Chapter Text
The Daggers were all in a state of shock when they reached the safehouse. None of them said a single word to Raffaele as he slid from the cart behind Gemma’s horses, walking discordantly towards the house and vanishing within. He didn’t want to be around anyone. Least of all the Daggers.
The door to one of the bedrooms had barely closed by the time he collapsed to his knees, a soft sob choking out of him. Never before had he felt this… this emptiness. Enzo’s presence had been a steadfast one. Never before had he been met with a void, as he searched desperately for anything that could make him-- anything that could give him--
Gods.
The grief that wracked through him like a vicious bolt of lightning was unlike anything he’d felt before, as he cried out a choked scream, curling forward over himself as he sobbed. The pain on his wrists from the shackles Michel had stricken from him was a raw torment, a constant, everlasting reminder that he was alive and Enzo was…
He couldn’t even bring himself to say it. Admit it. In a way, it wasn’t real, it wasn’t true. Raffaele wouldn’t have to take Enzo’s place as leader of the Daggers, because Enzo would be walking through the door behind him any moment, unharmed and grinning his roguish smile. But there was that gods-damned part of him, that piece of him that threatened to tear apart his very being, that told him of his foolishness.
Enzo wasn’t coming back. Enzo was dead.
The door to his room opened, and Raffaele felt himself tense. This was his first night. His first client. The boy came into the room, his face obscured by a Kenettran half-mask, but his unnaturally red hair danced in the firelight.
He made no move towards Raffaele, just closed the door gently behind him and undid his mask. When it fell to the floor, he was struck by his beauty, the sharp panes of his face, the way his eyes flitted intelligently across the room.
The two realizations hit Raffaele in short succession.
“You’re the prince.”
And then, not a second later.
“You’re an Elite.”
Behind him, the door creaked open.
The figure that stepped through wasn’t Enzo. Why would it be? Enzo was nothing more than a ghost, now.
Enzo was dead.
Lucent watched him with a sad gaze for a moment, moving to sit beside him. “Raffaele…”
“Please leave, Lucent, I want to be alone.”
“You don’t get to be,” she just said, a blunt sharpness to her words. “Do you think I do not understand your pain? I lost everything when I was exiled. My grief is not so different from yours.”
It was unfair, the way he hated her. The way he hated them all for letting Enzo fight for him. They should have just let him die, let Enzo live, because what was it all for if not Enzo? Who do they fight for if not their beloved prince? “Leave. I will not ask again.”
“And I will not leave. You need people, Raffaele, you can’t isolate yourself. That’s what this grief does. It tries to take, and take, and take. Until you have nothing left to give, and then it destroys you. Don’t let it take you, Messenger.” She grabbed his face roughly, pulled it up to force his grief-stricken eyes to meet hers. “Our fight is not over. Enzo’s fight is not over. As long as it’s still ours to fight, he’s never truly gone.”
“Leave, Windwalker.”
“How do you think I felt when I was torn from my home?” she snapped, her fingers digging into his cheekbones as he tried to pull away, but she held fast, making him look at her, making him hear her words. “How do you think I felt when it was my recklessness that killed Tristan and forced Maeve to drive me out? You’re not the only one who's lost someone, because when I had no one, nothing, it was Enzo who took me in. And I felt what you feel right now: grief, rage, pain. I know it well. Don’t pretend like I’m not the only person in the world right now who understands what you’ve lost here.”
“You don’t understand,” he hissed, wrenching himself free from her grasp. “Maeve is still alive--”
“You think that’s better? Knowing that she’s alive and I’m never allowed to return to her? I grieve for what I’ve lost in her and Beldain every godsdamned day. And don’t pretend that I didn’t lose Enzo, too. I believed in him just as much as you did. I loved him, not like you did, but I loved him--”
“Lucent…”
“I won’t let you rot away with your pain, not when we still have work to do. Grieve tonight. Tomorrow, we go back to our revolution.” With a resigned sigh, she stood and walked to the door, pausing a moment before turning back to him. “If the Daggers aren’t enough to keep you from what you're feeling right now, then maybe anger will be. Adelina did this. She killed him. Let the dagger take from her what she took from the dagger.”
Those were Enzo’s words. His oath.
Lucent closed the door behind her as she left.
None of the emotions that Raffaele felt, he could name. It was something terribly akin to fury, a need for justice, revenge, but there was still that grief, that emptiness that didn’t let him feel anything. Except loss.
Always loss.
That roseite necklace weighed heavy against his chest.
“I want to make a group of Elites,” the prince said, looking at Raffaele earnestly. “We could change the world, make it a safe place for malfettos and Kenettrans alike.”
“An Elite King,” Raffaele just murmured, the idea almost absurd to him. “And you need me, why?”
“I don’t know,” he said bluntly. “I’ve been hiding here since my sister and her husband called for my arrest. They can’t have a malfetto prince, it seems. But tonight, I saw you standing there. Something drew me to you, whether that be some energy or the gods themselves, I don’t know. But I know I need you, and your help.” He reached out a gloved hand and, with a moment of focus, a flame bloomed in his palm, dancing orange and yellow. “And you?”
It took half a thought for Raffaele to brush his energy against the prince, to surge feelings of joy and calm against the rushing wall of determined rage that roiled within him. The prince just smiled.
“I think we’ll be a very powerful pair, Raffaele.”
Raffaele didn’t sleep that night.
He just stared out of the window, wondering if Enzo was above him, immortalized in the stars as any prince should be.
When the sun chased away those gentle stars, he hated it. But he stood.
Let the dagger take from her what she took from the dagger .
Gemma was the first face he saw when he emerged from his room, her eyes streaked with the sting of betrayal. When she saw him, she just walked towards him, silent, and wrapped him in a tight embrace. Neither of them spoke.
Michel appeared a moment later, Lucent by his side. These were the remainders. Dante was gone. Dead, Gemma had said. Killed by Adelina herself. “We need to talk,” Raffaele said, pulling away from Gemma. “Where’s a private room?”
“Follow me,” Michel said, beckoning them to follow as he led them to what looked to be a dining room. Almost upon instinct, the Daggers took their seats as they always had at their table in the caverns.
Raffaele left the head of the table empty. It was too soon to take it.
Dante’s seat remained empty, too. They’d lost so much.
“What do we do about Adelina?” Lucent said, a grim set to her words.
“She killed Enzo and Dante,” Gemma spat. “She should die, too.” The sting of betrayal hurt her most, Raffaele knew. She was the one who had opened up to Adelina the most. She was the only one who truly cared for the girl. And Adelina had betrayed them.
“We can’t kill her,” Michel said, pressing a gentle hand to the small of Gemma’s back. “She was one of us.”
“That doesn’t even matter,” Gemma said, as she shied away from Michel’s touch. “It doesn’t matter because she killed him!” Her voice rose, tears welling in her eyes. “We all know the oath. We know what we vowed. She took the life of a Dagger, her life should be the cost.”
“But what about the sister?” Lucent said, her voice quiet and level. “We exact our revenge on Adelina… who knows what Violetta would do to us. She can take powers away from Elites, who’s to say she wouldn’t take ours away as revenge?”
“She’s a child!” Gemma shouted. “She’s untrained! What could she do to us, with all of us there?” Not all of them, Raffaele almost said. They’d lost two.
“We were children, too! Don’t you remember that, Gem?” Lucent’s voice was starting to match Gemma’s. “I want her dead, too, but we have to think this through!” This was getting too heated, too emotional, but Raffaele could scarcely think. Let them rage, he decided. He was raging. He wanted Adelina dead. He wanted every ounce of revenge he could get on her. But he was their leader, now. His revenges were nothing in the scope of what mattered to the Daggers.
This is what Enzo would have wanted, he tried to convince himself.
“What does it matter?” Gemma cried out, surging up from her chair, the wooden seat toppling to the ground behind her. “Let the dagger take from me what I took from the dagger, right? Adelina must die.”
“We can’t just kill her,” Raffaele spoke up. “We aren’t Teren, and we aren’t Guilietta.”
“Are you seriously suggesting we do nothing?” Gemma screamed. “You, of all people, should want her dead.”
“I do,” he said simply. “I want to see her dead. I want to see her blood spilled on this very ground and have it be the water for the fields of Kenettra. But this… we aren’t animals, despite what the Inquisitors might think. We speak with her. And then I’ll choose what to do with her. But, no matter what, she’s no longer a Dagger. She forfeited that the moment she attacked Dante.”
Gemma’s answering glare was murderous.
Raffaele met it with steel in his eyes. "Gemma. You cannot convince me that he would want this to tear us apart. I'm not asking any of you to forgive her. I don't forgive her, and I will never forgive her. All I'm asking is that you all trust me."
Then, with a fluid movement, he stood and walked out of the room, knowing the Daggers would follow. He walked towards where he felt Adelina’s energy pulsing weakly, and opened the door.
Enzo opened the door, the tension in his shoulders vanishing when he saw Raffaele. “There are five of us now,” he said, as if he almost couldn’t believe it. “I’m glad. You did well training Lucent.”
Raffaele nodded his head in thanks. “It wasn’t all me,” he admitted. “Dante and Gemma did help. And you… You did a lot for her, Enzo. Don’t discount that.”
“I would never dream of it, Messenger.”
He stepped closer, something shifting in his energy that was hidden behind the walls Raffaele refused to break. “I think I’ve found another, too, in Estenzia,” Raffaele breathed, suddenly affected by the proximity of the prince, the intensity of his gaze. Almost self-consciously, he pulled an elegant strand of his sapphire and black hair behind his ear. “I should try and--”
“You’re beautiful, you know that?” Enzo’s voice interrupted him, such gentle honesty in it. Raffaele’s breath hitched slightly as he tried to calm his racing heart.
“I’ve been told,” he said, trying to sound nonchalant about it.
“Not enough, evidently.”
This was dangerous territory. But the prince… “Say it again.”
“You’re beautiful.” The prince took another step towards Raffaele, this time so close that his breath warmed his cheek as Enzo leaned in further. “You’re beautiful,” he whispered.
And then Enzo kissed him.
Adelina was stirring, ever so slightly. Raffaele refused to wait. With a less-than-gentle push, he shoved energy into her, forcing her mind to take in the emotions he felt. Let her feel his grief. Let her feel his wrath.
Adelina’s eye blinked open, and what color was left in her face drained. The Daggers around him took a slight step back. He was the only one who didn’t flinch away. He did not fear her. “Where’s my sister?” she asked, her voice hoarse.
“Resting,” Raffaele only said. “She’s well.” What kindness was this, to give her this comfort? But he only sighed. The Daggers were not Inquisitors. She would get a chance to defend herself.
“Were you working with Teren?” Lucent spat, her eyes aflame with anger. “Is that where you disappeared to when you ran away? Did you go off to see the Inquisition? Did you make some sort of pact with them?” Her voice rose. “He thanked you over Enzo’s body. You--”
“No! I can explain--” Adelina said, desperation coming off of her in waves. But Lucent’s words settled deep within Raffaele. Teren had thanked her.
“That’s enough, Lucent,” he just said. “Tell us what happened, from the beginning.”
She hesitated. She always had.
Then she told them everything.
Every part of him hated her for the words she spoke. Every part of him realized how vulnerable she was, how Teren used her. But she could have come to them. The Daggers would have helped her. “When I first tested you,” he began, once Adelina had finished, “you aligned with fear and fury, passion and curiosity. Do you remember?”
As he spoke, he used his powers on her, pulling on her heartstrings, a soothing tug that warmed her to him, calming her. “I remember,” she replied.
“Your reaction to the stones frightened me. Very much. Still, I wanted to believe that you would be able to tame it to your will.” He felt so resigned. How much could this have changed if they had exiled her from the moment she’d exhibited such dangerous traits? “Do you know how powerful you could be, if you mastered these emotions and learned how to use them? I thought you could tame them, and that it would help you.” He found himself unable to look in her eye any longer. To quell the rage that boiled in his blood. “I was wrong. Your growing passion for Enzo made you lose control of your powers. You became unpredictable.”
Tears streamed from her eyes as she whispered to him, terrified of her own words, like a child might be afraid of their own shadow. “What are you saying?”
“Adelina,” he only murmured. Adelina gasped sharply at his use of her name. Mi Adelinetta , he’d always called her. Ever since they had first met. “I advised Enzo from the very beginning to kill you. It’s only because he refused that you lived.”
He could feel the Daggers emotions spark in shock. Adelina looked utterly destroyed. “Even you,” she whispered. “How could you? Were we ever friends? Did you ever care about me?”
He had never expected this truth to hurt so much to say. “I stand by my advice to him. I knew, early on, that it could bring all of us suffering. Including you.”
“We can still fix this,” she started, her desperation returning. “You once told me that there were rumors of an Elite that could bring the dead back to life, right?” Beside Raffaele, Lucent tensed.
But Raffaele just shook his head. She loved Enzo, didn’t she? In whatever sick, twisted way she could love. “You’re deluding yourself, Adelina,” he said, hating how gentle his voice sounded. The dismay on her face showed that she understood what he meant. That Enzo’s heart had never been hers. He wondered if she noticed the pink stone resting around his neck. He wondered if she knew the depth of what he and Enzo had shared.
“I’ll better rein in my powers, I’ll learn, I promise. I can do it next time, just give me one more chance.” She was talking fast, frantic and terrified. Next time, she said, as if each time they had given her a chance, she hadn’t killed one of their own. First Dante, their Spider. Raffaele hadn’t been as close with Dante as Enzo had, but he was his brother as much as Gemma and Lucent were his sisters. He felt that loss more keenly than she could ever have imagined. But Enzo… She’d killed him, too. “Please, don’t leave me behind, please, it was an accident, I didn’t mean it. I beg you, please, Raffaele, please.”
He hated her. He wanted her to die. But that was not the right thing to do. They might need her in their wars, in the years to come. As an ally, maybe. But never as a friend. Never as a Dagger. “You can stay for the day. But by tomorrow morning, you and your sister need to leave. I have to protect the Daggers, and we cannot be safe with you within our numbers.”
She hated him. She wanted him to die. He could feel it in the way her energy reacted to his mere presence. Some darkness roiled within her as he spoke, as the realization set in. When she next looked at him, her eye was full of that same darkness, endless, terrible. “You’re making a mistake, by not killing me now.”
And despite it all, Raffaele knew: “No. I’m not.”
Enzo pulled him to the side, a hidden alcove covered by a curtain-- it was certainly meant for use of clients and consorts, and maybe that’s what they were-- with a fiery look in his eyes. Raffaele had barely a moment to process it before Enzo lifted his chin with a gentle touch and kissed him, the softness in the action so devastatingly different from the lustful treatment Raffaele got from his clients. With a gentle hum, he kissed back, reveling in the smoky smell of the prince, the warmth of his skin.
“We’re so close,” Enzo whispered once they’d parted. “We have Gemma, and we have Michel. We have allies in the highest of Kenettran places, Raffaele, we’re so close. I can feel it.”
Raffaele could feel it, too. He just looked at Enzo, lifting his gaze that slight bit to meet his scarlet eyes. “It was all your doing,” he said in response, bruising a feather-light touch against Enzo’s cheek. “You’ve built this place for us. Your Dagger Society.”
“It never would have happened without you.”
It was a bashful movement, the way Raffaele looked down to hide his shy smile. He was never shy around the Court, around the Daggers. Only Enzo could take the confidence and tear it away, leaving only someone who wanted to be loved.
Love, was that what this new feeling was? The way Raffaele wanted to just hold the prince, his prince, keep him safe. The way that it felt like their souls were entwined, that Raffaele would do whatever Enzo asked of him. Was that love? Or was it the way Raffaele always noticed the golden sheen on Enzo’s brown skin, the barest touches of fire that had blessed the prince? The way that he could always feel what Enzo felt, not by using his powers, but by seeing how he held himself, the look in his eyes. Maybe that was love.
“My prince,” he just said, “with his army of unwanteds.”
“Soon to be one more?”
Raffaele had picked up the energy of another Elite just a few days ago, some spike of it in southern Kenettra, near Dalia. “I’m close, I can feel them somewhere. But I’ve heard rumors about a burning in Dalia, of a malfetto girl who supposedly killed her father. She could be the one I’ve been feeling.”
“Do you think it’s worth looking into?”
Raffaele hesitated, then nodded. “I think so. I hope so. We could use more Elites.”
“Then I’ll go take a look. Tomorrow, first light, I’ll leave for Dalia.” Enzo hesitated, looking at Raffaele with some emotion that was carefully guarded. And then he spoke again, his voice softer. “Keep them safe for me until I return,” he murmured.
“Always,” Raffaele said. “Be safe, Reaper.” He hesitated a moment longer, uncertain in his own words. “Come back to me,” he said after a brief silence, saying words that were so close to betraying the one thing he’d been so terrified to say.
But Enzo just pressed a soft kiss to Raffaele’s forehead, a small smile on his lips. “Always, Messenger.”
Gemma left the room first. Michel trailed behind her. Lucent, not long thereafter. Then it was only Raffaele, watching as Adelina stared at him in horror, disgust, and hate. He stood. “Do not make the mistake of thinking you’re the only one who lost him, Adelina,” he said. His voice nearly broke, and he knew she could feel the waves of grief that poured, unrepressed, out of him. “I loved him, too.”
It had been stolen kisses. Stolen moments. Stolen time. But he had loved Enzo anyway, and Enzo had loved him back. That was something Adelina never had. She had never been able to understand why Enzo kept his distance from her. He’d loved him, so deeply, so truly. And, despite it all, none of it had mattered for one simple reason. That Enzo had loved him, too. That Enzo had been willing to lay down his life for Raffaele.
The responding look on Adelina’s face was something akin to betrayal. As if she’d only now begun to realize the depth of the relationship he’d had with Enzo. As if she truly believed that Enzo had loved her. He wanted to chide her for her foolishness, had her love for him not been something Enzo had allowed her to foster. That way, they had reasoned, she would be easier to control. Look where that got them.
He met her eyes with a cold look, hating the way he pitied her for her grief. Enzo’s was not hers to grieve. She lost that privilege when she killed him and Dante. She lost that privilege the moment she ceased to be a Dagger.
Without another word, he turned on his heel and left.
When dawn arose on the third day, the White Wolf was gone.
When dawn arose on the third day, the Reaper remained dead.
When dawn arose on the third day, the Messenger just sat there. Waiting. Hoping. Then he stood, pulling his hair into a loose braid as he reached out with his power, feeling the heartbeats of the last of Enzo’s Daggers. A reminder that, though he’d lost so much, there were still people in this world he cared for, that he’d sworn to protect. He’d made a vow to his prince, all that time ago. He’d keep it.
When dawn arose on the third day, the Dagger Society lay aside their grief and prepared to tear down the world that had taken their prince from them. Their sorrows turned to determination, to a steadfast loyalty to the ideas that they had always wanted to create. They would fight for the world that mattered to them, that had mattered to Enzo. And Raffaele would see it through. He swore that to the gods, to the memory of his mother. He swore it to Enzo. He would see this revolution through, and he would build the world that Enzo had dreamed of. A haven for malfettos and Kenettrans alike. A haven for the anathema, for the ones that Guilietta and Teren wanted to burn for their difference.
A haven for the unwanteds, built in Enzo’s image.
“Stay safe, Reaper. Come back to me.”
“Always, Messenger.”