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“So. Is this purely a social visit, or do you have some ulterior motive for visiting?” Neve asked, peering at Rook over a cup of liquid Neve liked to call coffee. She took a sip unflinchingly.
Rook dropped her head into her hands. Her fingers felt cold and clammy against the heat of her cheeks- she was already embarrassed, and she hadn’t even confessed her intended scheme yet. “How can you always tell?”
“I’m a detective, remember?” Neve clicked her tongue chidingly. “Come now, tear off the bandage so we can get to the bottom of it.”
“I need a favor,” Rook began, and then fell silent. Neve’s expression clearly communicated obviously, get on with it. “I’ve been invited to The Gala of the Feathers. And I- need a date. Which is to say… you. If you’ll agree.”
Neve’s eyebrows rose. “You mean that Lucanis has invited you out dancing. And you want to bring me along? To what, third wheel the whole time?”
“It was addressed to the Savior of Treviso,” Rook said tightly, unable to forget, even over a year later, how she hadn’t been able to save Minrathous in the same way. “And sent from ‘The First Talon’. Neither of our actual names were even on the invite. Please, Neve, it was- it was the least personalized thing I’ve ever read, like some secretary wrote it. And I just… I can’t.”
“Can’t what?”
Rook took a breath to steady herself, and then ripped all of her vulnerabilities down to the bone. “I can’t go, and have him treat me like some stranger. Like he doesn’t- like I don’t… it’s okay that he doesn’t love me, Neve, but I need us to be friends. I need it. And I think the letter was… a reminder that I’m not invited as Lucanis’s friend. I’m invited as a war hero.”
“Of course he thinks of you as a friend, Rook,” Neve placed a comforting hand on Rook’s knee. “Of course he does. How could he not?”
Rook pressed her lips together tightly. “I’m afraid that he… I wasn’t very subtle, back when we were all living at the Lighthouse. I definitely threw my hat into the proverbial ring, if you get my meaning. And so now… It’s like, he’s holding me at a distance? Like the invitation is holding me at a distance. Because he doesn’t like me like that, so he feels he needs to. But if I came with a date- if he thought I’d moved on- maybe we could be friends again. Actually friends.”
Neve was quiet for a moment. “That’s a lot of over-analyzing,” She said finally. “And that’s coming from me. I over-analyze professionally.”
“Please.”
Neve sighed, and for a shining moment, Rook thought it was all going to be okay. “What day is it?”
“Two tendays from now.”
Neve’s expression tightened. “I’m sorry, Rook. I’d honestly like to go, but- there’s a memorial that day. They built a statue, and it’s getting unveiled. For Asher.”
Rook deflated. “Then- then you should go to that. Of course you should. I’ll be alright.”
“Perhaps… Hmm. I think the next most believable option would be Emrich.”
“He’s got a stupid necromancer convention,” Rook muttered.
Neve barked a surprised laugh. “I wasn’t even your first choice? And here I was, feeling guilty.”
Rook slumped back, letting herself be buried amongst Neve’s many couch pillows. “You’re the last one I’ve asked,” She admitted. “Literally everyone is busy.”
“The last- I’m half of a mind to be offended, you know. You dating me is more believable than you dating at least half of the others.”
“I know,” Rook mumbled, looking away again. “But none of the others figured it out. I knew if I asked you, I’d have to come clean about why.”
“Oh, Rook.” Neve began to pet at Rook’s head, smoothing her hair like Rook was a domesticated cat rather than a woman in acute distress. “It’s going to be alright. It’s just a dance- free alcohol, an excuse to wear something pretty.”
Rook bolted up from the couch. “Oh, no.”
“What now?”
“What am I going to w ear? ”
Neve laughed. “If you let me, that’s a problem of yours I can actually solve. Maybe I can’t be your date, but I can try my hand at fairy godmother.”
“You’re sure? I know you’re busy.”
“I’ll always make a spare moment for fashion,” Neve said, patting her hand. “Two tendays, you said? I’ll have it shipped to you.”
***
The dress arrived the mere hours before the Gala. Cutting it close, in Rook’s opinion, but she’d choked all her anxiety about it down. Neve would always get it done, no matter what Rook asked.
There was a note taped to the package. Rook pulled it free.
Rook,
Wear it. If you don’t, I’ll know.
-Neve
Well. That was ominous. Rook opened the package, and a heap of darkness spilled out.
Rook lifted the dress.
Oh, gods.
The whole point had been to look like she was over him. Did Neve not realize that walking in on this was the very furthest thing from that? It was practically screaming, Hi, I’m Rook. Do I look hot enough to have changed your mind?
Sure, it was floor length with long sleeves. It was practically backless, but that wasn’t even the worst part. It was made out of some sort of fine mesh, so delicate it was basically translucent. Sewn across it were hundreds upon hundred of midnight blue feathers, neatly layered. They gleamed in the light, shifting from black to azure like they’d been dipped in oil slick. The bodice had enough woven across to cover her chest, but intentionally left strips of her side and stomach bare. The skirt flared out at the waist, with a steep cut running up one leg nearly to her hip bone.
Where did Neve even find a dress like this? She could already imagine how she would look- like she had nothing on, except the feathers of a crow.
Neve had left Rook her vaguely threatening note, but it didn’t even matter. Rook didn’t have another choice. Before becoming a national hero, she’d hardly had cause for nice dresses. Her closet now was filled with armor. She wasn’t even sure she owned another dress, and even if she could scrounge one up from the dim recesses of her wardrobe, it wouldn’t be anywhere near fancy enough.
She gritted her teeth and put the dress on. Neve had been thorough enough to include a pair of glittering, strappy silver heels and a matching set of sapphire jewelry. The jewelry puzzled her for a moment- the earrings were simple enough to understand, but what she thought was twinned bracelets actually differed in size. One was wrist-sized, the other, too large. Eventually she fastened the second loop of dark blue gems the one place it fit- her ankle.
Rook looked in the mirror, and was then forced to take a break to scream into a pillow.
She looked stunning.
She didn’t want to stun. She’d gone down that road, and it had ended with her standing alone in a pantry, and then spun the next two weeks over with sour awkwardness. She wanted Lucanis to be her friend again.
She missed him.
A construct in the corner started vibrating- her timer. Rook took a deep breath and tried to set her nausea and anxiety aside.
She’d walked boldly onto battlefields before, into fights she thought she’d lose. She could do it again.
Rook tried not to think about the last time she’d been to Dellamorte Manor. Tried not to think about anything, tried to keep her mind completely and blissfully absent of thought or concept. She failed as soon as the footman outside did a double take when she walked out of the party Eluvian. She wasn’t overdressed, per say- the other individuals she could see milling about were all elaborately done up in expensive silks and jewels as well. But nobody else was making quite as clear of a statement.
She handed the butler her invitation. He gulped as he read it. “Right this way, my Lady,” He said.
My Lady. That was a new one. She’d spent most of her formative years sleeping in a tent, for Andraste’s sake. She was led to the main entrance. She could see Lucanis through the doors- he was up on the raised dias the rest of the crows sat on in formal occasions, standing and talking to someone out of Rook’s line of sight.
“Announcing Lady Rook Aldwir, Savior of Treviso,” The butler boomed.
The room quieted. New, hushed murmuring started up.
Lucanis’s head snapped in her direction. His hands, which had been raised to gesture animatedly while he spoke, fell to his side. They were far enough away that she couldn’t read anything from her expression. Rook’s anxiety crested like a rising wave, and she made a beeline for the refreshments table. She took a glass of pale champagne with trembling fingers and downed it in two sips, not even tasting it.
“Rook.”
She stilled. Nobody else said her name like he did.
She turned slowly, relieved a smile came easily enough to her lips at the sight of him. “Lucanis.”
“You came,” He said softly, stepping forward.
“You asked me to,” She laughed. “Of course I did. Even if it was a stuffy letter, addressed to ‘The Savior of Antiva’ rather than your friend.” She tried to take all her pain and shove it neatly into a pithy little quip.
Something in his expression shuttered. She must not have done a good enough job. “How is Arlathan?” He asked, changing the subject.
She shrugged. “I haven’t really been back recently, to tell the truth.”
His face closed off even further. She needed another glass of champagne. How were things going wrong already? He cleared his throat. “Right. Of course you haven’t- how is Nevarra?”
Rook frowned, puzzled. “I-”
“Rook!” A strong voice called.
She turned. Tia and Viago were making their way through the crowd. “Rook, you look positively gorgeous.” Tia said, taking Rook's hand in her own and guiding Rook through a spin. “The most beautiful of crows! Lucanis, have you told our loveliest guest how well she looks tonight yet, or have you been an utter bore?”
Lucanis’s expression was as dark as the coffee he liked to drink. Rook was well and truly panicking now. Somehow things had gotten out of hand without her even realizing how.
“You’re too generous,” Rook said, trying to smooth over Lucanis’s obvious lack of response. “I’m only the loveliest if you count yourself a member of the house rather than a guest yourself. Look at you!” Teia was a stunning gown of blood-red silk, no doubt carefully constructed to both display skin and provide plenty of hiding places for her knife collection.
“Bah,” Teia waved her hand in the air as though she could physically bat Rook’s compliment away. “This is nothing. I have already snagged a handsome husband. He cannot leave me, even if I chose to wear burlap to all events. Who are you trying to snag, Rook, dearest? I see no date on your arm, after all.” Her expression had gone sly.
“Teia,” Lucanis cut in like a thundercloud. “Didn’t you have something to do?”
“Perhaps,” Teia said, folding her arms. “But only if you promise to take Rook through the steps of a dance whilst I am gone. Otherwise, I will feel pressured to stay here, and chat a little while longer, about a few more little things.” Her chin went up, like she was issuing some sort of threat, but Rook parsed through her words again and could not find one.
Lucanis glanced at Rook. “Would you like to dance?”
“I’m not very good,” She said, slightly winded at just the thought.
“Lucanis has been taking lessons since he was a boy- if he wasn’t good enough to make an unpracticed partner appear skilled, he would be a failure to Caterina. Go, go!” Teia ushered them to the dance floor like they were a pair of wayward chickens rather than two of the most lethal fighters in all of Thedas.
“If you do not want to dance, you need only say,” Lucanis said in a low voice. He’d leaned forward. His breath tickled the shell of her ear.
“I want to dance,” She said breathlessly. He took her hand, placed his other on her waist. It lined up with one of the gaps in feathers- the mesh was so thin she could feel the heat of his hand as if he’d pressed it against her bare skin.
Teia was right. Lucanis w as good enough to make an unpracticed partner appear skilled. Rook didn’t have to do a single thing- the slightest of movement from him had her spinning across the floor in coordinated circles. It was good she didn’t have to focus on the dance itself, because her brain had absorbed itself with other details. The feel of his larger hand encircling her own. The pressure of his touch across her waist. The swirl of feathers around her legs as her skirt flared.
The way his eyes were fixed, dark, intent, on her own.
“Perhaps I would have danced more if I’d known it was like this ,” She said. The lights of the room spun around them. The people dissolved into mere background. It was just them.
Lucanis smiled. Rook’s heart tumbled in her chest at the sight. “It’s not always like this.” Did he pull her closer? Her grip on his shoulder, previously loose, tightened helplessly. She hoped she wasn’t wrinkling his fine dark jacket.
“It’s not?”
“Rook-” He paused. Cleared his throat. Looking somewhere over her shoulder, he asked. “How is Emmrich? I was surprised he wasn’t here tonight.”
“He has some necromancer’s convention this evening,” She answered, confused at the turn of subject. Maybe the spinning was simply making her lightheaded. “Why?”
“Perhaps I needed the reminder.”
“Of his convention?” She felt like an idiot, like she was always two steps behind. It had felt like that all night.
The music ended with a trailing crescendo. Couples began to step apart. “Of whose you are,” He said quietly. He squeezed her hand once and let go.
Rook stood frozen for one beat. Two. Two too long- when she went to move, he was somehow gone. Disappeared.
A thousand curses upon stealthy assassins!
She spotted a familiar face in the crowd. “Teia!” She said, hurrying forward before the crowd swallowed her up too. “Where is Lucanis?”
“What’s this?”
“He said something-” Rook frowned. “I don’t even know about what, honestly. He was asking about Emmrich of all people, and then he just- disappeared.”
Teia examined her fingernails. “Yes, I can imagine he’d act strange at the mention of your paramour.”
Rook choked on air. “My what? ”
“You and the necromancer are a couple, yes?”
“No!”
Teia straightened. “No?”
“No! Why would you think that?”
“Lucanis informed me of it. Quite… firmly.”
“Why would he think that?”
“I haven’t a clue. You must correct his assumption immediately.” She said, eyes blazing.
“Which brings us back to my first question- where is he?”
Teia scanned the room. “Come with me.”
She led Rook down empty, ornate hallways, to a ladder tucked away in a quiet corner. Rook was fairly sure they might have used it during their espionage/rescue/political coup act at Dellamorte manor the year prior. “Doesn’t this go to the roof?” She said, puzzled.
“Lucanis likes to go there to think. You check there, and I’ll check downstairs. If neither finds him, we’ll meet back in the ballroom.” Teia disappeared back down the hallway. Rook wished she’d waited at least until she’d scaled the ladder- climbing in her heels was no simple feat.
As she popped her head above the eaves of the roof, she saw a shadow on the edge. Sitting with one leg dangling off, nothing but a hundred feet of emptiness below him.
“Lucanis!”
His head lifted, clearly startled. “Rook? How did you-”
“Teia,” She said, carefully moving up another rung and sitting herself on the edge of the roof. It seemed a bad idea to stand and make her way over to him, what with the heels and the slanted edge and the steep fall… but she wasn’t sure she could hand the embarrassment of crawling.
“That meddling-” Lucanis broke off, clearly furious.
“She says that you think I’m dating Emmrich.”
Lucanis paused. “Yes. Because you are.”
“I think I’d know!” Rook stood on shaky legs. Took a step forward. Her heel immediately twisted under, and she started to fall.
She’d killed dragons and gods and archdemons, and now she was to die by tripping. How perfectly humiliating.
Lucanis’s eyes glowed purple. His wings flared out. He caught her mid fall and twisted their bodies, so she landed with her beneath him. “Hi, Spite,” She said sheepishly.
“Rook!” Spite’s voice was the crooning growl he did when pleased. Abruptly, Lucanis was back.
“You can speak to her later if she wishes, I must speak to her now,” He snarled. His chest rumbled with the force of it, which Rook could feel because- because she was draped across it. She started to move back, but Lucanis’s arm locked around her waist like a steel bar. He raised himself on one elbow, leaning closer.
“You say you are not dating Emmrich.” His voice was low. Sultry. Like it had been that night, the one where she ruined it all.
“Because I’m not,” She said tremulously. He was so close. She could smell coffee, not champagne, because of course she could. She wanted to lean in and kiss him. But last time…
She rallied her defenses. Controlled herself. “Why would you think that I was?”
“Because…” Now he pulled away, and she let him. She mirrored his movements as he sat up, and drew her knees to the side, busying herself with rearranging her skirt across her lap. A needless gesture- he was avoiding her gaze. “It seemed the clear conclusion to draw.”
Rook huffed. “Okay. So. This might be awkward, but clearly there’s been some miscommunication, so. Maybe we should just get it all out in the open and get it over with.” She twisted, palm splaying on the rough tile on the roof, angling herself so she didn’t have to look in her eyes while she bore her soul. “So- that night. You know I wasn’t dating him that night, because I made my feelings fairly… clear, I thought. But I don’t understand how anything I’ve done since then would make you think…”
“You kept your distance from me. Started spending- you were always going with him. Chats in the library. Visits to the gardens in Necropolis. I thought you’d… moved on.”
Rook inhaled past the daggers lodged in her lungs. She turned her face away. “I was trying- it’s okay that you didn’t feel the same way. I was trying not to… smother you, I guess, when I so clearly made you uncomfortable. I was trying to give you distance.”
Lucanis gripped her jaw, pulling her face back to him. The roof had been set with lantern’s for the party. The resulting light gave the ordinary darkened brown of his eyes new depth. It was like a thousand shades of ambered glass, set between the lead panes of his pupil and limbal rings. “What on earth gave you the idea that I didn’t feel the same way?”
‘Um, I threw myself at you, and then you-” ran away “left.”
“I… I felt I couldn't be trusted with you. Not with Spite so volatile.”
“And you couldn’t tell me that?”
“I was going to,” He said quietly. “But- when I went to speak with you- Emmrich- you were sitting in the library, and his arm was over your shoulders.”
Rook buried her face in her hands. “He was comforting me, because, you know. I’d recently had my heart broken and all.”
Lucanis flinched. “I’ve been… I’ve been very foolish, haven’t I.”
Rook sighed. “I think we both have been.”
“Then- this may be foolish, too. But I cannot wait any longer.”
And then he moved, wings flaring, pinning her to the roof beneath him. And kissed her.
The tile was cold against her back. His grip firm- almost desperate. It was an odd thought to have- but… he kissed her like he’d thought about it. His lips were hesitant, like he half-expected her to pull away. When she didn’t, he grew more bold, one hand reaching up to twist into her hair, cradle her skull closer.
He kissed her like he loved her.
After some time- minutes, hours, she was too light-headed to know- he pulled away. Tucked her hair behind her ear. “I love your hair,” He confessed. “I love that you left it free tonight.”
“I’m just bad at styling it,” She said, which felt- inadequate. Like a silly thing to be whispering into this moment, her and Lucanis, bathed in starlight. Peppered with kisses. And they were talking about hair?
He licked his lips. She tracked the motion attentively. “To avoid any further miscommunication,” He said, chest rising like he’d just fought an army of darkspawn, “I love- I love you.”
Something in Rook relaxed. Like a string had been snapped, one she hadn’t even realized was tying parts of her down. “Oh, good,” She murmured. “It’s so relieving to be on the same page at last. I’ve loved you- well. Almost since I met you.”
His breath caught. “I’m very glad you followed me onto this roof. And I’m very glad you came here tonight.”
A heady surge of emotion struck. Not fear, but something close to it. Perhaps an awareness of what this night could have been instead. A laugh bubbled out of her, halfway hysterical. “I almost came here with a date.”
“You what? ”
“A fake one! I thought- I thought the distance between us was because you knew my feelings, and your inability to reciprocate made you feel uncomfortable. I thought if I showed you that I was over you, then you’d… you’d be my friend again. I asked everybody.”
“Everybody, meaning…”
“Everybody! The whole veilguard.” She couldn’t stop giggling. He smiled reluctantly, like he couldn’t not, not when she was laughing.
“Even Taash?”
“Well, I phrased it differently depending on who I was asking- I didn’t call it a date with them, for heaven's sake, they would have laughed me out of the house. Neve is the only one who knows the full story.”
Lucanis was playing with her anklet- alternating with spinning it around her ankle and tugging it lightly. The contrast between the cold of the gems and the warmth of her fingertips made her lightheaded all over again, the feeling only heightened by the… the almost possessive nature of the gesture. The casual, comfortable way that he touched her now. “And what does Neve think?” He asked, which reminded her that yes, she was in the middle of a conversation.
“Well, I thought she and I were on the same page, but then she sent me this dress to wear,” Rook said, frowning. “I was- well, I was fairly horrified when I saw it, because this is not the outfit someone who just wants to be friends wears. I thought maybe we were just on different pages when it came to fashion, but now… maybe she thought I was wrong. Maybe she thought you did have feelings.”
“She’d be right. She chose this?” Lucanis ghosted an exploratory finger down the edge of the open-back dress. Her skin rippled in response.
“I’ll have to send her a thank-you note,” Rook managed, voice trembling.
“Don’t bother- I’ll send her my regards,” Lucanis murmured. “She deserves more than a note. I’m thinking a case of the wine cellar’s most expensive bottles.”
“Oh,” Rook said. She was fairly beyond thought now.
“Do you have anything pressing to get back home to?”
“No.”
“Then stay. Stay with me.”
“For the night?”
“Yes. And every day after. Tell me this ends with me asleep in your arms, for the rest of my life.”
Rook swallowed. “Words aren’t nearly as fun as actions.”
Lucanis smiled. There was a hint of purple now, setting his gaze aglow. “Show me, then.”