Chapter Text
Rook hesitated before the door to the kitchen. Maker she was starving, but the assassin and his pet demon had made themselves comfortable in the pantry and it made everything so very awkward.
It was an understatement to say that she wasn't thrilled to have Lucanis join their group. She recognised that Neve's logic was solid. If Solas spoke true and the dagger was the only thing that could harm these so-called Gods, they needed an expert to even get close. She'd only glimpsed the Evanuris once, riding up like shadows behind Solas, but even then the wrongness of them had been seared into her mind. Then the destruction of D'meta's Crossing had made plain the threat they posed. An assassin made sense, even if she didn't like it. An abomination, that was something entirely different. Neve had assured her she'd keep an eye on him and Rook trusted her judgment. Still, if he made even a single slip-up she'd deal with it. She was not fighting some uppity gods while also watching her back against a demon the entire time.
She fought the impulse to be sneaky. This was Their lighthouse and she wouldn't let him make her feel like the interloper. Besides, it was late, at least insofar the Lighthouse mimicked the cycles of the day. With some luck he was fast asleep.
She straightened her back and slipped through the door. As her eyes adjusted to the dusty dark dining room she was relieved to find it empty and his door firmly shut. She might get away with grabbing some bread and cheese in peace and slipping back to her room.
The only light was the fire in the grate which never seemed to require fuel or burn out. It made the shadows in the room dance but it emitted more a memory of warmth than the actual feeling of her skin. She shuddered. The mage shite was unnerving to her. Things in the Lighthouse looked like she might remember them but always felt just a little wrong. Plants growing without true sunlight. Fire prattling without real warmth. The food they brought in didn't seem to grow stale. She wondered if the fire would burn her if she reached out. Would it destroy her skin or give her only the memory of pain?
Then again, getting bodied by one of those magic sentinels in the crossroads hurt just as badly as it did outside. The wounds were real, too. Were they figments of the fade or did they come from the outside like she did? Vishante kaffas. How did a mage make sense of this shite?
"Rook is not your name."
She stiffened. Maker's dirty breeches. She hadn't even heard the pantry door open but there Lucanis was, oh so casually leaning against the door frame. Damned assassin.
"Is that your professional assessment?" She asked, moving over into the kitchen proper to add distance.
He smiled but not with warmth. Guarded. "You must excuse me for not doing due diligence on my current employer. I have been rather preoccupied the past year and the contract was negotiated for me."
"I'm sure Rook is someone's name somewhere," she said, delighting in being difficult. "Why can't it be mine?"
"It doesn't suit you," he said.
She snorted. He'd known her for a week at most. The majority of which she had spent making sure he didn't, in fact, know her at all. She busied herself gathering the food she was after. The sooner she could end the conversation and leave. "So what would suit me?"
"Your name. Presumably."
"Like your name suits you?" She challenged. "Dellamorte? I don't know much Antivan but doesn't that make you Lucanis Murderman?"
He let out a soft laugh. "Nobody has every accused a Crow of being subtle. Why are you avoiding the question?"
Because I enjoy not giving you want you want, she thought. Fine. "Sesansemni Mercar."
"It is a mouthful," he said. He was quiet a moment, contemplating. "It doesn't suit you. It's too delicate. That is not a word I would choose to describe you."
She hated how the comment tickled her pride. "I shall send my former master a letter letting him know you find his carefully chosen name wanting. He should be quite vexed."
"Oh."
She leaned back, taking a bite from her bread with the extra seasoning of his immediate discomfort. She knew she was being cruel. Those outside of the Emperium usually found any mention of slavery disquieting. Something they'd rather didn't think about.
It was also something that she'd rather not lived, so she didn't feel very bad about his comfort at all.
"It's a very old name," she said, when the silence dragged on unbearably long. "Horribly old-fashioned but my master was ever the traditionalist. Something about the old dreamers. He never did teach me enough history to actually understand it."
"You are-," Lucanis hesitated a moment, looking for the right words. For the first time since meeting him she felt she finally had him off-balance. "No longer a slave, I take it?"
"No," she said. "I passed to the Mercar family when I was 15. I'd escaped. They found me hiding under a cart." Dirty. Scared. Soaked through by the rain and freezing her ass off. The gashes on her arms had still throbbed from fueling the ritual. She still recalled the wave of fear when two sets of feet stopped in front her hiding spot. "Bought me when my master came knocking. Freed me. Big abolitionists, the Mercars. Big Shadow Dragons, too." She'd been working for them every since. Adopted, to make it easier for her to go about freely and work for the Dragons. Nobody was ever truly free but she'd work for the Mercars over Magister Sephus any day.
He nodded to himself. "Mercar suits you. So why go by Rook?"
She shrugged. "Most in the Dragons take code names, at least those who do more covert work. Implicating our families to the wrong people is unwise and the Imperium has no shortage of the wrong people. I know a reputation in your line of work is advertising, Demon of Vyrantium, but a slip-up in mine could lead to the mysterious disappearance of any I hold dear. The Venatori don't play fair."
A shadow crossed his face. She could almost see him slip back into that careful control. Tense like a trap waiting to spring. "That they do not."
She wanted to leave but, against better judgment, she had one more thing to press. "You weren't always the Demon of Vyrantium." She'd intended it with mockery but his only reaction was a single twitch of a brow. It annoyed her even more that he seemed immune to her scorn. "You had other jobs before specialising in Venatori."
He moved closed, leaving only the kitchen counter between them. "I did," he said.
It felt like a challenge. She drew herself up, refusing to be cowed. "They can't all have been so worth killing."
"They weren't." Lucanis admitted it softly but didn't flinch from her stare.
She said nothing and started him down, willing him to defend himself. Let him dare give her platitudes or excuses.
He met her gaze with neither shame nor pride. "What do you want me to say, Rook? I am a Crow. I've killed people who deserved killing and I've killed people who didn't. I cannot ease your conscience pretending to be some noble freedom fighter." Finally a hint of annoyance. She took some satisfaction from getting through that infuriatingly calm exterior. "A contract is a contract."
"What if someone took out a contract against one of us? Against me?" She demanded. She regretted it as soon as she'd asked. Even to her own ears it sounded petulant and paranoid.
The slightest of smirks. "Murdering my employer would be bad for business. Sends the wrong kind if message, don't you think? But maybe try not to make any wealthy enemies after we kill these all powerful blighted gods."
Vishante kaffas. Flying fuck. And he was the only one who stood a sliver of a chance at killing these fucking Evanuris with a single dagger.
"Listen, Rook." He leaned forward on the counter. She reflexively leaned back. "Take me with you next time you go out. I know you've been avoiding me but if we are to fight these Evanuris we need to learn to work together. You do not have to like me but you do have to work with me."
She crossed her arms. "And with Spite?"
He eyes flickered off to the side then back to her. "And with Spite." For a moment she had forgotten about his unwanted passenger. Her skin crawled at the thought that the demon had been watching them this entire time. She'd seen Lucanis talk to him in the Ossuary. Was he always around? Watching? Why couldn't they have recruited Illario or Teia or something?
"You can come with me to Minrathous tomorrow." She conceded. She was an archer, at the very least she could keep an eye on him on the battlefield. Keep an arrow ready in case it was needed. "Now if you'll excuse me, I'd like to get some rest before we go." She slipped past him, taking care to avoid the space where his eye had sought out Spite moments before. Could she walk through a demon? She wasn't eager to find out.
"Rook. Wait. I shouldn't have said- I choose my own contracts now." An uncharacteristic fumble.
She turned back. "Is that a reassurance or a threat?"
"No-"
"We are unlikely to survive this," she cut him off. "That we may never find out."
She closed the door behind her and felt a mountain of tension roll off her shoulders. That had felt more laborious than fighting the demons in the Ossuary. Somehow she was going to have to survive an entire trip to Minrathous like this tomorrow.