Archive of Our Own ^beta

Chapter Text

He’d woken first. Always did. Not because he wanted to, but because that was what Crows did: survive first, breathe second, rest never.

But he stayed where he was.

Let her sleep.

Watched the way her fingers curled in on the hair on his chest, like she wanted him closer, bone deep. Her nails were blunt from travel, from stone and sand, but her touch was still gentle—like something holy. Like something he didn’t deserve.

His eyes ached. A slow, dry itch that lived behind the bone. Arlathan clung to him like pollen, like ash—the thin places in the Veil tugging at the meat of him in ways he hadn’t learned how to ignore. 

He shifted only slightly, just enough to ease the tension in his spine without waking her. It made the cot groan. Cheap wood. Worn canvas. Maker, even the cot in the Lighthouse pantry hadn’t jabbed quite so hard into his hip. And yet—he didn’t move.

The mattress in Villa Dellamorte was softer. The silks were real, the pillows heavy with lavender. The sheets smelled like civet soap and red wine. But none of it had ever kept him asleep. Not for long. Not without Rook.

This, though.

This—her breath on his throat, her body pressed warm and close to his, the ink of her vallaslin hidden in the hollow of his shoulder where she’d tucked her face sometime in the night—this was hers. And for forty-eight hours, Antiva could burn.

He could feel the mark of last night on his hip, where she’d pulled him in by his belt and kissed the frustration right off his mouth. He hadn’t smiled, but his frown had slipped anyway. Maker, she always made him yield, just a little. Not with orders. Never with orders. Just hands and lips and the sound of his name said like it belonged to someone real.

Not First Talon. Not Demon. Just his name, whispered in the dark like it meant something more than blood and coin.

He let out a breath, slow. Careful. The kind of breath he never let himself take in Treviso, or in the Villa, or even when the mission was done but the body hadn’t stopped shaking yet.

The woods didn’t make sense to him. Too loud. Too open. Nothing to wall his back against but trees. But the tent, this thin canvas, this narrow cot, this woman tangled beside him, somehow this was safer than stone.

She stirred slightly, fingers tightening on his chest like she knew. Maybe she did. She always did.

A soft breath. The brush of her nose along his collarbone. Then, the shift of weight as she blinked sleep from her eyes and lifted her head. Her hair fell forward in a veil of red, half-shadowed in the blue light filtering through the tent’s seams. She looked at him like she wasn’t quite awake, but still sure of him. Still sure enough to move.

Then she moved. Not a word. Just the press of her mouth—once at his jaw, then again at the corner of his mouth, then lower. Her thigh swung over his hips, and she settled onto him like gravity had chosen it. Like she belonged here. On him. With him. Like there had never been a Villa. Never been a title. Never been a body dragged from an Ossuary with a demon stitched behind his ribs.

“Rook,” he said, quiet. Not a warning. Not even a question. A breath. A name. A prayer.

She didn’t answer. Just kissed her way across his throat, slow, like she had all the time in the world to memorize him. The morning was cool, the air damp with dew, but her mouth was warm. Her skin was warm. Her pulse, when it brushed his wrist, beat bold as thunder.

His hands found her hips automatically. Familiar now. Learned. Like her body had taught him its shape in the dark, and his had obeyed.

She kissed his sternum. The curve of his shoulder. The hollow beneath his neck. She was everywhere—without hurry, without shame—like she was reminding him. Not just of last night, but of every time before. Every time she’d found him like this, half-armored, half-asleep, half-hers and made him whole again.

He didn’t close his eyes. Couldn’t.

There was too much to watch. The way her lashes swept across her cheek when she paused. The way her mouth curved with mischief, then softened again. The way the golden light caught the faint scatter of freckles across her shoulders, so pale against the ghost of his hands there.

His hips arched toward her, just slightly. She laughed—low in her throat, smug, sleepy still, but awake now in the way that mattered.

“Good morning,” she murmured, finally. Her voice was rough with sleep. The sound of it scraped sweet along his nerves.

He wanted to say something back. Anything. But his throat didn’t work the way it should. Not here. Not with her looking at him like this. Like the sun hadn’t risen yet, because it was still curled in the tent beside him.

Instead, he shifted one hand to the back of her neck, tangling his fingers in the crimson strands at her nape, pulled her down and kissed her. 

Chapter Text

The Cobbled Swan had a chandelier made of shipglass.

Each shard caught the golden lamplight, scattering it like broken stars across the polished oak walls and velvet-backed booths. The smell of salt lingered even here—cut beneath the heavier scents of cloves, wine, roasted meat, and Minrathous’ particular breed of decadence: all charm with a knife’s edge.

A bard sang in the corner. Not one of the usual drunken strummers, either—this was a proper soprano with a voice like wind over water, rising above the chatter in long, mournful arcs. Rook might have actually listened if she weren’t trying to bluff the Demon of Vyrantium.

Technically, she was also supposed to be watching for blood mages.

Neve had made that very clear. “Subtlety,” the mage had said. “Blending in. Don’t interrogate the waitress again, and if Lucanis breathes near another dockworker like that, they’re going to dive into the bay.”

So now they were benched.

Tucked into the far corner of the Swan, well out of trouble’s way—with cards between them and drinks gone warm. And Spite. Though Rook couldn’t see him, she’d learned to spot the signs: the shift in Lucanis’ posture, the twitch at the edge of one dark eye, the way his hand would move like it had been commanded before he’d even spoken.

Lucanis shrugged. His own hand lay neatly fanned beside a second—one he played on behalf of the demon lounging beside him like a smug shadow.

Rook couldn’t help but stare.

He was… relaxed tonight. Or at least performing the shape of it. Hair pulled back in a loose tie, few black strands escaping to frame his face in quiet rebellion. He hadn’t trimmed his beard—again—which she noticed because the scruff suited him too well. It framed his mouth like a dare. His sleeves were rolled to the forearm, and the scars on his knuckles gleamed when he tapped the table.

Hard read. Gods, he was a hard read.

He looked like he didn’t care. About the cards. The stakes. The way she leaned a little closer with each round.

“You’re staring,” he said without looking up.

Rook arched a brow. “I’m cheating.”

“Both can be true.”

She plucked a card from the deck, slid it into her hand with slow deliberation. Two Knights, an Angel, and a Song. Not bad. She could bluff the fifth. She probably should’ve focused harder but…

The way his fingers moved over Spite’s hand was too deliberate. Too practiced.

“You let him pick for you?” she asked.

Lucanis’s mouth twitched like he might actually smile. “He likes the Angel of Death.”

“Of course he does.” Her voice dropped. “You’d tell me if he pulled it, wouldn’t you?”

“No,” Lucanis said, but he looked up.

Not a smile. Not exactly. But something curved the edge of his mouth—something dry and quiet and full of the knowledge that if he had pulled the Angel of Death, he wouldn’t need to lie. He’d just win.

Rook licked her lower lip, leaned forward on her elbows, and let the candlelight catch her vallaslin. “He cheats,” she said, glancing to the air beside Lucanis. “I can feel it.”

Spite didn’t answer, of course. But Lucanis’ eye twitched again. She let herself grin.

Another round of betting. Rook slid a coin into the center. Lucanis matched. So did Spite, through him—though Lucanis did it with a muttered, “If I lose your silver again, we’re not talking for a week.”

That was new.

She leaned closer. “Do you two fight like an old married couple, or is it more of a ‘you’re the leash I gnaw on’ sort of arrangement?”

He tilted his head just enough to meet her gaze. “He says you ask too many questions.”

She shrugged. “That’s a ‘yes,’ then.”

Rook tapped the rim of her glass, the dregs of her drink gone warm. The music shifted again—another minor key, the violin winding tight like something was about to snap. It matched the mood, didn’t it?

Neve was probably down in the catacombs by now, hunting ghosts and blood rites and the remnants of Aelia’s madness. They were here—safe and dry, warm and half-tipsy—with nothing between them but cards and breath and the narrowing distance of a slow evening.

She wanted to see what would happen if she kissed him right then. Just leaned across the table, curled her hand in that loose hair, and stole the quiet out from behind his mouth.

Then she’d lose the game. And she liked watching him play.

He was so composed, so careful. Like every card had weight. Like Spite was watching through his eyes, and some part of him wanted to win for both them.

“You’re losing,” she said softly.

Lucanis didn’t answer right away. His gaze lingered on his hand, fingers poised above the Knight of Sacrifice like he might play it. He didn’t. He tapped the edge once, then shifted to the Serpent of Decay in Spite’s hand and turned that over instead.

“She’s bluffing,” he murmured—not to her. His voice was low, almost imperceptible. A side-comment to something only he could hear.

Rook narrowed her eyes. “I heard that.”

“Did you?”

The glint of challenge in his eyes made her sit up straighter. Her boot brushed his under the table, deliberate now.

He didn’t move.

It struck her how still he was, how deliberate—all of him a blade held flat. There was a reason the other patrons didn’t look at him twice: it was easier not to notice a knife until it was in you.

But she saw him. That was the dangerous part. She saw the man behind the control. Behind the title. Behind the demon.

And he was watching her now like she was the risk he hadn’t calculated for.

“Your turn,” he said, voice a little quieter than before. The fire in the hearth crackled, throwing a ripple of gold across the table between them.

Rook drew a card. Knight of Dawn.

Three Knights. A Song. And the Angel of Temerity.

She tried not to smile.

Instead, she laid down her Knight of Mercy with a casual flick, let it land beside her previous two. “That’s four. Want to fold?”

Lucanis looked at her hand. Then at her.

Then—godsdamn him—he smirked.

Just a little. Barely there.

“Not yet,” he said.

The soprano’s voice rose again behind them, stretching into something tragic and sharp. A woman’s laugh rang out by the bar. Somewhere near the Swan’s entrance, a door creaked open, letting in a brief gust of wind and the sound of Dock Town’s night—wet footsteps, the flap of sails, distant shouting.

The world was still happening.

But here, at the booth?

Time had narrowed. Slowed.

She noticed his thumb brushing over his lower lip like he was thinking. She noticed her own pulse in her throat. She noticed the way the cards looked between them: small, foolish things. Just excuses to stay at the same table.

Lucanis reached for the deck.

Drew then paused.

Rook leaned forward again. “What is it?”

His mouth twitched. He turned the card slowly—slowly enough that she caught the flicker of hesitation.

Angel of Death.

Spite had pulled it and the game was over.

Rook let out a breath and slumped back, shaking her head. “Bastard.”

Lucanis looked down at Spite’s hand and spread it gently. Angel of Death, Angel of Fortitude, Serpent of Avarice, Knight of Sacrifice, Song of Temerity. A mess.

“He didn’t win,” Lucanis said.

“You still let him end it.”

“He gets bored.”

She laughed under her breath and dragged her hand over her face, then looked back at him.

And there it was again. That quiet. That unbearable pause between beats.

She could kiss him.

The cards were done. The music was soft. The lighting was low. She was close enough to smell the spice on his coat and the ink that always lingered on his hands. She could lean in and do it—break the rules for a second and see what kind of fire he’d catch.

The fire snapped behind them, shedding a final flare of warmth across the table as the last card settled. Lucanis began to gather the deck. Methodical. Silent. One hand over Spite’s abandoned mess of a spread, the other brushing the edges of their game into something neat, composed, unspoken.

Rook didn’t move.

She just watched him—watched the way his jaw shifted slightly as he concentrated, the way his lashes lowered as if blocking out everything but the weight of the table between them. Still. Precise. But not untouched. She knew him well enough now to see the quiet restlessness in the way he lingered on her last played card. The Knight of Mercy. How apt.

She might’ve said something. Another tease. Another prod. Another excuse.

From the mouth of the Cobbled Swan, the door creaked again. 

Rook looked up and this time Neve stood just inside the threshold, framed by a gust of salt-wet wind and torchlight. Her coat was damp at the collar, her hair curling at the ends. One side of her mouth was pulled in that sardonic almost-grimace she reserved for very specific types of disappointment.

Trouble. Real trouble, by the set of her shoulders.

Rook stood. Instinct first. Her boots scraped softly against the polished floorboards. She felt it in her spine, the shift from warmth to watchfulness. Whatever Neve had learned, it wasn’t good—and that meant the game was truly over.

Lucanis didn’t move to follow. Not right away. He only watched her rise, dark eyes lifting with the same unreadable quiet they always held. But it wasn’t nothing. There was something there now—some flicker of weight between them. A line neither of them had crossed, but both kept looking at like it might move on its own.

She should’ve left it there.

Should’ve said nothing. Turned to Neve. Let the moment pass like so many others. But her hand moved before her thoughts caught up.

Fingers curled gentle against the line of his jaw, where stubble met the hollow just below his cheekbone. Warm, still, real. A pause there—just long enough for her to feel the breath he took. Shallow. Surprised.

She bent and kissed the other side of his face.

Not his mouth. She couldn’t risk that. Not now. Not yet.

Just the place where shadow softened into skin. Just the edge of him, where no one ever touched.

He went still beneath her hand.

A different kind of still. Not the poised quiet of an assassin or a demon’s vessel—but something more uncertain. Human. Breathing.

She pulled back before she could think too hard about it. Dropped her hand. Met his eyes.

“I owed you one,” she said.

Chapter Text

He’d meant to read.

Just a few pages. One chapter. Maybe two. The cot in the pantry was narrow but familiar, its old boards creaking under the smallest shift of weight. The lamp beside him flickered soft and low, casting slow-moving shadows across the stone. The book rested open on his chest, one hand still curled around the spine, the other tucked beneath his head. His boots were off. His coat draped over the hook by the door.

He didn’t remember closing his eyes.

But when he opened them again, she was there.

Rook.

The light was different—amber and slow, like everything had been dipped in melted gold. It wasn’t the pantry anymore. It wasn’t anywhere he recognized. Just warmth. Just skin. Her skin. Bare beneath him.

Her hair was unbound, a wild sprawl of crimson across the pillow, catching fire where the light touched it. Her face turned toward him, lips parted, breath shallow. Her eyes half-lidded. Waiting.

And he…. He didn’t hesitate.

Didn’t ask. Didn’t stop. Just reached.

Hands against her thighs first, thumbs brushing the softest part where muscle turned to curve. She was warm everywhere, heat pulsing under his palms. Her freckled skin lit with it—blushed across the tops of her breasts, the swell of her hips, the edges of old scars that only made his hands tremble harder.

He touched her like he didn’t know how long she’d let him.

Like he’d never be allowed again.

She shifted under him, thighs parting, back arching, breath catching when his mouth dragged slow across her collarbone.

She made a sound—sweet Andraste that sound—and Lucanis swore he’d never forget it. Low. Frayed. Pleasure curling at the edge.

His lips moved lower.

Couldn’t stop running his fingers over the small scar at her waist, the one that dipped just beneath where her stomach began to soften. Couldn’t stop cupping her breasts, thumbing her nipples just to feel her hips roll and her lashes flutter. Couldn’t stop kissing the curve of her shoulder, couldn’t stop murmuring half-words into her throat, couldn’t stop drinking in every inch of freckled, flushed skin like he’d been starving.

And he had been starving.

He just hadn’t let himself feel it until now.

She reached for him—her hand in his hair, her fingers splayed against the back of his neck, pulling him down, guiding him like she knew exactly where he belonged. And he followed. He always would.

Her head tilted back, lashes trembling, mouth slack with want, with trust, with something he didn’t think he deserved. Her skin damp where he’d kissed, where he’d bitten. Her hands soft on his jaw, trailing down his shoulders, her thighs wrapped loosely around his waist.

He breathed against her navel, lower, fingers stroking the inside of her leg like it was something sacred. Something forbidden. He pressed his cheek to her thigh and stayed there for a moment—just to feel her pulse thrum against his skin.

He didn’t speak. He couldn’t.

There weren’t words for the way she looked at him. Not with her eyes. Not with her hands. Not with her whole body arching toward him like she wanted him just as much.

Lucanis had wanted her for weeks.

And here he wasn’t afraid, he let himself touch and want everything.

Here, he moved with the boldness he tried to bury every morning he saw her in the hallway, every night she brushed too close. Here, he gave in. Fully. Without restraint. Without shame.

His hands slid beneath her thighs, lifted her toward his mouth.

And just before he kissed her again—just before he gave her everything he’d never dared admit—her voice broke the silence.

“Lucanis—”

The name pulled him upward like a hook in the chest.

He gasped, sharp and ragged, fingers curling instinctively against fabric. But he wasn’t clutching his book, or the cot in the pantry, or the knife he sometimes slept with under the edge of his pillow. No. He was already upright. Breathing hard. The scent wasn’t stone and dust and dry parchment.

It was her.

Lavender oil, old ink, the faintest trace of leather.

A blanket was draped over his legs. Too soft. Too warm. And beside him—lit by a single low candle and haloed in the amber hush of midnight—Rook sat on her chaise in her room, barefoot and cross-legged, one arm propped on the backrest and the other resting on the open fan of Wicked Grace cards between them.

Her eyes were on him. Still and gold. Watching.

“You with me?” she asked, voice soft.

Lucanis blinked.

His breath was still uneven. He felt like he’d been dropped from a height. Like he should be horizontal. Disoriented. His muscles didn’t ache the way they should after sleep—because, he realized with a creeping cold that crawled up the back of his neck. He hadn’t been asleep. Not him, anyway.

“You’re glowing less now,” Rook added, almost like a throwaway.

Lucanis turned his hand, palm up, and stared. No glow. No smoke. Just skin.

But it wasn’t his movements that gave it away, not really. It was the way the cards had been laid out. Too neat. Too casual. Like someone had been playing a hand not to win, but to entertain. His seat adjusted for comfort. The blanket carefully draped to soften the cold of the stone floor beneath her chaise. And Rook was entirely unbothered.

Lucanis swallowed. His voice caught. “Did he—?”

“Yes,” she said plainly, not unkind. “He visited.”

Lucanis’ hand curled slowly into the blanket. “Did he—”

“No,” she said again. Then, softer, “We just played.”

Silence settled between them like dust.

Lucanis didn’t know where to look. Her vallaslin caught the candlelight like threads of dark gold. Her hair was loose tonight, falling in long crimson ribbons over her shoulders. One curl clung to the corner of her mouth.

His mouth had been on her. He remembered it. Remembered her thighs around his waist. Her breath in his throat.

His hands shook.

“Spite… He…” Lucanis said quietly, voice hoarse. “When I fall asleep, sometimes he—”

“I know,” Rook said.

He looked at her. Really looked at her.

She was watching him without judgment. Without anger. Without the horror he feared. Just… sharp curiosity. Thoughtfulness.

“He said a lot of things,” she added. “Things that maybe aren’t his to say.”

Lucanis’ mouth parted. “He—”

“I told him to keep them,” she cut in, gently. “For you to tell me. When you’re ready.”

Lucanis shut his eyes.

The shame bloomed hot and acidic beneath his ribs. Not because she was angry—because she wasn’t. Because he could still feel the ghost of her skin beneath his hands. The press of his mouth on her thigh. And it hadn’t been his. Not really.

But she didn’t look away.

Instead, she reached for the blanket. Tucked it back over his legs, up past his hip. Adjusted it at the shoulder where it had started to slip. Her hand was soft. Unhurried.

He stared at it. At her wrist. At the single freckle near the edge of her palm, like a lone ink drop on parchment.

And without thinking—without speaking—Lucanis leaned in.

Pressed his mouth to that freckle. Just once.

Chapter Text

The water was warm—warmer than he remembered. Warmer than it had any right to be, slicked with late summer humidity and the stillness of too many years. It clung to his skin as he waded deeper, slow, deliberate, until it lapped just beneath his ribs. The sun pressed down through the high Antivan haze, golden and drowsy, cutting through the hanging mist that clung to the edges of the cypress trees. Cicadas hummed from somewhere deeper in the grove.

Behind him, the villa loomed in the distance—stone and ivy, carved bone-white and proud against the hills. But it wasn’t the landmark his mind kept circling.

It was her.

Rook stood on the water’s edge like a threat, arms crossed, chin tipped in that particular way that meant she was seconds away from either bolting or punching something. Likely him. She was barefoot, dressed down to her smalls, red hair haloed wild from where she’d let it down. And on her hand, twisted compulsively with each heartbeat, was the opal ring.

His mother’s.

It caught the light like it had a pulse.

Lucanis said nothing for a moment. He just watched her. The way she scowled. The way she fidgeted with the band around her finger—twisting it, like she still hadn’t gotten used to the feel of it there.

He hadn’t either.

It looked too good on her. Too permanent. Like the world might just let them have something.

The breeze caught a leaf and sent it skittering across the surface of the lake. He remembered chasing those with Illario once, playing at being blades with reed swords, lunging through the shallows until one of them ended up gashed or coughing water. Lucanis had learned to swim by being thrown into this very lake—back when the laughter still lived easy in his chest. Illario had pushed him off a low-hung branch and shouted something like “Sink or swim, cousin!”

Lucanis had sunk.

He’d come up sputtering and bruised, and they’d both nearly slipped and cracked their skulls laughing. Caterina had been furious.

He wasn’t going to do that to her. Not Rook.

Not the woman who had nearly drowned in Treviso’s canal while chasing Venatori through the streets. He hadn’t thought—just moved. Dragged her up coughing and sputtering while Bellara shrieked and flailed beside them like a panicked bird. Rook had clung to him like she didn’t trust the ground to be there anymore, nails biting into his shoulder, lips blue around the edges, and he’d promised, his voice quiet, hoarse, forehead to hers, that he would teach her. That she wouldn’t be afraid of water again.

She remembered. He knew she did.

And still, she stood there, rooted.

“You coming in?” he asked finally, voice low.

She made a face. “Absolutely not.”

Lucanis didn’t rise to it. Just stood in the water, watching her. The wind rustled the trees again—soft and familiar—and the lake reflected the sky like a mirror too long unbroken.

“You trust me?” he asked.

That made her shift. Just a little. He saw it—the catch in her breath, the pause of her jaw. Her mouth parted, closed. The wind caught a strand of her red hair and tugged it into her mouth; she spat it out with a scowl but didn’t speak.

He took a slow step forward, water rippling around him. “You don’t have to do anything yet. Just… come in.”

“No.” She said it, but not like she meant it. More like a habit than a refusal.

He waited.

“You’re impossible,” she muttered, more to herself than to him. Then, after a long beat, she stepped forward—one foot into the water, then the next, hissing through her teeth at the shift in temperature. “Ugh, ugh. It’s warm. Why is it warm?”

Lucanis didn’t smile, but his eyes softened. “Because it’s Antiva. And noon.”

“Feels like bathwater.”

“Then pretend it is.”

She gave him a look. “Bathwater where something’s definitely died.”

Lucanis said nothing, only extended a hand.

She hesitated. Then took it.

Her fingers were damp with sweat, colder than his, and twitching—he could feel her heartbeat in them, rapid and thudding. And the ring. The opal pressed into the skin between their hands, catching again in the light, a flicker of memory that hit too hard and too sharp for him to name.

“It’s only the shallows,” he said. “I won’t let go.”

“You say that now,” she grumbled.

“And I mean it.”

He pulled gently. She followed. Water licked higher around her thighs, her hips. Her breath hitched when it reached her stomach. He watched her jaw tighten, eyes flit to the ripples. Her muscles tensed beneath her pale skin, freckles bright against the wash of movement.

He steadied her.

“Here.” His other hand came to her waist, firm. “Just breathe. Don’t do anything.”

Her breath came shallow at first, uneven, like her body hadn’t quite decided whether it would obey her or not.

Lucanis felt it through her—tense shoulders, shallow ribcage, the twitch of her fingers against his arm as if she might bolt at any second. But she didn’t. Not yet.

“Close your eyes,” he said softly. “You don’t need to see anything. Just listen.”

“To what?” she muttered, but it was quieter now. Her voice, not her bite.

“The water. The trees. Me.”

The lake was still around them, save for the cicadas and the gentle slap of reeds along the far edge. His grip at her waist shifted, steadied, and slowly—so slowly—he leaned back, guiding her with him. Her body resisted at first, taut as a bowstring, legs kicking instinctively. But he held firm, grounding.

“Rook,” he said, and only her name. It was enough.

Her breath hitched. But she let go.

Bit by bit, inch by inch, she let her weight fall against him, head tipping back into his hand, red hair spreading like fire across the lake’s surface. Her limbs floated uncertainly at first, half-sunken, but he kept her up with practiced ease, fingers beneath her back, his chest warm where her arm brushed against it. Her lashes were dark with water, cheeks flushed. The ring glittered even now.

“You were never taught,” he said softly, more realization than question.

She didn’t open her eyes. “No.”

Lucanis didn’t press. Didn’t need to.

He could see it already, the way it sat in her—the reluctance not just from fear, but memory. Something raw and bone-deep. He remembered what she’d said once, late at night, tucked half beneath his arm in their room at the Lighthouse. She’d never learned because her clan moved too often, too fast, no time to linger. But also—

“There was a creek.” Her voice broke the quiet like a stone dropped. “I was six. My mother slipped. Cut her head on a rock. She was fine. Just blood. But it was the first time I ever saw it. That much.” A pause. “I didn’t go near water for a year after.”

He didn’t speak. Just adjusted his hold, kept her steady.

She never talked about them, not really. Not her family. The way she flinched when someone mentioned clan names. The way she changed the subject when Bellara asked too many questions, or when Davrin mentioned his own.

Living family. That was the wound.

Lucanis, who had buried nearly all of his, could see it for what it was. That strange guilt of surviving. Of choosing a path that didn’t circle back to the people who raised you. The way it lingered like a bruise you couldn’t stop pressing.

She floated in silence after that.

Not perfectly. Not with ease. But she floated. Her head rested in the cup of his hand, hair drifting like flame-weed around her. One leg still kicked now and again, and her fingers flexed like they weren’t sure whether to grasp or surrender. But she didn’t sink.

Lucanis breathed out slowly, the tension in his own shoulders loosening as hers did. The lake held them both.

“You’re doing it,” he said. Not proud. Not coaxing. Just… present. The truth of it between them.

Her mouth quirked. Barely. A ghost of a smirk, fleeting and wry. “You make it sound like I just discovered fire.”

“You kind of did.”

She opened her eyes, turning her head just enough to look at him. Sunlight caught in her lashes, on the curve of her cheek. Her skin was pink at the tops of her shoulders now, beginning to freckle deeper under the noon heat. The opal ring glinted as she adjusted her hand, fingertips skimming the surface.

“Still feels like cheating,” she said. “You’re holding me up.”

“I said I wouldn’t let go.”

Her brow furrowed at that—just a flicker. Like it meant more than she wanted it to.

Lucanis tilted her gently, guiding her upright, one arm braced around her ribs as she found her footing again. Water slicked down her chest and thighs as she straightened. Her breathing was still quick, but no longer panicked. He could see it in the set of her jaw—tension giving way to something else.

The moment stretched. Then broke.

She surged forward and kissed him.

It wasn’t graceful. Their teeth clicked, and the water surged awkwardly around them, but her hands caught his face, wet and sure and shaking. He responded without thinking, his own hands gripping her waist, pulling her flush against him as her legs wrapped around his hips like they were back at the Lighthouse, tangled in sheets and silence and things they couldn’t say.

But this wasn’t that.

This was open air. Water and heat and the smell of cypress. The weight of her against him, alive and laughing softly into his mouth even as she kissed him harder.

Chapter Text

The thread slipped in and out of her skin, slick with blood.

Rook gritted her teeth as she pulled it taut, the knot catching like a choke at the top of the gash carved just above her hip. She’d cut away the leathers herself, peeled them down to bare flesh with shaking fingers and silence. No one had seen her slip out of the courtyard. No one ever did—not when she didn’t want them to.

The infirmary was dim. One hanging lantern guttered from a hook in the ceiling, casting long shadows across the tile. The sheets on the cot beside her still smelled like elfroot poultice. The floor beneath her boots was sticky with old blood, dried and flaking like rust.

Her fingers kept working.

Needle. Thread. Knot. Pull.

She didn’t look at the wound anymore. Just stared at the wall and tried not to notice the way her vision blurred at the edges. She was pale—she knew she was pale. Her skin had gone grey beneath the freckles, and her hands were cold. The room tilted every time she breathed too deep.

But she was almost done. She just had to—

The door slammed open.

She flinched and tried to grab the half-buttoned coat she’d tossed aside, but the effort sent the wound screaming. Blood dripped to the floor, pattering soft as rain on stone. She looked up just as he crossed into the room—and froze.

Lucanis.

He stood in the threshold like he’d torn the world open to get there.

His coat was streaked with mud, eyes dark and wild, one of his blades still half-strapped to his thigh. His jaw was set hard enough to splinter stone. For a long, long moment, he just stared at her—at the mess of gauze and the too-bright blood, at the tremble in her fingers and the half-stitched wound.

Then: “You were supposed to be resting.”

Her mouth worked, dry. “Didn’t want to—”

“Don’t,” he snapped. It was low. Sharper than she’d ever heard him.

She blinked. He never raised his voice.

Lucanis crossed the room faster than he should’ve and dropped to his knees in front of her, hands already pulling supplies closer, already reaching for the thread she’d bloodied. The look in his eyes wasn’t just anger—it was fury, frustration, fear—all buried so deep she could hardly tell where one ended and the other began.

“Spite said you smelled wrong,” he said tightly. “Said something in you was off.”

“Well,” she tried to joke, weakly. “Spite has an excellent nose.”

Lucanis didn’t laugh. He didn’t even breathe.

“I asked three people where you were. You told no one. You bled your way in here alone and didn’t ask for help.”

She looked away. 

He caught her chin in his hand and forced her to meet his gaze.

“Why.”

Her voice nearly broke. “It’s not that bad.”

“Why.”

Rook swallowed. The silence between them throbbed like a second heartbeat. She could feel it building in her chest, a pressure she didn’t know how to name.

“They need the poultices,” she said. “Davrin’s got cracked ribs. Harding took a gash to her back. I didn’t want to waste—”

“You think we’d rather have you dead than use the elfroot?” His tone sliced like obsidian.

“No,” she snapped—but too fast, too reflexive.

Because the truth of it was there. Unspoken. Ugly.

She saw it in the way his face changed. Saw the realization settle like ash.

She wrapped her arms around herself. “I’m just… I’m not like the rest of you. I don’t have a thing. I’m not a mage-killer, I’m not a Warden, I’m not… anything. I was only here in the first place because I got people out when I should’ve stayed for the relic. That’s what Strife said. That I lost the map. That I ruined the mission.”

Her voice cracked.

“And now I just—I scout and fight and patch people up and hope it’s enough. But I’m not essential, Lucanis. If I died out there, the mission wouldn’t even stumble. You’d move on.”

His expression twisted. Not with disbelief—but with something sick. Something that turned his features into a mask of disbelief and quiet horror.

“I wish you would stop talking about yourself like that,” he said.

The needle dropped from her hand.

It clinked softly against the metal tray, forgotten. Blood smeared down her side in lazy rivulets, soaking the bandages she’d half-laid. But Rook barely noticed. Her whole body had gone still—except her chest, which lifted and fell with aching, stuttered gasps.

“I’ve never hated you,” he said. “But I’ve tried.”

The words hit her like a fist to the sternum. Knocked something loose that had been clamped tight for too long. Her eyes snapped to his, and for the first time she saw no mask. No steel-forged control. No distance.

Only a man kneeling in front of her with blood on his hands and terror in his eyes.

He looked at her like she wasn’t a soldier or a scout or another blade in the wheel. Like she was something precious. Like she meant something.

She didn’t know what to do with that. Didn’t know how to hold it. Didn’t know how to deserve it.

Lucanis breathed in like it hurt him. His hand lifted again—slower this time, no sharpness in the motion. She didn’t flinch. Couldn’t. Her body had stopped listening to her mind. It only knew the warmth of him, the shaking in his fingers, the awful silence that had fallen like snowfall between them.

He cupped the side of her face—so gently it nearly undid her—and his thumb barely grazed the line of her cheek, smudging away dirt and sweat and something raw beneath it all.

His eyes drank her in like they were starving. Like if he looked long enough, maybe she’d stay.

“I don’t want to bury you,” he said. “Not you.”

Rook’s breath snagged in her chest.

And for a moment—just a moment—she let herself believe it.

That maybe he had been watching. That maybe it hadn’t been disdain in his glances, or frustration in his distance. That maybe the way he slipped away after long stretches near her wasn’t revulsion, wasn’t regret.

But fear. 

Fear of being close. Of needing something. Of losing something again.

Because he’d never looked at her like this. And she’d never let herself hope.

She swallowed hard. Her hands, still stained red, clenched in the fabric of the coat in her lap. Everything in her screamed not to believe it. That she was being foolish. That she was seeing things that weren’t there, wanting too much again. That she’d make herself a fool just to feel like she mattered.

But she would probably be dead right now if Lucanis Dellamorte didn’t care.

And maybe that had to count for something.

And before she could lose her nerve, Rook leaned forward—quick, desperate, a movement that almost cracked her ribs—and kissed him.

It wasn’t perfect. Her lips hit his off-center, clumsy from pain and panic, and she could feel the damp of her tears against his cheek. But he didn’t pull away. He didn’t flinch. His hand only steadied at her jaw, cradling her closer like the world had narrowed to that single, fragile point of contact.

When she pulled back, she didn’t say a word.

Neither did he. 

But he stayed kneeling in front of her. And his thumb never left her cheek.

Chapter Text

The chaise groaned beneath their knees as her mouth found his again, open, heated, reckless. She tasted like lightning on a parched tongue, like home after war, like the Fade had never touched her and yet he could feel its chill still curling off her skin in places. He would have burned for her gladly. But she was warm in his hands, trembling and present, and he was struggling not to shatter beneath the weight of it.

She was naked against him. No armor. No veils. No smirking mask of deflection. Just Rook—his Rook—with fireblood hair and hands that mapped his skin like they were trying to rewrite every scar, every silence, every second of solitude he’d curled into himself and called survival.

Her thigh brushed between his, and his hips jerked, uncontrolled. Flesh to flesh. His breath stuttered, sharp and near-pained against her mouth, and her tongue chased it, soft and slow like she’d tasted his hesitation and loved it anyway.

He didn’t know what to do with that.

Her fingers splayed over his waist, trailing up the scars across his ribs like she was reading them out loud with her palms. He grasped at her like if he let go, she’d disappear again. Hands on her hips, the curve of her lower back, her shoulder blades, her hair. Too much. Not enough.

She shifted back just enough to look at him, one hand drifting between them. Her palm pressed over the hardness beneath his smalls. A teasing, perfect friction that made his breath catch in his throat.

“Rook—” he rasped, then stopped. His mouth worked around air like he was drowning in it. His heart slammed too loud in his ears. He felt… young. Not just in the flesh—though Maker, yes, he was throbbing and desperate and so close already it was embarrassing—but in the kind of way that stripped you bare. Exposed you. Like no one had ever seen you before.

Her hand was still between them, slow and steady, and her golden eyes flicked to his face.

“I’ve never—” he tried again, voice rough, jaw tight.

Rook tilted her head, brows drawing down. “Like… with a woman?” She looked confused for a heartbeat, like she was trying to make something fit. “You gave Viago a knife, didn’t you?”

Lucanis let out a short, breathless laugh, his lips curling at the edge. “No. I’ve never… with anyone.” The admission came low, quiet — stripped of pretense. “Not just not with a woman. With anyone.”

That landed. Rook blinked. Then her expression shifted—softened—something molten in her gaze now, not pity but reverence, like she’d been handed something unspeakably rare.

“Okay,” she murmured. “Then we move how you want.”

Her hand palmed him again, firmer this time, and he gasped through his teeth, his hips stuttering forward. She reached for the waistband of his smalls, about to tug them down—

“Want to touch,” came the voice, low and curling like smoke through his own throat, laced with flickering violet flame. The magenta gleam bled into his eyes like spilled ink. “Want. Her hands. On your co—”

Lucanis flinched, jaw clenching. “Mierda, no.”

Rook’s hand paused, fingers still hooked into the waistband. Her eyes flicked to his — saw the color change, the flicker. The breath he hadn’t released. “Spite,” she said evenly, gently, like a mother scolding a child. “This moment isn’t yours.”

“Mine too.” The voice throbbed through Lucanis’ chest. “I want—”

“I know what you want,” Rook cut in, soft but unshakable. She reached up and touched the side of his face, thumb brushing just below his eye. “But this is for him. Go visit the Wisps. Or sit in the corner and watch, if you must. Quietly.”

Lucanis’ hands trembled. He didn’t know if it was from restraint or the weight of her voice—of her knowing. He expected resistance from Spite. Instead, there was silence, and the color bled slowly back to brown. His own again.

Rook leaned in, her breath warm at his ear. “Now. Tell me what you want.”

“I…” He swallowed, chest heaving, every muscle tensed like he might shatter from being touched so gently. So intimately. “I don’t know how to say it.”

“Try.” Her palm slid lower, grazing his cock through his smalls again and he gasped, involuntary, sharp, eyes fluttering closed for a moment. “Or Spite will.”

That earned a hoarse laugh from him. Then, finally, he met her gaze.

His mouth parted, breath trembling on the cusp of speech, but Rook was already moving. Her hand slipped into the edge of his smalls and peeled them down, slow, deliberate, the drag of cloth a sudden mercy and cruelty all at once. Cool air touched his cock, and he shuddered—bare now, finally, and her eyes drank him in like he was something worth unwrapping. Worth worship.

She didn’t hesitate.

One palm pressed firm to his chest, guiding him down, and he let her, spine curling against the chaise’s velvet cushion. The upholstery bit at his shoulder blades. Her hand lingered over his heart, grounding him there, holding him still.

“Tell me what feels good,” she said, voice low and warm against his ribs. She kissed him there, open-mouthed and slow, just beneath his heart, and his stomach jumped.

“I—” He swallowed. His eyes squeezed shut, trying to find the words through the white-hot heat already blooming low in his belly. “That.”

She smiled against his skin and kissed lower. Her tongue traced one of the pale, jagged scars that cut across his abdomen, and the muscles beneath it twitched.

Her fingers slid down his sides, nails grazing over sensitive places he hadn’t even realized could feel good. Not like this. Not when the touch wasn’t a warning or a threat, but a promise.

“More?” she asked against the skin of his hip, lips grazing the bone there.

“Yes.” It came out hoarse. His hands knotted into the cushion beside him, white-knuckled. 

She kissed across the sharp line of his hip, then shifted her body fully down between his legs, her crimson hair brushing his thighs. One hand wrapped gently around the base of him and his head dropped back with a sound that might have been her name or just a broken, pleading breath.

Rook’s hand moved around him with measured pressure, coaxing another helpless gasp from his mouth. The warmth of her palm, the slow rhythm—it was everything he’d ever imagined and far, far worse. Too good. His hips bucked into it without thought, without dignity, and still she kissed his chest like she was memorizing him one inch at a time.

He needed to touch her. Needed to know this wasn’t some nightmare’s sweet trick. That this was real. That she was real.

His hands found her wrists, not rough, but firm enough to still her. “Rook,” he rasped, breathless. “Let me…”

He surged forward before she could argue, shifting her easily with the strength born from pure desperation. The chaise creaked under them as he rolled her beneath him, bracing himself with a hand beside her head. His chest hovered over hers, and their thighs tangled together, heat to heat. Her hair fanned out like fire beneath him, and her eyes pulled him in like gravity.

“I need—” He swallowed hard, gaze dragging over her face, her throat, the swell of her breasts rising with each breath. “I need to see you. I need to feel you.”

Her legs fell open beneath him in silent answer, and he settled between them, skin flushed against skin. One of his hands slid down the slope of her waist, reverent, like she might disappear if he touched too fast. His thumb brushed the underside of her breast, then circled her nipple, slow, curious, worshipful. Her back arched in response, a low sound catching in her throat, and it was the most beautiful thing he’d ever heard.

“You like that?” he asked, voice rough, lips brushing the curve of her jaw. She nodded, wordless, already shifting beneath him.

Good. He wanted to give her everything.

His mouth followed his hand, kisses dragging down her throat, over her collarbone, lower still. Until he took one nipple into his mouth and sucked, firm and hungry, while his hand roamed between her thighs.

His cock twitched against her thigh as his fingers slid through the slick heat of her folds, testing—slow at first, then deeper, his touch learning her like he’d been dreaming of this forever. Because he had.

“Tell me what feels good,” he murmured into her skin, repeating her own words back like prayer.

“You,” she gasped. “Just like that.”

And he listened. Because if this was a dream, he was going to memorize every moan she made. If this was real—and it was—then he would spend every breath giving her what she deserved.

“You’re back,” he whispered, pressing kisses to her ribs, to her stomach, to her hips. His voice cracked, low and aching. 

“You came back to me,” he whispered, voice breaking in half against the delicate, trembling skin of her inner thigh.

Rook was panting now, her hips rolling into the rhythm of his mouth, her fingers buried in his hair like she’d drown without the anchor of him. She was close—he could feel it in the way her legs tensed around his shoulders, the way her breath hitched and broke, the way her voice went tight and high when she said his name.

“Lucanis—”

He locked his arms under her thighs and pulled her closer, tongue stroking harder, faster, licking into her with his mouth and fingers until she shattered.

Her whole body arched, hands fisting in his hair, a cry torn from her throat—hoarse, desperate, his name, like it was the only thing she knew.

And he watched her fall apart.

Watched her eyes flutter closed and her mouth fall open and the last threads of her composure dissolve into the air between them.

Rook collapsed back into the chaise with a ragged breath, her thighs still trembling around his shoulders, her chest flushed and rising fast. She laughed once, low, stunned, breathless.

“Creators,” she gasped. “If that’s what you’re like with no experience…”

Lucanis wiped his mouth with the back of his hand, and when he looked up at her, it was like standing on the edge of something he was no longer afraid to fall into.

He crawled up her body slowly. Kissing the inside of her thigh, her hipbone, her belly, the slope of her ribs. He kissed her like every part of her mattered. Like she was the miracle he’d been stupid enough to dream about but somehow still got anyway.

She reached for him, arms curling around his shoulders as he hovered above her, flushed and panting and hard against her thigh, aching so bad it made his hands shake.

Her fingers trailed down to brush his cock, and Lucanis groaned—the sound low, guttural, torn from somewhere deep in his chest. The way she touched him, like it wasn’t just hunger but affection, like she knew him.

“Do you want me now?” she asked again, voice low, roughened with want but soft at the edges. Like she was offering more than her body.

He nodded. Or maybe it was a prayer. His hands were shaking as he guided himself to her, brushing the tip of his cock through her wetness, and then he slowly thrust into her.

He gritted his teeth as her body opened for him—slick and warm and tight it made his whole spine lock. He groaned again, forehead dropping to her shoulder as he bottomed out, his hips pressed flush to hers, and the whole world narrowed to the heat between them. The way her thighs cradled his hips. The way her hands curled over the ridges of his back. The way she held still and let him feel.

Maker.

She whispered something—maybe his name, maybe nothing at all—and kissed his jaw, her mouth soft as a benediction. And when he moved, it was with a reverence he hadn’t known he possessed. His hips rocked into her slowly, each thrust careful, measured, trying to learn the shape of her from the inside out.

Rook’s breath caught in her throat. Her hands gripped his arms, her gaze locked on his face as if she could see every raw, shaking part of him that he’d never let anyone touch before.

He wanted to keep going forever.

But his body burned, each thrust stoking something too big to contain, and she was so perfect around him—he bit down on a curse, trying to slow the roll of his hips, but it was too much.

Too good. Too much her.

She held him tighter when he faltered, when his rhythm broke, when he gasped into her neck and his body finally surrendered.

He came with a sound he didn’t recognize as his own, hips stuttering, burying himself deep and spilling into her with a tremor that shook his whole body.

He stayed like that for a long moment, chest heaving, forehead pressed to hers, their sweat mixing, their breaths uneven and shared.

Then she reached up.

Her hands cradled his face, gentle and steady, like he wasn’t a man still trembling from release. Her thumbs brushed the sweat from his cheeks, and her fingers threaded into his beard with an aching familiarity that nearly made him sob.

She held his gaze and then she leaned in and kissed his forehead.

Chapter Text

The kisses come first.

Soft, slow, shameless things—trailing down the slope of her nose, dusting across her cheek, touching the side of her mouth like they’re trying to bribe it into a smile. Not the heavy press of a lover desperate to claim. These are lighter than breath. A quiet campaign of affection. And Creators, she’s weak to it.

Her eyes stay shut.

“Mmnh. S’the point of kissing someone who’s asleep?”

Lucanis doesn’t answer. Just hums, and keeps kissing her. One, two, three freckles under her eye. One on the bridge of her nose. Another on the corner of her jaw. He’s tracking constellations, maybe. Mapping her like Satinalis mapped the stars—except instead of a lyre, she feels like a lyrium-struck Templar with a grin she can’t bite down.

“Lucanis,” she warns, groggy. “If this is your way of trying to get me to move out here, you’re cheating.”

A pause. A warm exhale against her collarbone.

“It’s Satinalia.”

Rook cracks one eye open. “That a threat or a seduction?”

He lifts a brow, faintly amused. His voice is low, half-rasped by morning and sleep and his usual brand of deadpan restraint. “You’ll have to get up to find out.”

She groans, loud and dramatic, and pulls the blanket over her head. “No. I’ve got Veiljumper business. Crossroads things. Bellara’s expecting me.”

“You don’t.”

“I do.”

“I checked.”

The covers are yanked back in one practiced motion.

Rook yelps as the cold morning air kisses the backs of her thighs—her nightshirt’s ridden up again. She scrambles to cover herself, half-heartedly, as sunlight floods the room like it owns the place. It paints the bed in bright gold and sets her red hair ablaze, a tousled halo around her head. She glares up through a tangle of it, half-blind in the sun.

Lucanis towers at the edge of the bed, all shadow and smug indifference in loose, low-slung sleep pants. His chest is bare, with pale scars mapping across his olive skin, half hidden by the hair along his chest that trails down his stomach and plummets below his waistband. One hand grips the discarded blanket, the other rakes through his sleep-mussed hair as if to tidy it, but it only makes him look more criminally undone.

And then: the tired brown of his eyes, lined faintly from another too-short sleep. They settle on her. And soften. Not the way most people do, not warm, not obvious. But the smallest breath of it, the subtlest shift in his mouth, the way the corner ticks down instead of up—says he’s glad she’s here.

Before she can say anything smug or loving or ruin it by looking too long, he grabs her by the ankle and drags her toward him in one smooth pull.

“Hey!” she squawks, arms flailing, hands scrabbling for sheets that do absolutely nothing to save her.

He kneels on the edge of the bed, pins her leg over his shoulder with terrifying calm, and sinks his mouth to the soft inside of her thigh—right at the edge of where her nightshirt still hasn’t quite covered. He doesn’t kiss. Doesn’t tease. He bites. Not cruel, not harsh, but deep enough that her breath sticks in her chest.

Then sucks just long enough for heat to spark and spread and for a bruise to bloom, nestled into the already-growing constellation of purpling marks he’s been methodically building on every visit. Like she’s his canvas and he’s been painting her in secret. He pulls back, breath steady. Says nothing.

Rook lies there stunned for a second, blood hot and heartbeat pounding in her thighs, before growling into the pillow and hurling it after him. “Coward!”

Lucanis catches it, of course. Effortless. Barely even looks like he moved.

“I told you,” he says, already walking toward the wardrobe, “it’s Satinalia.”

It was more than an hour later before they made it to the streets—closer to two, if she counted all the distractions.
(And she absolutely counted the distractions.)

Now, under a faded canopy outside a crowded tavern in Treviso’s heart, Rook sat with her pointed ears clamped between her palms and her elbows braced on her knees like a woman under siege. A woman trying to survive the battlefield of celebration.

Around them, Satinalia raged.

Trumpets blared sharp as knives, followed by a rolling chorus of drums that rattled her bones like they belonged to someone else. Children shrieked with glee, flinging colored powders in the wake of masked dancers who moved like fire through the streets. Some stomped, others spun in satin and bells. Banners snapped overhead. The cobblestones were slick with wine and ribbons, and somewhere close by, someone had released doves into the crowd, which had—predictably—sent a group of drunk performers into delighted chaos.

And the parade wasn’t even halfway done.

Rook groaned into her hands. Her earrings clinked softly against her fingers, hoops and studs and little gold bits that made every twitch of her head into a full-body chime. The metal felt warm against her skin. Everything did. It was all too bright, too loud, too much. Not in the way that overwhelmed her, not quite—but enough to make her jaw ache from clenching it. Enough to press at the backs of her eyes. Still. She stayed.

Because Lucanis stood beside her, one arm resting on the canopy pole, watching the parade with unreadable eyes.

His own mask—black and bone-pale like an avian skull—was hooked on his belt, forgotten. He hadn’t put it on once. But he had dressed for the occasion: dark embroidered sleeves buttoned neatly at the wrist with gleaming silver crow skulls, a fitted black coat trimmed in violet, rings on his fingers that caught the light when he touched her shoulder earlier, briefly, wordlessly.

He hadn’t spoken since they arrived. He didn’t need to.

Lucanis had guided her here through the winding streets of Treviso, hand at the small of her back, silent but sure. He didn’t speak unless necessary. Didn’t gesture unless to shift her from the path of a drunken reveler or shield her from a burst of flung colored powder. He nodded, once, at a pair of masked Crows perched on a balcony; they nodded back. One met Rook’s gaze and quickly looked away. Others scurried. A few watched.

Once, back in the Lighthouse, late into one of those knife-edged nights when he couldn’t sleep, Lucanis had murmured that he missed Treviso—not the missions, not the masks or the poisons or the politics—but the noise. The life of it. The smell of warm oil and fried sweets. The sound of children laughing while the old gods were mocked in song.

He’d said it softly, as if realizing it mid-thought.
As if surprised that he still wanted something.

And now, here he was, watching as his city screamed with joy around him, chaos blazing at every corner. His coat caught confetti on the sleeves. His hair, curling slightly at the ends from the sea air, tumbled loose down his back. When the wind shifted, the scent of fried batter and sugared anise reached them from the plaza.

Rook peeked up at him from beneath her hands.
He looked… not smiling. But close.
Like the tiniest bit of pressure had lifted off his spine.

She took her hands from her ears and winced as another round of drums crashed through the air like thunder.

Lucanis didn’t glance at her, but his hand found hers anyway. Fingers laced slowly. Rings cold against her knuckles. Rook squeezed once, then stood.

The motion wasn’t graceful—her legs were stiff, her earrings jangled, and someone in the crowd threw powdered pigment that missed by a hair’s breadth—but she made it up, up, until she could lean in and press a kiss to his throat. He didn’t startle. Didn’t move at all. Just tipped his chin the barest inch to give her more room.

She lingered, mouth brushing warm skin, tasting the faint salt of him beneath the riot of spice in the air. Let herself feel the beat of his pulse under her lips. She could’ve stayed like that—pressed into him, letting the noise pass them by—but instead, she pulled back, just enough to meet his eyes.

Then reached up and ran both hands into his hair.

Lucanis blinked, the faintest crease forming in his brow, but he didn’t stop her. Didn’t speak. Just watched her through lashes dusted with bits of golden powder—someone must’ve flung it into the air at some point. It caught on his temples and collarbones, softened the sharp lines of him into something closer to myth. She tugged his hair back gently from his face, and with a practiced twist, tied the top half into a loose knot at the back of his head. She’d meant to do it before they left, had even started—but then his mouth had found her collarbone and her priorities had shifted.

Rook ran her fingers along the edge of the knot to smooth it out, brushing away confetti and wind-tossed strands. Her thumbs lingered at his temples, and she leaned in just long enough to whisper, “There. Now you’re festive.”

Lucanis exhaled through his nose, an almost-laugh.

Then he tilted his head, just slightly, as if listening to something beneath the music. “There’s somewhere I want to take you before the fireworks start.”

She raised an eyebrow. “Does it involve fish pudding?”

“No.”

“Then lead on.”

The streets fell behind them in a blur of color and clamor, winding deeper into Treviso until the crush of bodies thinned and the air turned a little cooler, touched by salt and stone.

Lucanis said nothing of where they were going.

He led her through narrow alleys where garlands hung crooked and candles flickered in alcoves, up a back stair that creaked underfoot, and through a forgotten side door into a building that looked—at first—like it had nothing left to offer. But then came the final climb: a narrow, spiraling stairwell that opened to a rooftop washed in the last amber-gold of the sun.

They arrived just as it slipped below the horizon.

The noise didn’t vanish, but it muffled, muted beneath tile and brick and distance, so the music turned soft and the drums were felt more than heard. The sky stretched wide above them, shot through with purple and fire-orange, a thousand rooftop lanterns flickering to life one by one.

Rook exhaled, the relief was quiet but sharp, like a stone pulled from her boot.

She crossed to the edge and sat down with a slow sigh, back to the streets below, her dress spilling like spiced wine across the sun-warmed tiles. The wind tugged strands of her hair loose from its braid and tousled the fringe at her shoulders. Somewhere far below, someone sang a Satinalia hymn that had once belonged to Zazikel and now belonged to no one—chaotic, joyous, half-drunk.

Lucanis stood between her legs, facing the city.

She leaned forward into him, her hands drifting toward his chest, idle fingers toying with one of the silver crow skull buttons at his collar. The metal was cool beneath her thumb. Her other hand found the next button down and twitched it back and forth on its thread, slow and aimless. Not trying to undress him—just feeling him. Marking the fact of him with her hands. His fingers brushed against the fabric of her dress, trailing lightly down from her hips to her knees, then back up again. Not quite holding her. Just… touching. Like he was grounding himself. As if he still didn’t believe she was real. As if this rooftop, this dusk, this peace, might vanish the moment he looked away. Rook looked up at him.

His face was mostly in shadow now, but she could still make out the long line of his nose, the slight curve of his mouth, the way his eyes caught the last of the sun. That same smudge of golden powder still lingered on his cheekbone. She resisted the urge to kiss it off.

And then, with no warning but the sudden stillness of the crowd below—
the first firework bloomed.

A whistle, a pop, and then the sky cracked open in white and crimson. Trails of glittering fire arced overhead, flaring out like wings before fading into smoke. The sound hit a heartbeat later, deep in her chest, echoing between buildings and bell towers and the bones of the city. Rook turned and leaned back, tilting her head toward the spectacle, mouth parted in open wonder.

The fireworks didn’t stop. One after another, bright bursts spiraled upward—green and gold, violet and blue, streaking across the stars like defiance made visible. Some whirled, some cracked like lightning, others shimmered in silence before fading out like breath.

Lucanis didn’t look at them, he looked at her.

At the reflection of fire in her gold eyes, the way she tracked each bloom like it was a secret meant just for her. At the shape of her smile, wide and shameless, unburdened by whatever came before. The wind tugged at her sleeves and tossed her hair against her back. Her earrings danced in the light. He watched her take in the sky as if she was trying to memorize it.

“Rook,” he said, voice low.

She didn’t look away. “Mm?”

"Do you want your Satinalia gift?”

She made a noise between a scoff and a laugh, eyes still fixed upward. “You’re going to miss the fireworks.”

“I won’t.”

Another bloom split the sky—green and silver this time, a twisting helix of light that sparked like lightning and scattered embers across the night. Rook gasped without meaning to, grinning like a fool.

And then she felt it. His hand brushing hers. Then something cool and weighty pressed into her palm.

She looked down. An opal, set in gold—the stone catching every color the fireworks could throw at it. Green. Silver. Violet. Then red, hot and hungry, like a blood-soaked sunrise. The band was old, unmistakably Antivan in the delicate, curling filigree that wound around it like vines. It had been worn, clearly. Loved. The metal smooth in places from time and use. But it had been polished. Recently.

The firelight caught in it like it belonged there.

Rook blinked. “Is that—?”

Her throat locked. “Are you—?”

She looked up, and he was already watching her.

Not nervous. Not smug. Just… still. Like this wasn’t a moment. Like it had already happened in his head a hundred times, and this was simply the first time he was saying it out loud.

“You told me once,” he said, low, quiet, steady, “that you didn’t want to be left behind.” His eyes didn’t leave hers. “I don’t want you to feel that, Rook. Let me wake beside you. That’s all.”

Her breath caught.

He kept going, voice nearly drowned by the next crack of light overhead.

“I said I’d kill any god to fall asleep in your arms.”

A pause. Then, softer:

“I want to wake up, too.”

The opal blazed in her hand.

It felt like everything—the end of the world, the start of a new one, a hundred missed mornings and every whisper between their bodies, in the Lighthouse, in Antiva, on rooftops and battlefields and all the places where they'd dared to survive. The crowd roared at the next firework—massive, bright as a dawn that shouldn’t exist, and still, her heart was louder.

Rook launched into him.

Not a gentle kiss. Not a soft one. A full-body, spine-arching, don’t-you-dare-take-it-back kiss. The kind that felt like pulling stars from the sky and pressing them between their teeth. She kissed him with every firework still blooming, every heartbeat they’d missed, every night they’d spent apart.

She kissed him like this was the only city left in the world and they’d carved it into being with nothing but their teeth and want and stubborn godless hope.

Lucanis caught her. Crushed her against him with the kind of reverence that had nothing to do with faith and everything to do with choice. One hand buried in her hair, the other curling tight around her waist like she was the only thing tethering him to the roof.

When they broke, breathless, stunned, she laughed.

“Lucanis,” she whispered, her forehead against his.

He didn’t speak. Just waited.

“Yes,” she said.