#spiral wine cellar

[cloudsofbluesmoke]

Wine Cellar Medium in New York Example of a mid-sized trendy concrete floor wine cellar design with storage racks

[residenteevee]

Medium in New York

Image of a medium-sized, trendy wine cellar with a concrete floor and storage racks

[dustinyellin]

Medium in Los Angeles

Example of a mid-sized trendy light wood floor wine cellar design with storage racks

[charleytakeabow]

Medium New York

Image of a medium-sized, trendy wine cellar with a concrete floor and storage racks

[titleelovessomerhalder]

Wine Cellar - Contemporary Wine Cellar Ideas for remodeling a medium-sized modern wine cellar with a concrete floor and storage racks

[shiloku]

Medium in New York Image of a medium-sized, trendy wine cellar with a concrete floor and storage racks

[francinesoleil]

Medium Wine Cellar Medium-sized modern porcelain tile wine cellar image with racks for storage

[jouelacommelara]

Contemporary Wine Cellar - Racks Image of a medium-sized, trendy wine cellar with a concrete floor and storage racks

[upstairsdownstairsandinbetween]

Cal Serni, Monistrol de Calders, Spain,

Victor Bouman

[severeavenuefestival]

Wine Cellar in New York Inspiration for a large timeless marble floor wine cellar remodel with storage racks

[vehandojo]

Wine Cellar Cambridgeshire Mid-sized minimalist limestone floor and white floor wine cellar photo with storage racks

[titanjelly]

Wine Cellar Medium New York Wine cellar - mid-sized contemporary concrete floor wine cellar idea with storage racks

[enchantedtearz]

Large Seattle

Inspiration for a sizable transitional wine cellar remodel with brown flooring and storage racks

[newtonlara]

Traditional Wine Cellar - Wine Cellar Inspiration for a large timeless marble floor wine cellar remodel with storage racks

[whatshouldfitcallme]

Modern Home Bar in New York With an undermount sink, flat-panel cabinets, gray cabinets, marble countertops, a white backsplash, and a glass sheet backsplash, this large minimalist l-shaped dark wood floor wet bar image is very stylish.

[cheerysmores]

Unfinished business

Pairing: Lucanis X Shadow Dragon Rook (named: Phyrra Mercar).

Word count: 3K

Summary: Post game. Some thoughts on what would happen if someone took a Crow contract out on Rook. Will most likely be added to a longer fic later.

***

If there was any amount of gold Lucanis could pay to not speak to his cousin tonight, he’d gladly part with it. He’d found a perfumed note slipped between a dozen missives from the other Talons. The five words were enough to make his stomach turn. 

Urgent business. Usual place. - Illario 

He crumples it again, fixing his stare to Treviso’s darkening horizon from his perch on the Villa’s roof. It was his favourite spot as a boy, one hidden by an ivy-strewn chimney where he could rub the bruises from his Grandmother’s cane or his own clumsiness. They both could

It’s been months since they’ve talked. He wishes it were longer, but there are only so many contracts he can throw at Illario to get him out of the city. There are longer, more incomprehensible jobs that would probably have him away permanently, but he can’t quite bring himself to waste Caterina’s training on those. His cousin is still a good assassin. It doesn’t change the fact that Lucanis would rather eat his own knife collection than have another conversation with him.

Spite flickers from tile to tile out of the corner of his eye, grumbling and restless. The demon had become insufferably impatient when Phyrra’s scent finally left his bedsheets. He’d chastise him more if he hadn’t been the same the second she’d left the city again. 

He rolls the parchments between his fingers. He wants her here, needs to talk to her. He’d kill any number of people for a working Eluvian so he could pull her back and spill his spiralling thoughts into the curve of her neck… then pointedly ask if the other Shadow Dragons had guilted her into rebuilding Minrathos brick by brick. 

He pictures her next to him, eyes bright, hair ignited with colour from the last stripes of sunlight painting the roof. She’d put her head on his shoulder, gently jab him in the side and say something along the lines of ‘If he tries anything, I’ll politely remind him that all the grease in his hair makes it especially flammable.’ 

He almost smiles. If anything the next conversation should at least liven up the next letter he pens.

***

The scent of cinnamon and old coffee greets him as he enters the kitchen. Before, it had always been their place to decompress, mainly because of the easy access to pastries and alcohol. Illario sits at the small table next to an open bottle. He’s as primped as ever, coat pressed, hair styled, lips dark from the wine. Only his slightly crooked nose ruins his carefully sculpted image–  a reminder of when they finally had it out at Caterina’s birthday party. It started as needle sharp words over dinner and ended with the least graceful brawl two Crows had ever been a part of. He’s not sure what stung more, his Grandmother’s icy stare as Viago pulled them apart or her short remarks on his sloppy form.

Spite lurches from the darkness. His anger is a bitter taste in the air as he glares at his cousin. “Finally. Let me finish this.”

Illario refills his glass. “Lucanis, I wasn’t sure you’d actually come.”

The way he stretches out his name makes his skin crawl. “I half expected to find your body down here with a thank you note stabbed through it,” he answers, firmly shutting the door behind him.

Illario’s smile doesn’t falter. “Disappointed?”

“Do you really want the answer to that question?”

A low muffled groan suddenly bleeds through the cellar door behind Illario. He leans back and kicks it until whoever is in there stops.

Lucanis runs a hand down his face. “Don’t bring work back here if you’re not prepared to clean the floor yourself.”

“It’s just some unfinished business. Don’t worry about that for now.” Illario pushes the second chair out from under the table. He sighs when Lucanis remains standing. “You’re always so humourless when you have to sleep alone. Convince Rook to leave Minrathos already and save the rest of the Talons a headache.”

Spite slinks forward, lips pulled back into a snarl. "You got to punch him. It’s my turn. Mine."

Lucanis shoots the demon a harder stare. “Not yet.”

“You never let me.” 

“I said no.”

Illario raises a thick eyebrow. “Oh sorry, I should have asked. Am I talking to you or him right now?”

“When he’s talking, you’ll know.” Lucanis is fairly sure he’s the only man on Thedas that can confirm exactly how vivid a demon’s imagination can get. Spite had spent more than one evening painting an extremely colourful picture of all the ways he could tear out his cousin’s heart.

“Well I’m fairly certain it was the demon who tried to stab me,” Illario says.

“The first time.”

“Yes. The dozen or so times at the Opera were very necessary after I was already on my knees. You could have–”

“Illario.” Lucanis interrupts sharply. “If there’s a point to this meeting, get to it faster.”

“Fine.” He produces a small package from his coat and pushes it  across the table. “I have a gift for you.” He takes a longer drink of wine as Lucanis picks it up. It’s some deep Orlesian red by the smell. Far too expensive for everyday business.

He gestures to the bottle. “I’m assuming there’s an occasion.”

“Of course.” Illario raises his cup in a crude toast. “Celebrating your loss of virginity before ascending to First Talon. I’d say tell me everything but I’m assuming it’s a fairly brief account.”

Lucanis lets the sound of tearing paper fill the heavy silence. Two years ago he might have laughed at that, maybe even stolen his own bottle from Caterina’s finer collection. Back when it would have truly just been the two of them.

Spite eyes the package, nose wrinkling.

He finds a dagger nestled inside. It’s well-made but unassuming, one of a thousand hidden up the sleeves of Crows across the continent. He can tell it was cleaned in a hurry, the surface smeared with a thin sheen of crimson and something darker–  a cheap poison he surmises. The good ones don’t leave a stain. His fingers stop as he touches the serrated edge. He knows the pattern. He’d traced the exact scar over Phyrra’s shoulder the last time she’d come to his bed. She hadn’t seen who’d attacked her, just heard their screams as she quickly shoved them from Minrathos’ city walls. 

Spite inhales. “Smells like. Deathroot. Iron.” His sharp eyes narrow, snapping to Illario again. “Rook.”

Lucanis’ fist tightens over the handle. “Who was it?”

“One of the lower houses. None of the Talons would ever accept that contract– at least for now.” Another whimper comes through the cellar door. Illario kicks it harder. “I’m holding onto the name until I know you’re not going to do something stupid.”

The bite of Spite’s rage prickles under his skin. He can feel the demon’s words digging into his own tongue, desperate to be spat. 

‘Burn them. Burn them all to the ground.’

Illario puts down his glass and crosses the room. “You must know this won’t be the last time.”

“She made a lot of enemies. We both did. And the Houses can give up as many Crows as they can afford to lose,” Lucanis replies.

“Those contracts are not going to come from anywhere but Antiva.”

Lucanis doesn’t look up from the knife. “You cannot be sure of that.”

The words hang in the air, bitter as they are foolish. Illario leans back on the table, exhaling loudly when he doesn’t continue. “Fine, if you need an evil face to say the words, I’ll oblige you. What exactly do you think will happen when Caterina dies?”

“I’d want to see her body before I’d believe it.”

Illario huffs out a small laugh. There’s no warmth to it. “You have the title but she still holds the power with an incredibly tight leash. When she finally lets go, do you truly believe that the Houses’ hatred of me is enough to accept an abomination as First Talon? I might be banished to the shadows but it’s all the better for hearing things people are only brave enough to whisper in such dark corners.”

Lucanis closes his eyes. It’s not a conversation he needs now, never one he needs to have with Illario. He knows the knife’s edge he walks, a thousand Crows pecking at every step. They’ll kiss the ring in front of the Talons but he’s seen the way their eyes search for breaks in his expression, waiting for the demon to push through. He’s just one rung above the traitor in front of him. Neither would be standing here without the bloody weight of their surname to throw around.

“They can come after me themselves then,” Lucanis retorts.

“Oh come on. You know that isn’t the logical move. The Eight Houses still support you so any civil war would be over before it began. Even before Caterina named you, everyone knew you would be chosen, so plans were already being formed about ways to usurp. Except then, you didn’t have such a glaring weakness to aim for.”

The moaning behind the door pitches to a discordant wail. Spite continues to stare at the side of Illario’s face, shaking with hate.

"He hurt us. He hurt Rook. Let me finish it. LET ME."

Lucanis pushes down harder as the demon gnashes against his restraint. It’s relentless now, a hurricane clawing at a door that he’s holding closed with his bare hands. 

“Call her weak when she’s in the room and see how long you last,” he says. He can still see the burn scars from her staff stretching like rough plaster above Illario’s collar. Leaving his face unharmed was her own kindness.

Illario rolls his eyes. “I didn’t say weak. I said weakness. I’m certain Rook could fight off a small army of Crows if she needed to. It doesn’t mean they won’t stop or that she won’t slip up. I’m not the only one that knows she can’t swim.” The noise behind the door grows louder, mixing with Spite’s growling until Illario’s words are barely audible. “And what happens after that, cousin? We saw what happened when I killed Zara instead of you. How much worse is it going to be when something happens to her? See how long all those alliances last when you finally lose control and one of the other houses has the chance to take everything.”

Spite hisses next to him. ‘LET ME. FINISH THIS.’

Lucanis’ chest burns as Spite pulls harder. “I'm not going to let that happen.”

“Not even when they send you her body so neatly wrapped in the cape you gifted her?” Illario folds his arms, words softly measured. “Or maybe they’d stretch it out and you’d get her back piece by piece–”

The knife leaves Lucanis’ hand before he can finish. It sails past Illario’s face and slams into the cellar door with a thunderous crack. Everything falls silent. Spite stays still, watching with wide eyes as Lucanis forces his breathing back into a regular rhythm. It takes all his remaining strength not to punch Illario again when he smirks, the words point proven painted there like rouge. 

Lucanis looks away. He’s better than this. He should be better than this. Illario had been a pickaxe to the cracks of his patience for decades now and he can count on one hand the number of times it had actually snapped. The times his cousin was right.

He can still feel the wounds in his mind from Spite tearing through and lunging at Illario– his first taste of becoming a true abomination. It had taken every fiber of his control and the sting of blood magic to halt the knife. Even after he’d left Treviso he could still feel Spite’s teeth digging in, desperate for the revenge they were both owed. 

After beating him to a bruised mess, Illario was a matter he could mostly hold Spite’s back on. But if something happened to Phyrra…

Something colder curls around his heart. He’d already lost her once. It was a miracle that the kitchen in the Lighthouse was still standing after he’d finally let the cocktail of anger and guilt pull him under. He’d woken to bloody fingers, a mosaic of broken glass and the terrified stares of his remaining companions. It was a lie to blame Spite, another to ignore the fact that the demon is as much a part of him as each breath now. Lucanis can see the scars reflected on his face, his own anger bleeding into those sharp glowing eyes. They were forced together like oil and water, constantly fighting to see who would end up on top. It’s different now. Their alliance opened something between them, Spite twisting into every muscle until the lines where Lucanis ended and he began blurred into nothing. 

They’d both kill for her. Maker forbid the next person who tempted them.

Illario tugs the dagger out of the door. “What was it Caterina always said? ‘Feelings make you weak. Make you sloppy.’ She beat that into both of us and yet still favoured you for that heart of yours.” He flips the blade in the air and catches it in his other hand. “Forever doing Caterina’s bidding, even when you hated it. You never even wanted the title, always said that death was your only calling.”

Lucanis eyes the blade in Illario’s hand. “Plans change. People change.”

“I didn’t change and you're a fool if you think I did.” Illario takes a step forward, regarding himself in the knife’s reflection. “That’s why I made my plan. Antiva would be safe, I’d have what I wanted, you’d have gotten the end you thought you deserved.” He closes his eyes, frowning. “Fucking Zara.” 

Lucanis stays quiet, his gaze not leaving the weapon as Illario tilts it forward. 

“I’m not sorry for what I did. If you’re waiting for an apology then you might as well kill me now. This is how Crow business is done.” He runs his thumb along the metal, dark eyes boring into Lucanis’. “You’ll always be a better assassin than me. But I’d be the better Talon.”

Lucanis walks forward until the tip of the blade is pressed against his chest. “Then you should have used your own knife.” 

One thrust is all it would take to put him down. Whether or not Illario could push hard enough before Lucanis smashes his face into a wall is another matter entirely— one he isn’t sure his cousin is willing to bet his currently unbroken teeth on.

A long cold moment passes before Illario sighs and tosses the blade onto the table. “It would be easier to count the Crows who don’t want me dead so I’d like to avoid infighting as much as you. Either get Rook here or end it, right now we’re both just waiting for this fragile peace to shatter.”

Spite circles him again.  “Why not now? His back is turned.” He turns to Lucanis when he doesn’t answer, his form shaking with impatience. “We hate him. He made us like this.”

Lucanis ignores him. Maker knows it would be so much easier to hate his cousin, to ship him off on a glorified suicide mission like everyone, even Phyrra, expects him to. He just… can’t. Every time he considers it, the memory of them walking in tandem behind their parents’ urns swims to the surface. From then on, it was them against the world, two little boys facing the iron of their Grandmother’s stare and shouldering the endless weight of her expectations.

That little boy became the man that wanted Lucanis dead. Exactly as he was trained to. He’d heard whispers long before he was dragged to the Ossuary: House Dellamorte, a family tree with so many withered branches it’s amazing it hasn’t snapped under the weight of the rot inside. He’ll be damned before he uproots it entirely.

“If you hear anything else, I want to know,” Lucanis finally murmurs. He jerks his head towards the cellar when the muffled whining starts again. “And deal with whatever that is already.”

Illario strides to the door, fingers poised on the handle. “It’s another gift actually. As it turns out, Rook didn’t quite finish the job and I happened to find said Crow crawling back to Antiva.” His smile sharpens a little. “I may have told that particular House that you’d be more forgiving if they let you clean up.”

Spite is off Illario in an instant, staring through the door like a bloodhound zoned in on wounded prey.

Lucanis calmly takes off his jacket and plucks the knife from the table. He remembers the size of the scar ruining her back, the surrounding bouquet of broken veins where the poison had burned through. A target placed there because she chose to love him.

Illario watches him pull open the door, chin resting in his upturned palm. “It’s almost a mercy I suppose. You’re usually so efficient.”

“Yes, I am,” Lucanis quietly affirms. Spectral wings burst from his back, feathers curling forward like scythe-blades. The whimpering ceases entirely as he steps into the darkness, eyes flashing a brilliant violet. “He isn’t.”

***

Bonus Phyrra