Chapter Text
Lucanis’ first impression of Rook was… neutral. A means to an end—his escape, primarily—and little more.
A Crow, he’d noticed idly, as Rook’s cape fluttered with each step. A Crow, obviously, from the way his mageknife sat in his hand, like a pen ready to dart across the page. Light. Agile. Prepared. A Crow, for certain, with that sharp tongue lashing out to lick over the festering wound that is Spite.
So… Neutral. Take the good with the bad.
Even out of the Ossuary, he found himself wary of the fellow Crow, watching for poison in his drink and the glint of a knife. It was nothing personal—being Lucanis Dellamorte, the Demon of Vyrantium, grandson to the First Talon, he had many who’d honed their own claws itching to test them, yearning to grab a perch above their stature. Those who wished to spread their wings and soar above House Dellamorte found themselves plummeting to the earth with his blade between their ribs.
It is nothing personal. If Lucanis keeps his blade close, tucked into the waistband of his trousers, it’s purely business.
“It. Is. Personal!” Spite hisses, and Lucanis tries to stifle the twitch in his hands. The clench of his jaw. A fellow Crow would spot those in a heartbeat, and pounce even faster.
And pounce he does: Rook’s eyes flick to him with a dark, raised brow. “Lucanis?” He asks, hands pausing where they’d been unrolling stale rations from the cloth keeping them (mostly) dirt-free. (Lucanis briefly thinks of the market he’d been meaning to visit—of the list he keeps in his head of offhanded wishful cravings from his companions. He’s never heard Rook mention anything, never heard Rook complain about rations hard as rock.)
Lucanis lifts a hand in dismissal. “Spite,” he answers, trying to meet mismatched eyes.
(One is focused, a tepid green. One is blind, a scar cutting through and muddying it into a milky blue. He could strike from that side, easily. His hand twitches again.)
“Tell him I’ll be out of your hair soon enough,” Rook jokes, hands moving to the flagon of water. The very same Lucanis has been avoiding—Crows do love their poisons. “I didn’t mean to wake you.”
“You didn’t.”
“But it’s—” A sigh. “—okay, actually, I’m not sure what time it is.” Rook gives a furtive glance to the window, the darkened Fade staring back with its’ facsimile of night. “But it’s definitely too late to be up.”
“Yes. Sleep!” Spite roars, an almost manic grin on his face, and Lucanis can feel him pushing, clawing at his resolve. Trying to drag him under and drown him in demonic depths so he can roam free.
“And yet here you are.”
Rook lets out a short puff of air. His expression is honest, open—tired. A bit confused. A bit wary. A bit anxious. It unsettles Lucanis how few masks this Crow wears. “Yes, well… here I am,” Rook replies lamely.
“Let me. Talk. To Rook!” Spite demands, teeth bared and a snarl in his tone.
Lucanis ignores him. “Can't sleep?” He asks, and feels Spite gnawing at his hypocrisy.
Rook offers a dismissive wave, pouring water into one of the mismatched steins. The liquid is clear. Clean. And as Rook lifts the tankard to his lips, as he takes a sip, Lucanis feels his eyes narrow. Waiting to see a flash of discomfort as fire scorches Rook's throat, for a bead of sweat as an antidote lulls Lucanis into a false sense of security.
None of that happens. Instead, Rook tips his head back to drink more deeply, a stray drop slipping from his lips down to a scarred, tattooed throat.
Lucanis swallows, parched.
The stein thuds as it hits the kitchen's rickety wooden counter, audible in the tepid silence between them, slipping between pops of embers in the hearth. Rook wipes his mouth with the back of his hand, littered with the scars of a fledgeling Crow first learning to wield a knife. Scars from when small hands stumbled and found the blade, scars from inexperience honed into a fine, lethal edge.
If he bothered to look, Lucanis is sure he would see those scars mirrored on his own hands.
“You're staring.”
Ah. He certainly is. Lucanis can't even blame this on Spite.
“Just trying to figure you out,” Lucanis replies, and it's honest. Honest enough. “Have we met before?”
Rook snorts. “How corny,” he says, moving to take a bite of his rations, chewing thoughtfully. “But no. I was never important enough to meet the Lucanis Dellamorte. Or any of the Dellamortes, for that matter.” There’s a faint thread of bitterness to Rook's tone, even if he makes a valiant effort to keep it light. Just on the edge of glib.
Lucanis doesn't quite recognise that bitter note—it's nothing like those who don't believe he's earned his place among the Crows, those who believe he's been hand-fed success from birth. Those words always come draped with saccharine poison, designed to eat his reputation down to nothing but a spoiled heir. Conveniently, they always forget the six Dellamorte children that didn't make it.
Rook, however, just sounds… frustrated, perhaps.
“Viago speaks highly of you,” Lucanis offers, and much to his surprise—Rook laughs.
“Before or after he warned you of my—oh, gods, how does he put it?—talent for disaster?”
That phrase does ring a bell, yes. Lucanis also vaguely remembers the look of sympathy crossing Viago's face, too, before sending him on his way. “...before,” he admits. “Though he did not elaborate.”
“I’ll bet he didn’t,” Rook mutters before letting out a long, drawn out sigh. His gaze drops from Lucanis to where his hands hold barely-eaten rations. Silence stretches between them, charged and uncomfortable, as if Lucanis has his hand in the dying hearth. When Rook speaks again, his tone is cold. Clipped. Cut off. “It’s… getting late. I should rest.”
Lucanis watches him go, thirst gnawing his throat. He eyes the flagon before turning sharply on his heel and returning to the pantry.
Lucanis had noticed it in the Ossuary: Rook does not fight like a Crow.
He wears the Antivan leathers, sure, has daggers strapped to every limb for every occasion and vials of poison swinging from his belt. And in small scuffles, he follows the dance-like steps beaten into the Crows who survive flawlessly. Larger fights, though? He may as well be an ogre in an Orlesian china shop for all the finesse he has. He scrabbles, claws, and tumbles, dirt and blood smearing on his leathers—something Viago would surely chide him for. Rook fights like a cornered animal, desperate and ungraceful and raw.
That isn’t to say he’s not skilled—just remarkably and infuriatingly direct. There is no problem Rook won’t try to barrel straight through with his mageknife, magic, and a dream.
It’s giving Lucanis a headache. Alongside Spite’s gleeful roaring at the carnage, anyhow.
“Rook!” He barks out, Spite’s wings extending to beat heavily and shove himself back and out of the reach of his own dance partner’s roaming hands. “Pinche pendejo—move!”
Rook side-steps Antaam axe swings, the heavy weapons cleaving stone where he once was—where he should not be, Lucanis thinks with memories of a cane on his back. Electricity crackles on Rook’s hands, sweat drips down his brow into his eyes, and gods, Lucanis could kill him himself.
They’ve been at this too long—each time they cut down one Antaam, two more scuttle out and shoot cannons at them. At Rook, specifically. It’s like he’s a magnet, attracting any and all axes and cannonballs and fire and gods know what else.
When his daggers sink home, deep into the Antaam’s neck with a gurgle, Lucanis grunts, kicking them off his blades with a bit more force than necessary. There’s a flash of lightning, the thunder of it ringing in his skull like he’d shoved his head into the Chantry’s bells, and Rook’s Antaam hit the ground.
They smoulder as Rook pants, doubled over.
“Have you ever heard of stealth?” Lucanis chides, ghosts of Viago in his tone as he wipes his knives with a dead Antaam’s loincloth and sheathes them.
“I’m afraid not,” Neve replies dryly, stepping over her Antaam ice sculptures. “I’m fairly sure they could hear Rook all the way in Par Vollen.”
“Everyone’s a critic,” Rook wheezes.
Lucanis pinches the bridge of his nose. It’s a wonder Rook even passed Crow training, let alone survived it.
A few moments pass before Rook can stand up straight again, his breathing still heavy but at least it’s even. At least he’s still breathing. Who says the Maker doesn’t grant miracles? “Well, all right—check around. See if there’s supplies we can use. I’ll go look for the gaatlok.”
“Follow. Rook,” Spite insists. Lucanis ignores him.
He’s picking through the Antaam bodies, finding stashed potions and squirreled away coins, when Neve approaches. Lucanis hears her coming, the clink of her prosthetic on the wood of the docks an almost comforting warning.
“Go easy on him,” she says, tone inscrutable. On good days, Neve Gallus is hard to read; she would have made an excellent Crow. Still could. Teia would love her.
“The Crows do not go easy,” Lucanis scoffs, pocketing a handful of coins before standing. He brushes dirt from his pant legs, lips curling into a frown. Blood soaked through the fabric to his knees below. On top of the fine mist of Trevisan rain and the splash of the harbor water from below rickety docks, he’s damp. Damp and uncomfortable and tired.
He shoves the Antaam’s body off the dock with his foot. It sinks like a stone, disappearing into the black waters.
“No, they do not,” Neve agrees, gazing at the water. Her lips pull a bit, almost a frown. “But most Crows don’t have to try to save the world.”
Lucanis opens his mouth—to argue? To agree? He has no idea which—when an explosion rings through the night. The wood beneath his boots shakes as the force throws a man across the dock and knocks a wall clean off.
It takes a moment for Lucanis to realise the man is Rook. “Mierda,” he swears.
“Found the gaatlok,” Rook croaks.
Lucanis will kill him.
Lucanis leans on a railing high in the Cantori Diamond, watching spit fly from Viago’s mouth as he yells at Rook when Lucanis realises it: Rook is not going to kill him.
Get him killed, absolutely. Lucanis has made peace with the fact that their fool’s errand against gods—gods!—will get him killed. It’s almost comforting: there is no greater contract. No greater honour.
But Rook, against all odds, doesn’t have a single self-serving bone in his body. A selfless Crow. A contradiction in everything he does: a mage who fights hand-to-hand, a Crow who doesn’t scheme, a timid man who doesn’t yield. An idiot and a genius.
“You’re staring,” Teia’s voice hums from his left, with that lilt of amusement she wears so well. Lucanis doesn’t bother looking over to her—he knows he’ll find her usual smirk.
He doesn’t deny it, either. “How is it he survived training?” Lucanis asks instead, nodding his head to where Rook is being verbally flayed alive. Viago’s stepped closer now, towering over Rook and gesturing wildly. “It’s a wonder Viago hasn’t strangled him yet.”
Teia hums, leaning on the railing with him. Out of the corner of his eye, he catches the fond look on her face, watches as her hands idly play with the hem of her leather gloves. “He is remarkably hard to kill,” she replies, leaning on her palm and watches the show along with him. “Did Viago ever tell you how he came to House de Riva?”
“No.”
“Ask him sometime. It’s quite the story.”
“Does it also involve Rook blowing himself up with gaatlok?”
Teia snorts. “No, but this isn’t the first time that’s happened,” she says, shifting a bit to face Lucanis. Her head tips and curls spill over her shoulder, dangling high above the casino below. “You’ve seen him fight, though. He’s a force of nature.”
That… Lucanis won’t argue with. As much as it is strangely unrefined for the exacting standards of the Crows, Rook’s martial prowess is extraordinary. Purely instinct driven, completely untamed. Extremely powerful. He’s seen Rook vaporise dozens of Venatori with swaths of electricity with ease.
(He wouldn’t have had to if they’d taken them down one by one like Lucanis suggested, but that’s another story.)
Viago’s pinching the bridge of his nose, shaking his head, when Teia speaks again.
“Up for some coffee?” she says, tone light. Expression neutral. Idle conversation between friends, not Crows, but he hears the unsaid message: someone has information for him at Cafe Pietra. “Illario misses his cousin, Lucanis.”
So it’s about Zara. Lucanis takes a deep breath, the smell of Antivan spirits and sweet-smelling poisons filling his lungs. “Mm, it has been a while,” he replies easily. This he knows: the games of Crows. The delicate dance of information passed between spying eyes and open ears. “Perhaps Rook would enjoy some. He drinks coffee, no?”
There’s an odd expression on Teia’s face—it’s no longer schooled into the carefully carefree mask of hidden messages, instead replaced with an almost disbelieving smile. “He does, yes,” she says slowly, as if tasting the words on her tongue. As if Lucanis suggesting Rook should come is unexpected. And… perhaps it is. Perhaps it should be.
And, as if called, Rook slinks over, tail between his legs and hand rubbing his neck. “Well, that could have gone better,” he mumbles before leaning back against the railing beside Lucanis. “You enjoy the show?”
“A bit,” Lucanis admits while Teia laughs.
“I thought he might pop a blood vessel,” she hums, watching Viago pace restlessly by his desk.
“He’s going to wear a hole in the floor at that rate,” Rook sighs, head tipping back until he’s precariously leaned over the railing.
He’s too exposed. Just one push is all it would take. One push, and the blighted gods would no longer have anything to fear.
“Won’t. Let him. Fall.” Spite insists in his ear and Lucanis’ hands grip the railing tight enough it might splinter.
Lucanis ignores him. “I’m going to meet Illario for coffee, if you’d like to join,” he says, ignoring how uncomfortably available Rook’s throat is. How easy it would be to slit. Too easy. He can’t see Lucanis like this, keeping him in his blindspot as if he has nothing to fear. Or, perhaps, using Lucanis to cover his blindspot, show of unyielding trust. Lucanis doesn’t know which is worse.
Rook’s nose scrunches. “Ah, Illario. Lovely company,” the sarcasm in Rook’s tone is thick, “and coffee even lovelier. I’ve got a long night ahead. Could use some help staying awake.”
Teia snorts, and Lucanis shoots her a bewildered look. She just shrugs, waving a hand and pushing away from the railing. “Go. I’ll keep Viago from poisoning every roast in Antiva.”
“Thanks, Teia,” Rook calls after her, before finally turning both eyes to Lucanis. “Is this a coffee between friends or Crows?” The way he asks, Rook certainly knows the answer. Despite not playing the game, Rook seems to know when it’s being played.
“Friends,” Lucanis answers with an easy smile, and Rook’s own smile is all teeth. Sharp.
“Let’s not keep him waiting, then.”
They do keep him waiting; between the Diamond and Cafe Pietra lies the markets, and Lucanis is and always has been an opportunist. The din of crowds chattering settles on him with a peculiar familiarity—one that’s nearly uncomfortable. It doesn’t quite fit, not anymore, as if he’s a blade slightly too bent for its sheath.
He takes a deep breath, the smoke of oil-lit lanterns and scents of fresh spices and herbs filling his lungs. “Treviso,” he hums, “I barely had time to look around when we returned from the Ossuary.”
Rook is idly following at his side, casual and relaxed, as if knives don’t hide in the shadows between stalls. “Does it feel different?” He asks, and Lucanis can’t help but feel as if Rook’s gaze can flay him bare—he feels it on his shoulder, shrewd and sharp.
If Rook already knows, there’s no point hiding it. “In some ways, more than I expected,” Lucanis answers as he makes his way to the nursery stall he’d used to pick up fresh herbs from. It’s still there, nestled next to a potter, but the shopkeep has changed. “But then… perhaps it’s me.”
Lucanis offers the woman a few coins, an easy smile on his face as he picks up the small spearmint plant. The scent is sharp, bracing, coating the lungs and soothing his aches. Perfect for Harding.
“A potted plant?” Rook asks curiously, a gloved hand reaching for the pot before pulling back.
He does that, Lucanis has noticed: he comes close to brushing fingers or placing a hand on shoulders before drawing away. Rook keeps an odd distance—close enough to feel familiar, but shying away from anything more intimate.
It’s curious. In Antiva, touch may as well be a given. And yet here he is, an Antivan without the accent, without the familiarity, and without the grace.
“For Harding’s garden,” Lucanis explains, passing the plant off to a runner along with a few coins. It’ll wait for him at the Diamond, along with whatever teasing Teia wants to give him. “Spearmint is supposed to calm bad dreams. It’s good in desserts, too.”
Rook’s hum is soft, thoughtful. He doesn’t reply, doesn’t seem to feel the need, instead launching into a new question. “So you and Illario are cousins?” He asks, kneeling next to a large pot of lavender, eyeing the flowers.
Lucanis' brow quirks; he would have thought that was common knowledge amongst Crows. So either Rook doesn’t know, or he’s simply making conversation. “Yes, but we’re more like brothers.” He watches Rook stand, scrutinizes the relaxed look on his face, picks apart the way Rook’s eyes flick to him with a raised brow. “Caterina took us both in… a long time ago now.”
Rook looks away, and Lucanis is almost grateful. “When we met, it didn’t seem like Illario and Caterina were close.”
So he truly didn’t know. Lucanis files that information away, another curiosity to add to Rook’s ever-growing pile of them. “It was hard to be close to her.” And if that wasn’t the understatement of the era. “Even for me, and… I was her favourite.”
The conversation lulls as Lucanis moves away from the stall, Rook a bit closer now. The man is quiet—definitely strange for him. Usually he’d have some witty rejoinder or silly pun to throw out by now. Instead, he simply takes in the markets around them in a somber silence. Lucanis… almost misses the terrible jokes.
He pauses at the fishmonger, eyes catching on a particularly large snapper on display. As soon as the coin passes between him and the shopkeep, Lucanis feels the question burning on Rook’s tongue. “Bellara mentioned a Dalish seafood recipe she wants to make,” he says as the fish is wrapped up in paper and passed to their runner.
“The Demon of Vyrantium is grocery shopping for the team?” Rook sounds almost amused. If he turns, Lucanis knows the shit-eating grin he’d see plastered on his face.
Lucanis’ feathers bristle. “Have you seen what they eat?” What you eat, he nearly adds. He doesn’t, Neve’s words biting his tongue for him. “It’s a miracle they didn’t all starve before you hired me.”
The laugh Rook gives sends a shiver down his spine. It skates across his skin, like the crackle of static on a particularly cold day. Not unpleasant, but—Lucanis isn’t sure what to make of it. The laugh or the feeling.
So he ignores it. Nearly ignores Rook as he makes his way to the produce, picking up a few oranges to see if they’re ripe. And once again Rook is close—he eyes the fresh fruits with a peculiar curiosity, hands clenched at his sides to keep from reaching out.
Lucanis reaches out for him, taking one of Rook’s gloved hands and placing a ripe orange in it. “A good selection today,” he comments as Rook’s fingers slowly curl around the fruit. “Fresh fruit. This one’s perfectly ripe.”
Rook is chewing the inside of his cheek, brows furrowed as he stares at the orange. His grip is loose, as if afraid he’ll crush it in his palm. “How… can you tell?”
There’s something else on Rook’s tongue, but after a beat of silence, Lucanis knows it’ll die with him. “It’s a bit heavier than the others,” he answers instead, picking up one of the lighter oranges. “And if you squeeze, it gives like flesh.”
Rook does not. He simply passes the fruit off to the runner and returns his hands to his sides.
Lucanis isn’t used to the silence around Rook. “Neve only eats fried fish,” he says to fill it, feeling Rook’s gaze on him as he picks out a few more fruits and vegetables. More to cook with, at least, if not to eat. “You’d think a detective would have discovered scurvy by now.”
Rook’s smile is halfhearted. “Is that everything on the list?”
Perhaps Lucanis upset him—Rook clearly does not like to be touched. He simply… what? Simply wished to invade Rook’s personal space? A show between Crows to prove he can ?
“Touch. Rook,” Spite demands, and Lucanis nearly swears. He’s no better than a demon.
“Yes. And Illario should be there by now.” Again, Rook’s nose scrunches at the mention of Illario. Whatever impression his cousin gave Rook clearly was unfavourable. That’s not particularly uncommon, but it is unusual for Rook to display his displeasure so openly. “Let’s go before he gets himself into trouble.”
Lucanis doesn’t wait for an answer, and begins walking the markets with the full expectation Rook would follow. He has thus far—or perhaps he angered him, pushed him away, made him leave—and while Lucanis doesn’t like to turn his back to a Crow, he doesn’t particularly want to meet his eyes, either. It’s only after a few moments of silence, and a few moments of only hearing his own footsteps, that Lucanis turns.
Rook is nowhere to be found.
“Rook. Gone?” Spite asks, and Lucanis avoids the urge to sigh. Obviously.
He pinches the bridge of his nose and makes to turn before there’s a rustle of paper, the sound of footsteps, and Rook jogs out from behind a set of tucked-away stalls. “Lucanis, wait!” He calls, trotting over with a wrapped parcel cradled in his arms. “Almost lost you.”
Lucanis is not preening. He is not pleased Rook did not leave. Spite, however, absolutely is. “You knew where I was headed.”
“Yeah, yeah,” Rook waves dismissively before holding out the parcel, an expectant look in his eye. When Lucanis gives him a blank stare, Rook frowns. “Can’t buy something for everyone but yourself. Here,” he holds out the parcel again, “this is for you.”
A beat passes before Lucanis takes the parcel, surprised by the heft in his hands. It’s heavier than he’d thought—heavier than Rook made it seem. And, as he peels back the paper with a polite, restrained curiosity, he sees why.
“A wyvern-tooth dagger?” Lucanis murmurs, unable to keep the wonder from bleeding into his tone. Gingerly, he runs a gloved finger along the blade, and watches the leather split. Perfectly sharp: shopkeepers in Antiva know their clientele. Before he can stop himself, a small smile settles on his lips and words tumble from his mouth. “I loved wyverns as a boy. Caterina would never let me have one of these, though.”
He can almost see her disapproving stare now, the imperious disdain for anything childish. She’d scoff and chide him before the dagger was melted to slag and bruises lined his thighs.
She’s dead now, Lucanis reminds himself, but it doesn’t stop his grip from tightening on the hilt of the blade. He slips it into his waistband, feeling the sheath warm against his skin with a comforting pressure. As if Rook’s hand were there, at the base of his spine, guiding him forward. As solid and unyielding as the man himself.
Lucanis clears his throat. “Illario will have caused a riot by now,” he says, voice uncomfortably thick. “We should get going.”
Illario’s ability to get himself into trouble nearly matches Rook’s, so when the two arrive at Cafe Pietra, Lucanis half expects there to be fire and brimstone waiting for him. Instead, it’s his cousin, seated peacefully at a table and a few pairs of eyes following them as they wander over.
“Finally! I thought you might leave me here all by my lonesome,” Illario bemoans, his eyes fixed to Rook as he sits.
Spite stirs, a weight on the hollow of his skull. Lucanis ignores him, ignores the way Illario stares at Rook, ignores why that, of all things, has irritation prickling in his eyes.
“Please. As if I’d pass up Cafe Pietra’s coffee,” Lucanis says, biting back the low snarl Spite wants to add.
Illario gives Rook a doe-eyed look of feigned hurt. “You see, Rook? My cousin’s all stomach and no heart.” The way Illario’s lips curl into a smile at the word ‘heart’ has Lucanis’s leather gloves creaking as his fist clenches.
Rook doesn’t seem particularly pleased about it, either—the dry stare Rook is giving his cousin could freeze a rage demon solid.
“Don’t mind him. Illario cannot appreciate anything but himself,” Lucanis says, and if it sounds a bit more spiteful than playful, he’ll simply blame it on the demon. When Rook gives him an amused, almost grateful smile, Lucanis smiles right back. “They serve a specialty roast here. Andoral’s Breath. Bitter and sweet, like a kiss goodbye. You should try it.”
Rook’s head tips, just a bit, his brow raised. There’s a glimmer of interest in his eyes, a half smile playing at his lips. “You just described my dream cup of coffee,” Rook admits with a sheepish little chuckle, and Lucanis ignores the way Illario’s eyes roll. With a tap of his finger, Rook gives the two of them a knowing look and nods his head imperceptibly to the door. “So… you think we’ve done enough three Crows in a coffee shop chatting about nothing to bore the spies?”
He noticed, then; perhaps Lucanis has been a bit ungenerous with Rook. He’s much more perceptive than he lets on—at least when it doesn’t involve explosives.
“Just about. The most persistent one gave up when Lucanis started getting all romantic about roasts.”
“It’s a very good roast!”
Rook hums a bit, brow raised as he rests his chin on his palm. “You’ve got something, then?” He asks, a finger tapping at the tattoo on his cheek.
Illario leans back in his chair, hands folded on the table as if hiding a hand of Wicked Grace from prying eyes. “The Crows I sent after Zara have picked up her trail. They say she’s gone to Vyrantium.”
Impossible. Lucianis is about to open his mouth when Rook does it for him.
“If she was here in Treviso to kill Caterina, she can’t be in Vyrantium already,” Rook argues, eyes narrowing. The thin ice Illario treads with him is clearly growing thinner by the minute, but Lucanis couldn’t even begin to pick apart why . All he knows is Rook is right.
“This is Dellamorte business, de Riva,” Illario snarls at Rook, and Lucanis feels the crackle of electricity in the air.
“He’s right, cousin," Lucanis cuts in. "Zara’s given you a false lead.” Which Illario should know. Lucanis has always known his cousin to be lax, but there’s no way he wouldn’t have noticed.
Illario rounds on Lucanis instead. “You have better information, then?”
Spite growls as he speaks. “We’re compromised,” Lucanis says, and feels the way Spite seethes in his spine. “There’s no other way Zara could even touch Caterina. You need your eyes here. In Antiva.”
“Zara would never be foolish enough to stay!” Illario hisses, leaning in close. His eyes are narrowed, an icy fury in his glare. “Not with you out for blood.”
“Awfully familiar,” Rook mumbles, but when Lucanis shoots him a confused look he simply shrugs.
Lucanis shakes his head, hands folding before him as he levels Illario with a purposeful stare. “Of course she would. If the Crows protecting her are here.”
Illario is many things—a fool is certainly one of them—but he is not truly a fool. There is no way he’d leave his back exposed like this when there is clearly a knife hiding in the wings of a traitorous Crow. Caterina of all people would have quashed that sort of sentimentality and blind optimism in a heartbeat.
And, as if sensing he’s lost a comrade in Lucanis, Illario turns foolishly to Rook. “Rook, reason with him, would you?” His tone is saccharine, completely flipped from the venom he’d spit moments earlier. Lucanis despises how Illario’s cleverly constructed charm curls around Rook’s name. Or Spite does. Or, perhaps, they both do. “He’s being paranoid!”
Anger flashes in his gut, low and caustic. “I am not paranoid!” Lucanis seethes, hands clasped so tight he may break bones. “She came after me. She came after Caterina. She will come for you, too.”
Surely his cousin could not be so blind.
Illario scoffs. “If it’ll make you feel better, I’ll clean house,” he says with visible disgust, as if the mere idea of Lucanis being right is so objectionable. Why he doesn’t share that same ire for the certain traitor, Lucanis cannot fathom. “Leave this to me.” He stands, tossing a few loose coins to the table with muttered curses, before turning sharply on his heel and storming out.
Rook’s eyes narrow for a moment before he stands and follows, leaving Lucanis all alone at the table. He’s only given a moment of sulking before Rook returns, dropping heavily into his chair and rubbing his eyes. “He’s gone.”
“Of course he is,” Lucanis blurts out before he can reign the thought in. He's out of practice keeping his emotions close to the chest. “Illario always caves under pressure.”
Under Caterina’s pressure, under a contract’s pressure, under any pressure, Illario always folds like a house of cards. Lucanis was never afforded that luxury, never given space to bend or break. He had hoped, perhaps blindly, that a year without him would have forged Illario into something stronger. He had hoped, and had been wrong.
Rook heaves a sigh, head tipped back just like before at the Diamond. His neck is exposed, his eyes on the ceiling of the Cafe, his expression tired and annoyed. “Your cousin only seems to hear about one word in ten. Viago would string me up by my entrails if I acted like that.”
That pulls a snort out of Lucanis—the image of Viago taking Rook by the ear and dangling him from the rafters of the Diamond is, as he’s seen, as likely as anything else. “He’s always been this way,” he says as a waitress approaches, tray in hand along with the promise of steaming hot coffee. When the cups have been placed before them and the clink of her heels fades, he continues. “He hears what he wants to hear.”
Gods, it has been too long. The rich aroma of darkly roasted coffee fills his lungs, bitter and earthen with a hint of rich cocoa. He can’t help his smile as he lifts the cup to his lips and takes a small, appreciative sip. The flavour washes over his tongue, milky smooth and delightfully full-bodied.
Rook’s staring, having sat up when the waitress arrived. His own cup is being slowly spun in his hands, the coffee swirling mesmerizingly. “‘Bitter and sweet,’ you called this blend” Rook says, his tone light and almost tender. His gaze turns to his cup, not meeting Lucanis’ curious gaze. “‘Like a kiss goodbye.’”
Lucanis leans forward, brow raised.
“So…” Rook clears his throat, managing to make eye contact again. His expression is completely unreadable, the strangest mix between completely blank a flurry of emotion. “What would a first kiss be?”
The question startles him. Lucanis licks his lips, thoughtful. Is Rook—no. He’s Antivan, this is normal thoroughfare. “Honey and lavender cream. Sweet, intriguing…” Lucanis replies instinctively, folding his arms across his chest. A smile dances on his lips; it’s the game of Crows, and he knows how to play. Even if this particular game is currently digging an odd pit in his stomach. And, before he can stop himself: “And you? How would you describe it?”
The strangest series of expressions crosses Rook’s face. Surprise is first, eyes widening a bit and lips parting. Bewilderment next, as if he simply hadn’t expected Lucanis to play the game, too. Then… a quiet humiliation. He won’t meet Lucanis’ gaze anymore, instead, looking out on the canal. “Haven’t had enough first kisses to say,” he admits, and—
Well, to say Lucanis is in disbelief would be an understatement. Rook is attractive by any standard, surely he’d have had plenty of suitors of all kinds. Even if he’d been a clumsy fledgeling, certainly he’d have caught some eyes and turned more heads.
But—he doesn’t ask. He won’t ask; Lucanis has seen enough wounds to know when one is particularly tender. He won’t prod.
The silence must have gotten to Rook, anyways—he starts to justify. “There’s just never been—well,” he winces, cutting himself off before busying himself with his coffee. The first sip he takes, much to Lucanis’ chagrin, is with the fresh taste of shame on his tongue.
Lucanis takes a deep breath. Despite his shock, he… part of him understands. A part of him scorned by Illario for years, a part of him he’d never bothered to bare. “In matters of the heart, one must be discerning,” he says, and hopes Rook doesn’t pry his words apart and look too deeply. It’s his turn not to meet eyes.
“Especially in our line of work,” Rook agrees, and Lucanis knows he understands. He isn’t sure how to feel about that, so he doesn’t think on it further.
If Rook knows, there’s no point in hiding it. “I’ve always thought that to live truly is to live fully,” he starts, his finger tracing the rim of his cup. “But even before I was captured, my life was not really my own. So much has been determined for me.”
“Life’s too short to be defined by other people,” Rook says, leaning back in his chair and slinging his arm over the back. His gaze is far away, watching the canal but not really seeing it.
“If I’d had that advice sooner,” Lucanis says with a wry smile, knowing he’d never had been able to use it. He’d have had cane marks up and down his back for even thinking it.
Rook takes a deep breath, the dim lantern light flickering over his face and casting shadows Lucanis could swear was fear across it. “Once I defined myself as the man I wanted to be, I was free to pursue what really mattered to me.”
Lucanis is no fool—he can hear the undercurrent of meaning lurking in Rook’s words. There’s a purpose to be found there, knowledge to be gleaned, but the words themselves are painfully vague. Platitudes from a man not known for them.
He doesn’t think too deeply on it. Rook is, if nothing else, direct. If he wishes to make something known, he’ll come right out and say it. “‘What really matters to me,’” Lucanis repeats instead, swirling the coffee in his cup. A faint twinge of fondness tickles at his chest, a blooming warmth that is wholly unfamiliar, like the burn of coffee down his throat. “Mm. Perhaps it’s closer than I thought.”
“Ugh,” Davrin groans as they push through the Eluvian, wiping blood from his gauntlet with a scrunched nose. His boots track blood, mud, and viscera from various Venatori in, but Lucanis’ aren’t much better. Or Rook’s, for that matter. Especially Rook’s.
They trudge, with the weight of battles heavy on worn muscles, up the stairs to the library.
“Feels sacrilegious to dirty up the place,” Rook groans, but drops heavily into his chair anyways. His head tips back, resting on the chair and his eyes close. Spatters of blood darken his cheeks. Lucanis ignores his desire to wipe it away.
Davrin chuckles a bit, rolling his shoulders as he continues on to the door, Assan trotting along with the clatter of talons on stone. “Yeah? You a devout believer?” He calls, pausing at the door with a small smile, brow raised. Not once does he look to Lucanis.
“Oh, absolutely. Call me the Herald of the Dread Wolf.”
Davrin leaves with a laugh.
The door swings shut, leaving Lucanis and Rook to the uncanny quiet of the Lighthouse’s library, broken only by Rook's soft breaths. For a moment, Lucanis thinks Rook has forgotten he’s there, or has simply dozed off with his neck on display for an opportunistic Crow. It’s a terrible habit of his.
The silence breaks with Rook's groan. “Gods, I need a bath. Or ten,” Rook says, cracking open his good eye to look at Lucanis. There’s a smile curling his lips and curdling Lucanis’ stomach. “I don’t know how you managed to kill so many and you’re the cleanest of the three of us.”
“I’m surprised you aren’t,” Lucanis replies, leaning against the bookshelf with his arms folded. His gloves are bloodied, yes, but nothing like Rook's gore-bathed leathers. “You’re a mage, you should be further back, and yet you fight hand-to-hand with that blade. Why?”
Rook hums, his eye closing again. “Better at it. Besides, I miss with a staff too much. Depth perception isn’t quite what it used to be.”
Ah. “Apologies. I shouldn’t have brought it up.”
Rook gives a half-hearted wave. “No, it’s fine. You’re right to be curious. Harding nearly lost her mind the first time she saw me charge a hurlock. Suppose it is a bit odd.” His nose scrunches, wrinkling the tattoo on the bridge. “Could do without all the mess, though.”
“It’s impressive,” Lucanis says, and means it. Watching Rook carve through their enemies, blade glimmering with magic and hands crackling with sparks, is almost mesmerising. And watch he does—the mage-killer in him demands it. Forces him to watch every flicker of magic in Rook's palms, dares him to turn it against him. Who will win, Lucanis wonders: the mage-killing Demon of Vyrantium, or a force of nature crudely fashioned into the bladework of a Crow?
The more he watches, the more uncertain he gets of the answer.
“As nice as the flattery is,” Rook starts, pushing himself from his chair with a deep, guttural groan, “I really do need to hit the baths. Think one of those Venatori dropped their guts down my chestplate or something.”
Lucanis licks his lips. “Allow me to accompany you,” he says, before he can think better of it. Before Spite can suggest the same thing—he sees the demand on the demon's tongue. “I'd rather not continue being covered in a stranger’s blood, if that's all right.”
Rook's raised brow has Lucanis kicking himself. “Should I be concerned you want to replace it with my blood?” He jokes with that damned half smile, head tilting and blood-soaked silver hair spilling into his face. A part of him, a strange part—one he’d blame on Spite—likes the look on him.
“Don’t do anything to have a contract taken on you, and you’ll be fine,” Lucanis replies dryly.
“Pretty sure Viago would put a contract out on me in a heartbeat,” Rook says with a snort. He shuffles, lithe limbs leaden with fatigue, towards the door beside the stairs, holding it open for Lucanis to follow. His hand leaves a bloody print on the stone, one that will be washed away by the tides of the Fade before night falls. “Been a thorn in his side since coming to House de Riva.”
Lucanis offers a low hum. He's seen the exasperation Viago hurls Rook's way, the way the man's brow's furrow and his moustache twitches with displeasure when Rook's flippant tongue ruffles feathers. He's also seen, as Rook turns away, the way Viago's eyes follow.
Spite bristles along his spine, a low snarl, and Lucanis cuts that thought's throat.
They descend veilfire-lit stairs, the flickering blue drowning the walls in otherworldly shadows. Each breath of fire has the shadows shivering behind them, licking at their steps and mingling with the blood they track down to the depths. Swallowing it whole, hungry.
Spite snarls in his ear, a step behind him, breath cold. Lucanis ignores him.
The baths, much like the rest of the Lighthouse, are pretentious. Ostentatious in the way only someone who masquerades as humble could manage. Waterfalls trickle in from tears in the Fade, faintly illuminated by the ancient magic holding them in place. They pool into a series of circular basins draining into one another, before finally converging at a basin large enough to hold a high dragon, wings outstretched. Large enough to drown in—or be drowned in.
Lucanis’ hand clenches a bit. The shimmer of magic under the water has never sat well, too familiar and completely foreign all at once. Watching the surface writhe, he can hear the chanting, the screaming, the torture, even now. Even in the Fade—or perhaps especially in the Fade.
“A prison. Our prison,” Spite seethes, wings stretched wide and teeth bared, and Lucanis can almost feel his blood being set alight. Burning from the inside out, molten lava choking him, strangling his heart—
“Lucanis?”
As if waking from a dream, Lucanis blinks, seeing the forest for the trees once more. Rook stands before him, bathed in the light that ripples through the water, brows furrowed. Lucanis can feel the way Rook’s eyes dig into him, peeling back pristine feathers to expose the wounded Crow beneath. Prodding at the wounds, while being mindful of the talons near his throat.
“Lost in thought,” Lucanis lies.
Rook doesn’t believe him, doesn’t have to, doesn’t ask. He simply presses his lips into a thin line for a moment, then turns on his heel.
With his back turned, it’d be child’s play for a Crow to slip a blade between his shoulder blades. Doubly so as Rook shucks off layers of leathers keeping his vitals from harm. As his sweat-damp undershirt is revealed, Lucanis feels his hand twitch to the wyvern-tooth dagger at his waist.
He’s staring again, he knows it.
“You know,” he starts, hand clenched into a fist, “it’s rather dangerous to turn your back on an Antivan Crow.”
Rook’s low hum almost sounds like a laugh. “That why you never turn yours on me?”
So he’s noticed. Lucanis really should stop being surprised by this. “Perhaps.”
There’s a thud as Rook haphazardly tosses aside his leather breastplate, the clattering clasps skidding across stone. He turns again, expression inscrutable and undershirt almost sheer with sweat. It clings to him, to every muscle moulded by the Crows and years of torturous training. Everything about Rook screams lethality—from the red on his hands to the knife-sharp bones cutting across his collar.
Rook holds his blood-stained hands out, surrendering. Lucanis knows better, though: even if Rook’s hands are empty, that makes him no less dangerous.
“Smell blood. Magic.” Spite hisses, circling Rook like a vulture, eyes narrowed.
He’d been bathed in Venatori blood and the stench hangs heavy between them—it’s no wonder Spite’s on edge. No wonder Lucanis is on edge.
“You… are impossible,” Lucanis mutters before unclenching his hand. Forcing himself to relax. To drop his shoulders and tuck in his wings. To be a man first, and a wary Crow after. “Did you know that?”
Rook hums again, letting his hands fall to his sides. “So I’ve heard.”
Slowly, uncertainly, Lucanis shucks off his cape, setting it gently to the side. Reverently—to a Crow, their cape is their life. Their wings.
A small smile curls Rook’s lips; he begins to remove the rest of his leathers in earnest, piling them into a careless mess of blood and armour. It isn’t until he stands, hands on the hems of his tunic, that Rook speaks again. “I—it’s been a while since I—” he clears his throat, voice small. “Since I’ve bathed with someone else.”
Lucanis undoes the buttons on his vest, but raises a brow. “Oh?”
“Have you—you know,” Rook doesn’t seem embarrassed, per se, but the tips of his ears glow red in the blue-cast haze of the baths. Instead, it’s more akin to shame: the way his eyes lower to Lucanis’ Antivan leather boots, the way his jaw sets, tense and uncomfortable. The only time Rook has shown true discomfort around him, and it has nothing to do with the demon occupying his skull. Odd.
“Bathed with another? Yes,” Lucanis replies, setting aside his vest to begin working on the silken shirt beneath. A luxury, he’ll admit—fine clothing is expensive in his line of work, what with the blood, gore, and viscera. A luxury he will continue to indulge in, regardless. Despite it all, despite the past year, the soft fabric on his skin makes him feel… human. Real.
He can hear Viego’s scoff now, see the roll of his eyes as the man dons his utilitarian leathers.
Rook doesn’t seem especially comforted by the admission. “I see,” he replies, and makes no moves to discard any more layers of clothing.
Interesting.
Spite licks his teeth, head tilting as he draws nearer to Rook. Close enough that his breath would tickle skin, were Rook able to see. “Tear them. Off. Off.” The demon demands, but his immaterial hands hardly ruffle Rook’s clothes. At most, it sends a shiver down his spine—easy to write off as a chill in the air.
Lucanis shoots Spite a dark glare, forcing the demon to back off before slipping out of his shirt and setting it aside.
It’s not until Lucanis makes short work of his belt that Rook moves again; with the deep, shuddering sigh of a man resigned to his fate, he shucks his tunic off. And with the shallow, sharp inhale of a man who’d been wrong, Lucanis understands.
He understands much about Rook with just one renewed glance, and is chagrined he’d never put it together before now. An elf in the Antivan Crows—while much has changed in the years since the fall of House Arainai and the slit throats of many who prey upon those in their employ… they have not truly evolved. Not really. At their core, the Antivan Crows are criminals skulking in the shadows. And when there’s coin to be made, some will stoop to depths scorned even by demons.
A nasty scar runs from Rook’s chest to belly, as if he’d been split open like cattle, branching off to curl on each shoulder. A necromancer’s work, no doubt—likely rooting around in his guts for parts for their rituals, or perhaps just for sick enjoyment. More scars, some old and some concerningly fresh, line his arms, his waist, his chest, his hips, his throat. Not the scars of an assassin, no—the scars of an animal sent to slaughter. The scars of someone who’d fought desperately for their life, time and time and time again, only to come out just a bit wrong each time.
“Mierda,” Lucanis murmurs. His hand twitches, itching to touch. Spite does, his spectral hands tracing the jagged flesh along his stomach with an expression akin to fury.
Rook shudders—whether it’s because of Lucanis’ gaze or the hint of Spite’s touch, he does not know. “Well—now you know,” he blurts, teeth clenching hard enough to shatter stone. “Taash and Neve know, but…” He clears his throat. “Does it bother you?”
What an odd question. “Of course it does,” Lucanis answers, and Rook looks away, his hand rubbing at his mouth.
Blood smears across Rook’s face. He seems unaware—or uncaring—of the mess on his hands. “I’ll… go, then. You can bathe first.”
In a blink of sparks and the stench of burnt blood and ozone, Rook flashes past him, retreating up the stairs before Lucanis can spit out another word.