Chapter Text
The day after they get back from Treviso, Bellara finds Rook at the library table hunched over a letter. She looks up as soon as Bellara comes through the door, though Bellara moves really quietly – on reflection, it’s probably an assassin thing. Or Rook has excellent hearing? Or she’s just permanently on alert…
“Hey, Bellara. What can I do you for?”
Bellara abandons her rabbit trail thought and returns to the present: to Rook, gazing up at her with that expectant, friendly, practical manner she’s already growing used to.
“Hi! Um, hi, Rook. I – wanted to ask you a question?”
Rook sits back in her chair. “Shoot.”
Bellara figures this means go ahead. She knots her fingers together. “When we were in the rookery – I mean, the casino – I heard the other Crows…” From Rook’s expression, she knows exactly where this is going, but Bellara’s in too deep now to stop. “I heard them call you “the cuckoo”. And I wondered what it meant.”
There’s a brief – very brief! – silence. Then Rook pats the seat next to her, and she doesn’t look angry, so Bellara goes to join her.
“You ever heard of cuckoos?” Rook asks, and Bellara shakes her head. Rook takes a deep breath, like she’s about to give a lesson. “Well, a cuckoo is a type of Antivan bird. They lay eggs, just like all the other birds, but they don’t build their own nests. Instead, they steal other birds’ nests.”
“What do you mean, steal?”
“They watch one until it’s left alone. Then they fly over and lay their own egg inside. When the cuckoo chick hatches, it’s bigger than the other chicks. It pushes them out of the nest. The other bird raises the cuckoo as her own, not knowing it killed her real children.”
Bellara stares wide-eyed at Rook. “So, they call you the cuckoo because…”
“Oh, I didn’t kill anyone!” Rook amends, then laughs at herself. “No, not true, I absolutely did. But not other Crows. No, cuckoo’s just a good nickname.”
Another brief silence. Bellara grimaces. “I still don’t understand.”
Rook fixes her with a look. “Bellara. You saw Viago, yes?”
“Uh-huh.”
“He’s my cousin. All the di Rivas look like him. Hell, most of the Crows look like him, excluding the ones who married in. There are some seriously dominant bloodlines in Treviso.”
Bellara is starting to understand. It’s a muddy picture though, grimy in its mundanity. Rook seems to realise that she needs a little help in clearing the glass, because she adds,
“They all look like him. All except me.”
“You’re not adopted?” Bellara winces. “Oh, no. Sorry. That came out wrong.” But Rook just laughs.
“It’s alright. Maybe I am. But my parents pretend I’m not, and there’s the rub. Your blood, where you come from… That’s important to the Crows. So, cuckoo is just a nice way to remind me. I don’t really belong.”
Bellara shakes her head. “That seems… unfair.”
“It is what it is.” And Rook really doesn’t sound bothered. She stretches out her neck, shifting her cloud of auburn curls. Now that she’s pointed it out, she really doesn’t look Trevisan. She doesn’t look particularly Antivan, either. “Besides, I’m Rook now. Guess I can’t shake the bird comparisons.” She tips Bellara a sidelong look. “Is that unflattering? Should I be worried?”
“Oh, no, I don’t think so. Rooks are… well, they’re…”
“Harbingers of death?” Rook muses. “Gloaters? Really gifted mimics?”
“No! They’re pretty!”
Rook raises an eyebrow. “Pretty?”
“Yes! You know, the way they shine in the sun?”
Rook dissolves into chuckles, while Bellara fumes at her. When the feeling peters out, Bellara knots her hands together again.
“Rook?”
“Mm-hmm?”
“Is this a secret? Because I can keep secrets, I know I babble and get distracted but if you tell me it’s a secret, I won’t share it with anyone.”
Rook gives her a very fond look. Rook’s like that. Barely a few days together, and she’s already fond. “It’s good of you to ask, but no. Tell who you like.”
Above them, the astrolabe turns in stately, inscrutable circles. Well, not inscrutable. Bellara is sure she could scrute it, given enough time, enough calculations…
“…Rook?”
“Yup?”
“Does Lucanis know? I mean, did he recognise you?”
Rook tips her head back, looking up at the swooping shadows. “I imagine he’s had bigger things to worry about. I am but one upstart crow.” She chuckles to herself, then shakes her head. “I won’t hold it against him. And if he does bring it up, he and I will have a polite conversation about not calling people names.”
~
Lucanis had recognised her. Not immediately – the headrush of freedom had combined with Spite’s furious surge to render him nothing more than an arrow, a blade, an unthinking weapon. But after they had stumbled through the eluvian – after they had passed through the beyond, after the animal rush had finally receded – he looked at her and he knew her. The impressions came fast and clinical: Viago’s little “cousin”; Sophia di Riva; grown up from the last time he’d laid eyes on her, which had been… Five years back. The di Riva manse. A gawky red head, skulking in the corner in an ill-fitting dress. She had been alone all night, ignored even by her parents. Lucanis hadn’t met her eyes. But he was a professional and so, he remembered her face. He remembered too Viago’s passing remarks. Scornful: the cuckoo dreams of being a crow. They’re shipping her out to school. Maybe that will cut through her delusions.
That note of scorn had not been present when the three of them had met atop the casino, spattered with Venatori blood and stinking of saltwater. There had been an edge to Viago’s voice, but when wasn’t there? He’d clapped Sophia on the shoulder – no, not Sophia, Rook – and told her that maybe her idiocy was finally being put to good use. She’d shrugged him off, smiling that sharp, satisfied smile. You would know, cousin mine.
Lucanis had followed her. He had listened to her. He had bunked down in this impossible place, a dark corner in a Lighthouse. They have gods to kill, and Rook needs him to wield the knife.
She smells like a storm, Spite snarls, and Lucanis starts. Lingering thoughts always draw the demon’s attention; he should have been more careful.
“You will leave her alone,” he says, quietly.
Lightning, Spite purrs. Thin air. She would taste like blood.
“She is the key to our vengeance. You will not touch her.”
Spite glares, separating fully so he can look Lucanis in the eye. Such power…
Lucanis is so tired. But sleep will grant the demon free rein, and the demon appears to want Rook’s blood, so…
“Coffee,” he mutters. Just the word makes him salivate. This is his life now, he reminds himself. He can walk more than ten paces in any direction he chooses. He can drink when he pleases, eat when he pleases, write, spar, picture his knife in Zara Renata’s chest. The last gnaws at him as he coaxes the fire and hangs the kettle above the heat. A year of his life, stolen. A demon seared into him. Lucanis has made an ally of pain over the years – it was part of his training, then part of his life. When he was captured, he had thought himself prepared for the worst the Venatori could throw at him. But he could never have imagined Zara. He could never have imagined Spite.
I belong, Spite hisses. I am you.
“No,” Lucanis says, calmly. Never show the demon fear. “No, you are not.”
He brews the coffee. It tastes awful. He drinks it all, then goes to start a log.
~
Viago,
Our work progresses quickly. We received your letter. We return to Treviso within the week to investigate the murders you spoke of. We will be accompanied by Neve Gallus, detective and mage. Try not to be rude to her lest she hex you in a manner you will not recover from.
I must ask: did you train Rook? I do not mean to cast aspersions. Only that she is not what I expect from a Crow.
L
Lucanis,
I’ll have you know I can be extremely charming, as Teia can attest. The Diamond expects you, then. And I can hear your “aspersions”, old friend. Believe me when I tell you that Rook has always fought like a woman possessed a maniac. I have done my best to rein her in. She’s a mad thing, our little cuckoo, but who knows? Perhaps it takes a madwoman to defeat a god.
Viago
~
Rook doesn’t seem insane. In the day-to-day, she’s a friendly, pragmatic, jovial presence: always listening, always ready with a quip to take the sting from the latest injustice. She doesn’t hold herself above them, but she has the guts to take on the decisions. Harding respects that. The trouble comes, unfortunately, on the battlefield. Because as soon as Rook sights a fight, she seems to lose her maker-damned mind.
“Rook, no!” Harding yelps, as Rook launches herself from the outcropping they’re currently safely perched atop (perfect sniper’s position, for crying out loud, she couldn’t have wished for better) and drops feet-first onto a sentinel. The stench of ozone punches through the air, then a corona of sparks cushions her landing. The sentinel makes a creaking sound that surely means “I am an invulnerable being made of magic and metal, and you just pissed me off”. Harding’s already nocking an arrow.
“For the love of—”
“Rook! Behind you!”
Lucanis has already gone – showy bastard, it’s such a pain that Harding’s the only one who can’t teleport – but she hears his shout before she sees the second sentinel. Rook hears it, too. She’s still too slow. The axe swings right into her shoulder, knocking her sprawling. Harding takes her shot, her heart hammering. If Rook dies on her watch, Varric will be pissed.
Her arrow skewers the first sentinel right between the helm and the backplate. Green light flares like blood and the construct staggers, head rotating in search of the aggressor. Harding skewers it again for good measure – this time in the eye socket. It keels over backwards. Rook’s gone, though, and – wait. Lucanis is kneeling on the second sentinel’s shoulders. Those eerie demon wings stretch out on either side of him; he has the sentinel’s head between his hands. Harding doesn’t even see the knife. The sentinel crashes to the ground. The silence after a skirmish settles like a blanket of snow. Ten feet on, Rook heaves herself up.
“Everyone alright?”
Harding skids down the rockface. “You’re asking that?”
Rook gingerly rolls her shoulder, then takes a breath. Her palm glows with green light – before Harding can say, “I could do that,” she presses the healing magic awkwardly to her back. It only takes an instant before the pain plainly leaves her. “Yep. It feels polite, you know?”
Lucanis – now unwinged and looking sour – dusts off his sleeves. “Polite. Of course.”
“Thanks for the save,” she tells him. “I’ll be more careful next time.”
Lucanis and Harding share a look. That hadn’t taken long – reckless commanders were so good for team bonding.
“Rook,” Harding says, trying to decide if, “you’re going to get yourself killed,” is too patronising, but Rook’s already turning away.
“Let’s keep going, shall we? Those veil jumpers must be around here somewhere.”
Harding spots Lucanis’s lips moving – a curse? A prayer for patience? She could quite frankly go for either. When he catches her looking, she shrugs. He purses his lips in return. This mutual understanding achieved, they follow Rook deeper into the ruins.
~
Treviso feels like a dream. Worse, somehow, than that first return, when he’d still been numbed by the first shock of freedom. Looking around makes his throat ache. Every light fuzzes a little at the edges, drowning pleasantly in the fog rolling off the canals. The air smells like slow water and spices. People in the market talk, haggle, laugh, argue. After a year beneath the sea, swallowed by the roar of the tides, this should be a panacea – but it’s loud, too loud. A knife could be three steps behind him and he wouldn’t know.
Slit your throat, Spite whispers.
By his side, Rook slows. For an instant, he thinks she’s noticed his weakness, but then she says, “Hey, Lucanis. Do you think Harding would like this?”
She’s looking at a potted plant – a verdera, a delicate collection of sprigs and round, pale green leaves. Her attention had been entirely elsewhere.
“I expect so,” he says, careful to cover his lapse. “Why?”
She gives him a Rook Look. Why do you think? The money changes hands swiftly, and now Rook is wearing full armour – and carrying a small potted plant. Lucanis notes that it’s harder to be on edge when accompanied by such a bodyguard. Strange. The plant would hardly help them in a fight.
“Are you much of a gardener?” He hears himself asking. Rook snorts.
“The only thing I know about plants is that they’re green. Some you should eat, and some you shouldn’t. Anything else is out of my wheelhouse.”
“I see.”
“Don’t judge me. I missed out on the poisonous plants training.”
“So, you don’t even know which plants you should and should not eat?”
“Yup. Like this one? No idea. Delicious or deadly? I couldn’t tell you.”
“Neither,” he tells her, repressively. Rook eyes the leaves. It doesn’t take long.
“What would it taste like, though?”
“Like grass, I imagine.”
“Oh.” Rook pulls a face. “Not worth it.”
“You would eat Harding’s gift?”
“I would consider it.”
She’s smirking at him, and he realises, belatedly, that perhaps she had noticed his absence. Perhaps this had been her idea of a cure. Strange, strange woman. He remembers Viago’s letter: a maniac. A madwoman. But perhaps exactly what the world needs.
“Are you sure you don’t mind me tagging along?” She asks – he must have let the silence stretch overlong.
“Rook. I invited you.”
“I know. But I’d understand if you were – you know. Just being polite.”
“I do not think you understand me,” he says, without particularly thinking about it. It occurs to him that Spite has quietened considerably. Perhaps the demon had grown bored with all the talk of vegetation.
Rook gives a little smile. “Well. There’s still time.”
Before he can snag on that – understand it, as he understands most human impulses – she nudges him with her elbow. “Oh, look. We’re here.”
~
Lucanis is reading. Correction – he is trying to read. It is difficult to concentrate, though, because further down the table, Rook, Harding and Bellara are earnestly discussing the merits of eating grass.
“… mountain basil!” Bellara waves her spoon (they are all eating the broth he’d prepared yesterday). “That’s only two steps from grass.”
“Two?” Rook asks.
“Well, it has leaves, doesn’t it? And a stem. Grass doesn’t have a stem. Or is grass only a stem?”
“We put verdera in a drink,” Harding muses. “It’s kind of wintry?”
“Verdera?” Lucanis can hear Rook pouncing. “That plant I brought back from Treviso? You drink that?”
“Well, more like we infuse it…”
But Rook’s already shooting a Rook Look down the table, slyly triumphant, still somehow inviting. Lucanis doesn’t have time to dodge. Spite lunges from him, teeth bared.
Let me talk to her!
And Rook spots that – she notes the flicker of his eyes, she knows what that means. Lucanis closes his book and pushes back his chair.
“I will leave you to your… discussions,” he says.
“Important scientific debate,” Harding teases; she hasn’t noticed Spite. Rook says nothing.
Blood and lightning, Spite spits. Delicious purpose.
Lucanis turns to go, to retreat to his room. But a letter materialises before him – the way all letters do here, coaxed into the Fade by some quirk of intent and the magic of the Lighthouse. The parchment is torn; the handwriting scrawled and ink-spattered. Outside the kitchen, running footsteps just precede the door banging open.
“Minrathous is under attack!” Neve snaps, hard and panicked. Rook rises from her seat.
“What?”
“So is Treviso.” Lucanis had turned back to the table, the letter clutched in his hand. “A dragon.”
Rook’s hands clench, but she only says, “And Minrathous?”
She will not help, Spite growls, and Lucanis feels the bleed between them, the warping of the separation between demon and man for all that he tries to resist it. She is the cuckoo, the pretender –
“Another dragon,” Neve says. It’s testament to the severity of the situation that her usual sarcasm is utterly absent. “It will tear Minrathous apart.”
“War footing,” Rook says, simply. “Meet me at the eluvian.”
But Neve doesn’t move. “I’m going to Minrathous. The people in Dock Town – they don’t have anyone to fight for them.”
“I will go to Treviso,” Lucanis says, his throat tight with the effort of holding back the demon. “The Venatori will throw the city into chaos.”
Rook looks between them. Lucanis can see the resignation in her eyes. She recognises a bad choice when it meets her in a darkened alleyway.
“I know,” she says, and though she makes no indication, Lucanis knows she’s made a decision. “Meet me at the eluvian.”
They run. When they pass through the crossroads – when Neve has turned her back on them, bitter fury writ all over her bruised face – Lucanis holds back the urge to say something. It would be demeaning to thank Rook. She is a leader; it is her duty to make these calls. It’s easier to think of it this way. But as they pass through the mirror to the chaos of Treviso, he cannot outrun it – it’s in the screams, in the creaking wrench of shattered masonry. Rook has made the choice of one Crow to another: a choice borne out of loyalty, a choice that he – Spite – both? – would have struggled to swallow. The cuckoo has returned to save the roost.
The dragon claws a chunk from the roof of the covered markets; he is forced to shelter in a doorway beside Rook, waiting for the building to stabilise.
“Rook,” he says, over the terrible noise. She looks at him, her blue eyes – not di Riva eyes, not Trevisan eyes – hard and glassy, and he knows he has to tell her. “Thank you.”
She doesn’t reply. Just nods – and then the way is clear, and they’re running again.
Blood and lightning, Spite laughs. The pretender. We follow.
For once, Lucanis agrees. Where Rook leads, he will follow, and he won’t let himself question her again.
~
Rook hears her own bones break – a crunchy, splintering snap. Her yell is swallowed by the dragon’s roar. She falls awkwardly to the side, her left leg dragging uselessly. Ankle? Shin, too, maybe. Snarling, she grabs for the last of her mana and tries to drive healing into herself. The pain mutes, but the bones won’t fuse. Fuck it. She’d known they would force the dragon from Treviso or die trying, and it’s increasingly looking like the latter.
She hauls herself to her feet, leaning heavily on her staff. Harding’s drawn the dragon’s attention, dodging the blows that had lamed Rook so easily; the sky is a roiling scream over their heads. Lucanis is nothing more than a blur of livid crimson, harassing the beast like a sparrow mobbing a falcon.
“You won’t have my city,” Rook mumbles, like there’s anyone around to hear. Like it’s her city, which it really isn’t. Still – impossibly, gut-lurchingly – the dragon swings its head to look at her.
I will, a voice intones. And Ghilan’nain goes in for the kill.
~
For a confusing, heart-rending instant, Harding doesn’t know what she’s looking at. Or, she does – and it’s bad, really, really bad – but her brain won’t accept it, because it’s too damn bad, and if it’s that bad, they’ve lost. They’ve already lost, and the evanuris have won, and the world’s about to end and her friends are about to die.
First, the dragon – that massive, misshapen head swinging around, those glittering eyes fixed with malice.
Second, Rook. Rook, who looks like she’s been beaten within an inch of her life; hobbling, leaning on her staff, blood on her face, blood in her hair.
Third, the stone. It’s weak, ripped up, not part of the earth the way rock should be, and it groans beneath the dragon’s weight. Harding can feel its agony. The way it deforms as the dragon presses down, preparing to leap, to crush, to rend, to swallow –
“Rook, look out!” She bellows, firing another arrow, knowing it’s not enough.
It’s not enough. Beneath the shadow of the dragon, the stone of Treviso weeps – and Rook just stands there. She just stands there. She just waits.
~
He is death. He is the knife. He is viciousness; he is the first drop of blood; he is the last, rattling breath. The dragon roars. He barely hears it. Once, he had been so much less. Nothing but a man who thought he knew how to kill. It had been a delusion. Only a demon truly knows how to kill.
My city, Lucanis thinks, somewhere in the maelstrom. You will not take Treviso. You will not take my home.
The dragon rises into the air. Spite goes with it, a winged creature, laughing in bared-teeth delirium. Lucanis has his knife and he is an assassin: he rakes the beast over for weak spots, hunting for the advantage, for the opportunity. He will kill it and we will eat its heart and lick the blade –
He sees Rook, down on the ground. She’s hurt, immobile, barely standing. Her red hair has turned dark from blood that must be her own. Still she stands, clinging to her mage staff, a tiny figure of defiance before the looming dragon.
It will kill her! Spite shrieks, its voice agonised, ecstatic. Lucanis doesn’t hesitate. It is an impossible strike: it should miss, it should get him killed. But the time for the possible is over.
His knife sinks into the dragon’s eye with deceptive ease. He barely has chance to pull it out before the beast is recoiling, screaming, thrashing in pain. Spite lunges forward, drawn to the suffering; Lucanis wrenches him back. Pulls them to the ground, snatches the wings back in, runs.
Withdraw! Ghilan’nain commands, fury making her even more of a horror. They take too much!
Victory, Lucanis realises, as the air shakes with the dragon’s departure. It doesn’t feel like anything, though. He catches Rook around the shoulders. Her breastplate is dented. There’s a cut right across her scalp that’s bleeding like a river.
“Help her!” He calls to Harding, though the dwarf is already sprinting across the plaza, her hands flaring with verdant mana. Rook lets out a quiet moan, sagging against him. His heart spasms in his chest.
“Stay with me,” he tells her. “Come on, Rook.”
“I’m not dying,” she mumbles, in the manner of a person an inch from death. “We did it.”
“Treviso stands,” he says, his tongue feeling thick in his mouth. “Thanks to you.”
“Thanks to you. I saw that – it was a strike for the ages.”
It lives, Spite hisses, furious. It got away.
Beside him, Rook shakes. He’s afraid for a moment – then he realises, she’s laughing.
“Spite bears a grudge, huh? I’m sure we’ll get another chance.”
“Sit her down, Lucanis,” Harding commands, “and stretch out her leg.”
Lucanis sits Rook down. “Can you hear him?” He asks, disquieted. Rook muzzily shakes her head.
“Nah. I can just tell.”
“Alright, Rook.” Harding kneels beside their leader, her freckles barely distinguishable from bloodspatter. “This is going to hurt.”
“Yippee,” Rook mutters. Lucanis should step back. He should breathe – he should bring Spite to heel, he should clean the ichor from his knife – but he stays there, an arm around Rook’s shoulders.
No storm, Spite mutters. Blown out.
Yes. Rook smells utterly spent: like ash and blood and bile. The smell lessens only fractionally as Harding’s healing magic passes over the cut on her scalp. Still, it must help, because he can feel her take a breath.
“Oh. Thanks, Harding.”
“You really did a number on this,” Harding scolds, regarding Rook’s crooked leg. “I’ll need to set it in two places.”
Rook swallows. Lucanis knows instantly she’s had broken bones set before. He has, too. It’s not an experience he’s keen to repeat.
“Here,” he says. He takes her hand. Her eyelids flutter, but she doesn’t look at him. When Harding moves her leg, though, she grips his fingers with white knuckles, the breath high and tight in her chest, and he presses back, bearing the pain for her even as Spite draws close, eager and livid.
“Treviso stands,” he murmurs, trying to keep the demon at bay.
“Mm,” Rook says – and then Harding straightens her ankle, and, without ceremony, their great and fearless leader faints clean away.