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Rook has known abominations before.
None of them lasted long; she remembers the elven mage, long blond hair, the delicate flush to his skin and the bulge of his eyes when he grew six tongues and choked on them, dying in a mouthful of frothing blood as he tried to chew through his own rebellious flesh. The Qunari woman who fought six hours with the strength of a spirit boar and then, when the battle was over, dropped to all fours and savaged her own troops with the tusks that sprouted from her jaw, her elbows, her spine, until a hundred and sixteen arrows took her down.
Rook has not known anything like this; she does not know what to make of this man--trim, steady, black-eyed, with the shadows of wings at his shoulders and a glitter of violent purple somewhere in the depths of his gaze. Torture even she cannot imagine has worn him as thin as his knife blades, his mouth lined and his eyes bruised. He is gracious and graceful.
A year chained and there's no mark of it in the dance of him. He flashes through the air like vengeance, wings spread, death in his hands.
She cannot think that he is beautiful; she buries that somewhere instant and deep.
He is still an abomination. He argues with something she cannot see, and crimson runs down his upper lip when he pays the price for it. She sees the brief curl of his sneer over the bright flash of his teeth.
*
Once the prison is washed off him, clothes changed and hair trimmed, Lucanis is both dapper and surprisingly gentle-spoken--rich boy, she thinks, mentally measuring fine tailoring and ingrained posture and the careless way he spends money in the market. He takes wealth for granted, shares it freely, makes sure the kitchen has fresh vegetables and fine spices and only the best roasted beans.
It maybe isn't fair, she thinks, to judge him for that; he's spent a year being ripped apart and stitched back together, even with scars hidden beneath fine brocade.
He ensconces himself in the pantry, on a cot surrounded by dusty shelves of trade goods. He has no window.
"The Lighthouse can make you a room," she tells him. "We have plenty of rooms."
He likes the pantry, he says. Good choke points.
Rook thinks it has one single choke point, and no other exits, and it looks an awful lot like a trap or a cell--she doesn't say it, though. She can see the look in the man's eyes--the haunting, the way he slinks to the back at night like a beast returning to its cage.
They are all entitled to their pasts.
*
They call him mage-killer. He is nigh untouchable in battle; Rook can barely follow him, and she thinks sometimes he slows down, pausing deliberately just so she or Harding can get a shot in before he's darting to the side, above, leaping across, all black feathers and seamless brutality. He does not make a sound. He flares purple.
He is not Lucanis when he comes streaking down from where he has appeared twenty feet above, wings snapping out, razor-edged; he is wholly Lucanis when he strikes, knives so fast they are barely a flicker of crimson and steel. His aura flickers; his gaze never does, black or purple, united with his demon at least in this sublime violence. He's Spite, though, if he's grinning.
Harding whistles low, looking at the pile of broken darkspawn already melting into the swamp. "Okay, not bad."
Rook is watching Lucanis -- not Lucanis -- as he straightens within the mess, neat posture strained and muscles rippling with tension as he turns, very slowly, toward them. His feral eyes are glittering indigo; he is showing too many teeth.
"Harding--"
"Oh, I see it." Harding's hand is so casual on her half-raised bow.
Spite takes a single step toward them; his black wings extend, then fade, and it is only Lucanis walking, picking his way with uncanny grace through a squelching river of gore.
"He's in control."
"Yeah, no problem. Sure."
*
The thing inside Lucanis can be quiet, it seems, though he looks distracted. He ingratiates himself by being an excellent cook. It isn't shocking; he has that sort of demeanor, a man who is effortlessly exacting, who has perfected his blade skills in every possible milieu--including a cutting board. His gift for listening is more surprising; it isn't long before he's serving Bellara's favourite stew, or the little pastries Neve likes to snack on, or the coffee with a hint of cinnamon that Rook herself--she admits it--has grown to appreciate with alacrity.
The demon is still there. It's always on the battlefield, of course--all razored feathers and impossible leaps--but in the smoky dim spaces of the kitchen, that is where Rook can feel it studying her. Sometimes it's just Lucanis, his arms folded, his gaze deceptively casual. He surveys everyone, smooth and easy (too smooth, too easy); a few times, however, she looks over and there's an intensity to it, a violent magenta glow, pupils gone small and cold as a raptor. She tries not to notice.
"Making friends?" she asks once, when Lucanis leans past her to set a small plate of cheeses on the table. "Or providing client service?"
He refills her coffee with the pot in his other hand; his voice is a low rumble. "Can't it be both?"
There's a hint of amethyst behind his smile.
*
"I have a question."
"I am a little tired of talking about Spite, if you do not mind."
"No." Rook takes aim, lets an arrow fly, and sees the disgusting, absolutely satisfying pop of the blight boil above the gate. Ahead, Neve clears a path through glittering rips in the Veil, sitting ice against explosive fire. "A different question. I was just wondering."
At her shoulder, Lucanis raises an eyebrow. "I am at your service, then."
"Well, look." Another arrow, another boil. Lucanis briefly pops away in a whirl of feathers and steel; a darkspawn dies on the hillside and Rook waits patiently until the assassin returns, Fade-stepping straight back into his place by her left shoulder. "My Antivan isn't great."
Lucanis snorts; Rook does not justify this with a reaction. She continues, easily, "But... 'Dellamorte.' Is your secretive ancient house of professional killers really, truly named 'House of Death'?"
From around a new curve in the path, Neve's voice drifts back: "I wasn't going to say anything!"
Lucanis makes a very soft choking sound.
Rook lets another arrow fly. When she glances to the side, he is rubbing abashedly at a spot below his right ear. "It is a long tradition," he admits. "It is possible our vaunted ancestor was... somewhat pretentious. However, mentioning this is historically... unwise."
"Whatever you say, Ser of Death."
"Do I need to remind you of the professional killer part?"
"I'll just remind you to protect me. We have a contract."
*
There is no night in the Fade, but the Lighthouse seems to dim the lanterns for them at least, keeping some sort of cycle in the endless twilight. Rook doesn't always sleep much; when she roams, Lucanis is there.
She sits on the balcony outside the library, her back slouched to the wall, sharpening her knives with the assassin's whetstone; he does a handstand on the balustrade, back arched, gracefully extended, and she does not watch the way the muscles flex in his bared forearms.
"If you want to show off, why do it while Davrin's sleeping?"
"I am not 'showing off.' This is training." His handstand becomes one-handed as he stretches a deliberate arm out to the side. "And I wouldn't want him to be jealous."
Below him, the drop. Rook shakes her head, but the edge of her mouth curves.
*
He kills people for money. She should be appalled; she reminds herself that she is appalled.
It's hard to remember sometimes. Rook is reading quietly in a corner of the dining room when Lucanis strides in, silent footsteps a distinct contrast with the door as it slams open. He's already pulling off his gloves as he hurls them at the table. "No, shut up, you can not--"
Violet is flickering around his edges. He rattles something off in Antivan, drops into a chair; something alien and ominous glides through him, twisting his neck, and his incisors are sharp and gleaming. The suggestion of wings ghosts his shoulders before he slumps, elbows on table, palms grinding into his eyes.
He doesn't know she's there, and that in itself is startling, so Rook says, "Lucanis?," but he doesn't so much as twitch in surprise, so maybe she's wrong.
"Rook," he grits out quietly; he does drop his hands. He doesn't look at her, but even in profile she can see the hollows in his face. "He is loud. I apologize. What do you need?"
"Nothing. I'll get out of your space." She sets her book aside. When she rises, though, she finds herself going to the sidebar instead of the door; she pours the last of the coffee into a cup and brings it to the table. Lucanis's lips are still moving slightly, soundless but vehement; he's turned his head to glare at something by the fire.
The strain of his shoulders is a crime.
On impulse, she says, "May I?" and off the abstraction of his quizzical glance, she slips behind him--wondering, briefly, that such an assassin has let her behind him, but he has, and he isn't stopping her, so she sets her hands on his shoulders and digs her thumbs right there, into the rock-hard tension of muscle at the base of his neck.
Lucanis's groan rises unbidden from somewhere at the bottom of his spine or the balls of his feet, full bodied. He holds stiff a surprised instant, then yields; under her hands, he sways forward and then back, his head dropping. She curls her fingers at his nape and feels him give. His shoulders are narrower than she'd realized; he is a slender man.
"Mierda," he breathes--there is no fight in him, he is sliding, bones practically cracking as he gives way--but an instant later, even as he dares let himself unfold, a lightning jolt runs through him and his head whips to the side, eyes white-ringed and festering purple, muscles like iron bars. His teeth lock hard on Rook's wrist.
Her hands are at his neck. She holds herself very still.
The demon does not bite down, but it bites hard--enough to bruise, not quite enough to break skin. Its falcon stare is wild and wary.
"Spite?"
Lucanis blinks back at that, dark and confused and abruptly horrified to find himself gnawing, a dog with a bone. He is there and then he is not; the hot wet pressure-pain is gone, and he's lurching so hard away from her and the table that even he nearly stumbles, the back of his hand pressed to his mouth. Whatever he says in Antivan is much sharper and more guttural than 'mierda.' "Sorry," he gasps. "I am sorry, I--"
She can't say anything. He is gone, the pantry door shut tight.
She makes a fresh pot of coffee before she leaves, and makes sure to pull down her sleeve.
*
If she isn't careful, she's going to think of him as a boy who loves his grandmother.
She can't do this. He comes from betrayal and blood.
*
"Do you really like coffee that much? I mean, I love it too, but I have three cups and I'm jumping out of my skin. You can't love twenty-six."
Lucanis eyes her as he pours himself another serving of steaming darkness. Lifting it, deliberately, he inhales. His eyes close briefly; violet flickers behind his lids, and is gone. "I do love coffee. And, more importantly... he will not take that from me."
"So you don't want to vomit?"
"I did not say that."
"Right."
*
Rook is intent on mending the rent in her coat; it's hard to see by the flicker of the firelight, but she's managing; she has only pricked herself twice, and lost the thread once. There's sand everywhere. The sound of the nearby surf is steady and reassuring as Taash's voice, which has been discussing dragons for some time.
"...the electric ones, you gotta be careful, they tend to be older and wiser and I'm not entirely sure why, I think they spend longer in the nest, hey Rook don't move, give the guy three minutes, like I was saying, there was a clutch of them a few years back..."
Rook blinks up at her name, looking to where Taash lounges on a log on the other side of the fire. Taash, still droning, glances to the left and Rook follows the cue to where Lucanis is slumping in the sand, his forehead against the arm he's draped over his upturned knee, dagger loose in his fingers and close to dropping.
Rook does not expect the tiny ache that blooms in her chest. She stays precisely as she is, sliding needle through leather, though she has a blade strapped to her shoulder and she's careful to note that Taash's axes are close to hand.
"...honestly I prefer the fire dragons myself. They're honest, you know? You know what you're going to get with fire..."
Taash can talk about dragons for a long time.
It isn't so long, though, before Lucanis twitches--once, twice, a puppet with its strings pulled. The curve of his spine distorts as his head lifts, violet eyes glowing.
Neither Rook nor Taash rise, but their hands are on hilts. Just in case.
"... and in summary, dragons are great. HEY LUCANIS."
He wakes with a start; his hand closes hard, instinctive, on the dagger and the line of him jerks in the sand, the purple flaring and fading to wild confusion. Lucanis stares at Taash, then Rook, and he hurls himself to his feet as he rubs his free hand over his face. "Mierda--did he--"
"No," says Rook. "Nothing. We're safe."
She still can't follow the flood of his Antivan. "I--yes. Apologies. Thank you, Taash." And Lucanis is gone, into the shadows--toward the water, she thinks. She catches a hint of what might be wings against the night sky.
The fire crackles quite a while before Taash says, "He looks at you, you know. And, listen, sometimes I think it's just Lucanis being a guy, but sometimes..."
"It's nothing. It's fine."
*
They are going to slaughter a god.
*
Rook can't get the sensation of blood off her skin--of blight, worming its way into her flesh; of the stiff, cold corpses with faces she knows. She thinks the archdemon's fire has scorched her lungs; she cannot breathe with it.
In the sleepless twilight of the Fade, she walks beneath dark lanterns and sees a fluid shadow above, winging from balcony to rooftop, curving and flashing as Lucanis flips from tile to spire to impossible twist midair.
She stops to watch him; she stands at the foot of the great wolf statue with her arms folded, and he lands in a crouch before her, his wings briefly almost wide enough to block the Fade.
Not Lucanis. Violet consumes him; his eyes are sharp and cold.
"Let him rest," she says, gently. "We can't win this way."
"FAiLed." There's a shrieking undertone of grating metal when the demon's voice rips through Lucanis's throat. It is just another thing that makes Rook wince. "FreE us."
"I wish I could."
Rook raises a hand, half on impulse; she stretches it, palm out, like she would to a strange beast. She knows it's ridiculous even before Spite snarls.
He's gone again. She rubs the hand over her face instead. Above, he leaps--winging from balcony to rooftop. From tile to spire to impossible twist midair.
*
"Rook. ROOK!"
She opens her eyes, coughing, dizzy; there's a weight being lifted off her. She hears rocks tumbling.
"Ow," she says, and there's something warm and wet running in her eyes but she's being hefted, held. She breathes leather and coffee; there's a crack in her ribs she's going to feel in the morning.
"Rook?"
"I'm okay."
Lucanis is lifting her; she's being set down on some patch of grass that is mercifully blight free; Emmrich is pressing a vial into her hands. She is coughing, still. Her mouth tastes like iron. She's vaguely aware that she's still leaning against leather solidity, and the arm holding her upright is bristling with a host of smoothly sheathed knives.
"Drink." He's holding the vial against her lips now. She obeys.
A moment later and she can breathe again; the ribs twinge, but she straightens away from the leather warmth and spits blood onto the ground, wiping it away from her face. "Andraste's tits."
She hears Emmrich's startled laugh and adds, ruefully, "Just let me have that, all right. That hurt."
She gathers her bow. Lucanis keeps a hand under her elbow as she stands. She lets herself drift against him, just for a moment; finding her balance, she squeezes his wrist.
They keep moving.
*
He is a boy who loves his grandmother.
Maker help her.
*
They are all primed to kill darkspawn; the undead fail to give them the slightest pause. Rook is no stranger to death; everything is hot breath and arrow and blade. They have mown their way through so many fields of combat.
Sometimes, though, in the dark of a city--beneath the towers of Minrathous, or along the rooftops of Treviso--Lucanis slips ahead in the quiet of the night, and what they find are not enemies but bodies, cooling.
Rook steps over a crumpled corpse in mismatched armour and sees moonlight reflected in the blank stare of a man's eyes. He has a pale mustache, poorly trimmed. His throat is neatly slit; the gaping line of it is black in the night. He already stinks of offal. He is not very old.
His sword was never drawn.
She looks briefly, then away. She's gotten blood on her boot. She leaves a trail of half prints behind her.
"Sloppy," chides Lucanis, low-voiced and rumbling with amusement; despite herself, she sucks in a breath. He's barely the hint of a silhouette in the shadows. "There are two more down below. Mind the mess on the stairs."
She catches the gleaming edge of the knife in his hand.
"Rook?" It's only Lucanis. That flicker of uncertainty would never flare in Spite.
She swallows. "Meet you down there."
They are none of them innocent.
*
They're going to kill two gods.
All right, maybe three.
It's fine.
*
The Lighthouse has a habit of making what they need--new corridors, rooms, unexpected steam baths--and right now what Rook needs is the storm. Did the Dread Wolf's secret chambers have a balcony before? It doesn't matter; she only wants to stand outside and feel the rain, cold and punishing and beating down on her face and shoulders.
She is tired. She cannot be tired. She has to keep fighting; she has to slice and drive and laugh about it, and tomorrow she will grit her teeth and scream defiance at the sky but there is so much death and fear and she is freezing and she is only grateful for the impossible rain, falling without clouds, falling forever into the void below. Rook is numb.
She leans against the railing and closes her eyes, letting the water do as it wills. She'll go inside soon and smile, and find a joke to crack.
It's just, for this moment, she can't move.
There's a whisper of shadow, an indigo flash--she thinks it's lightning somehow but the rain stops falling and when she opens her eyes, she blinks at Spite, settled on the rail with his furious gaze aglow and his black feathers spread to shelter her from the manifestation of her own grief.
"Don't," she says blankly. "You'll get wet." She's soaked enough for both of them. Lucanis's hair is already sticking to the back of his neck.
And it is Lucanis--she thinks--who drops down in front of her, and Lucanis who sets careful hands on her shoulders and draws her in, Spite's wings enfolding them both.
It's so good to lean into him. He's so warm. "I'm sorry," she breathes. "It's okay. I'm okay. I just..."
She kisses him--insistent, demanding--and his fingers dig into her. Too hard, bruising--the demon?--it doesn't matter, Lucanis is lifting her, taking her inside while their localized storm rages, Lucanis with his exhausted eyes and his reaper hands and the feral growl always low and lurking in his chest.
They have this, at least.
*
She doesn't know how they live, to be honest.
A city rises around them.
A wolf fells a dragon.
Immortals crumble.
It doesn't seem real.
*
Rook lies in a bed--her bed, so warm, cushioned and soft--and she is sore, muscles aching, but Lucanis is a weight poured across her, boneless as though he'd been decanted into her embrace. He sprawls, breath ghosting against her neck, and she runs a gentle hand down the scarred curve of his spine. He does not move.
When she strokes his hair, the slightest hint of purple light gleams behind his closed lids. She pets a little more, until it fades.
Rook thinks again, vaguely, of abominations she has known--her memories are distant today, fogged and screaming. The sheets are smooth.
She brushes her lips to Lucanis's forehead, and he sleeps.