Chapter Text
“Again.”
Sweat stung his eyes, and Lucanis ineffectually wiped his forearm against them. It only made the burn worse, as the rough edges of leather rubbed raw his skin and let the salt sink in.
Use the pain, Caterina’s voice intoned in his mind. Pain is valuable. You must let it become a weapon in your arsenal.
Focusing inward, using the pain to cut through unnecessary distractions as he’d been taught, wasn’t working. It wasn’t centralized enough, it was everywhere. His eyes, his burning lungs, his sore and certainly bruised arms and legs.
Blunt weapons didn’t kill, but they still left a mark.
“We go again.”
From where he was hunched over his knees, panting, Illario looked at Lucanis like the latter was truly insane.
“No.” He shook his head as he straightened. Lucanis’ vision was a bit blurry, the salt in his eyes drawing out the beginning of tears, but he thought he saw the shadow of bruises on his cousin’s neck. “Enough, Lucanis. We’ve been doing this for hours. Even Caterina has left. I’m done.”
“Afraid you’ll lose? Again?”
Illario rolled his eyes. “You are better with your daggers than your words, and bad with those too.” He smirked.
“Then why are you still here?”
Illario’s face reddened satisfyingly. Unfortunately, he still turned to stomp his way to the door. Spinning on his heel at the threshold, he declared, “I’m not going to waste away in here. I have better things to do. A life. You should try it..”
And with that, he was gone.
Coward.
Now alone in the cavernous room Caterina used for practicing close quarters fighting, Lucanis finally let his guard drop. Illario had, more than once, feigned an end to their bouts, waited for Lucanis’ guard to drop, and then taken his chance. It happened less now; but, of course, Lucanis dropped his guard far less often now as well.
It is those closest to us that can most effectively wield the knife, Caterina’s voice intoned in his mind. She wasn’t wrong; at least when it came to sparring. Illario fought dirty – as he should, as they’d been taught – but they’d never had a true fight and Lucanis doubted they ever would.
They were all that was left, after all.
Lucanis gathered his things and went back to the room he and Illario shared. No fledglings in House Dellamorte, not even her own grandsons living in their own home, needed their own rooms. A spoiled assassin was one easy to break, and so there would be none of that so long as Caterina was the House’s talon.
It wasn’t always so bad. Except for the times it was. Caterina didn’t often break up fights with her walking stick, but it had been known to happen on occasion.
This wasn’t likely to be one of them, though, as the room was empty when Lucanis entered. Whatever life it was Illario was out living tonight, apparently he hadn’t needed much preparation. Lucanis said a quick thanks to the Maker for that; Illario could sometimes take hours to get ready to leave. And, worst of all, it frequently required copious amounts of Orlesian eau de toilette that made the eyes and nose burn.
Being a peacock was apparently more important to his cousin than breathing.
Lucanis pulled off his training armor slowly, mindful of the bruises and scrapes he bore from this afternoon. Pain might focus you in battle, but Caterina had always told them to be mindful of caring for their injuries once the fight had ended. Being waylaid by injury was not an option. Once down to his tunic and leathers, and after using the small basin of water near their window to wash out any dirt, Lucanis took a healing potion from his wardrobe.
It tasted terrible. Worse than some poisons, and he would know.
In his mind’s eye he saw the shift of weight in Illario’s legs he’d missed earlier, the subtle change in grip that indicated a new path for a blunted blade. Too late to spare him, but not too late to learn from. Lucanis mimicked the footwork he’d used earlier. Again. And again. A third time, before he realized what Illario had seen in his form. He’d have to work on that. Once his muscles burned less, Lucanis decided, he would try it again before a mirror.
As the potion worked its way through his body, bruises lightening and skin knitting back together, Lucanis pulled on his dinner clothes. Based on his taunts, Illario would be out for the night; Caterina would have no one to focus her critical attentions on but Lucanis himself.
He could feel the start of a headache building behind his eyes.
That wouldn’t be for hours yet, though, and his stomach growled uncomfortably. As his own life was far more quiet than Illario’s, indeed more quiet than most of his fledgling peers, he’d nothing with a schedule to do this evening. Which, fortunately, left plenty of time for a snack.
His footsteps echoed down the halls. No amount of furniture or portraits could make the corridor something it wasn’t. Villa Dellamorte was large, grand, stately. And it was, other than the three remaining members of the Dellamorte family and a small hand-selected staff, empty. It was more a vault than a home, but they would never leave. Abuela would never leave.
Illario perhaps couldn’t. This amount of luxury was hard to find beyond their walls, after all, and he had very particular standards.
A small, hidden door in the wall granted entry to the staff passages. Narrower, with lower ceilings, his footsteps stopped thundering and instead were soft thuds against well-worn wood. Comfortable.
“Ah, mijo, done with training for today?” Sergio clapped him on the shoulder, hard, as he entered the kitchen and Lucanis was grateful for his earlier decision to take the healing potion despite its acrid taste. “Come, we will help rebuild your strength, si?”
He gestured towards a scarred wooden counter where a plate, laden with pan dulce, sat. Lucanis wondered if they were intended for some other purpose, or if he came down so often that they’d begun simply making him a plate.
He wasn’t sure which possibility bothered him more, truth be told.
Sergio didn’t seem bothered, however, so Lucanis helped himself to a concha.
Something on the stove hissed as liquid met flame in the warm room. Steam rose from pots on several burners, and Sergio was already back to busying himself with chopping some vegetables.
“What is for dinner?” Lucanis wondered as his stomach rumbled with equal curiosity. Hopefully the heat would cover his embarrassment at the sound.
“Ratatouille. An Orlesian chef down in the marketplace gave me her recipe.” He went back to the stove to check something, and Lucanis cursed his small size as he couldn’t manage to see what the chef was working on. Sergio swore as something boiled over.
“Do you need any help?” Lucanis was surprised by how hopeful he was that the answer was yes. He would take his third concha and go, if he was any trouble; he could always go back to fixing the error he’d identified in his footwork. Or read, he supposed, if the situation grew dire.
But, ever since Sergio had allowed him to make bread with him two summers before, he’d learned he preferred doing this. When his training and abuela permitted. Which was, admittedly, rare; he wasn’t as skilled in the kitchen as he wished he were and might simply be a hindrance.
Sergio’s eyes on him were sharp, critical. Lucanis braced himself for a ‘no.’
“Put on an apron first. I can’t afford to replace those clothes, and I’d feel bad making Maria wash them.”
Lucanis grinned and nearly ran to the closet where the linens were kept. “Where can I start?”