was quicker. What Felassan had wrought was no less permanent than Solas' act of violence, though less personal in its damage.

"I know now why you did it. I still do not agree, but it is too late. What is done is done."