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Illario was ostensibly forgiven but knew things would take a while to get back to normal with Lucanis. If they ever did which was not a thought he liked to linger on. This was his second chance though and he did not intend to waste it.
So best behaviour. He could do that, no problem. Still he had not seen his cousin since everything came to a head.
He missed him.
Lucanis was more than a cousin, he was his brother in every way that mattered.
Illario had not expected Lucanis to be stinking drunk when they reunited. He had arrived home and immediately retreated from everyone. Illario had no idea of anything that had happened. For some mysterious reason he was no longer read in on status updates on the fight.
The middle of the night and his door was kicked open. Illario did not even ready himself to fight back, so certain that Lucanis had changed his mind and was going to kill him as he deserved. But instead Lucanis was swaying on his feet dishevelled and eyes blurry with some deep unfathomable sorrow.
"You'll-hic-you'll be pleased to know that she is...she is gone." He sobbed out the last word.
"Gone? Who is gone? Caterina?"
"No! Mara. Mara is gone. She is gone."
Still fuzzy with the sleep he had been but moments from falling into. "Mara? Who is Mara?"
"ROOK!" Lucanis roared. Roared like he had on Tearstone when she vanished in a cloud of light. He threw the wineglass right at his cousins head, missing him by millimetres, his aim off from the second bottle of wine.
Illario rolled off of the bed, more confused than ever.
"Rook? What do you mean gone?"
Lucanis laughed hysterically. "Gone gone gone. She disappeared. Vanished. Now you see her, now you don't."
"Are you certain that she is gone? Maybe she'll turn up?"
"IT HAS BEEN DAYS. WEEKS! SHE IS GONE!"
Illario had never seen Lucanis as out of control as this. Not when their families were killed. Not during Caterina's abuses. Not when his crush was thwarted. Not on returning from The Ossuary possessed, Caterina's "death", the revalation of his betrayal.
This though, this loss of a woman he had known less than a year? Nothing had broken his cousin so completely.
"You are in love with her!" His voice had a note of wonder, he had not even known that Lucanis was capable of that.
He sank to his knees, weeping like the lost little boy they both were inside still. "I never told her."
Carefully Illario knelt beside him, a hand on his shoulder. Suddenly his arms were around him, a tight and desperate embrace. The Dellamorte cousins held each other in comfort as they had done as children. Illario held him as Lucanis wept.