Chapter Text
The first time Lucanis Dellamorte meets Rook de Riva, there is a moment he thinks that this is just a dream, coming to torment him in a time of utter abandon.
How long has it been since he saw her face, her eyes shining with inviting mischief? When was the last time he heard her voice, her accent sweet as honeyed wine? In the quietest hours of the darkest of nights, he has been plagued by the phantom warmth of her hands on his body and the rustling whisper of her voice in his ear, luring him to an abyssal edge. Her name, her touch, her shadow. It all remains a distinctive apparition in the edges of his peripheral mind, a presence intangible and gutting in every sense.
When their eyes meet, he thinks he stops breathing. The shock is the only thing that keeps him from blurting out his years-long festering thought of: I thought you were dead.
“My name’s Rook,” she says, and the facade of unbothered neutrality bleeds away for a moment as she adds, “I’m here to bring you home.”
“Rook,” her companion says pointedly, and Lucanis takes in her details with a steady glance. Dwarven archer, blood-rich red hair and freckled cheeks, complete with a scout’s sharpened eye for threats. Good. One of them must be prepared for what is to come. “He’s possessed.”
Shame burns in the pit of his stomach. He manages a shrug. “It’s complicated.”
“Yes, I suppose it is,” Rook says. There’s a softness to her voice that stokes the flames of longing in his chest like hearthfire. More than anything, he has missed her voice. Her sweet accent, the honeyed barbs of her sarcasm, the breathy catch of her pleas when she is close to… well. He misses her wholeheartedly, utterly. She gives him a look of undisguised understanding, as if she can see his desire reflected plainly across his face. “Caterina promised us a mage-killer if we broke you out of here.”
He works out the tension in his jaw, swallowing back against the pit of emotion caught in his throat. There is so much he wants to say. There is so much he is terrified to admit to her. “I can still work.”
I can still be useful. I am still a Crow.
“Good,” she says. “Because I’m pretty sure more Venatori are on their way. We have to get moving.”
Careful, Spite purrs at his back. He lurks ascendant along the edges of Lucanis’s psyche, eyeing Rook with ravenous curiosity. Smells like… spiced chocolate and woodsmoke. Not familiar. Not yet.
Lucanis ignores him, both out of fear that the demon is correct, and the ignorant hope that he is utterly wrong. He delves into battle with the same hunger that Spite reserves for Rook’s very presence, satisfying the ache of bloodlust with petty quarry, spoiling himself with the relief of having Rook at his back in the midst of a battle.
There was once a time, though brief in the dismal span of his life, where he could turn to find Shrike waiting there for him, her blades slick with blood and aimed to defend the vulnerable blindspot of his back. The only time she had ever hurt him was when he had thought her dead, the rumors of her exploits growing into gnarled myths of her unfortunate end at the hands of a mark or nameless thief. He should have known that she lived as an impossible feat. She defied the odds before.
Watching her command the battlefield now, once more defending his weakness with fervor, he cannot help but believe it. Believe in her, in her willingness to help.
It’s a foreign sensation. He tucks it away before Spite notices, and he focuses on slaying Calivan to sate the gaping abyss in the pit of his heart.
The streets of Treviso are choking with plumes of smoke, the flame-tinged haze of the horizon casting the city into shades of red. There is a rumbling chorus of thunder strikes in the distance, the undertone of panicked screaming raging havoc over his crumbling composure. Haloed by the light of the moon, the archdemon dragon’s ominous shadow cuts across the skyline.
It’s all burning. This is his city, his people. This is all he has to defend, and it is inundated in catastrophe. Treviso has been weakened by the occupation in the year since his imprisonment, and now it is crippled to its last heaving breaths.
Smoldering embers and sickness, Spite growls. Their shared body is humming with a fury defiant; his steps are steady over the ash-dusted tile floors as they make their way through the Cantori Diamond. The casino is unnervingly quiet. Every spare Crow is out on the street, taking the offensive against the threat to the city, and the fledglings have likely taken off to usher the ordinary citizens out of harm’s way. In times of crisis, the only difference between a fledgling and a full-fledged Crow is their armor. Where there is a necessity to help manage mass casualties, both rankings will be where they are suited best.
Which means Teia and Viago will be at the forefront, and that is exactly where Lucanis intends to go.
He surveys the haze of smoke draped thickly over the windows, then considers the drier, cleaner air far below the Diamond’s rookery. The casino floor is abandoned, amongst the first buildings to be completely evacuated with news of the dragon’s arrival. Lucanis knows how Teia acts: every declaration is given in swift, sure strokes. Her instincts are honed to a needlepoint. She would know the severity of the situation far faster than any other Talon.
He needs to find her. The air below isn’t smothered with smoke, so Lucanis hauls himself over the railing and quickly descends to the lower floor with a well-timed foothold and practiced roll to absorb the impact. He rises to his feet gracefully, one hand seeking the pommel of his rapier, casting a discerning glance across the abandoned casino floor. There are a meager handful of scones still lit, but the bonfire-soft orange glow emitting from the tall frosted glass windows are enough to lighten a grim scene. The betting tables are left unattended in disarray, plush-lined chairs pushed hastily back from player placemats. The casino’s regular occupants have fled in a rush, and he cannot detect any sign of injured or dead gamblers among the deserted tables.
Lucanis knows that death is inevitable. Death’s suffocating presence besieges the Diamond’s thick, undisturbed air. It taunts him. Every moment he delays, another Trevisan dies.
Chocolate and salt, Spite rumbles. He presses further into the crest of Lucanis’s temples, and Lucanis grimaces at the pressure threatening to fracture his skull in half. Smells like. Fear. Crying.
“Mierda,” Lucanis mutters, rubbing a gloved hand over his aching eyes. Even the dimly-lit casino makes his head pitch with vertigo. When Spite is this close to his mind, his vision turns to a mirror’s facade, casting every sight into double. “Spite, get back.”
The demon bristles. Someone is here.
Lucanis drops his hand and focuses on the casino. It’s quiet, surprisingly, despite the destruction rampaging just outside of the Diamond’s front door. As far as Crow safehouses go, the Diamond is one of the few valued jewels of Treivso. Its esteemed reputation has not faltered in light of the Antaam occupation, and the dragon’s attack is no different. Teia would never turn a desperate Trevisan away from her casino’s door, not in such tumultuous times, and yet a trickle of unease pricks the back of Lucanis’s neck. It is far too quiet to be an ordinary citizen’s presence.
His hand seeks the comforting weight of his rapier’s pommel. Spite lingers at the forefront of his mind, but is unnervingly quiet. They both listen, straining to catch a whisper of breath, their mingling focus narrowing beyond the rumbling screeches of the dragon passing by.
“Is there someone here?” Lucanis calls, quiet. His voice isn’t soft, but he reigns back his initial wariness to a calm tone, instead. If it is a Trevisan, he would rather not frighten them further with his reputation.
He nears nothing, but Spite jolts to life, hissing out a rushed: there!
Lucanis follows the instinct that compels him to turn to the section consisting of the Wicked Grace tables. Out of the five tables that the Diamond runs for its daily games, only one of them is laid on its side, a flimsy barrier to the danger waiting outside. Yet it is just enough of a deterrent that he would not mind the table another glance if it weren't for Spite’s insistence.
Sickness, Spite notes bitterly, the echoing buzz of his repulsed reaction rattling through Lucanis like a shiver. Be careful.
Lucanis crosses the room in four long strides, drawing his rapier with one hand as his other reaches out to fling aside the table. The first thing he notices is the bloated, oozing blight boil that sticks underneath the table, leaving a thick mucous trail in its wake as he sweeps it aside. The second thing is the stench of death, thick and fresh, swamping his senses in a visage of horrifying memories, image after image of the Ossuary’s twisted experiments descended across his vision until he grits his teeth and blinks them back.
The third thing he notices is the child.
Crying, Spite confirms.
Lucanis releases the pommel of his rapier back into its sheath as if the mere touch scorches him raw, yanking his hand away from his side as if Spite might take over and perform a heinous, unforgivable act. His training takes control of his initial shock, and he takes in every detail in brief, calculating glances.
The child is a girl no older than three or four, dressed in nothing more than a pastel pink floral sleeping gown, the delicate lace of her dress’s collar dampened with blood and tears. She’s curled up on her side, her tiny hands pressed protectively around the vulnerable flesh of her throat, though her near-black eyes are focused entirely on him. Her chest rises and falls in brief, shallow breaths, though Lucanis cannot be sure if its from fear or pain. There is a shimmer in her eyes that look like tears, but she makes no sound.
Pressed against her back, one loose arm curled over her waist, is a fledgling. A young woman no older than a teenager, it seems, though Lucanis cannot decipher more of her facial features beyond the blight infection cleaving apart her skull in a festering colony of blood-red boils. He can only conclude that the corpse is a fledgling based on her layering of her armor, but beyond that, he does not know her name or anticipatory House. Regardless, the fledgling is dead, and he must keep moving while that dragon ravages his city before it kills many more.
Lucanis falls into a crouch, and he prays he doesn’t appear as rattled as he feels. He tries to wrap his instincts around him like a cloak, sheltering himself from the emotions warring within him. Watching Treviso and its citizens burn and bleed is a torture far worse than the Ossuary. How can he sever away the parts of himself that hurt when it comes to the city he loves above all else?
Keep. Moving. Spite growls. His presence is a restless predator in the forefront of his mind. The stench of the Blight tightens the back of his throat, and he swallows back the urge to gag. Instead, he holds out his gloved hand to the child.
“My name is Lucanis,” he says, soft. “Let me take you someplace safe.”
Still clutching at her throat, the girl eyes him with a wariness that strikes him as painfully familiar. He shuffles his weight, gesturing to the crow skull clasp at his collarbone.
“I am a Crow, like you.”
That gets her attention. She pauses, her skittish glance darting to the firelight shining through the windows, before she nods hesitantly. She unfurls herself from the leaden weight of the dead fledgling’s embrace and lifts her hands up to him, appealing. Lucanis does not take pause; he braces his hands beneath her arms and lifts her out from underneath the body.
Her arms curl over his shoulders in a tight squeeze, her hands interlocking over the nape of his neck. He clutches her back just as securely, one of his hands running over her sides in a courtesy check for injuries. She’s shivering, and he can feel the fear-quick race of her heartbeat underneath the thin fabric of her nightgown, but she appears unharmed. Frightened, yes, and he would prefer to strip her of her Blight-stained clothes before she gets sick from its exposure, but she is alive. If nothing else, there will be one Trevisan life that escapes the gnawing jaws of death, that he has snatched this girl’s death from the raze of this dragon’s desolation.
“Come now,” he hushes her, casting one last, searching look across the casino floor. Aside from scattered playing cards and the overturned chairs, there is nothing he can use to properly shelter her from the onslaught waiting for them outside of the Diamond’s quiet sanctuary. He bites back a curse, mindful of the little one pressing her face to his chest, and silently unclasps the collar of his cloak. It takes some maneuvering to sweep it off his shoulders with the girl clinging to him so unflinchingly, but he manages to tuck the fabric over her like a blanket, taking care to cover the exposed soles of her feet and the tousled black curls that cascade over her shoulders. She does not protest, but instead loosens her desperate embrace around his neck, her small fingers probing curiously at the hair on the nape of his neck.
Smells like… chocolate. And Lucanis, Spite notes unhelpfully.
“It’s going to be loud outside,” he warns her, and she nods in mute agreement, tapping a wordless melody against the back of his neck. It’s as much consent as he can expect given the situation. He stalks to the casino door, checks the rapier at his right hip and the bundled child propped on his other arm, and he sends a silent plea to any deity listening that he still has a city left to fight for when this night is over.
Then he steps outside into utter ruin.
The sky blazes bonfire-red against the dusk backlit horizon, smoke stifling the sky in a vice-grip chokehold. Without the walls of the casino the muffle the sound of the attack, Lucanis can hear the screams of terrified citizens, their terror eclipsed by the blood-chilling roar of the dragon flying its death-wrought rounds through the city. Spite flares to life underneath his skin, lured by the scent of blood and death, and the back of Lucanis’s eyes ache fiercely with the weight of magical interference permeating the air.
For a brief, overwhelming moment, he stands there, clutching the child to his chest, scanning the streets. He’s relieved that the girl still has her face buried against his chest; with his cloak acting as a blanket, she’s safely tucked away from the stench of blood-acrid smoke and the sight of scattered fallen bodies. These victims are laying haphazardly, limbs flailing out as if they tried to run before being struck down, death claiming them in the blink of an eye.
Kill it, Spite croons, longing vibrating through Lucanis’s body in an ethereal echo of the demon’s desire. Spill its. Blood!
Lucanis, Maker help him, agrees. He wants to surrender to that flash of embittered fury like sinking into deep water. To let the urge consume him, shroud him in its single-minded purpose. Killing is what he knows above all else; his hands have ushered death with fervor, with grace, with familiarity. It is easier with Treviso’s threat of mortal peril, almost, because the sickening flare of fury that demands revenge for its destruction brings Spite to a steady heel, their murderous urges mingling into one mindset.
The dragon’s snarl creeps through the city like wildfire, rattling the windows of the casino at Lucanis’s back. His senses sharpen to a knifepoint as the girl whimpers softly against his collar, burrowing further into the relative safety of his arms. Spite flutters restlessly at Lucanis’s pulsepoint, his presence shadowing Lucanis’s in near-perfect symmetry.
“I will bring you someplace safe,” he murmurs to the child in his arms, “and then I will kill this dragon.”
“Okay,” she whispers back. He can hardly hear it over the sounds of battle in the distance, but her shy, soft accent cleaves an aching protectiveness through his chest as surely as an axe. He does not have time to linger on the implications of such a young child being left in the Diamond during a siege on the city. He does not have the time to settle her down and soothe away the shaking in her body or the fear in the hitch of her breath. He cannot bring himself to check the corpses strewn on the street around him, searching for any physical relation between the bodies and the girl.
Many more Trevisans will be dead before the night is over. At the very least, Lucanis can ensure that this one girl lives.
As they move through the streets, Lucanis taking care to shield her face from the carnage, he intends to find other civilians. If he can find another family tucked away from the dragon’s line of fire, then he can hand off the child and delve into the fray without having to worry for her wellbeing. Every step he takes is a moment wasted in protecting his city. He navigates the twisting alleys of Treviso with fervor, his gaze cutting through every crevice and shadowed corner for any sign of life, even as his spare hand rests securely on the pommel of his rapier at the first sign of trouble.
Spite, restless in their disorientating path through the maze of alleys, separates from Lucanis’s body to coalesce at his side, flickering in and out of existence with every other step. He keeps his head tipped back to catch the scent of death on the wind, brow furrowing in agitation. Lucanis initially loathes his physical presence, his nerves worn thin enough without the occasional appearance of Spite probing the edge of his peripheral vision as they forge a path through the city. He is strung-out, jumpy, and Spite seems unbothered by his muttered curses as he flinches when Spite appears again, soundlessly, right in front of him.
“Mierda,” Lucanis growls. “Spite — ”
Adder venom, Spite hisses, and that is all the warning he gives before he disappears and leaves Lucanis face-to-face with Viago.
Lucanis does not flinch, though he does tighten his grip on the girl in his arms. A surge of relief pitches his stomach into an unsteady twist. Viago looks back at him, half-surprised at his presence, yet there’s a heavy furrow to his brow that makes Lucanis ill to witness. The Fifth Talon does not yield his emotion so easily; to expose his fear like this, in the public’s eye where anyone can bear witness to it, is a grim omen.
“Viago,” Lucanis sighs. “What is happening? Where is Teia?”
“What is that?” Viago snaps, his gaze narrowing on the bundle in Lucanis’s arms, and Lucanis does not have time to explain before the girl wiggles in his grip to peek over her shoulder at Viago.
“Vi!” She flings herself backward, reaching for Viago, and Lucanis fumbles to steady her as Viago sweeps her into his arms with a muttering curse. Suddenly bereft of his charge, Lucanis twists the weighted fabric of his cloak in his hands, unwillingly to re-clasp it to his armor so quickly.
“You were told to stay in the Diamond!” Viago scolds, but he’s tucking her protectively to his chest, his gloved hand running down the length of her back then the curl of her ribcage for any sign of injury. “Por la sangre del Hacedor, you don’t even have your slippers on.”
“The fledgling she was with is dead,” Lucanis says. “There was blight in her wounds.”
“Teia and I couldn’t get much of a look at that dragon.” Viago’s expression does not grow ashen or pale, but the way he clasps the back of the girl’s neck to keep her tucked against his shoulder tells Lucanis of his fear far more acutely. His keen gaze cuts through the gloom unfolding at Lucanis’s back. “Where is Rook?”
Rook, Spite purrs, harmonic. Where is. She?
Guilt curdles in the pit of Lucanis’s stomach. He hadn’t even taken pause to give her the chance to strategize their forces, embroiled in the terrifying vision of their city consumed by blighted canals and crippled infrastructure. Neve had presented a scenario just as terrifying for Minrathous; the devastation of civilian casualties paired with the Archon’s palace becoming overrun with Venatori. He had pleaded his case for Treviso, and yet he had not lingered to hear Rook’s final assessment for the greater loss to Thedas. Risk assessment is not a topic he was prepared to listen to when it came to his city.
“I… do not know,” he admits instead. “Though I am here to help. Where is Teia?”
“Idiot.” Viago scowls. In the half-lit smoke of the horizon, though, Lucanis can see the tension lining the edges of his mouth in a terse frown. It does nothing to soothe his nerves to see Viago left so unbalanced by the fate of Treviso, and by extension, Rook. “I left Teia by the garden. She figures if we lure the dragon to land we have an easier target.”
“To land?” Lucanis echoes, hopeful.
“Ask her,” Viago grumbles. “If she asks, I am taking Ambra to Villa de Riva. There should be a compound that may help cripple the dragon’s resistance. I will regroup with the two of you and Rook when I am able.”
A small, withering hope in Lucanis brightens at the assumption that Rook will come to Treviso for aid. If Viago assumes she will come, then who is Lucanis to dissuade that? Who is he to deny Viago the same anticipation that simmers like liquid fire beneath his skin, smoldering him to utter ash?
“We will meet again soon,” Lucanis says, and he believes it.
Rook!
Lucanis turns, heart in his throat, but the scorch of ozone in the air is a herald of her appearance all on its own. She has her athame drawn and lightning coaxed to the palm of her hand as she approaches where he and Teia are discussing a strategy for taking down the dragon. Every movement is quick and graceful; at least she did not wander into trouble on her way to them, at least without him. The Grey Warden they picked up earlier trails in her wake, but he seems more concerned with the smoke-hazy sky rather than Lucanis and his unwilling passenger. He is a monster hunter. Rook had been wise to invite him on this task to defend their city.
“Rook,” Teia says. Her expression doesn’t shift from its solemn anger, but her tone is lighter at Rook’s arrival. Even Spite, buzzing insistently underneath his skin like wildfire, eases back with anticipatory adrenaline. Their shared body echoes that relief two-fold, fluttering his pulse with light-headed appeasement, and Lucanis takes a breath for the first time since he has arrived in Treviso.
“The Diamond?” Rook demands. She hardly looks at him, and the expression she fixes on Teia is lethal in its intensity. Static crackles hungrily down the length of her forearm, prickling along the flyaway curls at the nape of her neck. He has never seen her this vicious, before, and Spite reflects her murderous intent with unconcealed glee.
Yes! We will! Kill them!
“Evacuated.” Teia doesn’t seem particularly offended by the sudden interrogation, and Lucanis shifts from one foot to the other, feeling strangely out-of-sorts compared to their brief exchange. He is, however, once again silently relieved that no one except for him can hear Spite when he is not taken over. Here, in the middle of the city he treasures above all else, he feels lonely. Untethered.
Spite’s violet-tinged apparition prowling the edges of their group does little to ease his melancholy. Rook hadn’t seemed alarmed by Spite’s possession until he mentioned that he will never be free, not unless he killed their shared body, in which she had stubbornly refused that method.
It would be kinder, he thinks grimly, and Spite gives him a bared-teeth grin.
“Good.” Rook’s expression shifts to understanding, then back into a mask of lethal calm. “Now, how are we going to kill this dragon? Any ideas?”
“We need it to land.” He looks away from Spite reluctantly, eyeing the sky above them. He can hear the dragon swooping low in the middle-distance, casting havoc upon his city’s most vulnerable citizens. A year spent in that prison, and when he finally has time to return home, it becomes reduced to shambles and death? There had been Blight at the Diamond, and it had killed at least one Crow. There will be many more deaths before this contract is over, but he didn’t expect it to strike directly into the heart of Treviso, not now.
“If you can get it to land, we can strike it,” Teia agrees. “The only question is how we intend to do that.”
Rook tilts her head. The back of his mouth tingles with ozone, and Spite orbits Rook’s personal space with longing bloodlust. Tastes like a thunderstorm. Sharp. We can be. Sharp. Too.
“Offer the dragon what it wants,” Rook says. The lyrium dagger glints at her hip with menace, nearly half as deadly as the mage wielding it. “When it lands, follow my lead. Lucanis?”
“I am with you,” he promises, and Spite dissipates back under his skin with battle-fueled eagerness.