Chapter Text
The first time the Shrike of Treviso meets Lucanis Dellamorte, she nearly slits his throat.
Which is to say, much to her later amusement, that she narrowly avoids killing him by sheer luck. He moves as silent as shadow, like all Crows are taught to master, except the cape of his armor shimmers like a bird’s wing under the lowlight of the estate’s chandelier. So she takes advantage of her camouflage against the drapery, and she springs out of hiding, one hand clasping against his mouth, the other already pressing the blade of her knife against the vulnerable flesh of his exposed throat.
He’s hardly taller than her, though that does not speak well for her own height. His body is a lithe, tension-strung weapon beneath her grip. This close, she can catch the faintest scent of coffee and chocolate, sweet and rich, all but buried underneath the stench of fresh, coppery blood. That gives her pause; he didn’t move like an injured man.
The pause saves his life. It gives him the advantage to twist her wrist, forcing her to risk breaking her bone or releasing her weapon, and so she relents her hold in favor of lashing out to kick the back of his knee, hard. He disarms her, though not without stumbling a half-step away, a brief respite to recover from her ambush. With the minimal distance, she takes in the details of his appearance, already drawing another set of throwing knives from the sheath lining her armor’s ribcage. In a fleeting glimpse, she catches the fact that his indigo-dyed leather armor is layered to protect his shoulders and torso, a set of sheaths expertly crafted to line the curve of his belt, and a tattered midnight-blue cape with its hem swirling against his ankles.
No, not tattered. She can see the wing-lined cut of his silhouette, and the faintest smudges of blood on the leather of his forearm bracers. A Crow.
“Fucking Viago,” she grouses. Then, she has to duck and dance back a step as the Crow lashes out, her own blade glinting dangerously in his hands. She returns one of her knives to the sheath on her ribs but keeps the other just in case, skillfully maneuvering around the grand piano in the middle of the foyer to spread distance between herself and the very pissed off Crow she just attacked.
“Viago sent you?” He demands, his tone venomous. His accent is coastal, but Antivan nonetheless. Shrike isn’t sure if he realizes it, but his eyes are clear and expressive. She can see that Viago’s name being mentioned sends a tempest of emotion through him: familiarity, betrayal, anger, hurt.
“Contract,” she corrects, then adds hastily, “I didn’t know another Crow would be here.”
That gives him pause. They stare at one another, the piano posed cautiously in the middle of his line of fire. She could, theoretically, kick out the piano bench to slow him down if he made a move. Or if he tries to vault over the piano entirely, she could strike the dowel rod holding the lid up and let it interrupt his clear-line jump.
He makes the decision for her, and slowly lowers his hand from its defensive gesture, the candlelight glinting softly over the blade’s clean, polished surface. She’s struck, suddenly, by how strange it is to meet a Crow that is openly trusting.
Viago will have to hear about this, she decides, and draws back her hand to throw her knife before she regrets it. The air whooshes with a familiar high-pitched whine, ozone crackling steady in the back of her mouth, and there’s a split second where she watches the other Crow’s face morph from annoyance at her attack to… impressed? The knife glimmers lightning-ascendant as it hurtles towards him, violet light washing the room in a thunder-strike, casting his handsome face with a storm-ridden hue. He’s smiling.
Then, he sweeps his arm out, still holding onto her knife, and knocks aside the static-infused blade. It collides with a tastefully-upholstered velvet fainting couch that promptly bursts into flames, the hair on the back of her neck tingling with the discharged spell blanketing the room. There goes her contract’s term for a discreet kill.
Oh, Viago is not going to like this at all, she decides, and she runs.
The second time the Shrike of Treviso meets Lucanis Dellamorte, she doesn’t even know that he’s there.
Rooftops in Treviso are designed for quick, hassle-free travel. All fledglings are taught to walk along sloped tiles, even though some do not make it past their first lesson. Shrike is all too aware how one misstep can send an unsuspecting Crow tumbling to their inevitable death upon the cobblestones far below, and yet she lingers at the edge, surveying the marketplace.
The market lights are a glowing beacon in the dusk of nightfall, burning soft amongst the chatter of shopkeepers luring new customers and local Trevisans weaving through the labyrinth of wares. Her contract’s mark is idling at a gourmet cheese stall, nodding with increasing apathy as the stall owner gestures to his products with increasing vigor. Shrike is too far away to catch the conversation, but she can read her mark’s mannerisms well enough to know that she is no longer interested in buying cheese. The moment the young noblewoman decides to exit the market, then Shrike will follow and fulfill her contract.
The toe of her boot teases the lip of the roof's edge, the grip of her leather soles catching on the gutter before she applies too much weight to sway her balance and fall.
“You like to walk a little too close to the edge,” a familiar accent muses.
Shrike does not flinch, but she is all too aware of her vulnerable position on the roof’s edge and the knives sheathed against the small of her back and along her ribs. He would catch any movement she made to draw her weapons, and so she laughs, unbothered.
“So do you,” she says, and she turns her head to see him lingering on the rooftop adjacent to hers, swathed by the shadows. He moves far more silently than any other Crow she has met. Even Viago, diligent and paranoid Viago, cannot muffle his presence so effectively. Not even the air betrays this Crow’s existence, the chorus of voices unfaltering far below them, the evening breeze ruffling her curls with gentle fingers. This close to Cafe Pietra, she can catch the faintest traces of fresh roasted coffee and bittersweet chocolate, beckoning her.
She intends to indulge her sweet tooth at the cafe when her mark is effectively disposed of.
“Not that close,” the Crow points out, and he smirks at her. “The canals are not deep enough to soften your fall.”
Shrike spares a look below. In the glow of the lamplights, the canal water churns dark as a storm-ridden night, hungry. She grins back at him. “Speaking from experience?”
“A cautionary tale,” the Crow allows. His stance shifts, rippling from the shadow and further into the lamplight. It’s only a half-step, but it’s enough. She can make out the layers of his armor, cataloguing possible soft spots or worn stitching in his defenses, and it doesn’t escape her notice that his armor is well-crafted. Without a grand piano between them, it’s clear that a well-paid connoisseur designed his armor for stealth and utility. Shrike just isn’t sure if it’s because he is a favored House-sponsored Crow, like her, or if his methods are more self-funded.
If it is the latter, then the list of wealthy Crows are far shorter, and much more complicated. The only mark more dangerous than a mage-trained one is the kind that can strike you from right at your side, close enough to slide his blade between your ribs.
Speaking of blades… Shrike tilts her head, narrowing in on the sheath along his left calf. It’s a smaller sheath, designed for quick maneuvers while posed in shadow, and she knows the hilt of that blade as well as she knows the streets of her city.
“That’s my blade,” she accuses.
“A souvenir,” he shrugs, nonchalant. There’s a furrow in his brow, though, and she wonders if it’s annoyance or amusement. The lilt of his accent suggests humor, yet Shrike is not willing enough to unravel that discovery here, of all places.
“I didn’t figure you to be a tourist in Treviso,” she says, gesturing to their surroundings.
His dark eyes nearly sparkle in the lowlight. “No. I am not.”
“I do prefer that blade. If you must know.”
“I must.”
Shrike props a fist on her hip, eyeing him shrewdly. He stares at her, unflinching, though his nostrils flare indiscriminately when he scents the burn of ozone in the air. If he reveals any emotion at all, then it is the way his shoulders loosen, easing into the languid fluidity of assassination. Viago had prodded and pushed her into performing that same act of flexible capability, adaptable in the perfect kill, and this Crow does it as easily as taking a breath.
Some fledglings never make it through their first lesson on a rooftop. Most die during their second lesson on a rooftop: the first sparring ring.
“If you insist,” she says, and she draws her first set of knives from her hip sheath.
He draws her blade from his sheath, and for the first time, she sees him smile, anticipation glittering like lightning in his eyes.
The third time the Shrike of Treviso meets Lucanis Dellamorte, he is not there at all.
“How many times do I have to tell you,” Viago growls, dumping a cloth-wrapped bundle onto her desk. It clatters amongst the papers she’s spread out for her latest contract, metal ringing out, and she raises a brow up at him. This close to dawn, she figures he must be fighting with Teia again if he’s preferring to bother her over flirting with the Seventh Talon. It’s a shame, really, and not only because Shrike loves Teia.
He is much, much more prickly when he’s arguing with her instead of doting.
“Do I apologize,” Shrike asks, ignoring the knife he’s delivered so ungracefully to her desk. “Or would you rather I just listen with my best apologetic face?”
“It is careless to leave your knives around,” he continues, and Shrike settles for giving him a supplicating frown. That is, until he retrieves his handkerchief, unravelling the knife to lay exposed on the desk for her to see.
Her mouth goes dry. “Oh.”
“Oh?” Viago repeats. “Do you not recognize your own knives, anymore? You left this one in the foyer, right on the grand piano keys.”
Shrike hardly hears him. She reaches out and slides her fingers over the hilt, testing its immaculate balance. The blade gleams, polished as looking glass, reflecting her own blank expression back at her. The Crow gave her back her knife, fully restored to its original glory. There is no trace of the damage from the lightning strike or their sparring match on the rooftop.
Then, his words strike, and she laughs.
“Right,” she says. “I must’ve forgotten.”
“Idiot,” Viago gripes. “You would forget your own skull if it were not attached to your neck. A Crow from House de Riva does not forget where they leave their blades.”
“I wouldn’t consider it lost,” Shrike muses. “I knew exactly where it was.”
She had given it to him, after all, both of them panting from exhaustion and windswept from their chase over the rooftops. He had pinned her to the tiles, one knee pressed to her chest while his other knee forcibly disarmed her other hand by trapping her wrist. In the scuffle, she had switched their blades, the lightweight hilt of his dagger applying light pressure to the soft leather stitching beneath his collarbone.
Your right side wears out faster than the left, she had told him through huffs of air. The stitching is weaker here.
Blindspot, he had pointed out, tapping the curve of her jugular with the blade of her knife. You do not look over your shoulder.
Your dagger isn’t sharp enough to cut through armor.
Your knife is nothing more than a battered letter opener.
Who’s fault is that?
He had smiled at that, just at the corner of his mouth, a fleeting spark of light in the dark. You are the one charging your blades with lightning.
Sometimes all it takes is a spark, Crow.
“Just,” Viago says, and Shrike gives him another pitiful look of supplication. He sighs and rubs his gloved hand over his eyes. “Don’t become careless.”
“Never,” she lies.
The seventh time the Shrike of Treviso meets Lucanis Dellamorte, she presses him to the wall and kisses him.
His mouth is sweet with honeyed wine, the warmth of his body beneath her hands burning her from the inside out. He murmurs appreciatively against her mouth, one of his wandering hands clasping the back of her neck with reverent care. The other slides over her waist, toying with the hem of her servant’s smock. He had nearly laughed aloud in the ballroom when he had caught sight of her lingering at the edges of the gathering, his presence magnetic. His costume is draped in far more finery, the elegant velvet of his doublet plush and soft beneath her touch.
Don’t become careless, Viago had warned her, and here she is, the Crow sinking further against the wall as she deepens their kiss, the searing heat of his fingers tracing over a sliver of exposed skin along her waist. It is nothing like their first kiss, where he had hesitantly cupped her cheek and marveled at her lips with deep, indescribable longing. He had asked to kiss her.
Isn’t she being careful to walk the edge like this, her fingers tangling in his dark, feather-soft hair, hidden from the prying eyes of drunken nobles and scornful servants? Isn’t she being careful when she does not speak his name out loud and expose the towering noose hanging above their heads?
He must know, because he pulls back just enough to let out a shuddering breath, fondly pressing his nose to her temple in a gentle caress.
“You smell like sugar and clove,” he muses.
“Kitchen,” she agrees breathlessly.
“From the sticky buns,” he says, and the self-satisfied certainty of it makes her huff a laugh, dipping her face low enough to press a kiss to his throat. He shivers against her, and Shrike ignores the thought in the back of her head that sounds like Viago’s groan of indignation at the display.
She can be careful like this, her teeth grazing the tender flesh of his jugular, his stifled gasp prickling desire in the pit of her stomach. It’s a starving, visceral hunger to chase that sound, and she pulls up to kiss him instead, humming at the press of his hips against hers.
A tryst between two Crows, and nothing more. If she doesn’t say his name, then she cannot be entangled within it. If he does not acknowledge her rank and favor with Viago de Riva, then he does not have to worry about his coffee being poisoned in retaliation.
It can be a passing affection, and never anything more.
The twenty-sixth time the Shrike of Treviso meets Lucanis Dellamorte, she intends to confess it all and let him deal with the consequences, except for the fact that Viago has a contract for her in Rivain for one of the Lords of Fortune. It is a contract that highlights her specialty as the shrike-bird she is named for; underneath the glamour of a songbird is a butcher prepared to strike. As harmless as she appears, she will not be made out as an assassin until it is too late.
I will tell him when I get back, she decides, and promptly vomits her meager breakfast of hardtack and bread into a ditch on the side of the road.
Where her contract ends, his next one begins, and so on. Their lives oscillate around one another, hopelessly orbiting at a distance too far to bridge between, and there is a moment where Shrike stands alone in the nursery that Viago lovingly crafted for her baby, all with minimal complaining.
The crib is hand-crafted by a woodcarver working with specialized commissions, and the headboard is intricately engraved with feather motifs. Fitting for the child of two Crows, born to the scions of rival houses. Shrike runs her fingers along the edges of the carvings, tracing its pattern, memorizing the smooth-buff grain of the wood.
Perhaps, she thinks, she has been careless enough in loving a Crow. There are no more fleeting rendezvous beneath the moonlight on rooftops, not when the swell of her stomach is too tight to fit in her armor and she cannot even rise from her bed without wheezing from exertion. Her pregnancy is a blindspot that threatens to slice her throat at every turn. Viago’s paranoia at keeping her from wandering the city unattended is a cloak of security that she cannot fully refuse.
She has been careless enough in loving him, and so the Crow has successfully disarmed her of her lethal efficiency for the moment.
“Viago will never let me live it down,” Shrike jokes to her baby, her palm pressing fondly to the spot beneath her ribs. In predictable response, the baby kicks at her hand, winding Shrike with one blow. Shrike grimaces, then laughs humorlessly. “Yeah, I deserved that, huh? You aren’t even born yet and I’m giving you issues.”
Her eyes fall to the crib’s feather engravings. “Would you be better off as a Dellamorte?”
For a moment, she lets the words hang in the air, contemplating. It is a familiar topic of contention between her and Viago, both of them dismissing and grumbling about their concerns and possible positions for leverage. To be a Dellamorte, raised under the tutelage of the First Talon’s striking cane, poised for a birthright with no chance of easy denial. To be one of the last of the bloodline, and utterly upending the rules of succession.
“Would you be better off as a de Riva?” Shrike murmurs. To be a de Riva and learning the bitter-spiced tang of the poisons Viago would feed them religiously, tempering their resistance to a knife’s edge, dismissing their symptoms of dying as nothing more than a temporary side-effect. To serve under the influence of Viago’s reign in the city, slowly poisoning themself into oblivion.
“Or,” Shrike says, her voice straining with amusement, “we can run off into the South and live in a swamp.”
Her baby kicks at her ribs in disgruntled fervor, and Shrike winces. “Noted. No running off into the swamp. We’ll work out the details later.”
She hears a rumor that the Demon of Vyrantium is back in the city from his last contract.
She half-expects him to slip into her room through the window, a scornfully romantic gesture for the sort of man that asks for permission so he can kiss her. She expects that he will still be wearing his armor and his crow-black hair will be ruffled from the travelling wind.
She does not expect to go into labor that same afternoon.
The Shrike of Treviso does not meet Lucanis Dellamorte for the twenty-seventeenth time, but as she cradles the red-faced squalling newborn the healer lays on her chest, Shrike thinks she can see the curve of his nose in their daughter’s face, along with the flash of pitch-black hair covering the crown of her little head.
The healer coos and wipes away the tears on Shrike’s face, and tells Viago that it is common for new mothers to cry with their baby.
Viago merely clasps his bare hand over the nape of Shrike’s neck, holding her, and says nothing. Later, in the darkness of the guest room they used for Ambra’s birth, he cradles her baby just as gently as she does, his thumbs smoothing against her little temples, soothing her to sleep.
“I can’t give her…” Shrike starts, then stops, her throat tight. The remaining pain of her two-day long labor tears through her like a knife wound left festering, and she thinks she might actually be sick if she has to admit to Viago that she failed at being careful. Her recklessness is breathing in his arms in sleepy snuffles, her little nose scrunched with distaste at the noise. Barely an hour old, and yet her baby is particularly annoyed about her environment.
“I will,” Viago says, his voice as soft as his touch. He smooths a thumb over the ridge of the baby's nose, soothing away the tension. “Ambra de Riva.”
It feels like losing her wayward Crow all over again. Shrike nods all the same, and closes her eyes. She pretends to sleep until Ambra fusses for a feeding. Viago stays with her all night, and Teia brings her breakfast. She eats in precise, mechanical bites as Teia fusses and coos over the newborn, Viago watching every movement with a hawk’s steely gaze.
She is grateful that Viago doesn’t mention what they all know; the Dellamortes are a dying line, and she has just given them one more heir to the seat of First Talon. Illario sulks at the helm of Caterina’s rule like a petulant shadow, circling the title she holds like a starving vulture. The rumor amongst the Crows is that the charismatic Dellamorte grandson is vying for succession and losing his grandmother’s precious favor to his strange, discordant cousin.
“You cannot come back with us,” Viago says, finally. He cuts a look to Shrike, his expression unreadable aside from the furrow of his brow. Contention, or perhaps something softer, like despair. “Not in your condition.”
“Vi,” Teia admonishes, but Viago only has eyes for Ambra, now. She’s swaddled in the muslin cloth he brought for Shrike when she sent word about her labor, and Viago cradles her in his lap as if she is a precious gemstone.
“He’s right,” Shrike says softly. Teia shoots her an unimpressed look.
“You are both idiots,” Teia announces. The edge in her voice earns her a glare from Viago, and she softens her tone to avoid waking the baby. “Treviso is your home. You are not abandoning your life to hide in this room forever.”
“Not abandoning,” Shrike allows. “A few months, perhaps.”
“You sound as paranoid as Viago,” Teia frowns. “The de Riva estate is safe. There are no adders in the wardrobe.”
“Months?” Viago interrupts. He doesn’t even crack a smile at her reference to the adder that nearly got him killed. “Reconsider that term to at least two years. You are more vulnerable now than ever. The wardrobe is not my concern when the entire city is a den of snakes.”
“House protection,” Shrike says. “From both of you.”
“Perhaps one more House,” Teia says. “Caterina — ”
“Does not know that Shrike was pregnant,” Viago interrupts. He gives Teia a firm frown only for his expression to soften when Ambra makes a soft grunt in annoyance at his tone. “If she suspects nothing, then neither do either her grandsons.”
“Rumors spread,” Shrike muses. When Viago shoots her a disapproving glare, she merely shrugs. “I stop taking contracts, then stop appearing in public. What do you expect the fledglings to do other than gossip?”
“Learn how to walk on the roof without tripping,” he mutters.
“Throw a balanced knife in a straight line,” Teia chimes.
Shrike chooses to ignore both of them. “I cannot appear in public spaces yet. Not when my name is still whispered at every street corner.”
“I do catch stories of your reputation in the Diamond,” Teia says, thoughtful. “If you become more like a legend instead of a celebrity…”
“Then I will not be sought out,” Shrikes agrees. “Neither myself or Ambra.”
“Two years,” Viago insists. “That way your daughter can eat solid foods for when you lose your head and get yourself killed.”
“Are you really going to lecture me about my carelessness again?” Shrike slumps back against her headboard, but she’s smiling all the same. Even Teia soothes her tensed shoulders, one of her hands sneaking down to run her fingertips along the exposed column of Viago’s throat.
“As long as I must repeat it,” Viago says. He leans ever so slightly into Teia's featherlight touch, pretending to look discouraged by it.
“Maybe one more time, for good measure.”
Teia sighs. “Maker, the two of you give me a headache.”
Even Ambra fusses in Viago’s arms, squirming in discontent, and Viago reluctantly stands to relinquish her back into Shrike’s arms, taking great care to support her fragile neck and adjust the swaddling cloth keeping her warm. He flutters about Shrike and Ambra for a moment longer, adjusting the comforter and fluffing the pillows Shrike is propped up on, and only relents in his fussing when Teia muffles a laugh. He straightens up with an embarrassed cough that fools none of them.
“Funny,” Shrike says, giving Teia a genuine grin. “I think she agrees with you.”
“At least she has the good sense to.”
A year and six months into her self-imposed exile, she learns from Teia that Lucanis Dellamorte is sent to Minrathous on a contract. Mage killing is his specialty, after all, and Shrike feels a thinly-veiled thrill of amusement in that regard. He handles her lightning spellcasting with surety and grace unmatched, and she longs for the day she can properly spar with him again. She’s been training her body for contracts with fervor during the past nine months, and it leaves her eager for the chance to overtake him in a proper match.
She would also like to kiss him, she decides. After the sparring. Or perhaps during.
Yet the week after Teia tells her that, she learns that he is dead, and she remains in exile even as they cremate his body into ash and wind, so far beyond her reach that she can only cradle their daughter and mourn a life no one else can possibly fathom.
That, and she keeps her borrowed Dellamorte blade in a sheath clasped to her calf, prepared for the moment she must respond to a sparring match no one will ever offer her again.