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Lucanis slammed the door of Emmrich’s studio open and ran like he was being followed by the ghosts of all the victims he’d killed for contracts.
He needed to breathe, and every room in the Lighthouse felt too tight and suffocating. He ran outside, and only then he let himself fall on his knees.
Lucanis took a deep breath, but air immediately left his body. His heart pounded hard against his chest and his hands didn’t stop shaking.
His mind was trying to push away the truth he’d just heard from Zara’s body—courtesy of Emmrich’s corpse whispering.
The answer to the question he’d wondered in the last year, that had kept him awake in the long hours in the Ossuarium.
Illario Dellamorte.
The name was like an echo that kept resonating in Lucanis’s mind.
His cousin was the traitor. He could have never imagined—
DON’T LIE TO YOURSELF.
Spite was showing himself, and he was staring at him with his arms crossed over his chest. Lucanis had to admit it felt weird to be looked like that by his own mirror image.
YOU KNEW IT WAS HIM. YOU DIDN’T WANT TO ACCEPT IT.
For how much Lucanis wanted to deny it, the demon was right. They shared the same body and had access to the same information, after all.
The truth had always been there, in front of him.
Illario had been acting strange since the moment he came back and he’d vehemently rejected the idea of a spy infiltrated among the Crows. He’d even used Blood Magic to stop Spite, as if that wasn’t enough proof.
Lucanis took a deep, shaky breath.
His mind had refused to connect the clues because the idea of Illario—his cousin, his brother—had been the one sentencing him to a year of torture was too painful. He couldn’t accept having been betrayed by the person he’d trusted and loved the most in the world.
By his own blood.
It felt like all the evidence he’d chased away suddenly came uninvited back into his mind.
Illario was just out of the church when he, Rook and Bellara had climbed on the Chantry’s roof. Not only he knew that Zara was there, but he’d insisted on coming with them.
“Maledetto bastardo,” he hissed.1
His cousin had used his own feelings against him, because he knew Lucanis would see it as Illario trying to be helpful and not to check in if he found out who Zara’s source was.
I TOLD YOU IT WAS HIM. YOU DIDN’T LISTEN.
Another truth that struck him like one of Spite’s punches in the face.
There had to be an explanation, Lucanis told himself.
Maybe his cousin was under Blood Magic’s control. Maybe Venatori or the Antaam were blackmailing him.
Spite scoffed. EVEN YOU DON’T BELIEVE IT.
Lucanis sighed. His cousin wasn’t under blackmail or magical control, and the sooner he accepted this truth, the better.
Lucanis hadn’t seen it. His cousin always wanted to be First Talon, and he never worried about being Caterina’s favourite.
If he thought about it analytically, like when he examined the life of his contracts, it was easy to see that Illario resented him. Caterina was most likely going to name him First Talon, and take away his cousin’s ambition of a lifetime, and he misplaced his boiling rage on Lucanis.
But he’d loved Illario like a brother, and that love had blinded him to all of this.
ROOK!
Lucanis turned around. She’d reached him, and she was as concerned as he’d never seen her.
“Do you want to talk?”
A deep shame rushed over him—and not just because he was the one causing her so much worry.
She had been trying to talk to him about how suspicious Illario’s behavior was, starting from his strong reaction when Lucanis told him about the possibility of spies.
Rook had also insisted it was weird that Illario couldn’t show up with Caterina’s ashes, or that he was on the Chantry roof exactly when they were about to face Zara, that he knew how to wield Blood Magic or that the Venatori woman had tried to call him a Tevinter pet name.
Lucanis had shut down all those conversations, because he hadn’t wanted to see and accept the truth.
He felt like an idiot now.
I WANT TO TALK TO ROOK.
Lucanis didn’t let the demon come out, but he nodded and Rook sat next to him.
She expected her to say something on the line of I told you so, but she looked at him sincerely concerned—it made his heart flutter in his chest.
“I’m sorry,” she said. “It must not be easy to accept that Illario is the traitor.”
Lucanis sighed. “Are you not going to say you were right all along?”
Rook addressed him with a smile that made him feel weird. He’d read about that sensation in books and in the serials Bellara got him into, but he’d never experienced it before meeting Rook.
“Oh, I will once you recover from the news,” she said, and Lucanis felt Spite’s laugh in a corner of his mind. “But still, it must be a lot to process.”
Illario. Blood of his blood.
It hurt more than he expected. He had trusted Illario with his life, but now he’d broken it. Lucanis only felt a deep pain and rage just thinking about him.
“Illario is my cousin, but he’s my brother in all the ways that matter,” he said. “I just couldn’t accept—”
She put a hand on his arm. It felt like a small shock on his body, and he was pretty sure it had nothing to do with her magic.
“I get it. If you need some time to process this, I can ask Neve and Bellara to come with me to Arlathan for the next mission.”
Lucanis vaguely remembered that she said, in front of the whole team, that the Veil Jumpers needed help with some artifacts. He had volunteered, and wanted to reply that there was no need for that, and he would be ready to leave whenever Rook needed him.
But, in truth, he needed to process the discovery. The last thing he wanted was to be a nuisance to the Veil Jumpers because he was distracted by the thoughts of his cousin.
Lucanis nodded.
“One last thing, before you go,” he said.
Rook, who had looked like she was going to get up, stared at him with curiosity. Mierda, why did his face feel like it was on fire whenever Rook looked at him like that?
Lucanis forced himself to go back to what he wanted to ask her. “What did Zara try to call my cousin before he slit her throat?”
“Amatus,” she replied immediately. “It’s a Tevinter word I’d use for—for the man I love.”
He noticed her weird hesitation, but he didn’t ask about it. Lucanis wasn’t sure he was ready to hear about it, yet.
He sighed. Zara’s corpse had confessed already that Illario had been her lover, but he’d hoped that she’d lied about it.
The idea that his cousin had sex with the woman that had him tortured for one year made Lucanis feel like he was going to vomit everything he’d eaten the last couple of days.
Maker’s breath.
“Thank you.”
Rook got up, but she didn’t leave right away. “If you want to talk about it, you know you can come meet me.”
It was a weird thought that, a few months ago, he wouldn’t have even spoken to her about anything that wasn’t strictly related to the missions they were going to do together. But Rook had worked hard to make him trust her again, and the idea of talking to her about Illario wasn’t that bad.
“I will,” he just said.
Only then, Rook walked towards Neve’s office and left him alone. Well, not really alone—he hadn’t been for a long time, courtesy of Zara Renata and his cousin.
Spite appeared again in front of him. WE GET VENGEANCE.
Those words made him uncomfortable, but not for the demon’s sentence. No, Lucanis was bothered by how he reacted to them.
“I would never hurt my cousin.”
Spite regarded him with a mocking laugh.
I FEEL WHAT YOU FEEL DEEP IN YOUR HEART. YOU WANT ILLARIO TO PAY FOR BETRAYING YOU.
Lucanis didn’t answer. He couldn’t really lie to the demon.
He knew he couldn’t discuss with Spite or ask him to leave, but—
“Not now,” he said. “I will when the time is right.”
The demon seemed satisfied by that answer. He looked at Lucanis with a wide grin.
WE’LL TAKE OUR REVENGE, AND THEN WE’LL BE FREE.
Lucanis felt a gut punch to that. He’d promised it to the demon so long ago, but he felt like he’d never really left the Ossuary.
He didn’t want to think about that. Maybe Spite was right and that was the only way to be free from his own mind.
“We will,” he promised.
He got up and walked to the pantry. He had to set a meeting with Viago and Teia to tell them the news he’d just learned.
And then, he’d keep his promise.