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For the first few weeks, months even, he’s alone. No one wants to talk to him - or even look at him. He would say something romantic like 'he wanders Treviso in a haze' but it’s simply not true, he’s lucky to make it to the villa's front doors, never mind past them.
But it only takes one.
And Andarateia breaks first. It should be a surprise to no one, if Lucanis and Viago are a pair for whatever reason, he and Teia are the counter. They share the same expertise and know above all else what it is to use and be used. They’ve been actual friends for a long time and if he’s being honest she’s one of the few people he does regret betraying.
He doesn’t do it intentionally, she and Viago are loyal to Lucanis and the Crows -only behind each other- so he doesn’t see a point in trying to charm them. It’s just a well placed grumbled remark about Viago having a stick up his ass that sends Teia laughing like she’s forgotten about the past year. Viago glares at her for only a second before rolling his eyes, Lucanis looks up from the contract they had been discussing before he walked in, and there’s finally a crack in the icy barrier between him and them.
Forgiveness, he does know, isn’t actually as freely given as Lucanis made it out to be. It’s earned. Hard earned. It’s not that he’s above hard work, because he’s not, but he really didn’t expect it to be so hard. It would be so much easier if he simply didn’t want their forgiveness.
But he does.
Annoyingly.
Surprisingly, Viago is the next to crack. Teia has gone back to Rialto needing a break from the city for at least the weekend, Lucanis is visiting one of his new friends - Illario wasn’t listening when he told him who. So Viago has been called upon to babysit. After two whole days of ignoring his presence Illario’s bedroom door bangs open about an hour after a breakfast he didn’t eat was served.
“Get up.”
“Why?”
“Get dressed.”
"No." He responds, finding himself petulant.
A shirt hits him square in the face, trousers next, and he almost falls off the bed in surprise.
“If you don’t move I’m going to throw your boots too,”
Illario grumbles but dresses, runs a brush through his hair, and re-ties the knot.
“Under girlfriends orders? You two are ‘on’ again now, right?”
“Yes. But no. I can’t stand your moping.”
“Aw, you do care,”
“I don’t.” Viago snaps. “But while I dislike your charming persona, I find I simply cannot abide this.”
“Where are we going?”
“I need some ingredients, and you’re going to come for a walk."
“Oh? And if I refuse?”
“You already got dressed,” Viago smirks.
Illario decides, while he laces his boots, that arrogance unfortunately looks almost as good on the Fifth Talon as it does on the Seventh, and he begins to understand the mans appeal to the most attractive woman in Antiva.
“Get your gloves, and bring a spare pair. Just in case you touch something you really shouldn’t,”
“Not hoping this outing might kill me?”
“Maybe it will, then Teia can finally host one real funeral for this family,”
Illario snorts as the door closes behind them.
His cousin avoids him. Even after six months, and the return of the four of them having dinner together, drinks together, spending time together like the old days. There are fissures, and holes, veining cracks spider webbing their way across the barrier between them, but it just won’t shatter.
And he’s trying with Lucanis, he’s trying really hard. Not in a weasel-y way, or a too hard way, but a way he hopes is coming across genuine. He offers help, tries to initiate polite conversation, compliments the food that he makes. And… Nothing works. Nothing works.
And he’s even considering giving up when…
“No Lucanis this evening?”
“I invited him but…” Viago makes a gesture with his hand that somehow leads into a shrug.
“I know,” Teia sighs. “It was all I could do to get him to take a break to eat the other day,”
“I practically had to throw him through the eluvian to make him go to Nevarra last month. He was going to cancel,”
Illario looks up from the glass of wine he’s pouring himself. “What are you talking about?”
“Lucanis.” Viago snatches the bottle from him before he decorates the table with red. “It’s like that bloody villa has him under lock and key, again. Surely you’ve noticed?”
Oh.
It’s not just him.
Oh.
It’s not just him.
So he eats dinner with Teia and Viago, makes small talk, and takes the shortest path back to Villa Dellamorte that he knows.
He bursts through the study doors without ceremony. And Lucanis doesn’t even look up.
“Go away, Illario.”
“You didn’t come to dinner,”
“I didn’t… What time is it?”
“Late. I’ve just got back. Viago said he had to force you to visit your friend,”
“I’ve been busy.” He snaps, finally looking up.
“Teia is worried about you.”
Uncharacteristically, Lucanis scoffs, returning to the papers on the desk.
“Viago is worried about you,”
He pauses but doesn’t look up.
“I’m worried about you,”
Lucanis looks up but rolls his eyes.
“Of course you are.”
So Illario slams his hand down on the desk, on top of whatever those precious papers of his are.
“I am.” Illario snarls. “Don’t kill yourself over this job. What even is all of this?”
“Letters. From other Talons. Complaining. Whingeing. Whining.”
Illario doesn’t miss when the person in front of him ceases to be his cousin and the demon takes control. So, he decides to use the slip to his advantage.
“How long has it been since he actually slept?”
“Too. Long.”
“And eating?” Illario eyes the abandoned yet full plates of food on the nearby surfaces. “When did he last do that?”
“Yester- -.” Lucanis’s eyes flash between their usual brown and a bright fuchsia as he fights the demon for control. “Day!”
Spite wins the struggle to get his words out before Lucanis manages to lock him back away.
“Well, that was telling,” Illario pulls out a chair from the front of the desk and sits down.
“Be quiet. You caused part of this mess.” Lucanis roughly grabs a stack of letters and shoves them at him.
And Lucanis isn’t wrong. They’re all about him, angry scrawl demanding the traitor face real justice for what he did. One is actually addressed to Illario that Lucanis must have intercepted with one word ‘TRAITOR’ scrawled in what might be… He sniffs it - actual blood.
“Hm.” His mouth presses into a line, he stands, strides across the room, and throws the sheets of parchment into the fire.
“Illario!”
“Don’t listen to them.” He shrugs, returning to the seat he claimed.
“Oh? Why didn’t I think of that? So simple.” Lucanis rolls his eyes. “Do you realise how hard that is when people are screaming at me from all angles? Crows have faced worse for less. People hate you Illario. Our people,”
“So?” He shrugs again, he doesn’t understand why people hating him is causing Lucanis so much grief.
“I’m trying to protect you!”
“Why?!”
“Because you’re my brother. You’re my family. And as angry as I am about it I do still love you.”
Illario opens his mouth to retort, but nothing comes out. Not a quip, a sarcastic comment, or cutting remark. For once in his life, he has nothing.
Lucanis, for his part, glares at him.
No, not Lucanis. Spite glares at him, a bright glow beneath his cousins lowered brows.
“Well, I didn’t exactly expect that either.” Illario hisses, defensiveness apparently the only emotion he can reach. A growl escapes the demon, and just when Illario thinks he’s going to snap his teeth Lucanis returns.
“He’s not best pleased. Not with any of my decisions regarding you,”
“I can see that,”
“Spite thinks I should drown you in the canals,”
“Delightful.”
“A few months ago I was tempted to listen,”
“What changed your mind?”
Lucanis sighs, sitting back. “I’m not prepared for this,”
“Me?”
Another glare, this time from familiar brown eyes.
“Sorry,”
“All of this,” He gestures to the desk in a sweeping arc. “She never prepared either of us to take charge of this mess,”
“She did not,” Illario shook his head, finally something they agree on.
“I knew we were our only assets… But I never took a moment to consider what that actually meant,”
“And now, you’re a Talon, and I’m a traitor. You’re too important to go far, and people aren’t going to hire me,”
Lucanis nods.
Illario sighs.
“Let me help you,”
Brows raise.
“I’m being serious, Lucanis. You can’t keep going on like this. And I can’t keep going on like this.”
“You think anyone will trust a word I say if they see you standing behind me? They’ll think you’re pulling my strings with some kind of blood magic,”
“Let them think what they want.”
“House Dellamorte will fall,”
“I don’t care about House Dellamorte! I care about you.”
The outburst takes them both by surprise, and they stare for a long moment as though seeing each other properly for the first time in years.
“Illario…”
“I mean it.”
They lapse into a long silence, and Lucanis eventually drops back in his chair with a sigh.
“We need recruits. We need fledglings. We need new blood.”
“I agree. But…”
“Caterina will never agree,”
“Who cares? You’re first Talon now. She put you in charge.” He’s trying his hardest to stamp down on the anger that bubbles up inside him towards the woman who raised them. “House Dellamorte can’t have always been exclusively blood related family, Lucanis.”
Lucanis studies him in silence, before nodding.
“I thought the same thing,”
A book is pushed toward him, it’s non-descript, deep burgundy cover, no title. So he opens the cover and is greeted with neat lines of names, dates of either birth or joining the Crows… Causes of death.
The names at the beginning are not ones he recognises, but the date he begins to attribute to their joining are all the same. They mark the beginnings of House Dellamorte. A testament to a rich history that wasn't always so exclusive to be blood related.
When he lingers too long Lucanis flips to a marked page where the writing finishes halfway down, and the script has transformed to Caterina’s careful cursive. Names he hasn’t seen in years make his chest tighten, cousins, uncles, aunts - Lucanis’s mother stands out starkly, ‘Execution’ written a little neater than the rest ending her line - his father… His mother isn’t there, no surprise since she was never a Crow. Their grandfather makes him pause, his cause of death a square left blank, almost like it was too painful for Caterina to face. Lucanis’s is the same.
“She never finished mine,”
“She never believed you were dead, apparently,”
“I guess that’s nice to know,”
“She inspected the body, and knew it wasn’t yours,” Illario smirks.
“Thank you for making what could have been an actually nice thing from our grandmother sound weird instead. Much appreciated,”
The words are probably meant to come out harsh, but they don’t, instead Lucanis can’t hold in the laugh he huffs at the end, and Illario grins.
“Let me help you. Please. I can’t watch you destroy yourself like this. Think of it like penance for my actions,”
“Fine. But at the next Talon meeting you have to do whatever I ask.”
“I can find an Orlesian maids outfit too if you like?”
“Don’t make it weird,”