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Every bone inside his body ached when Lucanis came back to his senses and a shrieking ringing was piercing through his head. His vision was blurry as he groaningly lifted himself up, only to realizes that everything around him was pure chaos. Dark Spawn was screaming, muddy blight and blood mixing together into black puddles.
“Lucanis, you’re awake.” Neve’s relieved, yet strained voice reached his ears, and he looked up. The mage was bowed protectively above him, their bodies shielded by an icy barrier.
“Neve?” His own breathing was ragged, burning like fire in his lungs and he groaned as a piercing pain shot like lightning from his side up to behind his eyes.
“DAVRIN, EMMRICH, TAASH, HE’S AWAKE!“ she yelled from top of her lungs, but her voice was still almost drowned out from the noises around them.
Their fighting companions were still fighting around them, trying to keep the remaining dark spawn off that blindly tried to avenge their creator. Assan plunged from the sky, screeching, and buried his claws in the ogre's mined flesh. The monster roared deafeningly and struck at the Griffon, but Davrin took advantage of its distraction to cut off its legs. Roaring with rage, the massive body fell to the ground, its dark blood staining the warden’s silver armour black.
Emmrich stood beside him, always a calm rock in the stormiest surf. With a concentrated gaze, he cast spells and illuminated the deep black sky in the eerie green of necromancy. Only his laboured breathing showed how exhausted he was.
Taash roared and spit fire into a horde of enemies. Anger distorted their features.
Their friends turned around to them and returned, encircling them to protect.
“What happen…,” he began to ask, but then memories flooded his minds, a whirlpool of colours. Ghilan’nain, Harding. Rook!
Lucanis gasped and suddenly his mind was clear again. Desperately, he looked around only to find the twisted body of the fallen elven god right next to them.
“It’s alright.” Neve squeezed his shoulders as she had sensed his uneasiness, but her face was a hardened mask as her eyes drifted over a scenery far away. “You did it.”
He should feel happy, he should feel relief, but those words poured bitterly into his blood. Something in Neve’s tone told him that their bad luck hadn’t run out yet.
Just then Lucanis realised what was missing. Rook! Rook was nowhere to be seen.
Desperately, he clutched onto Neve’s sleeve and whispered.
“Where’s Rook?”
The Shadowdragon took a deep, trembling breath, before replying:
“Gone…in Solas’ prison.” Everything inside Lucanis’ froze for a second, before a growl left him from which he didn’t know whether it was his, or Spite’s or theirs. The ice in his blood turned into hot, molten lava of furious anger as Spite raged inside him, roaring:
“Taken. From us.”
And for once, Lucanis couldn’t agree more. Before Neve or even Lucanis himself realized it, he was back onto his feet, the trusted weight of his daggers in hand as he surged towards the remining enemies in blind fury. There was no elegance or finesse in the way he fought. It was massacre, but he needed to get all the emotions out. Lucanis didn’t know how long he slashed his way through the enemies and his anger, but soon he was dripping with thick, black blood and panting, his breath condensing in the air. Bodies laid scattered all around him, but the masses didn’t stop.
Lucanis didn’t mind. Let them come. He would kill them all, if he needed to. Every God stepping into his way of just seeing Rook again. To finally being able to tell them, what he had been to coward of.
Just as he was about to indulge in his hubris, something grabbed him firmly by the arm. Lucanis whirled around, ready to eliminate anyone who got in his way, but then he investigated Davrin's serious face.
“Lucanis,” he said urgently. “We have to get out of here.”
“No,” Spite hissed from Lucanis’ mouth, tasting like acid on his lips and the demon tried to break free from Davin. “Have to fight.”
“I understand your pain,” the Grey Warden said calmly. “But you must pull yourself together. You still have a contract, after all, don’t you? Rook is relying on you.”
In an instant, the fire in his veins went out, the anger fizzled out. In its place came a leaden heaviness of exhaustion.
“You’re right,” Lucanis mumbled with a sad expression in his eyes, his head bowed. Davrin nodded and let go of him. With that the rest of the Veilguard left the battleground od their victory and greatest loss. More than just one heart shattered.
~*~
No one had said a word on their way back to the Lighthouse. Not even Spite. Too heavy was the pain of those they had lost. They knew that they had kept fighting. Elgar’nan was still out there, terrorizing the world, but none of them knew how to.
The silence stretched infinitely over the courtyard of the lighthouse. Hopelessness settling above them like a weighted blanket and the bright colours of the fade suddenly seemed to hurt in the eyes.
Taash was the first who couldn’t endure it anymore. With an angry grunt, they stomped off, disappearing into their room.
Lucanis wanted to leave, too. Where anger had burned before, there was now a dark, empty hole of darkness.
“I will find a way to save them, Lucanis,” Emmrich said with conviction, the usually soft face hard. “I promise you.”
“Thank you, Emmrich.” They were the hardest words he ever spoke, his voice threatening to break at every syllable, but he needed to be strong. Needed to hold on. Or the grief would tear him away. How did Rook do it? How did they stay positive even in the direst circumstances? Lucanis felt lost.
The silence in the confines of his quarters in the pantry seemed to crush Lucanis as the door slammed shut behind him.
He sank hopelessly onto the cot and buried his hands in his black hair. Traitorous tears burned in his eyes, and he tried desperately to catch his breath.
Spite appeared next to him, but for once he said nothing. No reproaches, no anger. The shade just sat in silence next to him, sharing his pain. Rook was important to them, too. In a difference nuance yet not less valuable.
Lucanis’ gaze lingered on something behind Spite. The cup Rook had given him shimmered through the demon's semi-translucent form. He picked it up devoutly, running his fingers over the cold porcelain. He remembered Rook coming in to gift it to him. The broad smile on their face as they gave it to him, excited to have finally found something for him.
Countless other memories came flooding back to him. Rook, looking anxiously after him. The sparkle in their eyes when they had almost kissed. So many chances, lost because of cowardice. He was crow, he knew any moment could be the last, that words should never be left unspoken and yet…
Lucanis pressed the cup against his heart, folding his body around it almost as if he could hold Rook like that. It was almost as if he could still smell them. Their presence lingered in every corner, in every sensory impression.
“Chocolate, coffee and blight,” Spite said, surprisingly sad for his nature. “Miss them.”
“Me, too, Spite, me too.” And with that he cried. For the first time in a very long time.