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There's no time in the Fade. Morning or evening, noon or midnight – neither makes any difference to the sky, or to the temperature; there's no birdsong to announce the dawn, no cicadas gently buzzing through the long evening over the wreckage of a convivial dinner and the sharp bitterness of a cup of Seheron black gold. It would be impossible to say whether a day's passed here, or a week, or a month, except that even Lucanis has to sleep once in a while.
Lucanis almost forgets that Satinalia is coming – not because he's indifferent, but because he'd missed last year's festivities due to his capture. Satinalia passed him by in the Ossuary. He found that out after Rook broke his jail to release him.
He has quite a few things to be grateful for. Caterina is alive, and Treviso is free; this year, all of Lucanis's jesses are of his own design.
And Rook –
As though thinking of her has summoned her to his side, Lucanis can hear the faint click as someone puts their hand on the old-fashioned handle of the door, which creaks open immediately afterward; Rook peers through the crack, her eyes bright in the candlelight.
"Am I interrupting scheduled brooding time?" she asks, suppressed laughter trembling in her voice.
Spite stirs from his perch in the opposite corner near the door, his eyes instantly flaring from narrow slits to intent alertness. He's staring at Rook as though she's the most fascinating thing in the world.
Spite has always refused to tell Lucanis why he's so interested in Rook, which is not calculated to reassure Lucanis of his good intentions. But Lucanis also knows that Spite has had a hundred opportunities to hurt her while he was asleep or too distracted to fight him off – and Spite hasn't taken a single one of them. He was as angry as Lucanis when the traitor god trapped Rook in the Fade, and he paced alongside Lucanis as they stalked the halls of the Lighthouse, looking for an answer, searching for a way to her, listening for her voice in the background murmur of the Fade...
So Lucanis trusts Spite with Rook – as much as he trusts anyone.
But still, he wants to know. For curiosity's sake, if nothing else.
"I am interrupting," Rook says, soft chagrin in her voice. She smiles at him, a slight uncertainty lurking around the edges that makes Lucanis' heart sink. "I can come back later."
"No, no," he says instantly, rising and holding out his hand to her. "Please. I'm sorry. Spite was..."
That's right, Spite says, snickering. It's my fault. It's all my fault, isn't it?
Lucanis warns him off with a dark look and then turns a smile on Rook that he hopes is every bit as inviting as he wants it to be. "I'm truly sorry," he says again, just in case she needs to hear it –
But Rook is already smiling at him, pushing the door open so she can come inside.
That smile is always more understanding than he deserves. Forgiveness is second nature to her. Every time, Lucanis vows to himself that he will never again do anything for which she must forgive him, and every time, he proves himself a liar.
And yet still she comes to him, always with that smile.
That one.
Someday Lucanis is going to have to figure out what he did to deserve this after a lifetime of murder for hire. Not now, of course, but someday.
"You don't have to apologize," she says, faint laughter in her voice. "After all, you have the best of excuses." She sets her hand in his and Lucanis draws her closer, impatient to erase the distance between them until his personal space is also hers, until he's braced by the long and lithe muscles in her arms and torso and thighs, until he can judge the tension in those firmly set shoulders that never quite returned to their carefree slope. Not after she learned of Varric's fate, and what had been done to her.
(If it wouldn't doom the world to drown in demons and damnation, Lucanis would pay his own exorbitant fee for one last god-kill.)
He digs his thumbs into the tight, tender muscles supporting her neck and presses upward with thorough attention to her reactions. Rook makes a low noise of relief, her head tipping back to grant him her unguarded neck. Lucanis thinks about biting it. "Long day?" he asks instead, amused at himself when his voice is deeper than before.
"The south is a mess," she admits, sighing. "The Inquisitor is moving mountains, but even she can't be everywhere. Ferelden is in worst shape, but the lords and ladies of Orlais are trying to restart the Grand Game, and their schemes are interfering with the rescue efforts."
"If you need someone murdered, you have only to ask," he tells her, delighted when a smile breaks over her face. "For you, I'll even waive my fee."
That makes her laugh. As it fades away, Rook lifts her head, smiling affectionately at him. "You'd have to. I'm quite sure I can't afford you, First Talon Dellamorte."
He hasn't yet told her that every Crow in Antiva would leap to do her will with the fervor of the recently converted zealot. She wouldn't take advantage – Rook has principles – but Lucanis is a little afraid of the kinds of mischief she might be able to pull off with an army of assassins at her fingertips.
Of course, Lucanis would be first in line. But she knows that already.
Her shoulders are markedly less tense. At this point, Lucanis is only touching her to touch her. Reluctantly, he lifts his hands from her body and changes course, reaching for a dangling curl instead. "I would not take your coin if you offered it. No. Instead..." He tugs on her hair, watching the coil stretch and lengthen and then twist back on itself, smiling at her with all the affection he can muster. "I want something quite different from you."
Lucanis lets go of the strand of hair, though he doesn't want to; he's still not quite sure what she'll allow him, after all of the time he'd wasted trying to pretend that he didn't need her like a fire needs oxygen. He's surprised when she rolls her eyes and takes the last step between them to drape her arms over his shoulders.
You're an idiot, Rook says with her eyes alone. But she's still looking at him with so much joy that he feels it shivering all over his skin, so Lucanis doesn't feel the need to argue the point.
"What's that?" Rook breathes. There is no more than an inch of difference between their heights; her eyes are very nearly level with his. This simple fact of biology erases any sense of distance between them. It's a heady feeling; one that he would do almost anything to hold on to forever.
"Do you celebrate Satinalia?" he asks.
The confused look that comes over her face will warm him for some time to come.
"Not particularly," she answers slowly, her brows furrowing. "Feastday, right? Mother Glaudia used to cook a special dinner for the orphans that night, or rather, for the ones who were good little urchins who parroted whatever she wanted to hear." She offers him a wry smile. "Which you can probably guess wasn't me."
Lucanis suppresses the growl that wants to erupt from his throat, but Spite possesses no such self-control. Find them and they'll bleed, he spits, his voice dropping into inhuman registers.
It's the purest expression of what Lucanis is thinking, so much so that Lucanis feels like his own anger has been vented far more effectively than he could have managed himself; that makes it easy to give Rook gentleness as he rests his hands on her hips, framing them with his fingers. He's grateful to Spite, which is a strange feeling. "And you?" Lucanis asks softly. "I very much doubt you were content to be sent to your room without dinner."
"That's when the more adventurous of us started learning how to run the roofs," she admits, laughing. "In retrospect, I'm terrified at the idea of a bunch of underfed children flinging themselves over the crumbling roofs of Minrathous, but at the time, there was nothing more thrilling. My magic came in a few years later and I got sold off, but those were good times. Good memories."
Rook nestles into his hold, a tiny, soft, nostalgic smile on her face and her eyes a thousand miles away, reliving those memories with every evidence of pleasure; Lucanis is grateful for her distraction, because he doesn't think he could summon a smile for her right now even on pain of being poisoned by Quiet Death.
Instead, he changes the subject.
"Satinalia is not just one night for an Antivan, but a week of revelry and food and glorious excess," he says, finding that when she comes back to the present and looks at him with those curious eyes, he has a smile for her, after all. "There is food, there is wine, there are masks to rival even an Orlesian's, and dances and parties that run until dawn, or well after."
"That doesn't seem like your idea of fun," Rook says, tilting her head to look at him like she's trying to work out what he's made of.
"It's not," he admits at once. "The wine, the food, yes; the festivities, no. I was more likely to find a quiet balcony and drink my coffee in peace."
Rook laughs. "That does sound more like you." She takes his hand and brings it to her face, dropping a soft kiss into his palm. His fingers curl instinctively like he could keep that kiss forever, if he tried, and Rook looks at him with laughing, affectionate, melting eyes and a quiet joy that takes his breath away.
Lucanis never thought anyone would love him like this – that anyone could love him like this. She makes him want to give her the world. Or, more realistically, to take care of her in the small, quiet, practical ways: to make sure that she sleeps, that her clothes are mended and her boots patched, to feed her when she's hungry. To share a dark cup of coffee on the kitchen's balcony and pretend they're watching the stars spin in their dance over Treviso. To always give her what she needs before she realizes she needs it.
To that end...
Lucanis takes a breath, surprised to find himself slightly nervous. "If you do not have plans for Satinalia, perhaps you'd like to hear mine?"
Her smile warms even further. "I'd love to."
And in that smile, Lucanis realizes – again – that he's being an idiot. She loves him. He needs to forget this idea that this life is too good to be true, because sooner or later Rook is going to figure him out, and it will hurt her.
He's hurt her enough for one lifetime.
"You," he says, running his thumb over her chin. "And me."
"I like where this is going already," Rook murmurs, smiling demurely, her wickedness a secret and hidden thing, only visible because Lucanis already knows it's there.
He continues on as if she hadn't spoken. "A very large bottle of wine – "
Rook interrupts him there. "How large, exactly?"
Lucanis forms a shape with his hands. A baby could crawl between them without having to squeeze through the gap.
Rook raises her eyebrow and makes a soft, thoughtful noise in the back of her throat. She sounds impressed. "Even better. Go on."
His heart is overflowing with delight and love and amusement. Despite his best efforts, a small smile begins to form on Lucanis's face. "Did I ever tell you that House Dellamorte has a very charming villa overlooking Rialto Bay?"
"You must have left that out of the pillow talk," Rook says, laughing at him with only her eyes.
Rook is irresistible when she's laughing at him.
Lucanis pushes forward, crowding into her space, and something dark and primal inside of him that he tries not to think about too much is pleased when some of the amusement fades from Rook's eyes. She might be blushing; it's hard to tell in the low, flickering candlelight. Lucanis decides to pretend that she is.
"It has a kitchen, where I can make our Satinalia feasts," he says, his voice dropping until it's rumbling in his chest. "And a very large balcony, where I can show you my favorite views of Rialto... and a bed. Just one."
Rook never lets anyone fluster her for long. Not even him. It's one of the things that he admires most about her.
She lifts her chin and comes closer, and closer still, until she's directly in front of him, her breath gently stirring his facial hair. She could kiss him without moving a muscle. He'd let her. They haven't kissed in nearly an hour and Lucanis hates that he knows that – he hates that he's counting the minutes, like he used to –
"As long as you're there, then that's everything I need," Rook says, smiling very slowly. Lucanis inhales, not a gasp but a soft, surprised breath, everything that's not her crumbling up like so much dust, blowing away with the wind...
Her strong, clever fingers twist through his to twine their fingers together, anchoring him to the present. To her. Rook's eyes are shadowed and dark, with understanding lurking deep. "Stay with me, love."
When she asks him like that, how can Lucanis possibly disappoint her?
———
Winter does very little to change Rialto Bay; the water dulls from its usual glowing, aquamarine brilliance into something cool and faded, as though its virtue and its essence has fled to warmer places to wait out the chill in the air, and perhaps there are fewer water fowl hanging around the shoreline in front of the Dellamorte villa, but the long, long stretch of wide-open water is the same, and the sprinkling of lights that dance atop it as ships large and small make their stately way to various ports and harbors scattered all along its long shoreline, and the smell that always occurs where the sea meets the land, rich with greenery and salt and the faint hint of rot underneath.
The Dellamorte villa is small, or it seems so to Lucanis, who grew up training in and through every inch of the sprawling manor in the heart of Treviso. It's only two floors, something like five bedrooms, with an expansive space on the main floor for his grandmother to entertain if she wishes to.
More importantly, there are no Crows tramping through the house at a moment's notice, come to train in the gardens or talk business with his grandmother; there's no mischievous family peering over his shoulder to make sure he and Rook aren't left alone for even a moment, no house servants to make Rook uncomfortable with his family's wealth, no direct line to the Lighthouse with which people can rouse her at any time, day or night, with decisions they can surely make on their own.
It's just them here.
(And Spite, of course; Lucanis glances over his shoulder, where Spite is prowling along the verge, looking far too interested in a simple hedge for Lucanis' peace of mind. Still. Rook can't see him, so Spite very nearly doesn't count at all.)
Beside him, Rook is also staring at the villa, though there's no haze of nostalgia clouding her vision; she's taking in its long and graceful lines, the manicured grounds that go on and on through low-slung beds of dormant flowers and a small, dry fountain, until grass turns to slippery pebbles to the fine sand that lines the beach on this side of the bay.
"You know, there's such a thing as having too much money," Rook says to him without taking her eyes from the house.
Lucanis laughs, pleased that she's not truly uneasy, only teasing him in the way that means she's comfortable. "I would give it all away for you, if I could," he says, picking up both her backpack and his own and hoisting them over his shoulder. "Unfortunately, it is family money, and not mine. Much of it is in a complicated series of trusts and funds."
"But not all of it," Rook says, giving him a laughing glance.
He grins at her. "I must support your coffee habit somehow."
"My coffee habit!" Rook squawks, turning to smack him on the arm. Lucanis sees the blow coming in the way that her muscles coil before she's even moved at all; he firmly squashes the instincts that direct him to grab his attacker's wrist and snap –
He makes no attempt to avoid her hand at all. Lucanis wonders if she will ever realize how much pure trust that requires of him.
The air isn't cold, not precisely, but it is cooler than most of the rest of Antiva, and there's a breeze blowing from somewhere deep in the bay, bringing a touch of chilly air and the smell of deeper cold with it. Lucanis presses his free hand to the small of Rook's back to urge her into motion, and she falls into step with him as easily as if they'd fought more than one high dragon together.
Inside, the villa is all lofty ceilings and high, pale walls, with dark beams to delineate spaces and make statements; the floor is also wood, though covered with light carpet, and here Caterina has chosen to forego the heavy Orlesian styles she's so fond of. Instead, the furniture is light in color, hand-carved in a traditional Antivan fashion of perhaps a century ago. It's very nearly comfortable. Lucanis is aware of a certain amount of weight dropping from his shoulders as he enters a place that is both his and more easily secured than the vast, sprawling estate outside.
Rook moves ahead of him, her steps lengthening as she looks around the entranceway, which spreads half of the length of the house, with two great staircases leading to the upper floor; she tilts her head back, her eyes going wider as she takes in the white-on-white plaster decorating the ceiling.
"One bed, you told me," Rook says flatly, giving him a look from under her lashes that might spear Lucanis through if he's not careful.
She's right, of course. A house like this has more than one bedroom, and therefore, more than one bed. But Lucanis doesn't want her that far away from him outside of the Fade, where safety lies in access to the eluvian. There is more than one group of people very angry with everyone who participated in the last Blight. He cannot protect her if she's not close.
Lucanis shrugs. "There is only one bed," he says, not even trying to be convincing. "It is very sad for us. Rich in coin, and yet poor in beds."
Rook turns her head; Lucanis fancies that he can see murder in her eyes.
His levity slips from his grasp as if it was never there at all. He truly hadn't considered that Rook might want her own bed, her own space. She still sleeps in the meditation room in the Fade, and he in the pantry; he'd thought that was because trying to fit more than one person in either bed was an attempt doomed to fail, but what if it was more than that? What if she's not ready? In his concern for her safety, Lucanis might have crossed a line he never intended to breach. Why is he still fumbling when it comes to her? "Unless, of course, you truly wish to sleep alone," he says, doing his best to hide his wince. Even that might pressure her –
But Rook turns around instantly, her coat flaring behind her, and makes a truly awful face at Lucanis that makes him laugh despite himself. "Bed-poor," she says thoughtfully, turning again, more slowly this time, to look more closely at the decorations. "I never thought it of Clan Dellamorte. I suppose everyone has a secret shame in the closet somewhere."
The wave of relief that surges through him makes Lucanis go slightly weak at the knees.
Idiot, Spite whispers scornfully in his ear.
Lucanis has no argument for him.
"My room is second on the left," he says, gesturing up the left flight of stairs. "I'm going to check that there's food in the kitchen. Are you hungry?"
Rook's eyes light up. It's difficult to swallow the smile that wants to take over his face. His love is a simple woman at heart, who enjoys the simple pleasures: an unexpected nap with Assan in a warm spot of sunlight, the sharp edge of a new blade, good and hearty food she had no hand in preparing.
For dinner, Lucanis cooks mussels in white wine with thick, crusty bread on the side. The loaf isn't his – he didn't have time to bake, not with Rook hanging over his shoulder and making tiny, inquisitive noises every time she smells something she likes that grow more and more urgent the later the hour. She's lucky there's very little knifework involved in tonight's dinner, Lucanis thinks with a smile.
Well.
Maybe he's the lucky one.
He takes Rook and the food out to the veranda, with Spite trailing along behind like a disgruntled puppy with wings, and lays their dinner out in front of the broad expanse of Rialto Bay. This table has held generations of Dellamortes shouting and drinking and laughing around its heavy, stately form. Lucanis himself grew up eating at this very table every summer, surrounded by so much family that he'd never once considered how quiet it might be without them.
The table is a long, smooth expanse of weather-hardened wood, exposed over many years of sun and salt and small children being terrors, and Lucanis rubs his fingers over the smooth, worn ridges embossed in the table's surface and smiles to find it just the way he remembered it. The sun is arcing slowly toward the horizon, and Rook drops onto one of the benches, takes a long drink of the wine in her hand, and sighs in pleasure.
"This was the best idea you've ever had," she says to him.
"I'll remember you said that, later tonight," Lucanis says back, smiling lazily at her.
Her bright, surprised laugh and the dry wine dancing on his tongue sink into his chest, into his heart, filling it up to the brim with the effervescence of the best kind of champagne. He watches Rook eat with enthusiasm; she's telling him stories, some he was there for and some he's never heard before, and even those Lucanis already knows are made more interesting by the twists of her clever tongue and the wicked humor that goes along with it.
Caterina allowed him the use of the Rialto villa with no more than a caustic the First Talon must be seen in public eventually, grandson, which is less than Lucanis expected from her. Lucanis thinks that she rather enjoys Rook, whose teasing has never had that air of cruelty that often lies under Caterina's more pointed observations, though of course Lucanis much prefers Rook's sense of humor, which is less likely to bite.
There couldn't be a more startling contrast to last year's Satinalia than the cool and faintly briny smell of the bay, the light, choppy breeze that brings it to them and tugs the tie out of Rook's hair, the tastes and smells of the food of his home melting on his tongue; even Spite laying on the table and making sarcastic comments about the people in Rook's stories can't put a dent in Lucanis' happiness.
Lucanis isn't healed yet. He knows that. But there will come a time when he is very nearly whole again, free of the burden of what was done to him and the betrayal of someone he loved like a brother, and when that happens, he knows, beyond the shadow of a doubt, that Rook will be there waiting for him.
And that's the best gift of all.