Chapter Text
There is a ghost in the corner of Rook’s eye. It leans casually against Emmrich’s chair drinking black coffee out of a fancy Antivan teacup and trying to catch her attention.
She ignores it, clenching her jaw and fixing her gaze on a crack in a stone wall just behind Bellara’s head. She can do this. She can. It’s one last push. One last fight, and then it will be over, one way or another. Either they’ll win, and she can have a long-overdue meltdown, or she’ll be dead and the issue will be much less pressing.
The ghost interjects itself into the conversation, and Rook’s eyes flicker to it, unbidden. It’s disorienting, seeing him standing there like this is any other team meeting — waistcoat pressed, sleeves rolled up, fingers drumming a soft tattoo against bone china. Every time she blinks her eyes, another him is there too. His true image, super-imposed on the backs of her eyelids — body broken on the flagstones at Tearstone, eyes vacant in death. She had thought it would be the last sight of him she ever had. The idea made her feel cold to her bones. But now she regrets how wrong she was.
Rook shakes her head to clear it, hoping the action is subtle, and attempts to focus back on planning. She paces restlessly while Emmrich and Bellara explain, so that the ghost can be just a smudge at the edge of her vision. It’s nothing. It’s a piece of Fade dust caught in her eye. She can do this.
The picture presented isn’t exactly sunny. Elgar’nan in Minrathous, Solas leading another little rebellion. A dagger that both is and isn’t like the Dread Wolf’s fang.
“He’s not going to be happy when he sees you’ve escaped from his trap.”
The ghost’s voice is a deep rumble. Familiar. Comforting in almost any other circumstance. Now it turns her blood to ice. Is it a warning? A taunt? She’s never been able to read the smug bastard. If she had, she would have cottoned on to his tricks from the beginning.
The plan isn’t complicated. Get the dagger. Kill Elgar’nan. Deal with Solas. Varric coined her nickname because he said she only thinks in straight lines, and she certainly doesn’t have the capacity for twists and double bluffs right now.
They honor those gone, she tells her companions. There are debts to be paid to the dead, and Rook intends to make good.
After she breaks the meeting, Rook makes an attempt at relaxing the muscles in her body one by one. It is a painful and ultimately fruitless endeavor. Nothing about this situation is relaxed.
As she watches the others go off to their own tasks, she’s already making a list in her head. Pacing again. On the move. No one can reach the Shadow Dragons now, and they probably wouldn’t answer her call anyway with Neve taken. Gods, Neve … No, she can’t go down that path. Action now.
She’ll reach out to their other allies, hat in her fucking hand. Veil Jumpers, Lords of Fortune, Mourn Watch, Grey Wardens. Will that be enough? She can’t ask the Crows. Can’t even think about standing in front of Teia and Viago and asking for help when she…
“Rook, are you alright?”
She comes up short in the path she’s been carving back and forth across the library, faced with a neat row of silver buttons set against deep purple brocade. Rook gives in enough to lift her gaze a few inches to see his throat working as he swallows back something else he wants to say.
She hates the part of herself that wants to reach out for him, to place a palm on his chest so she can feel him breathing, warm and steady, and search for the insistent thump of a heartbeat. He isn’t really there.
Still, Rook has been entirely too kind to herself, calling the figure before her a ghost. He isn’t a ghost or a wisp, isn’t some wayward spirit needing to be shepherded to its proper place to find peace. He isn’t the miracle that one tiny, cooling ember in her heart wants him to be.
The Lucanis in front of her is a construct. He’s a twisted puppet made up of Fade and blood magic. Just like Varric had been. Varric, who is dead. Who has been dead all these many months while Rook existed in blissful ignorance, unable to mourn. While Solas used his memory to twist and mold her into what he needed her to be.
Does the Dread Wolf really think her stupid enough to fall for the same trick twice? Rook pours a little more water on that stubborn ember. Of course he does. To Solas, a mortal like her is nothing more than a dog content to repeatedly run off after a ball that has only ever been hidden behind his back.
She had wondered, back in the Fade prison, why there was no statue for Lucanis there. Why would he — among all the people she’s escorted so faithfully to their deaths — be left out?
This is the reason why. The god of deceit and trickery was saving him just in case she got out. Solas always has another angle to work if his plans go awry. So he kept Lucanis’ shade in his back pocket in case she needed another friendly face to guide her where he wants her to be.
Right now he’s thinking that Rook and the Veilguard will make a very nice distraction to help him get close to Elgar’nan and his archdemon. He wants her help so he can kill his wayward kinsman and proceed to drown the world in demons. And he’s using Lucanis’ face to get her to the proper position on his game board.
Rook’s teeth grind in her jaw, her fists clench until her nails dig sharp into the meat of her palms. For the first time, she looks up into his face. Better not to flinch from this. She has to choose the hard truth over the easy lie now more than ever.
“We’ve still got work to do,” she says, wondering if he can comprehend the threat in the words, even through his little puppet. “I can collapse once this is over.”
I’m coming for you, you overconfident motherfucker, she thinks. And this isn’t going to go the way you planned it.
“We can contact our allies, Rook,” the puppet says, making that familiar voice unfamiliar in the soothing caress of it. “You should rest. After all you’ve been through … I’ll come by your room soon to see how you’re doing.”
It’s remarkable, really, how well Solas has rendered the details of a man he never met in the flesh. The bloom of purple under his eyes from lack of sleep is exactly how she remembers it, the mole on his forehead is in just the right spot, but there’s something achingly off about the performance of it. The eyes are gentle where they should be sharp and assessing. The voice attempts to soothe when it rarely held such a tone in real life.
Solas is over-playing his position. Varric was his friend, once upon a time. They toiled in the trenches together, and he could mimic the man eerily well. But for Lucanis? Well, he only has Rook’s mind for reference. Of course he made the Crow softer, more open, than he should be.
Watching it makes her stomach twist. It reminds her, disconcertingly of going to a Punch and Judy show and seeing Punch’s mouth moving a few moments before the performer voiced the words.
Rook’s eyes shift to the floor, and she scuffs a toe against the tile. She gives one noncommittal nod, then leaves. She’s not going to trust that thing to carry out her plans, and the members of her team will want to talk to her one-on-one, anyway.
She considers briefly — before she leaves Emmrich to his preparations for the morrow —asking if he can do something to ward against Solas’ intrusion into her mind. Neve could have done it. Solas had said so himself, through Varric’s mouth, all those months ago. He was so confident that she wouldn’t take the out that he dangled it right in front of her face.
And he had been right, hadn’t he? Read her like a book. She couldn’t resist the chance to gather information, even with the knowledge that he would be plotting an escape the whole time. Rook had been a fool to think she could beat him in a battle happening purely in the Fade. She’ll do it differently, next time.
For now … She’s worried that maybe the knot of her mind and Solas’ magic is too much to untangle even for the inimitable Professor Volkarin. If that’s true, what good does it do to make her team doubt her capabilities right before the final push? Solas already knows they’re coming. He has, in fact, arranged it especially.
All Rook can do now is grit her teeth and try to make it through. All she can do is wait for an opportunity, wait for a god to falter, and be ready to strike when he does. As a strategy, it leaves a lot to be desired.
Eventually, she does drag herself back to her room, collapsing onto the meditation couch that serves as her bed with a weariness that seeps into her soul and makes her feel physically heavier. She should undress and try to sleep. Take her shoes off at least. But she can’t muster the energy. Instead, she watches the bluegreenpurple light from the aquarium flicker and dance across the stone ceiling.
The quiet in here has the echoing quality of a sea cave. The texture of it is thick and heavy. Rook swears she can feel it press against her skin. She’s in a bubble of silence, with so many unsaid things pressing on the outside, testing the tension for weak points.
Then her door swings open with a creak, and the bubble pops. Rook flinches, the innocuous sound seeming entirely too loud. The footsteps that follow are like fingernails on a chalkboard.
She sits up, thinking it’s Taash, finally having worked up the nerve to scream at her about Harding. That feels only right and fair. Or maybe Bellara in need of little more reassurance before tomorrow.
When she turns, though, it’s the puppet looking at her with those soft fucking eyes.
“I cannot believe we found you,” he says, voice low and intent.
He says it like it’s a gift rather than an immense inconvenience, that she is here. God of lies, Rook reminds herself. God of deceit.
“I’m a little surprised too, honestly,” she replies, wryly.
“I thought I’d never see you again.”
He’s moving slowly but inexorably closer, and Rook doesn’t know what to do with that. I thought the same thing, she wants to say. More fool me.
“I can’t believe …” she starts, then stops herself.
How do you lie to the god of lies? She’s never tried it before. She’s all straight lines and forward momentum. She was foolhardy, earlier. She’s worried she let all her bitterness leak through. But Rook can’t continue in that vein. She has to be smart about this, but mind games have never been her expertise. If he knows she suspects him, he’ll be on his guard tomorrow. He’ll be less likely to falter. Less likely to make a mistake she can use.
“So much happened,” is all she manages, voice small in her echoing chamber. A plain truth, if not all of it. “I don’t know how to feel.”
His footsteps are closer now. He rounds the back of the couch and kneels down in front of her so that she has to face him again. It’s ironic, is what it is. How many times has she imagined him here, like this, on his knees for her? He looks up at her with those big brown eyes that she could almost swear are glassy with unshed tears. A bad performance, she has the time to think.
Then he does the unthinkable. He cups both of her hands in his.
The touch is a shocking thing. Her mind is a flurry. Did Varric ever touch her? After the ritual? She’s never thought about it. Never even considered. It wasn’t a strange thing, until it was.
But he had, just casually. Hadn’t he? A supportive cuff on the shoulder when she pulled off something unexpected, a pat on her back when a team meeting had gone poorly. He had held her hand too, that night before they left for Tearstone. Gripped it tight as he told her once more, “You’ve got this kid.”
It feels like pressing on a fresh bruise, making herself acknowledge that it wasn’t him that said it. Wasn’t him that believed it. It was only ever Solas, moving her into place.
So he can make her feel things. Things that aren’t there. He’s dug in deeper than she thought was possible. Deeper than she could dream to fear.
The hands that surround hers are warm and rough. She can feel the calluses on his fingers from gripping his daggers too tightly, the smoothness of a long-healed scar on his left palm. A knife through his hand, maybe? He runs his thumbs over the ridge of her knuckles, and it’s a sweet, sweet sort of torture.
“I do,” Solas is saying with Lucanis’ mouth, with Lucanis’ voice. “I know exactly how to feel.”
The kiss is a shockwave to her system. Rook’s brain goes bright white and thrumming. There is no resisting the magnetic pull of it. His lips are softer than she expected, his mouth hot and lush, tasting of dark coffee and a hint of burnt sugar. His hands move carefully up her arms —leaving goosebumps in their wake — until he’s holding her with one steadying palm on the small of her back, the other cupping her neck.
He brings them somehow closer together, pressing in against her —leather, silk, skin — and licking her mouth open to stroke her tongue with his own. When he does, the low thrum in the back of her mind becomes a perfect crystalline silence. There is no thought, only the need to have him here touching her, wanting her. Having him here. Lucanis …
Then he shifts them, and Rook is falling softly back onto the meditation couch, strong arms supporting her in the descent. Her eyes fly open, and that crystal of quiet shatters into a thousand pieces. This is wrong. This isn’t Lucanis. This is …
She pushes herself out of his grasp, shuffles back on the meditation couch like a crab until she can huddle agains the green velvet arm. Her sudden movement sends him flailing onto his ass on the slate floor.
She briefly registers his groan, but her mind is too busy to do much with it. What is this? What is this? The Dread Wolf doesn’t want to bed her. So what …
Oh. Oh no. She had a piece of it before. Solas has only ever known the Lucanis that exists in Rook’s mind. And Rook. Well, Rook is far too prone to daydreams. This is her own damn fault.
In reality, she and the Crow had made their way to a steady and stalwart friendship that she cherished. He trusted her in his mind when so few people were allowed in that close, trusted her to deal with Spite, and she trusted he would always have her back. It was a good and rare thing.
But she never fully gave up the daydream of them being more than that. She sometimes even convinced herself that he wanted her too — that almost kiss in the pantry, the time he spent hours making her a hazelnut torte to accompany her favorite coffee blend. It had all come to nothing, though. Just a silly story she told herself sometimes after a particular tough battle, when she needed to think of someone touching her tenderly.
It’s a story that Solas is now trying to twist into something else. Something to keep her happy and compliant and distracted. Damn him. Damn it. Rook has to figure out how to play this.
While she huddles there, having an entirely premature breakdown, the thing masquerading as Lucanis gets to its feet.
“Rook?” his voice is a soft, broken thing, and he holds his hands out to her in a gesture that is simultaneously intended to be soothing and to prove to her that he is unarmed, that he means no harm.
Then his face twists, he flinches, and his eyes go a vibrant purple.
“Smells like lightning and salt,” comes a sharper, huskier voice. “You made Rook sad. Stop now!”
Rook can feel it, the stress sweat, the tears she’s holding onto with a white-knuckled grip, the lightning crackling along the surface of her skin —an uncharacteristic lack of magical control brought on by sheer panic. Spite? If Solas can mimic Lucanis, maybe he can mimic Spite too. But would he ever think to do so?
Rook can’t help herself. That stubborn, sputtering ember in her heart flares a little brighter.
With a grimace, the purple fades from Lucanis’ eyes, and he rubs his hands over his face.
“Meirda, Rook, I’m so sorry,” he says, voice a low whisper. “I thought we were on the same page. That you wanted … Please. Forgive me. I won’t … I won’t touch you.”
He stumbles backward with an uncharacteristic lack of grace.
“No!”
Rook isn’t sure what comes over her. She can’t let him walk out the door. If it’s really him. If it’s their last night before they try to kill a god.
Her mind is a whirlwind. The flame in her heart threatens to turn it into a pillar of fire. She can’t let him kiss her again, but she also can’t let him go. Not if he’s a puppet, and certainly not if he isn’t.
It can’t be. He can’t be … He’s dead. She saw him. And yet …
She hangs her head and stretches out a hand to him, unsure what happens next.
What happens is two hands curled around her own, holding it tight like a lifeline. A shuffling step, and her palm is pressed against the lapel of his waistcoat. She grips at the fabric unbidden.
“I don’t know what’s happening anymore,” she says, so tired. So undone. “It’s too much, right now. I need …”
“Tell me what you need,” he prompts. “Rook, please. I don’t want to hurt you again.”
When she lifts her head, he’s there. So close, and not close enough. Tomorrow. Tomorrow she’ll put her defenses back up. She’ll find a way through this, or die trying. For tonight, well, maybe it’s alright to daydream a little bit longer.
“Just … just don’t leave.”
Lucanis’ mouth tilts up into an almost-smile, an expression she’s seen so rarely that it seems designed especially for her.
“Never,” he says. Like it’s a promise. Like it’s a vow.
This quiet is lighter than the one that preceded it, at least. Lucanis uses it retake his place at her feet. Rook experiences a momentary flash of fear. If he kisses her again, she’s not sure she’ll have the will to stop him.
He must hear the ragged turn to her breath, because the smile turns downward, and he shakes his head.
“No, Spite,” he mutters. “I will not scare her again.”
Instead of leaning in toward her, he wraps a hand around her calf and carefully unbuckles her boot, slides it off while running a thumb across the curve of her instep — gentle, but forceful enough not to tickle. It’s such a simple thing, but shocking in its intimacy. Rook is tempted to curl away from him again. But a larger part of her wants it, has longed for him to lay her bare like this, to do the same for him. Even if it’s only in her mind. A little tenderness, before the violence to come. That’s not such an unconscionable thing, is it?
The gesture is repeated for the other foot, and then he looks up at her and hesitates. Slowly, he reaches out and runs a finger along the collar of her shirt, lifts an eyebrow to her in question.
When she nods, heart in her throat, he precedes to undo her buttons one by one, to help her shuck off first shirt and then trousers until she’s left in just her underthings. Rook reaches up to begin undoing his many buttons, but his hand covers hers to still it.
He shakes his head and takes a step back, starts on the work of his own buttons alone. When he steps toward her again, he moves in a slow, deliberate way. He has the air of a man approaching an easily spooked animal. Right now, Rook feels feral and desperate, so it's not surprising.
She says nothing as he sits down beside her, pulls her to him, settles them so that she’s lying on his chest. She can feel her body lift when he breaths in, the scratch of his chest hair against her cheek, the repetitive stroke of his fingers down the line of her spine.
The quality of the quiet around them shifts again — softer, diffused by the thump of his heart beneath her ear and the ragged husk of her own breathing. Rook opens her eyes to slits and looks up to see herself enveloped in a canopy of purple spectral feathers.
“Is this alright? he asks, fingers taking another trip up and down her back. “I told Spite I would take care of you, but he … He wanted to do something to help.”
“Yes,” she replies, voice still a little ragged at the edges. “Yes, this is nice. I —I’m sorry I’ve botched your plans for the evening.”
She feels the shift in his body. He’s shaking his head. A hand comes up to cup her cheek, a thumb run along the crest of her cheekbone. Very gently, he tilts her head up so their gazes meet, lock.
“For the first time in a long time, I am perfectly content,” he says. Simple. Direct. As though it’s that easy. Contentment.
“Nothing more to be wished for, huh?” She quips because she always quips. If she isn’t quipping she’s probably dead.
“Only …”
He hesitates, and Rook braces herself for what he will ask with the inner knowledge that, in this moment, she’ll give it to him.
“Hm?” she prompts, burrowing into his chest again to hide from the penetration of those eyes.
“Could you talk to me?” he asks, words vibrating through her. “Your voice is a comfort.”
Well, Rook is already in a daydream. It won’t take much to tell the story she’s selling herself out loud, will it?
“I’ll tell you the tale of a charming rogue who stole the heart of a hapless hero,” she whispers.
“I like the sound of that one.”
“Oh, it’s a real corker,” she agrees. “Now, let’s see. Once upon a time …”