#will that stop me drawing Lucanis and rook making out? absolutely not

[marsalta]

KISS UR CROW

[slothquisitor]

Fractured Bonds

Summary: In which Lucanis tracks down Zara and ends up with far more questions than answers. Eventual Rook/Lucanis. 4k.

Read on AO3.

_____________________________________________________________

Lucanis has never bothered to fully understand how missive delivery works within the Lighthouse. He knows that Caretaker is involved and that the missives appear in the library, still, he is often surprised to get anything at all. Mostly he doesn’t send anything unless he absolutely must since he still finds it difficult to trust the magic of this place, no matter how convenient. Today, Harding had informed him he had a letter waiting as she passed through the kitchen.  

It’s from Viago. Venatori in Treviso. That can only mean one thing: Zara is still there. 

He’s not sure if Illario failed to track them down himself or simply decided not to tell him about this, but it doesn’t matter. He might not have been able to kill a god, but he can absolutely take out Zara Renata. He can at least get vengeance for Caterina and protect the family he has left. 

“Want her. Dead,” Spite says. At least, for once, they’re in agreement on something. 

“Don’t worry, she will be,” Lucanis replies, and then he goes to find Rook immediately. 

Tonight, she’s in her room unpacking a box of books and other items that look suspiciously like skulls. She smiles when he enters, and he has trouble returning it when his attention snags on the walls of her room. Like all the rooms in the Lighthouse, Rook’s makes no sense. There’s a raised platform area that seems as though it was perhaps meant to be a bay window, but instead of looking out toward the endless vastness of the Fade, it is an ocean of water and fish. He’s been here only once before and had left quickly after scanning it for exits and threats, the reminders of the Ossuary too strong. It’s not as bad today, but it still causes him to pause. But then he looks around the space she has made hers. 

There are books everywhere, on the bookshelves, but also piled beside the chaise and on the table behind it. Her staff leans beside the wardrobe, and he notices that she’s hung beautiful anatomical drawings on the walls. There’s a glass bowl filled with golden jewelry that reminds him of Emmrich, though he’s never seen her wear anything beyond the many piercings in her ears. The room itself is less crowded than Harding’s greenhouse or Emmrich’s library, but that somehow feels just as fitting here as theirs does to them.

She doesn’t pause from her work as he approaches. “Hey.”

“What’s all this?” he asks. 

“Just some stuff from home. Emmrich asked me to go to the Memorial Gardens in the Necropolis with him, and I took the opportunity to pick up some things I’d left behind.” She glances around the space with satisfaction, he wonders how much of what is in here she brought with her today. She looks so content and relaxed that he regrets bringing more trouble to her. 

“Viago found something.” He holds out Viago’s letter. 

She stops her unpacking and steps around the chaise taking the letter from his outstretched hand. “Something bad, I take it?” 

He gives her a moment to scan the contents of the letter. “Venatori in Treviso. Like I thought. One of them might know where Zara is,” he says. “Viago has Crows watching them. We find them, we find Zara.”

There are so many other problems demanding her attention, and Zara is just one Tevinter magister. They had a deal, once. He would help her kill the gods, and she would help him kill Zara. He’s failed to hold up his end, so he’s not sure that he has any right to ask for her help. This is too good an opportunity to pass up, so he’s going either way…but he hopes he won’t be going alone. 

“We better get to Treviso immediately then,” she says, handing the letter back to him. 

She says it like it’s so easy like it was never a question. He’s grateful. “I’d appreciate that.”

“You should see if Neve wants to come too. If we’re tracking down Venatori, she’s our best bet at finding them.”

The suggestion surprises him. Since Weisshaupt, Rook and Neve have seemed better, but still distant. It’s none of his business to ask, but Rook’s right: Neve would be an asset. 

“I will.” He turns to go, already going through his mental pre-mission checklist. There’s something of a ritual to it, centering his mind, focusing on the mission at hand. He’ll be ready to leave whenever she is. 

He doesn’t make it more than two steps before Rook speaks again, voice barely above a whisper. “Everything she did to you…”

He looks back at her and waits for her to continue. 

There’s a fierce determination on her face. “We’ll make her pay, Lucanis. Side by side.”

The words are a promise filled with quiet intensity. How does she do that? Keep generously offering him kindness and support when he has nothing to give her in return? Looking at her makes him feel a bit like he’s drowning. Their gazes meet, and everything around him is quiet except for the pounding of his own heart. There are many things he wishes he could say, but none of them are fair to her. 

Even before the Ossuary…before Spite…what she wants from him…what she deserves…it would have still been impossible. There’s some part, some piece that everyone else seems to have that has always been missing for him. He loves romance and the idea of sweeping love stories as much as Bellara…but…in practice, it has never quite worked for him. He doesn’t tell her any of that. 

“We just have to get this done. I’m not losing anyone else.” Not Illario. Not her. Not anyone on this team. “We’ll only get one shot at this. We’ll go when you’re ready.”

And then he turns away, shoving down every feeling but relief and gratitude that she’s willing to help. 

***

It’s a beautiful night in Treviso; it’s a real shame they’re spending it jumping from roof to roof. It doesn’t matter how many times they come here and do this, Camina never gets over how much she wishes they could walk around the city like normal people. But this is a Crow operation, so they’re traveling like Crows…and even she can acknowledge the wisdom in trying to catch Zara and the Venatori she no doubt has with her, unawares. 

But she still hates heights. 

Neve complains somewhat less than she does, and Lucanis is doing his very best to ignore them both. And perhaps they should all be a touch more serious considering their mission, but after surviving Weisshaupt everything else they do feels sort of hilarious. Oh, a group of Venatori? It’s not a giant cloud face though! She knows that the cavalier attitude is only going to bite her in the ass, but it’s hard to care right now. Besides, killing Zara Renata with Lucanis sounds like the sort of win they all need right now.  

Emmrich had tried to pull her out of the ‘nothing matters anyway’ funk by taking her home. It had been rather sweet actually the way he had gone about giving her a proper Watcher welcome. They’d spent most of the visit talking about death and loss and grief, not uncommon topics for a pair of Watchers in the Memorial Gardens, but she felt as though Emmrich was trying in some way to provide her comfort for an imagined loss. Weisshaupt had been a failure, but it wasn’t something she was grieving. Not like Davrin anyway. Still, the continued acceptance and inclusion of her by a Senior Watcher feels so genuinely healing in ways she’s not sure how to explain. 

She wonders if that’s how Treviso is for Lucanis if it’s easier to feel like himself when he’s home. He knows this city so well; he leads them through the traverse of rooftops and ziplines and scrambles across balconies like it’s second nature. The scars of the Antaam are everywhere in the city, but not from up here. And certainly not as the Chantry building looms ever larger in front of them. 

But then there is an interloper on their midnight tour of the city. 

“There you are! What took you so long? Did you stop for coffee again?” Illario emerges from the shadows, all confident swagger and the very picture of calm. 

She wasn’t aware that Illario even knew they were in Treviso, though it is always possible that Viago also shared his lead with him. Last she heard, Illario was insisting Zara was back in Vyrantium, so his appearance surprises her. She glances toward Lucanis who offers her only the slightest of shrugs before turning his attention to his cousin. 

“What are you doing here?” Lucanis asks. She appreciates him getting right to the heart of it. 

“I’m coming with you, cousin. No arguments.”

Lucanis shakes his head. “This is my job.”

Illario’s calm facade seems to crack at this. “This is Crow business.”

“How did you even know we’d be here?” Lucanis asks. 

Illario deftly sidesteps the question, turning the full force of his attention to her. “Rook! Always a pleasure. Touring the city with my cousin? You must allow me to show you the sights.”

“Lucanis said you should go. So you should go,” she replies. She’s not interested in playing his games. 

“This isn’t your type of job, cousin. There’s no one you can charm into dropping their guard. Only fanatics. All you can do is get yourself killed.”

Illario’s face twists from the light-hearted tease into something sharper, more bitter. “You think I’m not good enough?”

“Are you?” Lucanis challenges.

She nearly wants to step between them and their inability to say what they really mean. It’s so obvious that Lucanis doesn’t want Illario here because he’s worried about him. She’s pretty sure it’s not his abilities or his competency that’s truly in question, but that Lucanis cannot bear the idea that Zara might also take Illario from him. And then there’s Illario who won’t answer a simple question and shows up uninvited to get revenge on the woman who took his grandmother and his cousin away. Families are weird. 

“Fine. Have it your way, cousin. You know best.” The words are bitter, filled with an unhappiness that runs so much deeper than this single moment. There is a history here that she doesn’t have access to. She’s seen dynamics like this before, spent years doing her best to try and help families in the Necropolis navigate the aftermath of death. There was a lot less revenge and potential murder involved, but it’s clear that neither of them is saying what they really feel and it’s hurting them both. 

They leave Illario on the roof; he watches them go with unhappy eyes. 

They fight their way through Zara’s minions and guards and sycophantic followers. Lucanis seems sure that she is here, and she and Neve follow behind him and his fury. Camina has never seen him quite like this, focused, sure, but there’s a satisfaction in every kill, a debt he is collecting. He knows the names and habits of these people. Every kill is personal. 

They pause just outside a pair of double doors. “We’re close. I can feel someone using blood magic. A lot of blood magic.”

“You can sense that?” she asks. 

He nods, wincing a little. “It makes the back of my eyes hurt.”

“Are you sure you’re ready to face Zara?” It’s not that she doubts his skills…but with how much this means to him, she’s worried about what would happen if Zara somehow got away. Lucanis cannot take another loss.

His brow furrows, determination shining in his eyes. “It’s time to end her.”

Then that’s that. “I’m right behind you.”

He looks grateful, offers her a grim nod, and then shoves open the double doors. Inside, they are met with a nightmare. It’s the smell that hits her first: the putrid press of rotting meat with hints of overripe fruit. Corpses. A lot of corpses. 

“They’re exsanguinated,” she says, crouching beside a body. All these poor souls will need proper funeral rites after this. 

Neve is covering her mouth with a handkerchief. “The work of a blood mage.”

Lucanis glances around angrily, taking stock of the death and destruction around them. “The only thing we can do now is avenge them.”

True enough. So they press forward, opening one last door down the stairs from the hallway. The coppery tang of blood is thick in the air and then she realizes with horror where all that blood from the corpses outside has gone. 

A lone woman basks lazily in a bath of blood. This must be Zara Renata. She doesn’t look surprised to see them.

“Lucanis. It’s terribly uncivilized to drop in on a lady unannounced. Now the evening's ruined,” Zara croons. She’s beautiful, skin pale and silky with dark black hair that shines even in the low light. Is that what all this blood is for? For vanity?

Rage flashes through Camina, bright and hot and entirely unexpected. “You’re going to pay for everything you’ve done.”

Zara stands, the blood running down her naked body in fat rivulets. “Spoken like a true peasant.”

She doesn’t even need to glance at Lucanis to know that they’re not giving her another chance to speak and then magic and daggers and knives are thrown about. She’s grateful that Neve is there with all her experience fighting Venatori. Even now, Camina knows she’s not the best fighter. She’s had to learn quickly, but fighting blood mages like Zara is not the same as hordes of undead. She dodges and shields against the blood projectiles Zara sends their way, but between her and Neve and Lucanis, they’re able to subdue her and interrupt whatever magical ritual all this blood was for. 

When she is nearly beaten, her once black hair fading to gray, wrinkles and imperfections marring her skin, Lucanis towering over her, she holds up both hands and begins to beg. “So serious, Lucanis! Why don’t we talk? I can tell you much about Venatori…and our pet Crows.”

She and Neve flank Lucanis with their magic at the ready in case this is all a trick. She can hear the crackle of Neve’s frost magic beside her, but she’s not sure they’ll get the chance to unleash their spells. Zara has found the one thing that she could say that might stay Lucanis’s hand. He’s been desperate to know how Zara got close enough to Caterina to kill her, and she’s offering him the answer…she’s just not sure any of them will be willing to pay her price. 

Least of all, Spite. 

She can see that Lucanis is warring with him. There’s a flash of purple in his eyes, and he tilts his head, face twisted into a grimace as his fingers clench and claw. 

Zara seems to sense his hesitation, her words begin tumbling out of her mouth, quick and desperate. “You want to know who betrayed you, don’t you? Who sent you to the Ossuary?”

“Talk,” he growls, dagger pointed at her. 

There’s a zealous gleam to her answering smile. “I knew you were –”

And then Illario drops down from the ceiling. Where the fuck did he even come from? Had he been following them the whole time?

“Illario!” Lucanis’s dagger points at his cousin who stands between him and Zara. 

Illario holds a hand up. “I told you. This is Crow business.” Zara looks momentarily relieved murmuring something Camina doesn’t quite catch before Illario reaches out and snaps her neck. As she collapses to the ground, Spite erupts out of Lucanis. 

“No! MINE!”

There’s a rage-filled flash of magic that knocks both her and Neve off their feet, and as she scrambles up she can see Spite with his wings out on top of Illario, knife poised to strike. 

“Lucanis!” She screams his name on instinct as if it would stop what is about to happen. She sees the knife strike down, right toward Illario’s heart. It is only held off at the last second by Lucanis’s other hand. They are both fighting for control, that much is clear.

Lucanis or Spite, she’s not sure which of them it is that turns to look at her. Perhaps it is both for the way his wing moves so he can see her. “Get Illario…out.” There is a clear desperation in his voice, as though every word is a battle. 

She rushes forward. Perhaps it makes her a bad person, but she doesn’t care about Illario right now. She is certainly not leaving Lucanis alone with Spite. “What? No!”

“Rook, I can’t –” There is so much pain in his voice, so much fear. 

She’s never been afraid of Lucanis or Spite for that matter. He has expressed his concerns about control and she has watched him go days without sleeping, fueled only by coffee and the grim determination not to give into Spite. And in this moment where it is so clear to her that Spite has done something, moved his body in a way he doesn’t want, she’s still not afraid exactly…only afraid for him. 

She’s almost to him, ready to pull him away when she notices Illario’s struggling beneath him. He’s not reaching for a weapon though, but a pin on his vest. “That’s enough!”

And then Lucanis falls back, wings vanishing. What the actual fuck? She rounds on Illario, drawing her staff and readying a spell. 

Illario stands over his cousin, hand outstretched. “Relent,” he orders. 

Lucanis lays there, unable or unwilling to move. 

Is that…was that blood magic? It makes no sense because Illario isn’t a mage. But then whatever he’s done has clearly had quite an effect. She knows that Lucanis will not be happy with her harming Illario, but she will do whatever is necessary to protect him from doing any more blood magic on him. “That was blood magic. What did you do to him?” she demands.

Illario glares at her. “I don’t know what you’re talking about. I don’t know what happened any better than you. You have to get him out of here.” 

It’s a clear lie, and she’s about to call him on it when Neve moves just into her periphery and gives her just the slightest shake of her head. Something is wrong here and they don’t have all the pieces. Once they get Lucanis out, then they can figure out what it means. 

No part of her wants to let Illario go, but she lowers her hands, dropping her pull on the Fade, on the magic she was ready to send his way. 

“Rook, keep him away. From Treviso. From the Crows. He’s a danger to the family,” Illario says, looking between her and his cousin. There’s a finality to his words, an air of pronouncement, all of Lucanis’s fears made real. 

Camina rushes forward just in time to catch Lucanis’s head as he passes out. But as she watches Illario go, she realizes that he hadn’t seemed the least bit surprised by Lucanis being possessed. Because he must have already known. 

***

Lucanis awakes in the pantry, in the bed he hardly uses, surrounded by the sparse collection of belongings he has gathered in his time in the Lighthouse. There is no indication that Spite had gone for a walk while he slept. It is the first time he remembers sleeping for any real stretch of time since the Ossuary…and he feels no more rested upon waking. 

And then the memories of the Chantry slot back into focus. Zara. Illario. Rook. And, of course, Spite. He feels ill when he thinks of leaping at Illario, dagger in hand, ready to kill him. It had taken every scrap of strength he possessed to keep from killing Illario in that moment…Spite had wanted to so badly that it bled into his own thoughts, his own feelings. Some part of him had wanted Illario to hurt, and that terrifies him. 

If he could hurt Illario of all people, is no one safe around him?

Spite is…sulking in the corner. “What? You didn’t get restless while I was asleep?”

“Should have been. Ours,” the demon replies. 

He hears footsteps approaching the pantry: Rook’s. What to say to her? He owes her an apology and so much more than that. He stands, rubbing at his eyes as though that could banish the bone-deep tiredness that’s settled within him. 

Rook looks relieved as she enters. “Ah, you’re awake. I wasn’t sure…” She’s carrying a tray of food and there’s so much concern in her eyes, it’s difficult to meet them. She sets the tray down, eyes roving over him as though checking for injury or…maybe just Spite. 

He backs up. “Yes…I’ve been…I've been trying to figure out what to say to you. And... there aren't words enough to apologize. I never wanted you to see me like that.”

Out of control. Dangerous. A monster. Who is he anymore? He couldn’t kill Zara…or Ghilan’nain…and then…

She waves his apology away with a wave of her hand and a shake of her head. “I’m not going anywhere.”

That’s less comforting than intended. With how easily he nearly hurt Illario…doesn’t she realize that no one is safe from him? If he was a better man, he’d thank her…have something to say about the kindness and understanding she continues to offer him, but it is not his for the taking. 

“We need to talk about Illario.”

She nods grimly. “That was blood magic he used to control Spite…to control you.”

It unmistakably was. It doesn’t make sense…unless. He doesn’t even want to consider it. “I know. Something’s not right.”

Rook’s brows knit together. “There was a moment there…it seemed like Zara knew him. Did…the night you were captured, did Illario know you were boarding that ship?”

What Rook’s implying…it’s impossible. They were raised together; they’re like brothers. Illario…he remembers a night in Vyrantium something rotten simmering beneath the surface. Other conversations…other times he had failed to provide reassurances to Illario and glimpsed something in his eyes that looked like resentment. 

“Yes,” he says flatly. 

There is something akin to pity in her eyes and he doesn’t want it. “Zara said that Crows were working with Venatori…could he…would he do that?” 

“Rook…” He says it like a warning. He’s finding it harder and harder to look at her, to listen to her. No part of him wants to even consider this. 

“He’s up to something. He wants you to stay away from the Crows…insisted that you’re a danger to your family.”

“And he’s not wrong!” The words are loud in the smallness of the pantry. Whatever else Illario is or has done…he can at least look at him and see the clear and present danger. It’s more than he can say for Rook. “If I cannot stay in control…”

“Lucanis.” The way she says his name is so gentle, so full of kindness. “The way you’re dealing with Spite…it’s not working.”

She’s not wrong either, but what is he supposed to do? How is he supposed to deal with this? He’s an abomination…either he gives in and Spite wins or he is… this . “What would you have me do, Rook? Emmrich looks at me like I’m a thesis topic and you keep insisting that talking to Spite will somehow change what this is. What I am.”

“I know that the way Watchers view spirits is different from much of the world…but there’s got to be another way.”

He sighs and pinches the bridge of his nose. Her optimism is her best and worst quality. “Maybe.”

He watches his dismissal hit, the way her mouth thins. She looks away from him. “I’ll give you some time. Let me know if there’s anything I can do.”

But she’s done more than enough for him, so he lets her leave without another word.