Archive of Our Own ^beta

Chapter Text

The pantry isn’t a terrible place to live.

It may be cramped, and the decoration potential is non-existent, but it’s easily defensible, has a good choke point, and it allows Lucanis to hear things that others may never be privy to. He hears how Harding paces, experimenting with her new powers on the rocks around the Lighthouse. He hears Bellara speaking to herself as she tries a new recipe or tinkers with some project while she eats.

But most frequently, he hears Rook. He hears her and all of her…questionable snacking habits.

It starts on his first night settling into the Lighthouse. Lucanis hears a noise, and pauses to listen. There are footsteps, rummaging, and then…a crunch—a bite out of an apple. He emerges a moment later to find Rook with an apple in hand. She gives him a wave and that was that.

Over the next week, she comes back at the oddest times to eat the oddest things. The thin walls and his own knowledge of the kitchen make it easy to discern what she’s trying to eat, and she so rarely wanders into the pantry, leaving only what’s out in the kitchen to snack on. She’d eat anything, apparently; apples, oddly cut wedges of cheese, left over ham from the day’s lunch, stale bread, even a whole raw tomato.

Eventually, he has to ask, “Why?”

And she answers, “I’m hungry.”

“Yes, but…why not make something more…substantial?”

She shrugs. “It’s quicker? Never really learned to cook, anyway.”

He chalks it up to just another quirk about the company he’s agreed to keep for the term of this contract. At least, he should, and he should just leave it at that. But the mere sight of her about to bite into the center of an entire sausage irks him just enough to spur him to action. Besides, he’s been meaning to find a way to thank her for that wyvern dagger.

“Go sit down,” he says, confiscating the sausage before she can bite into it.

“Hey! I was eating that.”

“No, you were about to mutilate it. Now sit. I’ll make real food.”

Rook pouts at him, but sits down at the table. Her arms land heavily on the table and she sighs.

Lucanis rolls his eyes and gets to work. He thinks for a moment on the sausage in his hand before taking it to the cutting board, slicing the meat into thin disks. The cheese comes next—a neat, even wedge is cut from the wheel and then sliced down into squares just as thin as the sausage. Finally, he sears some of the stale bread in a pan. It’s not too stale, but a bit of butter and herbs and heat will go a long way to revive it.

There is more noise behind him as he cooks; more footsteps, more chairs scraping against the floor, more chatter. Lucanis rolls his eyes and returns to the cutting board as the bread sears, cutting up more meats and cheeses. By the time he plates the food and turns to serve, Rook is not alone at the table. The whole team seems to have gathered; Neve, Harding, and Bellara are all sitting around her.

Lucanis puts the large board of meats and cheeses down in the center of the table, giving each of them their own plate with a piece of the butter-seared bread on it. They ‘ooh’ and ‘ah’ at the food, serving themselves. Except for Rook.

Rook looks at him with a smile and a raised eyebrow. “This is ‘real food’?”

“A charcuterie board,” Lucanis explains. He retrieves some grapes to add to the board as the team eats. “It’s an Orlesian appetizer and a better use for sausage than biting into it.”

He says it with exasperation, with annoyance, with Spite, and…she giggles.

For some reason, her face lights up and she laughs like twinkling stars in Treviso’s night sky.

‘This…More! I want more!’ Spite screams at him. But more of what?

“I guess you’re right,” she says, still smiling as she feigns frustration. “This is better food. Thank you, Lucanis.”

“Of course.” He replies. “We have a kitchen for a reason.”

Rook laughs again as he retreats to the end of the table. The seats around her are taken, forcing him to take his own plate to the other end.

‘No! Make her do it again!’ Spite yells. Lucanis waves him away.

“I never thought meat and cheese could be so fancy,” Neve comments as he sits. “Is there anything the Crows don’t do with style?”

“Ha. No.”

Lucanis is distracted while he eats—by Rook, by her laugh. Though he tries to make it seem as though he is keeping an eye on how much food is left, he knows his gaze slips to her. She talks with Bellara, smiling and laughing, but it’s not quite the way she laughed with him. He didn’t know starlight even had a sound, but he’s sure he heard it there on the other side of the table.

“You’re staring,” Harding says quietly, elbowing him.

Making a face, Lucanis tears his gaze away from Rook, staring diligently down at his plate. “It just amazes me that such a small woman could be so…ravenous. I just sat down and she’s already finished her plate.”

Harding looks like she doesn’t quite believe his excuse, but she doesn’t call him on it. “Well, adventuring does take a lot of energy, and she’s out there more than any of us.”

“Yes, but have you seen what she eats? A whole loaf of bread, without slicing it or tearing it up. Just. She ate the whole loaf—scarfed it all down in two minutes. And then she followed that with oranges, including the rind. She was about to bite into the middle of a sausage tonight, before I stopped her,” Lucanis sighs.

“…Growing up a city elf in Tevinter will do that to you,” Neve says, suddenly more somber.

Lucanis frowns. That hadn’t occurred to him. “Oh…was she…”

“A slave?” Neve finishes. “Ask her about it sometime. She doesn’t mind talking about it.”

He doesn’t ask. He’s not quite sure how to bring up something like that, even if he is curious. But it’s on his mind every time Rook comes to the kitchen for weeks. He knows that those Crows who were bought from slavery fought tooth and nail to become what they are now. It’s not a pretty process. Rook may not have been shoved in a tiny room with a dozen other recruits, but he can’t imagine it was much better for her.

She eats like the food won’t be there tomorrow, but only little bits at a time. He’s surprised to realize that she does pick out all of the healthiest things, even if plain, raw vegetables aren’t the most appetizing of snacks. Only rarely does she reach for the leftover cakes or candies left lying around. But when there’s food on her plate, she inhales it faster than Lucanis has ever seen anyone eat..

Lucanis finally takes pity on her when she returns with Davrin and Harding from the Hossburg Wetlands absolutely covered in swamp and blight. She isn’t dripping all over the floor, but the stench is there. And she looks pissed.

It takes a bit of convincing, but she sits when he asks and waits patiently as he prepares something to eat. Davrin and Harding show up not long after, washed and clean, seating themselves beside Rook. Being a simple dish, the Bruschetta is prepared quickly, making an easy snack for the hungry adventurers at the table.

Though, Lucanis recoils as he places the food down on the table.

“What?” Rook asks him, mouth full.

He sneers, leaning away from her. “You need a bath.”

Rook huffs. “I was hungry!”

“Davrin and Harding bathed.”

“I promise we’ll save you some snacks if you go take a bath,” Davrin chimes in.

“No, you won’t.” Rook glares, still chewing. “Assan will eat my share when you’re not looking.”

Assan squaks gleefully and Davrin doesn’t say no, exactly. Rook frowns at them and stubbornly eats another piece of bruschetta.

Lucanis almost thinks he’ll have to insist again, but she takes a look at everyone’s faces, huffs, and stands, still frowning. Rook swipes another piece of bruschetta for the road, but finally agrees to bathe as long as the rest of them promise to save some food for her. Davrin and Harding half-heartedly mumble something that resembles agreement as she walks away.

Of course, they don’t save her anything. At least Davrin keeps Assan from eating any, but he and Harding are just as hungry as Rook was. The plate of bruschetta is gone before Lucanis can put any of it aside. They thank him for the meal and leave, Assan trailing behind them with a few ginger root treats in his mouth.

‘Hungry…’ Spite growls. ‘Make more!’

Lucanis sighs at the empty plates in the sink. Spite can’t eat, and Lucanis isn’t hungry, but…maybe Spite doesn’t mean them. He sets a pot of water on the stove to boil.

He gets to work, chopping and mashing vegetables to add to the pot, adding salt and butter and toasting more bread on the side.

The soup is nearly done by the time the dining hall doors creak open. Rook wanders in, footsteps notably less angry. He hears her stop by the counter, smelling the air.

“They didn’t save any for you,” Lucanis says. Spite overcomes him for a brief second. “Rude!”

“I figured as much,” Rook says. “But you’re still cooking.”

Lucanis shakes Spite off and adds a sprig of herbs to the soup, stirring it all together. “I used an entire loaf and a half for that bruschetta. You had three pieces. You let them have the rest.”

She’s quiet for a moment. “…They were hungry.”

“As I recall, so were you.”

“And you all wanted me to bathe before eating.”

“So? You could’ve eaten a little more before you went.”

“Yes…but they…it’s a lot of work to throw around knives and swords and shooting arrows. Certainly, more tiring than…casting spells?”

Lucanis glances over his shoulder and raises an eyebrow. Rook folds under his gaze.

“I don’t know, a good leader keeps her team fed?” She tries. Perhaps she doesn’t know why she let them have it all either.

“Last I check, I was doing most of the feeding today.” Lucanis pours the soup into a pair of bowls and takes one in each hand. “Now, sit.”

Rook smiles as she sits and Lucanis puts the soup in front of her. She digs in before he sits, and sighs with a smile.

“Now if only a spell could do this,” she says. “You sure you’re not a mage?”

Rook laughs at her own joke, and there it is again—the sound of starlight.

Lucanis busies himself with his own soup before it gets cold, but he hears that sound again and again, playing in his mind over and over like a broken record. How can stars exist in a smile? How does starlight have a sound?

Rook finishes her soup quickly and stands to serve herself another bowl, but the dining hall doors open as she does.

“Oooh, that smells great!” Bellara bursts into the dining hall, Emmrich and Manfred close behind her. “We heard there were snacks.”

“Davrin and Harding ate them all,” Rook says. “But Lucanis made soup!”

Lucanis sees her reach for two clean bowls, pouring the rest of the soup for Bellara and Emmrich and serves them as they sit.

‘No! Not for them! It’s for Rook!’ Spite shouts.

“This looks delightful!” Emmrich says. “Thank you.”

He smiles at them, but his gaze is on Rook. She busies herself with the dishes, her own bowl included. There’s no mention or comment of wanting more, though her hand was holding the ladle just minutes ago. It’s generous, but foolish. And he’s still no closer to knowing why she does it.

Which leads Lucanis into a peculiar habit. At least, he thinks it’s peculiar.

Lucanis finds himself planning and cooking for each mission the team returns from. Of course, he never knows when they’re returning, so the kitchen ends up full of an assortment of snacks all of the time. Not that anyone else complains about it.

The team visits him more frequently, then. They mostly come in search of snacks, but Lucanis finds that he doesn’t mind the company. He respects Harding’s and Neve’s honesty, even if they don’t fully trust him yet. Bellara is full of ideas—too many of them—but she inspires and assists with quite a few of his more daring cooking escapades. Emmrich is an excellent conversationalist, especially when Lucanis can’t think of much else to say. Taash’s innocent adoration of the Crows is rather endearing. And even Davrin is decent company…when he can get off his high horse.

It’s time well spent, learning about each of his teammates and bonding with them. He’s surprised to find that he actually likes them. He incorporates each of their culinary preferences into his rotation of snacks as he learns about them, and in return, they’ll help him in the kitchen and even gifted him a garish “kiss the cook” apron. (It pains him to admit he’s taken a liking to wearing it. Despite Spite jeering at him for looking stupid, the sight of the team kissing the air as a way to say ‘thank you’ is rather funny.)

It’s just that he can’t quite pin down what Rook likes. He tries a myriad of suggestions from each member of the team, but each time she comes by for a snack, she treats it like she would any other: She only takes a few pieces, leaving most of it behind for the team. Whether she’s hungry after a mission or just looking for a midnight snack, nothing Lucanis makes seems to entice her to have more than just a bite.

It's a stark contrast to how she eats, he realizes. She never takes much, but she always eats her food quickly, like someone might take it from her. She finishes every crumb. It’s a mystery. She is a mystery.

Lucanis is no good at mysteries. But Neve is.

They’re in the middle of making pumpkin bread for dessert that night. The rest of the team is finishing their dinner at the table, chattering to each other. Quietly, when he’s sure Rook isn’t listening, he asks: “Do you know what Rook likes to eat?”

Neve stops mixing the batter and turns to look at him. She gives him a look.

Lucanis frowns. “What? Why are you looking at me like that? I don’t know what that means.”

“Have you asked her?”

“Yes. She liked the cioccolata calda from Café Pietra, but she won’t give me a strong opinion about any of the snacks we’ve been making.”

“So…you’ve been making all of these snacks for her.”

‘Yes.’ Spite spits.

“For the team,” Lucanis corrects both her and Spite. “Surprisingly, it’s nice to return to snacks after a long day of fighting Darkspawn and Aantam and Venetori. It’s just that everyone has voiced what they like most except for her.”

Neve sighs and keeps mixing. “Well, maybe she actually doesn’t have a strong opinion on the snacks. Even if we have our preferences, they’re all good snacks.”

“Really? Because she eats so few of them that I’m starting to wonder if she’s just lying about liking them to spare my feelings.”

“You didn’t ask her about being a slave, did you?”

“Kind of a hard thing to ask about.”

Neve is quiet for a moment as she adds more flour to the batter. Lucanis cleans around her, wondering if he’s said something wrong.

“It’s not my story to tell,” Neve says, eventually. “But just to give you a little peace of mind, slaves in Tevinter aren’t treated very well. For the favored slaves of the wealthy magisters it’s…a different kind of hard. Rook may not have scars on her skin, but trust me, they’re there.”

“Food is one of them?” Lucanis guesses.

Neve hums. “Slaves get the leftovers and scraps, and usually they only get enough to keep them alive and working for another day. And if you’re not quick enough, then whatever you don’t eat is taken and thrown away.”

The pumpkin bread batter goes into a pan, and the pan goes into the oven. Neve leans back against it and levels Lucanis’s gaze. “My guess, she’s eating only what she needs to out of habit. She doesn’t hate your food, she just…doesn’t always remember that she can have as much as she wants or that it’s not going to be taken from her.”

They stand with silence between them, though the warm laughter and chatter of their team fills the dining hall. Rook sits at the far end of the table, talking to Emmrich. She laughs at something he says and smiles like the weight of the world isn’t on her shoulders.

“Go easy on her,” Neve says. “She’s already got a lot on her plate.”

Lucanis frowns at her.

Neve smiles. “Come on, that was funny. Rook would’ve laughed.”

Somehow, the knowledge he gains from that conversation does little to quell his curiosity. Or perhaps interest is a better word? Whatever it is, it keeps him cooking.

He starts experimenting, not just with the recipes but with the plating as well. He tries putting aside a portion of food specifically for Rook once, but she mistakes it for his own portion and serves herself a smaller helping.

During one dinner, he tries pre-portioning and plating everything, but makes the mistake of giving Rook her plate first. She passes the plate down to the end of the table and looks to him for the next plate as if he had always intended for her to pass each portion along. There are a few complaints about how the food was divided that night.

He thinks of labeling everything, but then isn’t sure the ink will even stick to the plates. He could also just give her a portion and explicitly say that it’s for her, but is that too direct?

Lucanis continues to ponder it with every snack he prepares, every dinner he makes, and every ingredient he touches, to no avail. What finally does it is nothing more than an accident.

Bellara and Harding make finger sandwiches for the day’s snack. Lucanis steps in to help with a bit of ingredient slicing, but they really do all of the work. The mountain of sandwiches they make is devoured by the team until just a handful of them are left. Granted, that handful is still more than enough to make a full meal, but it’s only a fraction of the food that was made.

The rest of the team filters out of the dining hall slowly, consumed by their own conversations while Rook sticks around to clean. Lucanis stays too—his room is there, after all.

She sweeps while he does dishes, and it’s a peaceful silence. The straw of the broom scrapes gently against the stone floors, and the dishes accompany the light percussion with off-beat clinking. But it’s not long before the sweeping percussion stops, and the footsteps that follow it still.

“…Are there any sandwiches left?” Rook calls out.

Lucanis looks over his shoulder, to the small plate of finger sandwiches on the kitchen counter. “Yes. Quite a few.”

Those footsteps quicken, approaching Lucanis quickly, and then they stop a few feet away. Then, there’s the gentle crunch of lightly-crisped bread, and finally a pleased hum. It sounds like the gentle tune that bards play on romantic nights around cafes.

“Harding really knows her way around a sandwich,” Rook says. “They’re so…”

She kisses the air, laughing to herself as she does. It sounds like starlight.

By the time Lucanis finishes the dishes, Rook has already gone back to sweeping, humming idly to herself as she works. The melody is unfamiliar, but it’s not the melody that draws him in.

Rook seems to dance around the dining hall, swaying to her own song with the broom as her partner. She seems to lose herself to the rhythm of it. Her steps are light, and though there’s no distinct style to her dancing, each turn and twirl are elegant. Eventually, she catches him watching, but it doesn’t stop her or make her hesitate. She just smiles at him and keeps dancing.

Lucanis looks down at the plate of left over sandwiches. They’re all gone.

Armed with new knowledge, Lucanis begins setting aside a plate of “leftovers” whenever he can, whether he cooks or not. To his surprise, it works. Without fail, Rook comes to eat or snack with the rest of the team, taking only a small portion. Then later, when everyone has left, she’ll sneak back into the kitchen in search of that plate. Sometimes Lucanis is there to push it towards her, and sometimes he just hears her through the wall.

 He thinks that will be the end of it. The mystery has been solved and his strange fixation with Rook’s snacking habits will fade now that he’s found a way to stop her from snacking on random ingredients. But, as the weeks pass, he realizes that he’s begun to wait for her to come by the dining hall.

He pauses to listen when the dining hall doors open. He’ll push Spite aside if he hears conversation beyond the pantry door. And when he fights to stay awake, he fights just long enough to hear the appreciative hum that comes late at night, finally lulling him to sleep.

It’s another mystery, but not one he’s willing to ask Neve about. Something tells him he’ll be laughed at and his questions will go unanswered. He’ll have to settle with never knowing the answer. Hell, Lucanis doesn’t even know the question.

Has he gone mad? Is he insecure about his cooking? Is he pitying Rook?

Lucanis is left to wonder as days, weeks, and missions pass. At some point, the team decides it’s a good idea to take the snacks on the go. It’s one more thing to carry around, but it’s an engaging challenge to find snacks that will keep for days, don’t taste like dirt, and won’t be ruined if a Hurlock steps on the team’s bags.

He portions out the snacks into individual containers so that Rook can’t take a small portion. Harding and Bellara come by to get their “snack packs” and Bellara grabs the mission team’s rations as well, but Rook’s pack is left on the kitchen counter.

Lucanis frowns when he realizes it’s still there in the middle of cooking dinner for everyone else. He almost leaves it there, but Rook already eats so little…

He wipes his hands on his apron and takes the pack, jogging to the eluvian room. They only just departed when he started on dinner. They should still be close by.

Lucanis makes it through the eluvian to the Crossroads and sees the mission team in the distance, boarding one of the Caretaker’s boats.

“Rook!” He calls out.

She turns and frowns when she sees him.

“Lucanis? Is something wrong?” She asks. Her eyes rake over him, worried, checking for injuries. Then she looks behind him as well, just in case.

“No, it’s—everything is fine,” Lucanis says. Rook relaxes, sighs. “You forgot your snacks.”

He holds out the snack pack to her, and she stares at it for a moment. Then, she laughs. She sparkles like the stars do.

“Is that all? Maker, you really had me worried there, for a minute.” She takes the pack, waving it around as she talks. “Guess I might’ve starved without this though, if you felt you had to bring it to me.”

She laughs at her own joke, then stands up on her toes and kisses his cheek.

“Thanks, Lucanis. I’ll try not to…Lucanis?”

He can’t move. His skin burns where she kissed him and he can’t feel his legs. He’s not even sure he’s breathing.

Rook frowns at him. “Lucanis are you…” Her eyes widen and a hand flies to her mouth. “Oh! I’m sorry! Shit, are you not okay with—I’m so sorry. I was just—the apron—”

Bellara giggles manically from the boat, barely able to keep herself upright. Harding is doing a poor job at holding back her own smile as she calls out: “Rook, we have to go.”

“Right. Um.” Rook grimaces. She backs up slowly towards the boat. “I’m so sorry, Lucanis. I’ll make it up to you later, I swear.”

Lucanis’s feet are glued to the ground as the boat sails off into the fade. He’s stuck, watching Rook shake her head in shame as her kiss lingers on his cheek. The mission team’s fading conversation is barely audible over the sound of starlight ringing in his ears.

“What was that?” Harding asks.

“I just—I was messing around!” Rook says. “He’s wearing the apron, so I—I don’t know.”

“I think I know,” Bellara laughs. “I think you broke him.”

He can’t see her face anymore, but he sees Rook turning around to look at him. And he stays standing there, staring off into the Fade for who knows how long before his feet finally decide to move.

Lucanis thinks he knows, too. His mystery is suddenly crystal clear.

The question is: ‘Do I like her?’

And the answer is: ‘Yes.’

Chapter Text

Lucanis hasn’t worn the apron since Rook kissed him. Thankfully, no one has said anything about it.

It is also very possible that he’s been avoiding her. Thankfully, no one has mentioned that either.

Except for Spite, who likes to loudly remind him of his cowardice.

And perhaps it is cowardly to avoid this particular problem, but Lucanis has no idea what else he can do. He hasn’t liked someone in years, and the last time he did, he was a teenager. Feelings are difficult things, anyway. Feelings cloud judgement and make one vulnerable to a number of different kinds of attacks. It’s simply not sustainable, not convenient, and especially not appropriate. Not now. Not with her.

But Lucanis keeps putting aside those leftover plates and listening for her to come to the dining hall anyway. He listens for her humming, for her laugher—it’s a problem.

He decides that he can’t stay in the pantry, or at least, he can’t stay there waiting for her. It’ll drive him mad.

So, he goes to the library. The books there are mostly old and in languages he can’t read, but the atmosphere is just fine for settling in to re-read one of his favorite romance novels. He leans into one side of the couch with a cup of coffee and cracks open the book. Others pass by him, though the library and around the little seating area, but it’s easy to pay them no mind when he’s engrossed by the story on the page.

It only takes about half of the book for him to realize that no matter how much he enjoys them, a romance novel may not have been the best choice to relax with, given his situation. He comes to the part where the lovers can no longer deny their feelings for each other and finally they kiss, and Lucanis has to put the book down.

All of a sudden, he’s thinking of Rook’s kiss again.

She didn’t mean it. It was a joke because of that stupid apron. She was just messing around.

But he can still feel her lips on his cheek and hear her twinkling laugh. Lucanis sighs and looks back at his book. They have it so easy.

A shadow appears over his book. Lucanis looks up, and he freezes. Rook stands before him, a book in her hand, and an apologetic frown on her face.

“Hey,” she says. She fidgets with the book. “I just wanted to apologize…for kissing you.”

“It’s alright,” Lucanis tells her.

“It’s really not,” Rook says. She’s right. It’s not. He’s still thinking about it. “I got swept up in the joke, but…I should’ve asked if you were comfortable with jokes like that first.”

‘She could ask anything of you!’ Spite shouts at him with a sneer.

“Spite!” Lucanis chastises. Rook looks between him and the space of air where Spite hovers with worry. Lucanis waves his hand. “It’s fine. He’s just…it’s alright, Rook. Really.”

“…You’re sure?”

Lucanis hums, thankful that he has a book to hide his shaking hands. “It was bound to happen at some point, and it’s my fault for wearing that stupid apron. But better you than…it probably would’ve been Assan.”

“But Assan is so cute!”

“Yes, and I’ve seen what he eats. I don’t want that griffon’s mouth anywhere near me.”

“But you don’t mind if it’s my mouth?”

Lucanis chokes on air.

“Sorry! I—ahh.” Rook wipes a hand over her face, cheeks turning an adorable shade of scarlet. “I’m sorry. It was right there.”

She smiles, despite herself, and Lucanis finds himself smiling with her. “Yes, well…your kiss was not all slobber.”

Rook laughs. It’s become some sort of spell now that he knows why it sounds like starlight. He’s drawn to her, just her as her laugh fills the library. Eventually she stops. She tilts her head, furrows her brow, and asks him: “What?”

Lucanis tears his gaze away, suddenly finding the couch very interesting. He takes a breath, trying to steady himself. “Nothing. Just…join me.”

She smiles and she does. “What are you reading?”

He turns the book over to show her the cover. “L'amore è tutto ciò che splende,” he says. “Love is All that Shines.”

“Sounds romantic.”

“Well, it’s a romance novel. One of my favorites actually.”

“Oh? The roguish assassin likes romance? What’s it about?”

“A pair of lovers who find each other in the face of tragedy.”

“Sounds…well…romantic.”

Lucanis laughs and passes her the book. “It is.”

Rook lights up as she takes it. Her hand brushes over the cover, but she looks up at him with mischief as she opens it.

“Chapter One,” she reads aloud. “A Night by the River.”

He’s not expecting the words flow out of her mouth like honey. Lucanis has read this book a hundred times over, but hearing it in her voice is like hearing it for the first time. It’s the feeling of sun on his face. It’s a cool breeze on a clear day or a warm cup of cioccolata calda on a cold night. And then every now and again, Rook turns to look up at him just to make sure he’s still listening. Her eyes are big and shining like the moon in the night sky.

Lucanis props up one arm over the back of the couch, folding it to lean his head against his hand. He must, or he might reach out and brush back her hair. A desire demon must have taken a hold of him. It’s the only possible reason why as to he feels like he could listen to her read for the rest of eternity.

“—and you must remember to be careful around the petals.” But then Emmrich’s voice sounds from the balcony, and the spell is broken.

Lucanis freezes, suddenly realizing how close he is to Rook. (When and how did they get so close?)

From the balcony, Emmrich pauses and looks over the railing. “Oh! I’m terribly sorry.” Then quieter: “Come, Manfred. I’m sure Harding has a few plants we can use.”

Manfred hisses excitedly, even waving at Lucanis and Rook as they pass. Lucanis tries to sit back inconspicuously, but Emmrich sends him a knowing smile anyway.

The moment the door to the library closes, Rook’s eyes are back on him, but he can’t look at her. When he finally finds the confidence to look over, she fixes him with a worried look, tinged with confusion. Lucanis can’t help but feel a bit guilty. She looked at him with such joy and wonder just a moment ago. What did he do? What changed?

“I...should probably go,” Rook says. She watches him carefully. “Promised Bellara we could talk about her serials.”

“Right.”

She places his book on the couch, gives him one last smile, and then leaves.

Lucanis puts his cup down so he can wipe both hands over his face and through his hair. He can’t possibly go on like this.

The moment stays with Lucanis for days. He thinks about it whenever there’s a moment to spare. It feels—he feels a little out of control. How did this happen? When did he start to see the sun in Rook’s smile, the moon in her eyes, and hear starlight in her voice? Maybe that interruption was a good thing. Whatever it is he feels, she certainly does not, and Lucanis would do well to focus on the mission rather than the sun, moon, and stars.

It’s just hard to do when Rook is everywhere. Avoiding her and putting her out of his mind is only so effective when she calls him out for missions or she stops by the dining hall for a snack. But, Lucanis is a professional, and he can treat her with professionalism. He is careful to keep his distance and tries not to talk or joke with her any more than he does the rest of the team.

And she makes it hard.

They go to the Rivani Coast to help clear out some Antaam. While Rook talks with Taash, Lucanis walks a few paces behind them, keeping watch for any enemies hiding among the cliffs. He politely answers Taash when they start asking him about the Crows and answers Rook’s questions about his grandmother. He doesn’t linger closer than necessary or look any longer than he needs to. Perhaps it’s overkill to avoid Rook’s gaze altogether, but it keeps him mostly sane.

But then they skirmish with some Antaam. They make quick work of the brutes, despite being outnumbered, and for a moment Lucanis thinks of nothing but his knives slicing though his foes. It’s a beautiful sort of dance, how the three of them play off of each other.

Taash swings down their axe, and Lucanis follows it, striking from the shadows while the enemy’s guard is down. Then Rook finishes the lot with a grand meteor summoned from the sky. The Antaam tries to stand, but in the time that it takes him to do so, Rook summons a second meteor to crush him.

Lucanis watches in awe. There is danger where she walks, contrasted with the way she turns to look at Taash and Lucanis with a smile.

In that moment, the sun seems to shine in his eye. It’s warm and striking, and for that moment he’s blinded. That’s why he nearly trips over one of the bodies and almost faceplants into the ground. No other reason.

(He chooses to believe that when he hears Rook laugh, she’s not laughing at him. Though, Taash definitely is.)

Then, when they’re out in Arlathan Forrest, Rook insists on stopping by some old ruins. She and Bellara marvel at the ancient statues and architecture there. Lucanis is left on his own for a moment, idly scolding Spite for the stray insult and answering his questions about where they are.

He’s careful not to touch anything that looks too magical, and keeps an eye out for the stray darkspawn. But, he’s so busy looking for a threat, he doesn’t see Rook until she’s right next to him. There’s a paper in her hands and a question coming out of her mouth, but he doesn’t hear it at all—not when he looks down and sees moons looking back at him, bright, shining, and excited.

Lucanis tries to compose himself, to back up and give himself a bit of space, but Rook follows him. She’s focused on the paper in her hands, and doesn’t register the uneven ground until it’s much too late. And then she’s falling.

And then she’s in his arms. She looks up, and there they are again—those moons.

Bellara coughs. Lucanis and Rook scramble apart, steadying themselves and straightening their clothes.

Spite jeers at Lucanis, taunting him, questioning him. ‘Coward! You let her go! This is not living!’

Perhaps he is right.

(Somewhere beyond where Spite hovers, Bellara and Rook share a smile and a small high-five. Lucanis isn’t sure what that means, but it feels suspicious.)

Then, she finds him in the library again. She sits next to him on the couch and asks if he still has that romance novel lying around. She sits too close, though that might only be because Assan has taken up half of the couch all on his own. Lucanis hands over the book without question and can’t help but be entranced by the sound of starlight as she reads.

For all of his effort, Lucanis ends up right back where he started: with his arm over the back of the couch, head resting on his hand as he slowly loses the fight against common sense and good judgment. Even if she liked him too, it wouldn’t be appropriate to start anything. He’s no good at flirting, anyway. He wouldn’t know how to charm her.

Perhaps he should just say something; let her break his heart now instead of waiting until he’s too far gone. Better now than in the middle of trying to kill a god. Better now when they have a moment and he’s certain that it’s just a crush, than wait until he has actually, truly, wholly fallen in love.

He reaches forward, reaching for the hair that’s fallen into her face. Gently, he brushes his fingers across her cheek and tucks her hair behind her ear.

Lucanis has every intention of telling her, of just saying it to get it over with, but then she looks up at him with those big shining eyes and she smiles at him with that gentle warm smile. She leans into his touch, leans closer to him as she continues to read. She steals his breath away, and the words he was going to say are lost to the sound of starlight.

Maybe it’s too late. Maybe he waited too long, and he’s already too far gone. He certainly can’t say anything now, not when she sits so close or smiles at him so beautifully. The space between them is warm and comfortable. It would be a shame to move now. It would be a shame to break this spell.

“...What are we doing?” He breaks it anyway.

Rook pauses and looks up at him. “Reading...At least, I’m reading. What are you doing?”

“Listening.”

“Really?” She smiles again, and Lucanis can almost hear the tease in her voice. “Because you seem distracted.”

This is the part where he should say something charming and suave. He should lean in and see if she truly meant for that kiss to be just a joke. But, the more he thinks of what he could say, the more seconds pass by, and then the moment’s passed.

On the otherside of the couch, Assan trills at them.

“Maybe I am.” All Lucanis can think to say is what’s true.

There’s a change to her smile, a look that he doesn’t recognize, though it feels like she’s looking right through him. And then she closes the book and stands.

“Then maybe you should get some rest,” she says. “You’d be less distracted if you weren’t tired.”

“I’m always tired.”

“Then you’re always distracted.”

Only when you’re around, is what he should say.

“The coffee keeps me focused,” is what he says intead.

Then, just for a moment, Spite overcomes him. He takes over before Lucanis can stop him. “Come back!” he shouts. “Read more! I want you to read more!”

Lucanis takes back control and glares where Spite hovers beside the couch. Rook laughs.

She’s not phased by Spite’s sudden demand. Again her smile changees, but Lucanis thinks he knows the look this time. It’s the same way Teia looks at Viago when he complains. It’s fondness.

“Tomorrow,” she says. “I’ll read to you again tomorrow.”

It’s a date, is what he should say.

“Tomorrow,” is what he says instead.

Rook leaves him with that smile of fondness, Assan following her as she leaves the library. Lucanis watches her go knowing that he said none of the right things and wishing that he did.

‘Coward!’ Spite shouts at him.

And maybe, he’s right.

Chapter Text

You’re more than what you’re going through, Rook told him.

Is he?

Lucanis throws open the side door of the dining hall and drags his hands through his hair. He leans over the railing on the little balcony just outside the door and hangs his head.

‘No! You are a coward! Let me out! I want to talk to Rook! I want out! I want to live!’ Spite screams in his head.

Again and again and again, Spite screams at him. He grows more and more frustrated with Lucanis by the day, but Lucanis can’t understand what he wants. At least his opinion of Lucanis as a person is clear:

‘Coward.’

Lucanis isn’t sure what went wrong. Rook was right there. For once, he managed to say all of the right things. The sun, moon, and stars had her hand on his chest, pulling him closer and…he hesitated. He panicked. He heard a thousand thoughts that froze him in place.

Not good enough.

This isn’t you.

She’s just being nice.

You’ll only hurt her.

There isn’t time for this.

Stop getting distracted.

Coward.

Coward.

‘COWARD!’

Those same thoughts run through his head even now. Maybe it’s justified because he hesitated. Maybe the storm in his head is deserved because he wants and he wants but he cannot make himself move. Because as much as Lucanis wants, as much as Spite screams at him, he will not be her distraction. He will not take risks that could cause this mission to fail.

He sighs. Besides, Rook deserves better than a coward. Maybe this way, neither of them will get hurt. At least, she won’t get hurt. After all, it’s a terrible idea.

Lucanis stays out there, letting Spite berate him, until the main door of the dining hall opens and closes. Once he hears Rook’s footsteps and knows that she has gone, only then does he retreat to his room. He closes the door quickly. There are no locks—it’s a pantry, after all—but if anyone heard the dining hall doors slamming, they’re sure not to come looking for him for a little while at least.

He sits down on the bed, but a smell draws his attention—A fresh cup of coffee on his bedside table. Lucanis picks it up and a note flutters to the ground. As he picks it up, he turns it over, but there’s only one thing written on it: a heart.

He sighs. He tries the coffee. It’s a bit too strong with not enough sugar. It’s bitter and sweet, like a kiss goodbye.

The sting in his chest must be what it feels like to let go of someone who was never yours.

Once again, it stays on his mind for days. She stays on his mind. Only this time, she seems to give him space. He isn’t blinded by sun, enchanted by moons, or put under the spell of stars. When he walks a few paces behind on missions, she doesn’t slow to walk beside him. Or when she has something to show him, she doesn’t press close and fall into his arms. Even their evenings of reading have been few and far between. They tried once, but it was awkward and uncomfortable. They ended almost as soon as they began and Spite wouldn’t let him forget about it for the rest of the night.

He should be glad that she understands. It’s good that they didn’t let things go too far, but within all of that space, Lucanis finds that he misses her. His heart just can’t seem to let go, even if his mind has decided that it’s best. It’s like his heart starts to bleed when he notices she doesn’t smile at him the way she used to, she doesn’t look for him like she used to, and she doesn’t laugh with him like she used to. He misses that. He misses her.

Spite berates him endlessly for it. Any time she’s not around, he screams about ‘contracts’ and ‘freedom’ and ‘living’, but any time she is around, he calls Lucanis a ‘coward’, ‘weak’, and shouts that he wants to talk to Rook. It’s a nightmare to deal with. Spite hasn’t been this bad since they were first forced together. It keeps him up at night, more than usual, which means more coffee, less sleep, and even more time to deal with Spite.

It's a particularly bad night on the day they finally kill Ghilan’nain’s dragons. They’re all sore and exhausted, but what is victory without a party? The Wardens and townspeople of Lavendell break out the wine, and it’s not long before most everyone is pleasantly drunk.

Lucanis tries. He has a glass and smiles any time someone walks by, but his heart isn’t in it.

“Now, why are you in a corner all by yourself?” Teia finds him. Of course she does. “Come, Lucanis, you should be celebrating! Even if those gods got away, this is a win.”

“I know,” he tells her. “I’m just…tired. Killing gods is a lot of work.”

‘Let me out!’ Spite shouts. ‘I want to talk to Rook!’

Lucanis frowns for a moment. He’s sure his eyes flash violet as Spite pushes his way to the forefront and Lucanis wrangles him back. There’s a flash of concern across Teia’s face.

“I’m fine,” he reassures her.

“Not standing here brooding like that, you’re not.” Viago joins them, passing a glass of wine to Teia and sipping on one himself.

Teia fixes Lucanis with a worried look but doesn’t mention Spite. “He says he’s tired.”

“Tired?” Viago questions, loose and relaxed from all of the wine. “After a kill like that?”

‘Rook! Rook! I want to talk to Rook!’ Spite chants.

“Yes.” Lucanis rolls his shoulders back, stretching, moving, trying to subtly shake off Spite.

Viago tsks at him. “You’re not tired. You say this every time we throw a party at the Diamond.”

“Has it occurred to you that maybe I don’t like parties?”

Teia laughs. “Well, if I stood in a corner all night, I wouldn’t like them either.”

“Come on.” Viago wraps an arm around his shoulders. “You just need to get out there.”

“Get out there? We’re already out. I think you’re drunk.”

“I’m not drunk and you know what I mean.”

Lucanis glares at him. “Teia.”

“Eeh, probably drunk. But he’s not wrong.”

Lucanis glares at her, too.

She comes to stand on his other side, boxing him in. “We killed two dragons today, everybody is in high spirits…”

She leans in close. “When’s the last time you got laid?”

“You’re not seriously asking me that?”

“Probably before the Ossuary,” Viago says. “What was it…the Rialto job? With that jewel?”

“Ah, yes!” Teia smiles. “He returned to Treviso with a completed contract, a giant emerald, and a limp!”

“I’m begging you to stop.”

“Although,” Viago starts. “Perhaps you’ve been up to something with one of these teammates of yours?”

“They are fine people,” Teia agrees. “And when living in close quarters with fine people…”

Lucanis finally worms his way out from between them. “I am not sleeping with anyone on the team!”

Teia’s smile grows. “That’s a shame.”

Viago laughs. “We could change that.”

He takes Lucanis by the shoulders once more, turning him to face where each of his teammates stand.

“Emmrich is good company,” Viago says. “He has a fine eye for detail.”

“Ah, but the archivist girl—Bellara,” Teia says. “She’s cute and seems like she’d be…vocal.”

Lucanis hangs his head, pinching the bridge of his nose. It’s almost unbelievable that this is happening. And Spite chanting ‘Rook!’ over and over isn’t helping.

That’s when he hears it—the sound that cuts through the crowd, through Teia and Viago’s absurd propositions, and even through Spite’s berating—the sound of starlight.

Not too far away, Rook smiles while Neve tells a grand story to the crowd around them. Even among the dreary drab of the wetlands and broken-down castle, Rook shines. But, there’s something about her smile—it doesn’t quite meet her eyes.

‘Wrong! Smile wrong!’ Spite shouts. And he’s right.

“Ah,” Teia says. “So that’s who you’re after.”

Lucanis startles, looking back at Teia and Viago. “What? No!”

Viago laughs at him. “Come, let’s go talk to her.”

“Why? Please, this is not what—”

“Lucanis!” Neve calls out as Teia and Viago drag him over there. She turns to the crowd. “Now here’s a story worth telling: the Demon of Vyrantium, locked in an underwater prison. He had basically broken himself out by the time Rook and I arrived on the scene.”

She sways a bit on her feet, pleasantly buzzed. Rook stands nearby, but she seems distracted, and then startled as the trio of Crows approach.

Teia reaches out for Rook’s hand. “We just wanted to come and thank you for killing those dragons.”

“I should be thanking you,” Rook says. “If you hadn’t come in when you did…”

“After helping us with that dragon the first time, we’re happy to return the favor. Besides, we’re grateful that Lucanis has made a few friends.”

“Teia!” Lucanis protests.

“Well, we’re happy he—whoa!” Rook’s hand shoots out as Neve stumbles.

Neve manages to right herself without assistance, but takes a breath and sighs. “Sorry. Maybe I did have too much.”

Viago smiles, dangerously. “Ah, funny enough, Lucanis was just telling us how tired he is.”

“Really?” Neve stares at him, though him, and smiles. “Want to walk back with me? I should probably be done for the night, anyway.”

Lucanis looks back to the others. Viago is doing his best to be encouraging but subtle. Teia smiles but looks a bit confused; she keeps glancing back at Rook. And Rook—she’s distracted again, worried about something.

‘No! Wrong!’ Spite shouts.

“Sure,” he says, still looking at Rook. She’s hardly paying attention. “Goodnight, I suppose.”

“Yes, goodnight!” Viago calls after them.

Lucanis turns before he can see or hear if Rook responds. (She doesn’t. He hears her voice anyway. He always does. She says something to Teia that sounds like an excuse. She sounds a little out of it.)

“So,” Neve starts as they make their way back to the eluvian. She raises a hand to brush dirt off of his shoulder. It lingers there. “How tired are you?”

‘No!’ Spite shouts again. ‘I want Rook!’

The urge to turn back, to take Rook aside pulls at Lucanis, but so do all of those thousands of nasty little thoughts. It’s all he can think about; all Spite can talk about. It takes up every minute of his day. Lucanis needs to be ready to fight Ghilan’nain and Elgar’nan. He can’t think about this, about her constantly. He can’t be distracted. Or, he needs a distraction from his distraction.

“Not very.”

Neve’s office door slams shut, and Lucanis shoves her up against it. He kisses her, roughly, and she drags him in. She tastes like wine and her nails scratch at his shoulders. He loses his cape and coat and she sheds hers.

There are no thoughts, no doubts, no sun, moon, and stars; just Neve’s tongue in his mouth.

‘No! Let me out!’ Spite screams.

Lucanis picks her up, hands firmly on her ass. He walks them to her desk, not caring what he knocks over as he sweeps it clean and puts her down on it. She bites his lip.

“You’re cleaning that up,” Neve breathes against him. Throwing her hat aside.

Lucanis loosens his tie and unbuttons some of his shirt, watching as Neve pulls her own shirt over her head. She pulls him back in with another kiss. Her breasts press against him, her legs open to invite him closer, and Lucanis goes. He pulls her to the edge of the desk, pressing them as close together as he can.

‘I want Rook!’

She drags her nails through his hair.

‘Wrong! Wrong!’

He grinds their hips together, slow and dirty.

‘Let me go!’

She throws her head back and groans.

“NO!” And then Spite takes over. Neve pushes him back suddenly, startled. Lucanis tries to fight him off, but in the moment, Spite is too strong, too angry. “Not. You.”

Lucanis yanks him back, fighting for control of his body. He sees the shock, the fear on Neve’s face, but he can’t do anything about it. Spite struggles against him and his body twitches violently. Then again. Then finally, Lucanis regains control.

He breaths hard, holding his head. Spite won’t stop screaming, won’t stop fighting. The headache it causes is splitting. It’s taking everything Lucanis has just to stay in control.

“Yeah…” Neve says, leaned back on her desk. “I’m not interested in fucking a demon either. If we’re doing this, he has to go.”

“Sorry,” Lucanis says.

‘I don’t like this!’ Spite shouts in his head.

“Then go…play with the wisps or something!” Lucanis shouts back at him, out loud.

Neve frowns. “You good?”

“Yes—No!” Spite rears his head just for a moment before Lucanis pushes him back down.

“That’s not very convincing.”

“It’s—Spite’s just been more difficult lately. I’m fine, I promise.”

Lucanis tries to step back towards Neve, but he feels his control slip. Spite takes over before he can do anything about it. “No! Not fine!”

“…Why not?”

It astounds him that Neve might try to hear Spite out, but she is a detective.

“I want out! I want Rook! I want to talk to Rook!”

Lucanis forces Spite down with a wince. “Sorry. Don’t…Don’t listen to him.”

Neve raises an eyebrow. “Why not? Do you want Rook, too?”

He hesitates. “N-no—”

“You do.” Neve’s eyes narrow. “I thought I saw you staring at her more after she kissed you.”

“That—it wasn’t anything serious.”

“…But you want it to be.” She nods, understanding something that flies over Lucanis’s head.

“No! I…Do we have to talk about this right now?” It’s deflecting, defending, but he feels so on display. “When you’re…”

Neve glances down at her bare chest. “What? You didn’t have a problem with my tits a minute ago.”

“You weren’t grilling me about another woman a minute ago.”

“Fair point,” Neve laughs. She reaches for her shirt, pulling it back over her head. “But I think I’m the ‘other woman’ here.”

“So…we’re not doing this?” Lucanis asks. There’s a pang of disappointment, but it’s undercut by a strange wave of calm.

“Oh no,” Neve says. She hops off her desk to gather some of the papers that were knocked aside. “I’m not getting in the middle of…whatever the two of you have going on.”

“There’s nothing going on.”

Neve laughs. “And that’s the problem, isn’t it?”

Lucanis frowns, confused and a little annoyed.

“Look.” Neve steps up to him, buttoning up some of the lower buttons on his shirt. “If it doesn’t work out with Rook, my door’s open, but you’re clearly hung up on her…Spite is too. While I don’t have a problem with some casual fun, you’re definitely not in the headspace for it.”

“I’m fine. It’s just Spite.”

“Right.” Neve walks over to her office door and holds it open. “And I’m just…making observations.”

Lucanis sighs and picks up the few clothes he shed. He holds her gaze for a moment as he walks out, and Neve waves.

“Say ‘hi’ to Rook for me!”

The door closes behind him. So much for his distraction.

“This is your fault,” he tells Spite. Spite growls back at him and his head throbs. It was easy enough to ignore with someone in his hands and something to do. Now it’s just him and his headache.

With his coat and cape slung over his shoulder, Lucanis sighs and walks himself back towards his room. Maybe a cup of coffee and a few hours of quiet will do him some good, even if his thoughts are already flooding back in.

But there’s something coming from beyond the dining hall doors. He hears it before he even pushes them open. Lucanis opens the door gently, as not to disturb whoever is there. They hear him anyway, turning their head as he enters. They sit by the fireplace, on the rug instead of in a chair, and they stand when he closes the door behind him.

“…Rook?”

“Sorry—um…” Rook’s voice sounds shaky. Lucanis can hardly see her face. She turns away from him and towards the fire, but it’s clear that she’s wiping her cheeks and eyes. “I’ll just—give me a minute and I’ll, uh, get out of your hair.”

“Rook…”

He wants to reach out, to take her hand and pull her close, but he hesitates, again. The shame hits him like a bucket of ice water over his head. This is on him. He chose to find a distraction. She doesn’t deserve to deal with his mess, not when she’s so beautiful, not when he knew that something was wrong and did nothing, and especially not when he knew that and was willing to seek someone else’s company anyway.

Rook takes a shaky breath and turns to face him with a smile that doesn’t reach her eyes. “Don’t worry about it. I’m okay.”

She’s not. She needs someone. She shouldn’t have to deal with his mess, but he’s here and she needs someone.

Rook tries to turn away from him again and leave, but Lucanis reaches out. He catches her by the wrist and tugs gently when she tries to get away.

“…Sit,” he says.

“Lucanis—”

Lucanis takes his coat and cape and swings it around her shoulders. She looks up at him with her big beautiful moons and stills. He holds her there for a moment, knowing he has no right to.

“Sit,” he says again. “I’ll make us something.”

And she does. She watches him, still, but she sits down, curling up by the fire. She draws her knees to her chest to rest her arms and head on top. His coat and cape are like a blanket around her.

Lucanis goes to the stove, putting a pot of milk on to boil. He chops a bar of chocolate, and even some fresh cinnamon sticks while he waits. Then, as he mixes it all together, he finally chances a look back at Rook. She’s still watching him, quietly.

When it’s done, Lucanis brings them two cups of cioccolata calda on a tray. He sets it down beside Rook and takes a seat beside her on the floor. Rook takes hers with a tired smile. She holds it in her hands for a moment, appreciating the warmth.

“Thanks,” she says. She takes a long sip of the drink and sighs.

Lucanis takes a sip of his own cup. It’s warm and sweet; just as delicious as it was when he was a child  

“My mother used to say that sweet things were best to compliment joys and soothe sorrows and anxieties,” he says. “Thought you’d appreciate something of the sort.”

“To compliment or to soothe?”

Rook looks into the fire, lost in thought. Though the flames paint her face with a warm golden light, Lucanis can still see the tear stains.

“…Both, I imagine.”

They sit quietly together for a while with only the warmth of the fire and their drinks between them. It’s not uncomfortable, though. It’s calm. It’s quiet. It’s peaceful.

In the calm, Lucanis’s own thoughts are hushed. They’re still there, gnawing at the back of his mind, but they don’t seem to gather as easily. It’s simply not important when Rook is here and she needs someone to stay.

In the quiet, he can hear every move she makes—when she shifts under his coat and cape or sniffles and wipes away a stray tear. There are moments when she tries to speak, but the words escape her with a sigh. He sits and listens anyway.

And in the peace, he realizes that his headache is gone. Spite hasn’t spoken out once. Maybe he just tired himself out. Or maybe, just being here with Rook was really all he really wanted. Maybe they’re in agreement, for once, that this is where they need to be.

“I thought it would feel better,” Rook whispers. “I thought…”

Lucanis takes her empty cup and places it back down on the tray. Her hands come up to his coat, pulling it more tightly around herself.

“I mean, Neve is…happy, I guess, and we got the dragons, but…” She blinks away more tears. “Minrathous…”

She hasn’t spoken about it, ever. The choice to help Treviso or Dock Town was impossible, and despite being from Minrathous, she chose Treviso. Neve was angry. She left for a while to help the Shadow Dragons and Dock Town recover. But Rook never cried, never broke down, never said a word about what it felt like to see her city devastated.

“Would you have gone to Minrathous, if you knew?” He asks. It’s not a fair question, but if it had been him, he knows he would’ve picked Treviso every time.

Rook shrugs, burrowing herself deeper into his coat. “I…I thought they could do it. I know Minrathous. I know the Shadow Dragons. They’re my people and I thought…I knew they were strong.”

“Maybe Treviso would’ve been fine,” Lucanis suggests, though he knows that Rook turned the tide. She rushed in against that dragon with such ferocity and sheer determination. It’s her that rallied the Crows and pushed them to victory. Without her, Treviso may have suffered as Minrathous is now.

“Or maybe you’d be the one getting drunk after getting vengeance, instead of Neve.”

Lucanis doesn’t answer her, because maybe she’s right. Maybe, if it was Treviso that was blighted, he’d be in Neve’s office right now, distracting himself from a splitting headache with a warm body and a pair of lips on his own. Instead, Treviso is okay, and he gets to be here with Rook.

“You couldn’t have known,” he offers.

“It still feels like my fault.”

“…I’m sorry.”

“Yeah, me too.”

And then, she leans over. She leans her head on his shoulder.

“Is this okay?” She asks, quietly.

He breathes, but just barely. His body stills, afraid to move lest he disturbs her. "Yes."

For all his worries, she still relaxes against him. She moves closer, practically curled into him rather than just his coat and cape. Tentatively, he brings his arm around her to hold her there and protect her from all that would do her harm.

Softly, a wing flutters out from his back and wraps itself around her as well. Rook huffs, laughing gently.

A thousand thoughts run through Lucanis’s mind:

She’s here.

I’m sorry.

Stay.

She sounds like starlight.

This is nice.

Needs me. Needs this.

Rook.

Rook.

‘Rook.’

“I missed you,” she confesses.

I missed you too, is what he should say.

“I…missed you too,” is what he says.

Chapter Text

Rook smiles at him with a churro in one hand. Lucanis sits next to her, smiling back. There’s a sparkle in her eyes that’s been there for hours, since she walked in on him making dinner. All he did was make her dessert, and yet she seemed so enamored.

“I make a lot of things for you,” he told her, trying to justify it, find some reason why making dessert wasn’t nearly enough to apologize, to confess, to convey everything he feels.

But she just looked at him with so much warmth in her eyes and said, “You do, don’t you? For me.”

Somehow, although the words are hard to say, she knows that dessert is not just dessert, the snacks are more than just fixing a bad eating habit, and the love confessions aren’t just in the books. So, she smiles at him all throughout dinner, and he can’t help but to smile back. She brushes his fingers when she’s sure the others aren’t looking, and he leaves his hand there for her, just to touch her, just to be near. And when there’s cinnamon and sugar stuck to her cheek, he reaches up to—

“These churros are great, Lucanis,” Neve says.

Lucanis snatches his hand back and drops his smile. He turns, stiffly, to face Neve across the table. She smiles smugly at him.

“Ooh yeah!” Bellara pipes up from the other end of the table. “They go great with the chioco—uhh…”

“Cioccolata Calda,” Lucanis supplies.

“You should make them again,” Taash says.

“Indeed! I’d love to have more of these.” Emmrich sends him a smile.

And then he remembers that everyone else is right there with them.

It’s nothing against them—the team is great—but it’s just a little nerve wracking to smile at Rook and know that everyone else is watching.

Rook hides her face behind her cup and slides her foot over, lightly bumping his under the table. He looks down and bumps her back with his knee. She smiles into her drink and that alone is enough to make him smile again too.

Neve clears her throat.

Lucanis looks up at her. It’s not intentional, he tells himself. They’re just being supportive friends.

She looks at Rook, then back to him and wiggles her eyebrows.

Lucanis sighs. But Maker, he wishes they could be alone.

They steal moments together where they can, but it’s surprisingly difficult to find more than just those moments.

If Lucanis is cooking, Rook will be there with him in the kitchen, “helping.” She’ll pass him ingredients, mix things, and fetch bowls, but mostly she just talks about everything and nothing. She likes to talk about the missions he didn’t go on, telling him every detail of where the team went, what they saw, and what they said. It’s not much help with actually cooking, but she gets so excited about their fights and discoveries and all the little ways she’s able to help people. It’s like watching a fire grow, the way she warms the space and the people around her.

 But then, the dining hall doors open, and the rest of the team files in. Rook goes to them, greeting them and bragging about whatever Lucanis is cooking. A part of him is irrationally happy that she takes such pride in his cooking, but a part of him is jealous that he can’t keep her all to himself.

If Rook is reading in the library, then Lucanis is there to listen to her. She leans back against his chest and reads until Lucanis’s eyes start to droop. Even if he falls asleep (which he most definitely does not) she’ll keep reading aloud, for Spite to hear. Sometimes, Spite will take over, but Rook never pushes him away. She’s gentle as she answers Spite’s questions or reads passages over again for him. And Spite…he’ll do some of the things Lucanis is too afraid to: hold Rook a little tighter, press his lips to her hair.

But then, someone else will come by for a book. It’s shameful how Lucanis retreats—moreso if Spite is in control and he gets protective. Either way, it leaves Rook to awkwardly greet whoever comes by, and then they all very casually pretend not to see each other.

If they’re out on a mission, then they walk closely when the moment allows. The backs of their hands brush together, and sometimes Rook will pull at his fingers. She always pulls him towards their next objective, even if he’s already walking alongside her. It’s like she’s just looking for an excuse to touch him.

But then she’ll feel bad for leaving their third companion to themselves. Neve and Davrin always make some sort of teasing jab about it, but the others are kind enough to quietly trail just behind them until Rook brings them back into the conversation. Though more often than not, they’re interrupted by stumbling into a fight, turning Rook’s starlight laugh into fierce battle cries in an instant.

Altogether, it’s not enough. They need more than just a moment, but there’s never time or space for just them. Lucanis wants to give her more, but he’s not sure how. He sees it in her eyes that she wants more, too. The way she looks at him, the way she leans close; if Lucanis was a bolder man, he’d have already given her what she wants, but even when he happens to find those perfect moments…he panics.

In the kitchen, when Rook tastes the food before it’s done and there’s sugar left on her lips, Lucanis is drawn to them. She smiles up at him, and it would be so easy to just lean down and taste her. But he freezes, and she licks the sugar off of her own lips.

In the library, when they finish reading and they untangle from each other, Lucanis holds his hand out to pull her up from the couch. He pulls quickly and forcefully, so that she flies into his arms. She giggles all the way up, landing with her hands braced against his chest and her lips just inches from his own. But he hesitates, and a door opens somewhere nearby, signaling that their moment alone has passed.

And on missions, Rook is vicious and stunning as she fells their enemies. Lucanis has more than one opportunity to sweep her into his arms after a victory and worship her as she deserves, but he just feels so exposed. Even if they’re somewhere away from the crowds and cities, it still feels as though there are too many eyes on them.

It’s not fair. To either of them.

“I’m sorry,” he tells her. They’re in the kitchen this time, cutting up fruit for the team’s snack.

“What for?” Rook asks. She stands to his left, peeling oranges.

“I’m not very good at this.”

“At…cutting fruit?”

Lucanis wishes he didn’t have to say it. If he was a wiser man, this wouldn’t even be a problem. “At being in a relationship.”

Rook puts down her half-peeled orange. She looks at him with such fondness. “You don’t have to be.”

But he should be. He wants to be.

“Rook deserves better! Be better!” Spite says for him.

Rook huffs and wanders over to him with open arms. She wraps herself around him, laying her head against his back. “I’ve already got you. I doubt it can get much ‘better’ than this.”

“You’re too sweet to me,” Lucanis says.

“And you’re too hard on yourself.”

Lucanis puts down his own knife and turns around in her arms to hold her properly. Rook settles against his chest—a pleasant weight and warmth. She looks up at him with her sunshine smile, and her beautiful moon-eyes. Her lips are right there.

Gently, Lucanis brushes her cheek with his thumb, just over the corner of her mouth and…he hesitates. Again.

“I…want to kiss you.”

Rook smiles, warmer than she ever has. She glances down at his lips and laughs, the sound of starlight rounding out the spell that enchants him. “Well. I’m right here.”

But even with that invitation, he freezes. He hesitates. He stops breathing. He just can’t close that gap and it’s killing him.

And then she sighs. Mierda, it’s the last thing he wants to hear.

“You don’t have to force yourself.” Rook tells him.

“But I want to,” he says. “I just…I don’t know. It never feels like we’re alone.”

“We have rooms.”

“The pantry doesn’t have a lock.”

“My door has a lock.”                                                           

“And everyone’s always looking for you.”

The dining hall doors open as if on cue, and Bellara strides in, gasping the moment she sees them. “Oh! I’m sorry!”

Is it embarrassment that makes Lucanis hide his face? It’s probably jealousy and possessiveness that leave him holding on to Rook’s waist even as she tries to pull away from him. She fixes him with a look and he lets her go. Oh, what he wouldn’t do to have more than a moment.

“Ah, it’s alright,” Rook laughs. She extracts herself from Lucanis and beckons Bellara in. “We were just…finishing slicing up some fruit.”

“…Are you sure?”

Rook brings the fruit to the table, motioning for Bellara to set. “Of course!”

“Okay, good, ‘cause I’ve been meaning to ask you about something I read.”

Lucanis shoots Rook an ‘I told you so,’ kind of look and Rook rolls her eyes at him.

For the next hour, their companions come and go, some staying to talk and others taking their snacks to-go. It’s an hour filled with everyone, as much as Lucanis wishes it could just be him and Rook. When that hour is up, he doesn’t even get a moment with Rook afterwards. Harding and Davrin pull her into something that requires a trip to Arlathan forest, so she’s off as soon as they finish snacking.

“Hold on, hold on.”

Or, almost as soon as they finish.

Rook dashes back over to where he sits, leaning close to him.

“Take me on a date,” she says.

The room is quiet, suddenly. Everyone hears her quite clearly.

“Wha—a date?”

“Somewhere where you’re comfortable…your favorite places in Treviso!” She speaks quickly, uncaring of the eyes that are on them. Their friends smile behind her—Davrin and Harding from the door, Neve and Emmrich from the other side of the table.

“I...” A date?

‘What is…date?’

Lucanis spends just a second too long in his head. He sees the exact moment that Rook’s smile starts to fall.

“A-alright,” he says, in a rush.

And like magic, her smile shines even brighter. She kisses his cheek and heads back to the door. Davrin whistles as she gets close, and Rook punches his shoulder. She walks out of there with a skip in her step.

‘What is date? Where are we taking Rook?’ Spite asks.

Lucanis doesn’t answer. He’s still trying to wrap his head around what he’s agreed to. Have they gone on a date before? Missions don’t count. There was that one time in the markets and the café…but that as a mission, too—Illario met them there.

“A date is an outing that lovers or soon-to-be lovers go on together,” Emmrich answers. Right. He and Neve are still there. “The couple spends time together, getting to know each other and enjoying each other’s company.”

‘Are there kisses?’

“Spite!” Lucanis scolds.

Emmrich smiles. “Yes, there are often kisses.”

Neve laughs. “Looks like you’ve got some planning to do,” she says. “Want some help?”

Lucanis does his best not to look embarrassed. “I think I can manage.”

He asks her to accompany him to Treviso a few days later.

“Whenever you’re ready,” he tells her.

She smiles, takes his hand, and pulls him to the eluvian right then.

Rook spends the entire boat ride and walk through the Crossroads wondering aloud what Lucanis has in store for them. Perhaps he’ll take them to an art gallery or they’ll go sight-seeing or perhaps he’s taken Taash’s suggestion to take her flying. Her eyes sparkle with excitement as she wonders, but Lucanis starts to think that maybe he should’ve taken up Neve on her offer about what to do for this date. Maybe he should’ve—

“And where are you two off to in such a hurry?”

Lucanis is dragged out of his thoughts by the realization that they have to pass through the Diamond in order to get into Treviso proper. He turns his head and there are Teia and Viago pausing their argument about intelligence reports to interrogate Lucanis and Rook.

“Oh, don’t bother them, Vi.” Teia says. She smiles. “Let the lovebirds be. I’m sure we’ll hear all about it later.”

Lucanis is suddenly too aware of all of the eyes and ears trained on them. The Demon of Vyrantium, the newly appointed First Talon, is being led through the Diamond by the hero who saved Treviso from a dragon and is leading the fight against literal gods. He’s being led by the hand. With Teia and Viago’s comments, there’s bound to be rumors flying to the far corners of Antiva before the night is over.

He feels a squeeze around his hand, the one that Rook holds, and looks at her only to find reassurance in her eyes. Lucanis holds tight to that and ignores the stares, the whispers, the handful of gold Viago passes to Teia, the innocent and well-meaning question that Jacobus starts to ask; he holds on to it and follows Rook through the Diamond and away from prying eyes. He follows her across zip lines, and down the sides of buildings. He holds tight to her reassurance and her hand as they cross through the market.

Then finally, she stops him, turns around, and looks up at him with her big moon-eyes.

“What?” He asks her. He hasn’t taken his eyes off her since they started walking, and sees no reason to now.

“So…” Her voice wavers.

Her hand is shaking, he realizes. She who leads him through fire and blood and blight with nothing but a staff and sheer confidence is…hiding. She’s brought them to secluded corner, just outside the market—someplace where people won’t bother them. And she hides from the world, putting her back against the wall and Lucanis in front of her, like a shield. She squeezes his hand and looks at him, expectantly.

But he’s not sure what to say.

So, for a moment they just breathe. They stand there together, listening to people pass by them. Rook watches him but doesn’t question it. She lets him hold them there, trusting him in the quiet and stillness.

Lucanis holds her hand, rubbing his thumb over hers until her hands stop shaking and until his own start feeling so clammy. He smiles

“How about something to drink, first?” He says, finally. “Something sweet?”

Rook smiles back at him, eyeing Café Pietra nearby. “To compliment or to soothe?”

Her voice shakes again, just the smallest bit, but so does his.

“Both, I imagine.”

It’s a welcome reprieve to talk and laugh and shake off the nerves. Spite joins them at the table with a cup of coffee just for him. He can’t eat or drink, but it keeps him occupied. Rook talks—about Treviso, Illario, Lucanis’s rise to First Talon—and Lucanis answers. Rarely do they have a moment like this to just sit and talk with each other. There’s always something else to do; fighting, cooking, reading. Just sitting and talking is nice.

Starlight dusts the air as Rook speaks. Every word puts a star in the night sky. Lucanis is staring, but he can’t help it. Not when he has a cup of coffee in his hand and time to just listen to her.

But in all that staring, he finds a surprise: Rook stares too. He’s sure that she has before and he just hasn’t noticed until now, but as he speaks, she quiets. Her smile shifts to something beyond fondness, and there’s a warmth in her eyes that he thinks he can name. Not that he can say it aloud yet—he hasn’t the strength to, though Rook may very well give him that strength.

“—You mean, you didn’t spend all that time dreaming about having coffee with your inner demon?” Rook teases as a waitress comes by for their empty cups.

Lucanis smiles. He stands and goes to her side. “And with you. But here we are.”

He holds out his hand.

Rook smiles and takes it. “So then, what did you dream about?”

Lucanis pulls her to her feet and into his arms. “Why don’t I show you?”

And then it’s his turn to lead, to pull Rook through the busy streets of Treviso at night. He weaves through the crowds with her hand clasped tightly in his. He doesn’t need to look back and check on her, but he does, just to see her for a moment. And each time he looks, she greets him with a smile. Lucanis has to force himself to look at the path ahead, lest he get lost in her eyes.

He guides them through back alleys and lamp-lit streets, and then up a trellis to the rooftops. It’s a bit of a walk, but they take the ziplines and attics and secret doorways around the highest parts of Treviso to their destination.

“I didn’t think you were going to take me climbing,” Rook says, following him up a long spiral staircase.

Lucanis laughs. “We’re almost there, I promise. It’s just at the top of the stairs.”

But as they reach the top, he stops and turns to her.

“Close your eyes,” he says.

Rook eyes him suspiciously, but does as she’s told. When Lucanis is sure she’s not looking, he opens the door and guides her out. He walks her around a few corners and benches to the perfect spot at the edge of the roof.

Then he takes a moment to just look at her, to brush back the hair that’s fallen into her face, and hold her face in his hand. She smiles and leans into his touch.

“Alright, open your eyes.” He steps out of the way as her eyes flutter open.

Rook gasps.

They stand in a rooftop garden—a little grove of life and beauty surrounded by the cobblestone and river-worn city. Flowers of all kinds grow here alongside fresh berries and a tree or two, and lanterns hang from those trees, dotting the paths around the berry bushes and flowerbeds. Then, there at Rook’s feet, is a picnic blanket, a basket, and plate of every food Rook has so much as smiled at spread out for them.

“How did you…”

“Turn around,” Lucanis says, tugging on her waist.

She turns and melts. “Lucanis…”

Treviso stands before them—the entire glittering city on display like it was painted onto the land. Golden light shines from up from the streets, illuminating the path for the people below. Midnight-blue rivers weave around the buildings, reflecting the city lights. The Chantry stands watch over the night, its stained-glass windows aglow even in the dark, while the Diamond glitters from the opposite side of the city with a flurry of citizens and crows coming in and out of every door. And above it all stands the night sky with glittering stars and shining moon looking down from on high.

“This is beautiful,” Rook says. She looks out at the city, but Lucanis only has eyes for her. “This is what you dreamed of? How did you even find this?”

“An old friend brought me here,” Lucanis says. “One of the servants from when I was a child. I was maybe thirteen years old and Caterina was furious with me for one reason or another. I thought I could apologize by figuring out the mole problem we had at the time, so I started following the servants around. There was one servant, an older elven woman, who always left the house at the same time each night through a door with a poor guard rotation. I followed her, thinking I caught the mole, but instead she led me here.”

Rook looks back at the garden. “Did you help her with this?”

“No. I tried, but I think I ended up killing a few daisies before I was forbidden from touching the garden beds.” Lucanis smiles. “That didn’t stop me from coming back here, though, when I needed a moment to be alone.”

He takes Rook’s hand and spins her around until she lands in his arms again. “I thought…it would be nice to bring you here, to be alone with you.”

She’s so close now, and her eyes are set on him. She doesn’t say a word, but there’s a ballad spoken by the way she smiles. It draws him in, pulls his forehead down to rest against hers. His hands may shake, but they find stability wrapped around her waist. And his breath is already gone, stolen away at just the sight of her lips.

But he hesitates. He is frozen. He sees her lips just a breath away from his own, feels her there in his arms, but he cannot move.

‘No!’ Spite shouts at him. ‘Why are you stopping?!’

He should kiss her.

“W-we should eat, before the food gets too cold,” is what he says instead.

Rook’s smile falters—the last thing he wants to see. She leans forward to rest her head on his chest.

“Okay,” she says, holding him tight. By Andraste, the Maker, the Titians, hell even the Evenuris, he prays she’s not angry.

‘Coward!’ Spite shouts at him again, finally rearing his head for the first time since they left the café. ‘I. Want. Rook!’

Rook lets him go after a moment, and her smile is back. His is a little harder to find.

“So…did you make all this for me?” She asks, sitting on the blanket.

“I did.” He joins her.

“It’s like you brought the entire kitchen with you.”

He smiles at her joke, but only half-way.

Rook looks at him with concern. He’s not sure if that’s better than anger.

“It’s alright,” she says.

‘It’s not alright!’ Spite shouts. ‘You. Are. A coward!’

“Come on.” Rook scoops up some cake—the Hazlenut Torte—and hold out the fork to him. “Have something sweet.”

Lucanis looks at her and then the cake. He smiles, for real this time. “I don’t deserve you.”

“I should ban you from saying that,” Rook says.

“Ban me?”

“So you’ll stop lying to me. Now, eat the cake.”

Lucanis does as he’s told, allowing himself to be fed. Rook’s eyes follow his lips as he does. She glances away after a second, trying to be sneaky, but she’s not subtle. She deserves more than this.

It’s peaceful, though, to sit and eat with her. Rook samples every plate, practically devouring the ones Lucanis tastes and then puts aside. It’s unclear if that’s a part of her eating habits or something to do with the kiss he’s yet to give her.

‘Stop hesitating!’ The peace is only broken by Spite’s shouting. ‘You are stuck! You are bad at kisses!’

Lucanis sighs to himself, muttering under his breath, “Yes, I know.”

Rook stacks another empty plate into the picnic basket and raises an eyebrow at him. “Spite?”

“Yes!” Spite takes over and Lucanis lets him. Arguing in his head isn’t getting them anywhere, but Spite usually listens to Rook.

“What’s going on now, Spite?”

Spite frowns. “Rook deserves kisses! Lucanis will not give them.”

Rook smiles. “Well. Kisses can be…hard. Especially—”

“Then I will make kisses easy!”

Suddenly, Spite reaches out for Rook. Plates of food are scattered across the rooftop, haphazardly pushed aside. Lucanis tries to yank back control of his body, but Spite fights him. Spite puts his knee in some pudding and grabs Rook’s shoulder too roughly, and Lucanis tries to stop him from messing everything up, but he can’t.

But Rook does.

She puts out her hand, covering Spite’s mouth with her palm, and he stops.

“Let him go, Spite,” she says.

“But…kisses.” Spite’s voice, his voice, is muffled behind Rook’s hand.

“I know,” she says. “I want them too.”

“But Lucanis won’t do it!” Spite hisses.

“He will.” Rook smiles. “You’re just being impatient. Now give him back.”

Spite grumbles, but he lets Lucanis go.

Her eyes change as his do, recognizing him, though he’s only been gone for a moment.

“Hey,” she says.

Her hand moves to his cheek, and he leans into it. Maker, he doesn’t deserve her.

“What?” she asks.

Lucanis shakes his head. “I can’t say. You banned me from saying it.”

Rook laughs. He puts her through so much and she still laughs at his jokes. She smiles at him despite his cowardice, and her patience for Spite is endless. Lucanis could give her the world and it wouldn’t be enough.

And then she flinches. She looks around, confused, wiping something off of her face. Lucanis starts to reach for his dagger, looking for whatever enemy has found them.

Not that this is an enemy he can fight. Not unless he’s discovered a way to fight rain.

“Mierda.”

It starts as just a few heavy drops, but Lucanis hurries to pack up whatever food is salvageable anyway. It’ll turn into a complete downpour soon, but maybe if they hurry, they can make it back to the Diamond before it gets too bad.

“Ah!” A second later, Rook turns to help him, finding the plates that Spite scattered.

They manage to save most of the uneaten food, but the rain starts to pick up as they pack away the blanket. Lucanis ushers Rook back to the staircase that brought them up, and they stand in the doorway, watching as the drizzle turns into a downpour.

“Well,” Rook says. “We saved the food.”

Lucanis sighs

“How long do the storms normally last?” She asks.

“If we’re lucky? A few hours.” Lucanis frowns into the rain. They’re too far away from the Diamond to run for it. The rain will soak them before they even make it back to the market. “If we’re not, then the rain could go all night.”

“Then I suppose our options are walk through the rain or risk sleep in a stairwell?”

“Unfortunately.”

Rook sighs too.

This isn’t how the night was supposed to go. They were supposed to get their moment alone. They were supposed to be able to just be together without team’s well-meaning smiles, without prying eyes watching, without Spite interrupting, without rain putting an abrupt stop to their evening.

Lucanis had a plan. They were going to lay in the garden and star-gaze, dance to the songs that drift up from the streets below, and then, after Rook spent the evening smiling and laughing, he’d finally do it. He’d kiss her.

Instead, they’re quietly walking over balconies, down trellises, and back to the lamp-lit back-alley streets while getting soaked to the bone.

He should’ve kissed her when he had the chance. He should’ve kissed her when she was in his arms, illuminated by the golden glow of the city, tucked away in their secret rooftop garden. He should’ve kissed her in the kitchen, when she looked at him with such fondness. He should have kissed her a million times over, but he hasn’t.

Instead, he hesitated, and now he’s following Rook through the streets, stewing in his thoughts.

He stops in the middle of the street, frustrated and ashamed. Rook takes a few steps without him before she notices. When she does, she should pull him along. She should lead him back to the Diamond to be teased for getting soaked, and then back to the Lighthouse to be teased even more. She should just keep walking, keep going without him.

But she doesn’t. Instead, she stops. She walks back to him and looks at him with such concern. She takes a step too close and searches his face. She reaches out a hand for him and asks, “What’s wrong?”

Everything. Everything is wrong. The world is wrong. The date is wrong. Lucanis is wrong.

But Rook is still here. She’s still standing in the rain with him, letting it stick her hair to her face, soak every inch of her, and freeze her until she shivers.

Everything is wrong, but she’s still here with him.

“Lucanis?”

He kisses her.

She tastes like honey and lavender, sweet and intriguing, complimentary and soothing all at once. He almost can’t bear to part from her. Why should he, when she tastes as sweet as this?

It is only breath that forces them apart, but even then Lucanis holds her close with her face in his hands. They breathe each other’s air, too dazed and enamored for words.

Then a smile creeps across Rook’s face—the sun that breaks through the storm clouds.

She looks up at him with her beautiful eyes—two moons shining against the dark night.

And she laughs, brightly and joyfully—the sound of starlight like a melody in the rain.

“You kissed me,” she says.

Lucanis smiles, moved by the sweetest of spells. He rubs his thumb across her cheek because just having her in his hands is a dream come true.

“Can I kiss you again?” he asks.

She beats him to it, in lieu of an answer. She rushes forward to kiss his lips and holds him there while fade-touched wings sprout from Lucanis’s back, surrounding them like a shield.

He could stay there forever with Rook in his arms. And he thinks, when everything else is over, maybe he’ll ask her if she’d like to stay, too.

Chapter Text

“Lucanis, I’m sure I’ll be fine in this,” Rook tries to reason.

She lounges on her couch in her nicest dress robes, if one interpreted “nice” as “least-damaged”. A handful of outfits lay around her, across her couch, over her drawers, and on tables. Lucanis pulls even more from her wardrobe, inspecting each one of them. None of them are right. They’re all too stained or ripped or out of style.

“You truly don’t have any…nice clothes?” Lucanis asks. He considers an orange-gold set of robes Rook picked up from the Veil Jumpers for a moment. Shape-wise, it’s alright, but it wouldn’t match his outfit.

“Well.” Rook thinks about it. “I was a slave for the first seventeen years of my life, and then I worked for the Shadow Dragons, which doesn’t pay great or host a lot of fancy parties, and then there weren’t exactly any balls to go to when I joined up with Varric, and now a days, we’re usually getting covered in blight. So…no.”

Lucanis pauses. “Right. That’s…”

Rook laughs and stands to pull him away from the wardrobe. “You know, they already like me. And it’s not like I’m known for my fashion. I’m sure the other Talons will forgive a small fashion faux pas.”

His arms are suddenly full of Rook. She combs her fingers gently through his beard, tracing his jaw. “Besides, I kind of thought we weren’t even going to this. You wanted to leave the last party as soon as it started.”

Lucanis hums. “Unfortunately, this is not one I can get out of. The anointment of a Talon is a rather important event. I can’t exactly miss it.”

“I thought you were already First Talon?”

“Publicly, yes, but there’s a private ceremony to complete to make it official.”

“And then after the private ceremony, there’s the blood oath pact with a crow-demon that lives beneath the chantry.”

“Mm, yes. But that’s not for another two weeks.”

He says it so seriously, that Rook actually hesitates. The frown she fixes him with is somewhere between suspicion, shock, and horror.

Lucanis snorts. “I’m kidding. There’s no crow-demon…The blood-oath, however…”

“Lucanis!” Rook laughs, smacking his shoulder playfully.

“There’s a ceremonial knife and everything.”

She laughs and shakes her head. “Mhm. Right.”

He laughs with her, leaning forward to kiss her lips. He holds her there for a little while, just to taste her, just because he can.

“Come on,” Rook says, breaking their kiss. She lingers close anyway. “You’ll never make it to your blood oath if we don’t even make it to this ceremony thing.”

Lucanis kisses her lips once more and takes a step back to look at her. Her “nice” robes are…fine. They’re in bright Shadow Dragon red and teal, the edges of her cape are singed, and there’s a stain on her pants that simply won’t go away, but it’s fine. It’s the best they can do on such short notice.

He looks at the two of them side-by-side in the mirror and wonders if he should change to match her more closely. His own formal suit is all the rage in Antiva right now—deep cut enough to show chest hair—combined with a formal black cloak that’s embroidered with a gradient of feathers and sapphires to make it look like he’s wearing a twilight sky. It’s possibly a hundred times more expensive than what Rook wears, and every person at that ceremony will be wearing something of a similar caliber.

Caterina wouldn’t be too upset with him if he wore his regular mission-suit, right?

“Come on.” Rook practically has to drag him away from the mirror to stop him from primping and worrying. “It’s going to be fine. Besides, this ceremony is about you, not me.”

“But if my date comes underdressed—”

“Then they’ll forgive me because I saved Treviso from a dragon, I took care of the Butcher, and I stopped Ivenchi.”

“As I recall, I also did all of those things.”

“Which means they’ll forgive me for dressing like this, and they’ll forgive you for showing up late.”

Viago is pacing the Diamond when they finally arrive in Treviso. He stops when he sees them enter, marching over to Lucanis.

“Do you know what time it is?” He asks. “The other Talons are already downstairs. We need to get you prepped.

“Give them a minute, Viago,” Teia says. “They just arrived. Rook, do you need a place to change?”

“Change?”

Lucanis sighs, already knowing what’s coming. Teia and Viago are both dressed to the nines. Viago wears a low-cut midnight blue suit, completely embroidered with real silver, and a silver obi-belt to accent it. Teia is draped in that same midnight-blue. The bones of her corset are sewn to the outside of her boddice—iron dipped in real silver. And the feathers that wrap around her skirt have each had their edges dipped in real silver. Both of them wear silver masks—wings sprout from around the eyes, while a sharp point down the nose imitates a beak. The masks themselves are embossed with delicate swirls.

Rook is dressed in battle robes.

“Yes, into your…” Teia trails off. She frowns at Lucanis. “Did you tell her that this is a formal event?”

Lucanis takes a breath. “This was the best we could do.”

“The best?!” Viago looks like his head might explode. “You’re wearing custom Arimanni, and she’s wearing that?”

Rook’s smile morphs into a grimace. “It’s not that bad…right? I mean—I guess it’s a little stained, but soap only works so well on deepstalker blood.”

Teia opens and closes her mouth a few times. “How about you come with me, and we’ll get you something from my closet.”

“O-oh, I couldn’t!”

“But you really should.”

Lucanis doesn’t even try to save her as Teia drags Rook away.

Viago sighs and starts leading Lucanis to the ceremony room. “I can’t believe you.”

“She didn’t have anything else!”

“Then buy her something.”

“With what time? Do you really think Rook of all people would take a break from saving the world for dress fittings?”

Viago glances at him over his shoulder. “Who knows? She was willing to take a break to make out with you in the rain for an hour.”

Lucanis chokes on air. “How did you—Did you send people to spy on us?”

“Spy? No. But Talons, especially the First Talon, do have their own security detail. For your safety.”

“Safety. For a master assassin. Right.”

Viago smiles. He stops by the door to the ceremony room. “Are you ready?”

Lucanis looks to Viago and takes a breath.

“We’re ready,” Spite answers for them.

Viago grimaces. “I’m never going to get used to that.”

He slips into the room, and then it’s just Lucanis.

He looks up at the door in front of him as the ceremony begins inside. He has stood here before. During those times, he stood beside his mother as she assumed the title of First Talon. It was hard to sit still, being so young, but as the doors opened and the procession began, he was awestruck by the beauty and grace of his mother. He walked with his father behind her, and his aunts, uncles, and cousins entered behind them. She knelt at the feet of his grandmother, like the moon kneels before the sun, only to rise as the sun herself, crowned with the mask of the First Talon.

When next he stood here, Illario stood by his side. There were no others to walk behind them. They processed into the chamber behind Caterina, faces covered by black silk veils. Each step forward hurt worse than a dagger to the heart as they approached the coffins of House Dellamorte at the end of the aisle. The coffin at the forefront, his mother’s, was adorned by the mask of the First Talon. With great sorrow, Caterina donned that mask once more.

And now, Lucanis stands at this door again. There is no one to stand at his back—Illario refused to, and without formally joining House Dellamorte, Rook isn’t allowed. Hell, she was barely allowed to be here in the first place—but he knows he does not truly stand alone.

From beyond the door, Caterina’s voice rings out: “—and who will stand to lead the Crows? To guide our order through the shadows and night?”

Lucanis throws open the doors. They slam against the walls. The masked faces of the other Talons and their families turn to him. Black eyes framed in silver watch him as they have once before.

“I will stand,” he and Spite declare as one voice.

At the end of the aisle, Caterina stands dressed in her own finery—a regal black velvet dress with crystal pauldrons and crystal accents down the sleeves and skirt. She wears the mask, the Crown of the First Talon, on her face and holds the ceremonial dagger in her hands.

“Approach,” Caterina commands. “And tell us who you are.”

Lucanis steps forward. “I am Lucanis of House Dellamorte. Son of First Talon Elettra of House Dellamorte. Heir to my house and my name.”

“And what have you to offer the Crows, Son of Elettra, heir to House Dellamorte?”

He passes the Eighth Talon; they place a ruby ring on his finger. “I offer my hands, and all the blood they may shed.”

He passes the Seventh Talon, Teia; she places a ruby necklace around his neck. “I offer my voice, that it may echo what the Crows sing.”

He passes the Sixth Talon; they paint silver over his eyes, in mimicry of the masks the Talons wear. “I offer my vision; all that I see and all that I foresee.”

He passes the Fifth Talon, Viago; he adorns Lucanis’s hair with silver feathers. “I offer my mind; all that I know and will come to know.”

He passes the Fourth and Third Talons; they take the crystal pauldrons from Caterina and place them upon his shoulders. “I offer my body, knowing it may break, but willing it to stand.”

He passes the Second Talon; they place a hand over his heart, leaving behind a silver handprint on his skin. “I offer my devotion. None shall stand above the Crows in my heart.”

Finally, he steps up to Caterina and kneels.

“The mantle of First Talon is not lightly taken,” Caterina says. “You will face hardship greater than any other Crow. You will carry the weight of every contract signed and every life taken. You will walk with death as your right hand and mercy as your left. Are you ready for such a life?”

“I am.”

Caterina draws the dagger. The hilt is silver—an image of feathers folded over themselves—but the blade is black, forged of a delicate and brittle obsidian.

She places the dagger on his right shoulder. “Do you swear to lead the Crows with all that you are and all that you know?”

“I swear.”

She places the dagger on his left shoulder. “Do you swear to live in service of the Crows until the day you die?”

“I swear.”

“Hold out your hand.”

Lucanis offers his right hand to her. With one swift motion, she uses the dagger to cut his palm. Blood pools there, dripping off of his hand onto the floor.

“Stand and take your crown.”

He rises to his feet, slowly. The First Talon stands before him, her mask a bright silver, adorned with black jewels. He takes that mask with his right hand, the blood smeared across it acting as his contract.

Lucanis dons the mask and turns.

“Lucanis of House Dellamorte, Son of First Talon Elettra, and heir to your house and name, I anoint you First Talon of the Crows.”

Two great wings sprout from Lucanis’s back—black and violet. They frame him as the crowd erupts in applause.

Then in a voice both his own and not, he speaks:

“I accept this contract.”

The party that follows is what Lucanis looks forward to least.

He can’t hide against the wall this time—there are too few people to disappear into the crowd. Instead, he’s forced to make polite conversation. Rook also is also nowhere in sight. He’s sure she was there during the ceremony, but he couldn’t see for sure.

The other Talons congratulate him, hint at things that they’d like from him, and generally talk themselves up. There are issues of finance, territory, contract disputes, fledgling training, recruitment, even a few not-so-subtle propositions for his hand that get thrown his way. Lucanis gives answers that are as polite and neutral as he can manage, but he’s sure they all see him slowly bending under the weight of their insisting.

“Alright, alright, give him some space!” Teia’s voice breaks through the crowd as she and Viago shove their way up to him. “There will be time for business later. Tonight is a night of celebration, no?”

There are a few grumbles at her interruption, but Teia rolls her eyes and stands her ground. “I’ve broken out the Orleasian wine from 8:02 Blessed.”

Immediately, the crowd disburses, suddenly more interested in the vintage wine than in Lucanis.

“You’re welcome,” she teases.

Lucanis sighs. “Thank you.”

“The ceremony went well,” Viago says. “Your mother would’ve been proud.”

He hopes she would. He said the oath just as he remembered her speaking it. “I think Spite would’ve given her a heart attack.”

Viago laughs. “I think you gave Caterina one anyway.”

Lucanis’s head twitches as Spite pushes his way forward. “Wings are impressive! We were terrifying.”

Teia and Viago stare, shocked and horrified. Lucanis laughs to himself. “They really do add to the outfit, don’t they? Where is Caterina, anyway?”

“Truly the Demon of Vyrantium…” Teia mutters. “I believe Caterina managed to get a hold of Rook.”

Lucanis whips his head around, searching for them. “Did she?”

Teia laughs, pulling his attention back to her. “Look at you.”

Even Viago is smiling. “One mention of Rook and your head turns.”

“I suppose that report wasn’t exaggerating about them staring into each other’s eyes.”

Lucanis frowns at them, face growing hot. “Wha—is there a report our date? Why is there a report? How many people have read it!?”

“Only a few,” Teia assures him. “…including Caterina.”

A flurry of emotions cross Lucanis’s mind before he settles on some mix of frustration and embarrassment. “I’m leaving.”

He turns to go, and then Viago calls out after him: “Caterina and Rook are near the balcony.”

His head turns and he sees them. Rook is hidden behind a pillar, but Caterina is visible enough for him to track.

Behind him Teia snorts. “Like a dog…”

Lucanis glares at her over his shoulder, but chooses to go to Rook instead of linger where he’d only be teased.

He pushes through the crowd, politely avoiding other Talons and Crows who try to pull him aside for conversation. Between all the people and the words, it feels like walking through a maze just to cross the room. But he holds fast to the glimpse of Rook that he has, knowing the evening will be a little brighter by her side.

All he can see is her shoulder and the hem of a gown. The rest of her is hidden, but he knows it’s her. She laughs, and he knows it’s her. Then, as he rounds the pillar, she comes into view.

If he is the twilight sky, then she is the dawn. Her gown is the same shade of midnight as his suit, but as his eye wanders from boddice to hem, her tulle skirt fades from that midnight into the brilliant reds and golds of the dawn. The sapphires carefully embroidered along the boddice fading into the skirt, shine like the stars fading into the morning light.

Her hair is swept up, for once, held up by two familiar wing-shaped pins, framing her head almost like a silver halo. It leaves her neck bare, adorned only by a black sapphire necklace. And though she hardly wears make-up at the Lighthouse or on missions (“impractical,” she called it. “The right shade of lipstick won’t stop the Evanuris,”) silver shimmer and delicate black lines frame her eyes, a rosy pink dusts her cheeks, and deep romantic red paints her lips. If she kissed him, she’d surely stamp his face, leaving a claim on his skin for the rest of the Crows to see.

‘Beauty.’ The word echoes in his head. Lucanis isn’t sure if it’s him or Spite who says it.

“Lucanis?” Rook calls to him.

“Ay, Maker and Andraste,” Caterina chastises. “What happened to your manners? I did not raise you to stare, Lucanis.”

Lucanis takes a breath and clears his throat, trying to focus. “My apologies. I—” but he stumbles over his words as he glances at Rook again. “—ah, are you…enjoying the evening?”

Caterina huffs at his stumble, but doesn’t chastise him again. “I was just talking with your future Wing about the intricacies of running the home of a First Talon while you are busy with the Crows.”

“Wing!?” Lucanis gapes. His gaze shoots back to Rook, and he realizes why her hair pins look so familiar. They’re exactly the same as the lapel wings his father and grandfather wore. “Nonna!”

“Ay, close your mouth,” she tells him. There’s the barest hint of a smile on her lips. “Though untraditional, I believe Rook to be a fine choice. The other Talons will make an exception for her.”

There is nothing Lucanis can say to refute Caterina; not without having a very awkward conversation with Rook in front of Caterina. At the same time, there’s also nothing he can say to hide his own embarrassment.

“Caterina, please,” he begs. “Do we have to…perhaps we should discuss this later?”

Caterina tsks at him, but that hint of a smile grows to cross her face. “Fine. I am old enough to know when I’m not wanted.” She takes Rook’s hands, holding them tight. “It was wonderful speaking with you, my dear.”

Rook smiles, politely though tinged with confusion. “It was great talking to you as well, Caterina.”

And then Caterina goes, leaving Lucanis and Rook with a smile.

“Wing?” Rook asks, as soon as Caterina is out of ear-shot.

Lucanis takes a breath, looking around the room. There are eyes watching them—too many eyes for this conversation. In lieu of an answer, he takes her by the hand and leads her out to the balcony. There are still eyes there, but not nearly as many.

“Lucanis?” She asks again, as they stop.

He’s just not sure how to explain it to her—not without scaring her away. What they have is so new, so delicate. To tell her this feels like more than either of them are ready for.

A hand brushes across his shoulder, dusting away something there, and then it moves to his chest, his head, even poking right between his eyebrows. Lucanis frowns at Rook. She’s singularly focused on her task…whatever that is.

“What are you doing?” He asks.

“Breaking up your clouds of doom,” she says.

She tries to be serious about it, but a smile creeps across her face even as she explains herself. It makes him laugh.

He leans on the balcony, and she leans there with him, resting her head on his shoulder.

“Caterina was telling me about your family—your mother, and what it was like when she was First Talon,” Rook says. “Said you’re a lot like she was.”

“She said that?” Lucanis asks. He sighs. “I didn’t know my parents well enough to say if Caterina is right. They were killed when I was eight. I…didn’t have time to know them better.”

Rook slips her hand into his. “She said your mother had a seriousness about her that you share. You’re both driven and dedicated to the things and people you love. Something about ‘a Crow never breaks a contract’ not being about just contracts.”

The thought is comforting in some strange distant way. Lucanis has always strived to live up to the Dellamorte name, to be every bit of the person that his mother and grandmother were. It felt impossible for so long—even standing there now as First Talon feels a little undeserved.

Lucanis hums. “…She’s never told me that.”

Rook squeezes his hand. “She was bragging about you a lot…and then she started asking me how many kids I want and how I felt about training them.”

Lucanis sighs deeply. “Mierda. This is why Illario and I never settled down. She gets one glimpse of those damned wings, and suddenly she has names picked out for my grandchildren.”

Rook pulls away to look at him. “So…it does have something to do with what a Wing is?”

Oh. Right. He hasn’t explained that bit yet.

“…Teia gave you the pins?” Lucanis asks.

“Yeah.” Rook reaches back to touch one of them. “She said they were for special guests of House Dellamorte.”

Lucanis rolls his eyes. “Of course she did.”

“Was she lying to me?”

“Not…technically.”

“Then…”

Maker, they’re not ready for this conversation.

Lucanis takes a breath. “The leaders of the Crows take on the title of ‘Talon’ because we are the first offense. A Crow’s Talons choose when to attack, what contracts to accept and carry, and whether to perch on an olive branch or tear out our enemies’ eyes. But a Crow’s Wings guide and support. It is their job to lift Crows up and help them fly, to give the Crows advantages, and to move swiftly so that a Talon’s attack is effective.”

He rubs a thumb over her hand grasped in his. “Wings are given pins to signify their status, and each Talon has Wing, a partner. They’re usually someone close and trusted, someone who is family—a sibling, a child, a…spouse.”

For once, Rook has nothing to say but, “…Oh.”

“So, in dressing you with wings, Dellamorte wings, Teia implied that you…that we are…”

“…I see.”

He expects her to pull away. They’ve had barely a month to be together, and this is practically a proposal. Perhaps he should’ve taken her somewhere other than Treviso for that kiss. Perhaps he shouldn’t have let the other Crows see. It wouldn’t be a surprise for her to pull away, not just in the moment, but from him. From them.

But he wants so badly for ‘Rook’ to ‘Stay.’

“Well,” she says. She’s still holding his hand, though she can’t quite meet his gaze. “I suppose there are worse things to be.”

“You’re not mad?” He asks.

“I…guess it depends: do you want me to be your Wing?”

What.

‘Yes!’

Mierda.

He laughs, nervously. “Well, I…uh…I suppose we already have Caterina’s blessing.”

Rook laughs, that sound of starlight calming his rapidly beating heart. She squeezes the hand she holds and places her other hand on his chest, crowding into his space. “Mm, that’s not an answer.”

“Well.” Lucanis takes her by the waist. It’s almost like they’re dancing. “Do you…want to be my Wing?”

She looks away from him again and starts to sway in tempo with the music drifting out from the Diamond. There’s something in her smile, something beyond fondness.

 “Hmm, I’d be an untraditional choice, so I’m told.”

Lucanis laughs. “That’s not an answer.”

He spins her around as the music plays, and when she turns back to him, he pulls her close. She’s close enough to kiss.

“Ask me again,” she says. “When this is all over.”

“If we make it out.”

“When we make it out,” she corrects. “Promise me that one day, you’ll ask me again.”

She says it with her sunshine smile, looking at him with two bright moons. There’s not a hint of doubt there. She believes, trusts, that they’ll make it to the other side of this impossible mission and to the day he asks again.

“I swear,” he says, and he means it. He’ll kill anything in their way; do anything to make sure they make it to that day.

Maybe it’s years from now, or maybe it’s only months, but one day, he’ll ask her again to be his Wing.

‘Wife.’

And he knows, trusts, that she’ll say yes.

Chapter Text

Lucanis?

Ghilanain is dead.

She’s dead. He did it. He knows he did.

Lucanis!

“Rook?” Lucanis pushes himself up from the ground, leaning on his arms.

‘—come back come back come back come back—"

She’s calling for him. She worries. Lucanis needs to let her know he’s okay, but his vision is blurry as he tries to look for her. Every inch of his body aches. The force of his fall likely broke something.

‘—don’t leave please why can’t leave Rook—"

Through spinning vision, ragged breaths, and blinking, his surroundings slowly come into view. The battlefield is only ruin and blight. It’s dead hurlocks and ghouls. It’s crumbling tentrils of black and slowly drying pools of red ooze seeping into the stone damaged beyond repair. It’s Ghilan’nain’s body lying dead and motionless next to him. It’s the sickly green gash—the tear in the Veil that stands just above him. The faces of his teammates appear like flashes like between all of that dark.

Emmrich is trying to cast something, rushing through the motions.

Davrin stands with his sword in hand, spooked by something. Assan flies around overhead, searching.

Taash runs past him, screaming Harding’s name.

Neve is just a few feet away, her hand outstretched, dread etched on her face.

And…

“Rook?”

‘—no no why can’t reach come back please—"

 Every muscle in his body protests, and he stumbles, but Lucanis makes himself stand. His eyes search the all of the dark, but she’s not there. She’s not standing among the team…or what’s left of it.

“Rook!”

‘—too far can’t reach too far no no—'

He turns; looking, searching. Is she behind him? Is she trapped under blight? Is she—

“Where’s Rook?”

‘GONE.’

“Lucanis?”

Lucanis jumps at a sudden touch to his shoulder. The bit of shock burns in his ribcage and his head is starting to spin again. He looks, but there’s no sun to warm him, no moons that shine, no starlight calling. It’s only Neve. It’s only her hand.

“Did you see?” Lucanis asks her. His head keeps turning, keeps looking. “She was—I heard her. She was just here.”

‘GONE.’

They look at him; they all do. They know what he doesn’t. They believe what he can’t.

“She…” Neve starts. It hurts her to speak. “She took the dagger and then…disappeared.”

“What.”

Neve shakes her head. “I tried to…I had her. My hand was on her arm and she just…”

‘GONE.’

“She’s in the Fade,” Emmrich says. His hands move furiously, cast in the green glow of his magic—sommatic incantations. The tear in the Veil ripples wildly with every move he makes. “The Veil ruptured when you killed Ghilan’nain and—"

“Well, get her out,” Lucanis tells him.

He tries to take a step forward, but stumbles. He winces in pain. His ribs and legs burn. Davrin catches him before he can fall, and Neve presses a cold hand of healing magic against his chest.

There’s a bright glow, and then…nothing. There’s no rippling green magic leaking out from the fade, no burst of energy lashing out at the world around it, and no tear in the Veil. It’s just suddenly gone. “I…can’t.”

“What do you mean—”

“The tear just…closed.” Emmrich stares at the space over Ghilan’nain’s body, at the space where the tear in the Veil used to be. “It was so large. I don’t understand…”

“GONE!” Spite bursts out. He pushes away from Davrin, walking forward despite the pain.

“BRING ROOK! I WANT—I CAN’T! CAN’T REACH HER!”

Lucanis collapses as Spite lets him go. Violet wings sprout from his back, fluttering wildly. It kicks up the wind around him, encasing Lucanis in a whirlwind. He feels Spite reaching out for the Fade, like an extension of his own hand, but it doesn’t work. The Veil stops him from reaching across, like a barrier, a wall, a cage, and Rook is trapped inside.

A scream rips itself from his throat. He’s not sure if it’s him or Spite.

Gone. Gone. ‘GONE.’

Rook is gone.

Spite tries to fight his way out of bed. He tries to rip away the bandages Neve tries to put on him. He refuses the food Emmrich brings. He pushes them to sit, despite the pain it causes them both. Taash pushes him back down, telling him to stay, but Spite fights them.

Lucanis doesn’t have the will to make Spite stop. Or, maybe he doesn’t want him to.

‘WHERE IS ROOK?’ Spite screams. He paces on his own this time, leaving Lucanis’s body to rest.

“I don’t know,” Lucanis answers.

The candles in the infirmary are dim, but they feel too bright. There is a blanket over his battered and bandaged body, but he still feels cold. He is exhausted but he cannot sleep.

He wants to sleep. He wants all of this to be a bad dream that he can wake up from.

‘WE HAVE TO GO. WE HAVE TO GET HER BACK!’

“We can’t.”

They’ve had this conversation a hundred times already. Spite refuses to accept Lucanis’s answers.

‘WE HAVE TO!’ He’s practically begging Lucanis. For all of the screaming and the furious pacing, the look on his face is nothing but pain, shock, grief. “I can’t…I can’t reach her.”

The same grief chips away at Lucanis’s heart each time Spite pleads with him. He just wants to sleep. He doesn’t want to be reminded that Rook is not here. He doesn’t want to tell Spite that they can’t get her back, because the more he says it, the more it feels like the truth.

“It was Solas,” Davrin says, head in his hands.

The team sits in the infirmary, around Lucanis’s bed. Spite lets him have control for now, only because Lucanis convinced him that they need to eat and survive if they’re going to find Rook. So, he nibbles at his bread and drinks his elfroot potion—it’s the first food he’s had in two days.

“There was a shadow—a wolf,” Davrin explains. “Rook grabbed the dagger and then it…for a split second, it wasn’t her holding the dagger. It was Solas.”

‘Always Solas. Always hurting Rook.’

“He must have closed the tear in the Veil behind him,” Emmrich says. “The Veil cannot simply repair itself like that.”

Neve scoffs. “So, he locked Rook in a room and threw away the key.”

Davrin clenches his fists. They practically shake from his anger. “If I had just been faster…I could’ve caught him. I saw him and…I just….”

Emmrich shakes his head. “If I had been faster, I could’ve stabilized the Fade tear. We could’ve gone in after Rook, or pulled her out.”

Taash huffs. It’s clear they’ve been crying. “Well, we weren’t faster, and now Rook is gone. Bellara is gone. Lace…”

“And Solas has the dagger,” Neve finishes.

“TAKE ME TO HER.”

“I cannot.” The Caretaker stands steadfast. They argue under the golden tree in the Crossroads.

“Spite…” Taash holds him back, but doesn’t force him to move.

He made it through the Eluvian when no one was looking. He’s not wearing shoes or a tie. Bandages peek out from beneath his shirt. He doesn’t even have weapons.

“EMMRICH SAID FADE. WE ARE HERE. THIS IS FADE. TAKE ME TO HER.”

Emmrich and Manfred stand near the Eluvian back to the Lighthouse, approaching tentatively.

“Spite,” Emmrich calls. “Perhaps it’s best if Lucanis took you back for now. He’s in no shape for a rescue mission.”

“Please…”

Maybe it would be best, but Lucanis isn’t sure which of them is speaking or which of them is in control.

“I cannot,” the Caretaker says again. “Your companion’s prison is not within the Crossroads, and though it may be somewhere in the Fade, I do not know the way.”

“Please.” He begs so softly, so desperately.

A bony hand pulls at his own.

“Home now,” Manfred hisses, gently. “Come.”

But it’s not home without Rook.

They return to Tearstone Island often.

Lucanis thinks that it’s Spite who pushes them all to keep looking, to keep believing that Rook is alive and out there, somewhere. There’s not much else he and Lucanis can do at this point except believe.

They find ways to keep busy, though. They help Emmrich with his rituals around the island as he pokes and prods at weaknesses in the Veil. Each time they find a weak spot, Spite will pull at the other side. He never finds her. He doesn’t stop trying.

They spread word to their allies, looking for any signs of Bellara. If Elgar’nan didn’t kill her, then the Venatori might have her.

They help Taash dress the ritual site with flowers—the same kinds Harding planted around her room. They take samples of the blight pool that Harding fell into. Antoine will know what to do with it.

“She could be out there, somewhere,” Lucanis says.

“How do you know?” Taash asks, wiping tears from their eyes.

“There was no body,” Lucanis says. “It’s one of the first lessons fledgling Crows are taught: your target isn’t dead until you see their body.”

“You really believe that?”

Harding. Bellara. Rook. All of them are gone, but no bodies were found.

“I have to.”

But even as he says it, he places flowers around the ritual site like it’s a grave. He remembers how it felt to bury his mother and father. Rook is not here and there is no casket, but it feels all too familiar.

Elgar’nan has taken Minrathous. Solas is there too.

Rook would hate it. After everything Minrathous has already suffered, now there’s this. Neve has a plan, though. She thinks they can make their own dagger, or at least one that gets close to the real thing. All it needs to do is tear through the Veil, then they can save Rook.

Creating the fake dagger keeps Emmrich and Neve busy—there are a million different complex wards and enchantments to place upon it. They spend days on that dagger, locked away in Emmrich’s tower. All sorts of strange magic whispers drift out from beyond the door, only quieting when they stop to eat or sleep.

Davrin takes charge of organizing their allies. He was built for fighting, not talking, but Emmrich and Neve are busy, and Lucanis and Taash are grieving. He fields what questions he can and apologizes for what he can’t. At all times, he keeps one hand on Assan, just in case.

Taash is never there. They’re either in Rivain, raging at the storms that batter the coast, or in Arlethan sitting among the rocks and cliff faces. They don’t go far—never out of reach—but they can’t stand to stay where Harding used to be.

And Lucanis sits with Spite. He spends much of his time calming Spite, appeasing him when he can, because Spite’s screaming hurts. It’s not like it was before, when Spite would scream and fight and Lucanis would scream back, fight back just to keep control of his body. These screams are bleeding wounds that won’t heal. They are anger. They are agony. They are only appeased by the lie Lucanis tells, the one that’s become so hard to believe:

“We’ll find her.”

They cook like they used to. Lucanis teaches Spite recipes and lets him try to make them until he grows frustrated. They make a lot of chocolate things because ‘Rook likes chocolate. We should have chocolate when she’s home.’

They sit in that secret garden on the Traviso rooftops and make plans. One day, they’ll take Rook to the art gallery. One day, they’ll take her on a gondola ride and to the best restaurants in the city. One day, she’ll be back and ‘We will ask her. She will be Wing.’

They read together—every book Rook has ever read to them. Sometimes they read in the library and Spite struggles over the words. Lucanis patiently answers all of his questions, like Rook would. Other times, they go to Tearstone Island and sit among the flowers they helped Taash plant. Lucanis reads one of Bellara’s unfinished serials aloud as Taash tends to the flowers. Manfred and Assan sit at his feet, listening attentively.

Spite sits at his back, one hand pressing against the Veil in the very spot where Rook disappeared.

Lucanis lets Spite lead.

He does his duty as First Talon, organizing the Crows and ensuring they’re ready for the next move. He supports the team, cooks for them, sits with them. But it’s Spite that makes him go out searching for tears in the Veil. It’s Spite that makes him pick up the Wing pins for safe keeping. It’s Spite who still believes and tries and Lucanis who’s just going through the motions.

It feels cruel for Spite to drag him, Taash, and Davrin out into the world to search every tear in the Veil they can find. It starts with Tearstone Island, retracing their steps through the island. Then Tearstone becomes the Hossburg Wetlands, which becomes Treviso, and then Arlathan. It keeps them going and stops them from thinking too much, but each step is also a shard of hope that hurts to hold.

Those shards shatter each time Spite reaches across a tear, pulling out statues, old bridges, and trees. But never Rook. Each time, Lucanis quietly picks the shards out of his skin, long since numbed to that feeling of broken hope. And then, as soon as he thinks he’s picked out every piece, Spite drops another shard in his hands.

And around and around they go.

It doesn’t work. The dagger doesn’t work.

They stand on Tearstone Island over the spot where Ghilan’nain died, where Rook disappeared. Emmrich holds the dagger in hand, trying to pierce through the Veil. There’s a sickly green light that shines from the impact point, but Emmrich can’t break through.

The light fades and they all stand quiet.

“I…” Emmrich looks down at the dagger. “It’ll work. I just—”

“It’s doesn’t,” Davrin says. “If that dagger worked, it would have by now.”

Emmrich frowns. “Such things are complicated, Davrin. I just need more time.”

Taash groans loudly. “We don’t have more time!”

“Have patience—”

“Patience? Elgar’nan is fucking up Minrathous! You want to wait for him to be done with that?”

“That’s not what I said.”

“But Taash is right,” Davrin interjects. “If the dagger’s not working, then maybe it’s time to just go for it.”

Neve scoffs. “Just go for it? What, like right now?”

“Yeah…Yeah, why not? We have to try something.”

“You want to rush in now with no plan and no backup?”

Taash huffs. “That’s a stupid plan.”

Davrin turns on them. “Alright, then what’s your plan?”

“I’m not in charge of plans!” Taash shouts. They stand, getting in Davrin’s face. “I’m in charge of dragons. Rook’s in—”

No one speaks. The truth hangs heavy between them all.

“Yeah. Well.” Davrin is the first to break the silence. “Rook’s gone, so—”

Lucanis turns and leaves, or his body does. He hears the protests of his team, their calls and worries, but he is helpless to respond. Spite takes him away to…somewhere. There is no destination, no place for them to go, but Spite keeps them going. His thoughts echo as if they were Lucanis’s own:

‘Must keep going. There is. Another way. Find her. Find her. Find her.’

He makes it back to the Crossroads before the others catch up with him.

“Lucanis!” Neve calls. “Where are you going?”

“Keep looking!” Spite says. It’s another shard of hope pressed into Lucanis’s hand.

“Where?”

“Everywhere!”

Taash dashes in front of him, blocking the path ahead. “Spite, stop. Give Lucanis back.”

“Have to look!” Spite pleads. “Have to try.”

Lucanis stops. His body is his own.

‘Please,’ Spite begs him. ‘Lucanis must keep looking.’

The sharp edges of hope press against his skin, cutting deep deep scars into his heart. Rook is all but lost to the Fade, the dagger doesn’t work, Lucanis already buried his belief at Tearstone Island, but Spite holds on. He can’t stop hoping—won’t stop. He makes Lucanis go out and look. He makes Lucanis believe, no matter how much it hurts.

“Lucanis? Neve asks.

No, is what he should say. Because it’s insanity to keep looking when nothing has worked and the world is at its end.

“…I’m—we are going to find her,” is what Lucanis says. Because what if Spite is right? What if there’s some smally, miniscule chance that they’ll find her if they just look hard enough?  His heart bleeds as he speaks, hope piercing him like a dagger. “There has to be a way.”

Davrin sighs. “But the dagger doesn’t work.”

Lucanis frowns.

‘Doesn’t matter doesn’t matter. Keep going! Keep trying.’

“Then we try something else! We’ll find another way, another ritual.” Lucanis says. “Maybe Bellara’s notes have something we can use, or there’s an artifact in Arlathan, or—”

“Shit, that’s it.” The team turns to Neve. Her eyes flit around like she’s combing over notes—a million ideas processing at a mile a minute. “A ritual in Arlathan. Solas’s ritual.”

‘Yes!’

“Neve?” Davrin calls.

She takes off towards one of the Eluvians, not waiting for the rest of them. “We have to go back to the beginning! Solas’s ritual created a prison for the Evanuris—the tears in the Veil at his original ritual site must lead there.”

It’s dangerous, the way hope embeds itself in Lucanis’s heart. If this doesn’t work, if he has to dig this piece out, then he might not survive long enough to stop the bleeding.

But he must try.

They climb the broken stone steps to where it all began.

‘Rook.’

“This way. It’s thinner here,” Emmrich calls out.

‘Close.’

The Veil is weak here. It doesn’t tear open, doesn’t let the Fade leak out into the world as it did on Tearstone Island, but it’s not strong, either. Spite presses at it as they climb—it bends so easily under his touch.

“Here!” Neve shouts. She traces the air with her hand in a jagged line. “There’s a tear here, I can feel it.”

“Rook!” Spite shouts. The Veil bends, but it doesn’t break. Lucanis sees it through Spite’s eyes: powerful magic woven through the edges of the tear, like stitching, holding it closed. “I smell. Rook!”

Taash takes a deep breath. “I…yeah, I do too…but it’s really faint. It smells like…blood.”

“Blood magic,” Neve says. “Rook said that blood magic bound Solas to her.”

“Can the dagger tear through it?” Taash asks.

“It couldn’t open tear open the Veil,” Davrin says.

Emmrich holds up the dagger. “Yes, but blood magic is not the Veil.”

He cuts.

The dagger nearly explodes. It rebounds, flying out of Emmrich’s hand. There’s light, whispers, color, and—

“Rook!” Lucanis calls out. Spite reaches out through the cracks, searching, grasping for Rook.

The tear is just barely open—a single seam popped in the hem—but through it, hope leaks out from the Fade. Emmrich is quick to cast a stabilizing spell, hands moving apart as if he could push the tear open with strength alone. Neve works along side him, picking at those strings of blood magic, cutting through the remaining enchantments as quickly as she can.

It’s working.

Lights flash from the other side of the Veil, like a flipbook of drawings. It’s buildings, statues, rocks, books, and—

“Shit, is that her?” Davrin says.

“I think…” Emmrich’s hand joins Spite’s, reaching into the Fade. He squints into the Fade. “There! A light!”

“Is it her?” Neve tears out those last strings, then spreads her own arms to keep the tear open. “Do we have her?”

‘There!’ Spite feels something. A hand. A heart. A person. But Spite cannot hold them, cannot grasp them, cannot touch them.

“We’ve got something,” Lucanis says. “Get ready.”

But Emmrich can. Emmrich can touch, even if Spite cannot. So, Spite takes Emmrich’s hand and guides it. He reaches out their hands for that something, weaving through the fade, until finally, finally—

“Rook!”

Emmrich finds that hand on the other side of the Veil. He gasps and grasps tight. Then more hands, more help pulls and pulls to save that heart trapped in the Fade.

Just a little more. They’re so close. She’s so close.

“Hurry!” Spite urges. The tear is destabilizing. Without the blood magic in place to seal it shut, the tear sucks up all of the latent magic in the area. It feeds on the spells Emmrich and Neve cast. It’s a ticking time bomb, ready to blow.

“Heave!” Taash shouts.

The tear explodes.

It blows back everyone, scattering them around the ritual site. Lucanis is thrown against a wall. Spite extends his wings too late, shielding Lucanis from debris, but not from the initial impact of the explosion. His head spins. His ears ring.

‘Get up get up—'

There’s shouting.

‘—here here here—'

Questions.

‘—to move have to get to—'

His vision is blurry.

‘—safe and here and—'

The world is just colors and shapes.

‘Come on, Lucanis!’

He pushes himself to sit, blinking until everything comes back into focus. He sees before he hears.

Taash smiles. They laugh, almost hysterically. There’s someone in their arms, smiling back at them like the sun that shines through the tree leaves onto the forest floor. That someone smiles at Neve and Emmrich as they stumble over, looking up with two moons that reflect the same sun. That someone stumbles as Davrin helps them to their feet, and starlight spills from their mouth as Assan circles around them.

And then the sun turns its rays on him. He is bathed in the warmth that he’s missed for days and weeks.

Two beautiful moons see him, and there he sees his heart reflected back at him.

Then, like the sweetest of spells, the starlight calls his name:

“Lucanis!”

“Rook!”

Lucanis rushes forward. His body aches, but he makes himself move. He can’t stop until Rook is there in his arms, and then suddenly, she is. He holds her so tightly, so closely, as if she might slip away again. She is warm and real and there. He holds her and swears that he’ll never let go.

“You’re here,” he whispers, tears blurring his vision once more.

He pulls back, but only so that he may see her face and hold the sun, moon, and stars in his hands. She looks just as he remembers, as if he would ever forget. “You’re really here.”

She laughs, but she cries, too.

“You found me,” she says, voice breaking. Rook looks around to their team, their friends, and Lucanis wipes away her tears as they begin to fall. She leans into his touch.

“You found me.”

Rook’s heartbeat is a steady drum and her breath is deep, ebbing and flowing like waves. It is almost enough to lull Lucanis to sleep. Almost.

In the quiet, in the after, Rook sleeps and Lucanis listens for her. Only, instead of listening through the kitchen walls for footsteps late at night, he’s nestled against her heart, held in her arms. She is bruised and scarred, soft and warm, and here. She’s here.

Sleep pulls at his eyes, but Lucanis can’t sleep yet. He wants to lay with her, be here with her even if she sleeps. She saved the world; they have forever to spend together, but he doesn’t miss a moment of it.

‘Sleep,’ Spite says. His wings adjust, slowly, careful not to wake Rook. ‘I will guard. Watch.’

“A little longer,” Lucanis whispers. He rubs circles into Rook’s skin, reveling in the fact that it’s her in his hands.

“What’s longer?” Rook stirs.

“Nothing,” Lucanis says. He kisses her skin. “Go back to sleep, mi amor.”

“Mm.” Rook yawns, shifting in Lucanis’s hold. “Are you talking to me, or my tits?”

Lucanis pauses. She smiles at him, sleepily, smugly, and he looks up through the valley of her breasts.

“Can I not speak to you both?” Lucanis presses another kiss to Rook’s breast and she giggles. “Your tits were working very hard just an hour ago. They deserve rest, too.”

He kisses up her chest, her neck, her jaw, and all the way to her lips. He lingers there, savoring her. Her arms wrap around his neck, drawing him closer.

“I think you were doing all of the heavy lifting an hour ago,” Rook whispers against his lips.

Lucanis hums, laying against her once more. Rook grunts under his weight, but Lucanis wraps himself around her, pressing his face into her neck.

“I would not say heavy lifting.” Lucanis rests one hand against Rook’s tits, squeezing gently. “Quite a comfortable weight to hold, actually.”

Rook laughs, hands combing through Lucanis’s hair, running down his back, and scratching lightly over his wings. Lucanis smiles against her skin. Sleep pulls at him again, but with Rook caressing him so lovingly, its hard to resist.

He knows he’s under her spell, but it’s not one he’s eager to break. Not if it means he gets to spend forever with her, surrounded by the sound of starlight.