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The sleeping situation here really did suck, Rook mused to herself as she lay flat on her back on the hard stone floor of the Meditation Room. The short nap she’d taken on that wretched chaise was enough to make her need to stretch out her back, which annoyed her more than it should, mostly because Lucanis had been doing a fine job of sorting her out every time it gave her a minor ache or pain.
The problem was, the others were starting to notice his hands on her, and that wouldn’t do. So she lay on the cold, hard stones instead, begrudging every uncomfortable second of it.
Groaning, she straightened out her legs, then twisted her hips, right stacked on left. She kept her shoulders flat against the floor, her right arm splayed out beside her. Then leaving her left leg straight, she brought her right leg up, drawing her knee as close to the floor as she could manage with her left hand.
The stretch pulled at the muscles of her lower back in a way that was immensely satisfying, deep enough to make her lips also stretch in a grimace, but she didn’t mind that. At least it served a purpose other than her default reaction to Lucanis fleeing whenever she showed a modicum of interest in him.
She had just begun to really get her teeth grinding when knuckles rapped sharply against her door, cutting through any lingering thoughts of that particular frustration.
“It’s open,” she called, not yet ready to haul herself off the floor and answer it.
Heavy wooden doors scraped hard enough over the stone floor that she could feel its faint vibrations where she lay, but no one said anything. Her brow knit together, and she lifted her head a little, expecting to possibly see Manfred. Instead, she found Lucanis standing on the other side of the threshold, though she could only see his head framed in the darkened doorway from her angle on the floor. Even from here she could tell he hadn’t dared put a toe over the threshold.
Rook bit back a laugh, or possibly a sigh—she didn’t know which, and she didn’t care. Of course it would be him. She’d swear to Andraste that the Lighthouse had simply summoned him with how hard she’d been trying, and failing, to not think about him.
Lucanis didn’t step into the room. The wall of water behind her made sure of that, though he wasn’t shutting down in panic this time, at least. He wasn’t even looking at it.
No, his eyes lingered on her for far too long, something close to guilt in them, like he had walked in on something he shouldn’t be seeing. Which was ridiculous from a man that had let slip to her and Neve one wine-fueled post-dinner discussion that he knew of the orgy practices of Altus parties.
She was simply stretching.
Though admittedly, with her feet pointing to the door the way they were, she was glad she had opted to pull on her pants before getting on the rough floor. She was sure the leather was doing a fine job of leaving little to the imagination all on its own.
Remembering that even though they were in the Fade, the floor beneath her was still stone, and she dropped her head slowly. She watched him shake himself a little before he fell out of view, and he finally spoke.
“Are you hurt?”
Rook shook her head and took a moment to pull her knee a little higher, a little lower. “That chaise is once again proving it’s a bigger problem for me than the gods… but no, just stretching.”
“I’m quite sure if I can see every one of your teeth like that, you’re doing something wrong,” he said, his voice quality slightly strangled.
This time, she did laugh. Sure, he’s looking at my teeth, she thought.
“You didn’t ask for my help.”
The statement surprised her, mostly because she could hear the tremor of hurt in his voice that he tried, and failed, to hide beneath his normal dulcet tones. The worst part was the way it made her want to tell him she had wanted to ask for his help, wanted his hands on her, back where they felt like they belonged.
But she was too was afraid that would run him off—and not just from her room
“It’s not bad enough to be a two-person job,” she said through grit teeth.
“Hmm,” was all he offered in reply, though the simple noise was steeped in doubt.
“Did you need something?” she asked instead, her own voice a little breathy with the intensity of the final few seconds of the stretch.
He said nothing again for an achingly drawn out moment, so she released her leg, straightening it and her hips out again, letting everything settle flat against the floor for a moment. Then she propped herself up onto her elbows to look at him properly.
That’s when she saw that he was wearing all his armor, strapped to his teeth with his arsenal of blades. She raised an eyebrow at him.
“Going somewhere?”
His gaze sharpened, snapping back from whatever daze he’d been in.
"Yes, and yes," he added, as if for good measure. “I’d like you to accompany me."
“Where?” she asked, her curiosity piqued.
Lucanis’s eyes flicked up to the aquarium and he took a firm breath. Then he stepped into the room, letting the door swing shut behind him. She knew what that step represented to him; she also knew instantly that it meant what he was about to ask was important and private.
“The Crossroads. I want to fight you there.”
Her eyebrows, which had unknitted somewhere along the way, drew together again. That was not what she had expected. That he wanted to do something with her, and continually denied himself—certainly. But fight her?
“Sorry? Have I done something so terrible?”
He met her stare with a look of such frank intensity that it sent a dart of uneasy disquiet through her. But then he blinked, and it was gone, and she found herself able to breathe again. He sighed and walked over to her, then offered a hand to help her up. Rook just looked at him, her own mixed emotions still swirling around her chest.
“I will clarify. I just can’t take you seriously when you’re on the floor like that,” he said, his voice perfectly, infuriatingly conditioned now.
“What if I don’t want to be taken seriously?” she asked, doing what she did best and deflecting with a cheap quip.
“Rook,” was all he said, at least having the decency to sound put upon.
He held out his hand more insistently, the supple leather of his glove shining invitingly in the soft light of the room. She relented and swung her arm up, taking his hand; he hauled her to her feet. Whether intentionally, or accidentally, she couldn’t say, but he pulled a little too hard, and she ended up a little too close to him. Close enough that she could smell rich coffee and warm spices clinging to him beneath his well-polished leathers. Close enough that she wanted to stay there and drink it in while their eyes met for a single, blistering second.
Not one of his muscles moved, only his eyes. His gaze dropped to her lips, and she heard his breath falter, so faintly it was only because of the pressing silence of the room that she caught it. She was holding her own breath too, she realized, as she silently screamed at him to do something before she did.
Then, the spell shattered. He stole a sideways glance through narrowed eyes at the aquarium illusion and strode past her to the half-bookshelf behind the chaise. He turned and leaned against it, careful not to disturb the broken chains she’d placed at the one end, somehow managing to cross his arms over all the knives. Then he took it a step further and crossed one leg over the other as he leaned, his posture and face warring over which could be more closed off.
“I think Davrin is right.” The grim devastation in that quiet statement frightened her more than any shout.
The team discussion at the dining table yesterday was still fresh enough in her mind for pieces to start falling into place. She still wanted him to tell her though.
“About what?” she prompted, her voice gentle and encouraging, she hoped.
Lucanis looked at her, his eyes nearly pleading, as if asking to please just fight him instead of making him talk. He sighed.
“About Spite. And Ghilan’nain. No,” he corrected. “Spite and me.”
Rook nodded, and resisted the urge to put her hands on her hips like she liked to do when thinking. This was a delicate subject, and she wanted to keep her own body language as neutral as possible, though she did take a tentative step forward, stopping just before his crossed feet.
“That you’re out of sync?” she ventured.
“Yes,” he breathed. “I know we are. Not with gods, perhaps. But I feel it with other things.”
“Like?”
“We move as one against Venatori. That is driven by vengeance, by…” he paused, searching for the right word.
“Spite. Lowercase s,” she added, a little too wryly.
The corner of his lips quirked all the same before he fell serious again. “Precisely. Demons and shades on the other hand… that’s where I feel the largest gulf between us. Especially shades. He doesn’t fight me. It’s just… hesitancy.”
“Makes sense, I suppose. Took me a minute to get used to fighting people when I was fresh out of the Circle,” she admitted.
“Even all of Caterina’s training didn’t prepare Illario and I for our first kill,” he nodded in agreement. “I get it. I just know even a slight hesitance can cause failure.”
“And is that what you felt with Ghilan’nain?”
“I don’t know,” he said honestly. He shook his head, and bone-deep exhaustion settled over every line of his body for a moment, etching deeply into his face. “Too much happened at Weisshaupt in too short a time. I was confident I could take the shot, but I don’t have a recollection of Spite at that moment. And that troubles me.”
‘Troubles’ was an understatement, Rook knew. She watched the weight of his increasingly precarious nightmare nearly crush him—he assured them he had control, but he clearly wasn’t certain, especially after this. She wished she could somehow lift that burden from him, ease the self-inflicted suffering so he could just sleep for once. But she knew the only way out was through.
“Why do you need to fight me then?” she asked, because he was doing a very poor job of clarifying as he’d said he would. “Why not Davrin? You two bicker all the time about which of you will put the other down first. Why not prove it?”
He scoffed. “That is… ”
“Male posturing?” she offered sweetly.
“How we pass the time,” he glowered, eyes narrowing. “Don’t give me further incentive to fight you.”
Rook grinned. Now she was getting somewhere.
“So what’s the standing incentive?”
Lucanis looked at her for another long moment, his jaw working silently before he finally spoke.
“You are uniquely suited to help me understand this disconnect. You contracted me because I’m a renowned mage killer. You’re a mage,” he said, as if it was the most obvious thing in the world.
She shook her head. She knew that wasn’t it. “We have three other mages.”
“It has to be you,” he parried, then sighed, as if not wanting to continue. “Spite is… unhappy at the idea of fighting you.”
That genuinely surprised her. “Why?”
“He… admires you greatly.” The confession sounded torn from his throat. “For pulling us from beneath the sea.”
Considering that for a moment, she realized something. “Neve was there too. She’s a mage.”
He winced, and turned his head more to the left, as if the demon was shouting into his right ear about his thoughts on this. “It has to be you,” was all he said.
Rook tilted her head in thought. Truthfully, most of her sided with the demon.
“Do you understand my reluctance as a mage to fight you? The mage killer?”
Looking offended, he uncrossed all of his limbs and stood, drawing one of his daggers. He held it out for her to inspect.
“Training blades. I would never allow harm to come to you by my hand,” he vowed, his dark eyes intense as they sought hers.
Violet flooded through them then, shining for one bright, brilliant heartbeat, and his mouth opened as if to speak. Then Lucanis squeezed his eyes shut, pressing his lips together so tightly over a jaw clenched so hard she feared she might hear a tooth crack. When he opened them again, his eyes were his own, umber indistinguishable from his pupils in the low light.
“Never,” he emphasized, voice rough, but entirely his. The unvarnished sincerity in his stare made her heart squeeze uncomfortably in her chest.
The dagger was still in the air between them, a silent promise. Rook didn’t take it, because she understood it was not held aloft in offering. Instead, she ran her forefinger over the blunted edge nearest her, the rounded tip, down the other side. His eyes traced her every move breathlessly. She drew back her hand, rubbing the pad of her finger against her thumb, then inspected it as if checking for blood she knew wouldn’t be there.
“Feels heavy enough to hurt,” she murmured.
“Hurt is not harm.”
“Hmm. And Spite really is reluctant to fight me? He won’t harm me either?” she asked. It would be so easy to pretend the demon wasn’t a factor in this, that she was simply fighting someone that specialized in killing mages, as if that wasn’t terrifying enough. But to do so would be folly.
He nodded once, his expression grave.
It wasn’t exactly a ringing endorsement, but given the way he constantly filtered Spite, she supposed it was the best she would get. It would do.
There was one last problem in this scenario though, and she took her turn to look at him for a long minute. She wasn’t sure he understood what he was asking of her.
“Lucanis, there’s no such thing as training magic,” she said, her voice muted. “I cannot soften a bolt of lightning. I don’t want to hurt—harm you either.”
“You won’t.” It wasn’t boastful, but the certainty with which he spoke was chilling.
Rook scowled. “I know you’re a nimble master assassin and all, but—”
“It’s not because I’m an assassin,” he interjected.
“—you’re still human,” she said, talking over him despite it. “You’re still susceptible to lightning, fire, all of it.”
He took a moment to sheath the training blade, the soft hiss of steel sliding along leather cutting through the silence like a whip. Then he took her shoulders in his hands, in what he clearly thought was a steadying grip. But he held her so carefully it was like one of them was made of porcelain, and she didn’t know who.
“There is nothing you can do that is worse than what they did to me in the Ossuary, do you understand? You’re not a blood mage. It’s fine.”
The unadulterated mixture of anger and sorrow his fragile words evoked made her breath catch, sharp and sudden. It made her want to pull him into a fierce embrace, but knew he was already uncomfortable as it was, being in this room with its stark, visual reminder of the place he so hated speaking about.
But she couldn’t stop herself from reaching out, her fingers brushing tentatively over the coarse hair of his beard at the corner of his jaw, before her hand settled, cupping his cheek. His eyes slid shut at her touch, slowly.
“That is not fine,” she insisted fiercely around her constricted throat.
“It has to be,” he said in a voice devoid of anything, and it made her fingers tighten on his face. He blinked his eyes open then. She had expected them to be as flat as his tone, but a surprising amount of determination stared back at her. “And it will be. Because it’s you.”
A spark of irritation flared in her at his masterful side-step, but she tamped it down. “That isn’t what I meant.”
He shook his head.
“Rook,” he implored, his voice small but resolute. “I need to know. Please.”
It bordered on pleading, and all she could do in that moment was meet his gaze steadily. Her thumb trailed along the sharp edge of his cheekbone, keeping her touch feather-light for fear of him crumbling beneath it.
“Okay,” she murmured at long last.
Lucanis let out a tremendous sigh, the relief breaking plainly across his face. So much so, for one wild second, she thought it would be him that pulled her into an embrace, but he only squeezed her shoulders where he still held them.
“Thank you,” he said emphatically.
A tiny, sad smile fell onto her lips, and she gently patted his cheek once before dropping her hand. She folded both arms across her chest in a mimicry of his usual stance. “Don’t thank me before I shock you half to death with magic.”
“You’ll have to manage to strike me first.” A smile touched his lips too, and she was glad it was—to his credit—confident. “I am a nimble master assassin, after all.”
“You’re impossible, is what you are.”
His smile deepened in appreciation, then he released her shoulders, his careful hold having tightened into a vise grip without her—and she suspected him too—noticing. He began fiddling with some of the buckles and straps that criss-crossed his torso. Rook seized the opportunity to put a little space between them and walked to her wardrobe.
“I need a few moments to gear up,” she told him.
“Of course, take your time. Meet me in Elvhenan’s Haven, beyond the stairs by the large Fen’Harel statue.”
She narrowed her eyes. “You know as well as I do Antaam like to pop up in at least two places between there and the dock.”
“I can think of no better way to get limber.” His smirk was devastating. “See you there.”
With that, he swept from the room, trailing purpose in his wake. She waited until the door fully closed behind him, then dropped her forehead against the carved door of the wardrobe for a moment, letting out a long breath she hadn’t realized she’d been holding.
Then, she gathered herself upright, opened her wardrobe and began donning her own armor.
Even if Lucanis hadn’t told Rook where to meet, tracking him down in the sprawling expanse of Elvhenan’s Haven would have been easy. All she had to do was follow the trail of dead Antaam.
There was a distinct lack of blood around them, though. She kicked one of the heavy brutes over to inspect this phenomenon, and his head lolled at an unnatural angle. Though she didn’t quite understand how he’d accomplished such a thing against these numbers, she nodded in acceptance. He most certainly did not need blades to be deadly.
Somehow, the grim thought bolstered her. At least she wasn’t the only one that might accidentally kill the other.
Lucanis stood at the far end of the valley, on the flat red rock that jutted from the sand near the cliff edge where Solas’s memory of rescuing slaves from Elgar’nan had dumped them. His hands were on his hips, the soft flutter of his cape in the gentle breeze the only movement his form made. Even from a distance, she saw that he surveyed the sprawling terrain below from this vantage, though not like a hawk. Like a Crow.
Indeed, she felt his eyes on her the entire time she walked across the hard-packed earth as it gave way to the soft sands.
When she was close enough to see more dead Antaam laying just beyond his perch, she raised an eyebrow at him.
“Good warmup, I take it?”
He gave her a thin smile, the combat-focused one she knew was hard to break through. “Rousing.”
“See? You don’t even need to fight me,” she said, keeping her tone carefully light and teasing, even though she desperately wished he would agree and suggest they return to the Lighthouse.
He did not.
“Ready?” Lucanis asked imperiously.
Rook frowned a little as she watched him regarding her from above. He looked peaceful, almost, as if running through a mental encyclopedia of all the ways to kill a person was a comfort. His hands, she noticed, had drifted to grip the handles of his blades still in their sheaths.
“What are the ground rules for this anyway?” she asked.
“First one to strike an approximation of a killing blow wins,” he said, as if that should have been obvious.
“An approximation? Will you tell me when my lightning is about to shock your heart into seizing, then?” she asked, darker than she’d intended.
He merely continued to give her that same disquieting smile. “Are you ready?” he pressed again.
She sighed, about to tell him that she wasn’t sure she’d ever be ready for this little experiment, but he seemed to take her audible breath as an affirmation—or perhaps her mere presence was all the confirmation he needed—for suddenly he was airborne. He had leapt off the rock high enough over the sloped ground beneath to risk a leg injury, but he seemed to be counting on that. She had only a second to take in Spite’s brilliant violet wings unfurling from his back, changing their trajectory right towards her, blunted steel already gleaming in his hands.
Reaching blindly for her staff, she dodged a step back. She swung the long handle around, catching it with her left hand and holding it above her head in both just as he landed gracefully before her.
Both of his blades made hard contact with the wood. The resounding clunk it made echoed off the surrounding cliffs and rattled the bones of her arms all the way down to her chest. If they had been real blades, she’d be dead.
Even if they weren’t, she’d still come very close to already losing. Adrenaline flooded her, bitter in the mouth.
“Son of a bitch,” she gasped in surprise, pushing her staff away from her with enough force that his blades slid off, buying her a breathless second.
“Grandson,” he corrected with a laugh that was all too delighted. “My mother was much nicer than the woman that raised me.”
Then he was on her again, so fast all she could register at first was a flash of teeth and the flurry of steel. The indigo blur of his leathers followed, then the bright violet of his wings and eyes seared her own, distorting her vision. Twirling the staff around in a desperate, untrained rhythm—like she was a baton twirler in the parades that marched through the streets of Minrathous on Satinalia—she just managed to block the first four strikes through sheer luck more than anything else.
It ran out on the fifth.
For he was relentless, all footwork and flourishes, and he found his first opportunity just under her arm as she raised the staff above her head again in the vague hope of getting a second to summon a spell. His blunt training dagger cracked against her ribs, followed instantly by a snapping strike across her back with the blunted rapier.
The latter was whippy enough to steal the air from her lungs. It sent her stumbling in the soft sand underfoot.
As she gasped, he at least had the decency to dance back out of range as she scrambled to her feet.
“Weren’t you supposed to have electrocuted me by now?” he taunted, twirling his blades as if bored.
She snarled, anger lancing through all of her limbs, but she clamped down on it at once. An echo of a previous conversation they’d had rang through her mind—the one where he’d confessed his skill at goading mages until they broke into possession. With a sudden, biting clarity, she understood what had just happened.
He knew she preferred to open combat by charging into it headfirst, leaping through the air to discharge her staff, weaken armor, and stun combatants. He’d taken that option off the table before she’d even twitched so much as a finger, leaving her on the back foot from the very start.
Something else he’d once said about combat occurred to her: if you think, you’re dead.
Since he wasn’t going to give her the chance, she stopped thinking.
Ignoring the staff and its need for Veil focus, she reached out with her free hand for the undeniably more dangerous raw magic of the Fade. Her arcane instinct told her it would be easy to access in the pocket reality of the Crossroads. Indeed, it answered instantly, swirling around her with frightening ease.
Though she didn’t form it into being just yet.
“We can give it a go, if that’s what you want,” she called instead.
Lucanis laughed. “And how will you do that with your staff so occupied, hmm?”
She didn’t answer. She just formed the lightning and threw.
Wings burst from his back as he blurred out of the way. The bolt exploded in the sand where he had just stood, leaving a smoking scorch mark in his place. He turned and looked at it in disbelief for a single heartbeat before darting forward again.
Though his eyes gleamed dangerously, his smile was wicked as he closed in.
“There you are,” he growled, as he rushed her again, thrusting the rapier in a wide, vicious sweep.
Rook denied him the defensive block he wanted, and took a series of nimble steps backward instead, dodging the attempt. Her feet found purchase on the hard-packed earth and she grinned.
In another blur of violet, he jumped over her to cut off her retreat into the wider field. She threw another bolt at his feet; he danced away as if annoyed, nothing more.
Seeing an opening to press him deeper into the more-maneuverable field, she brought her staff into both hands and lunged, sweeping at his ankles. He backflipped away from it, and she gained a few feet. She pressed the tiny advantage then, flowing lightning through her staff to cast a wide, weak arc. His footwork was impeccable, but he had to cede more ground.
Suddenly, he’d had enough of that. Surging forward, his blades were everywhere again, forcing her to leap, lunge, and block with nothing short of desperation. The repeated impacts on the wood she clung to were so hard she was starting to lose feeling in her right hand.
She panted with the effort of keeping up—her lungs and muscles competing for which could burn the worst—but his composure remained maddeningly intact. The last of his strikes left them merely inches apart, blades locked against her staff, the dagger resting on the speared, metal tip.
“Come on, fight. You’re not even making me sweat,” he needled.
Her answering laugh bordered on obscene. “You fucking wish I would.”
A faint blush that had nothing to do with physical exertion tinged his cheeks, and oh, how she wanted to linger in that moment. But she had a fight to win.
In the blink of an eye, she gripped her staff tightly, then flowed lightning from her hands, sending the charge racing up the long expanse of wood. Too late, his eyes widened as he realized what she’d done.
She discharged it the second the electricity coalesced in the metal tip, and it leapt from her staff to his dagger in a dazzling, crackling flash. He let out a small, sharp “ah!”—of surprise or pain, she couldn’t tell—but he reflexively dropped the electrified blade all the same.
Lucanis snarled, and she delighted in finally getting a reaction out of him.
“I don’t need two blades to be deadly,” he warned, switching the rapier to his main hand and leaving the dagger where it lay.
This was obvious to her, of course. The dead Antaam all over this island were testament enough to that. Still, she couldn’t resist a little extra goading.
“At least we’re evenly matched now.”
“Oh, Rook,” he laughed menacingly. “That’s cute.”
Then he made good on that, coming at her with a newfound ferocity. It felt like he was raining down twice the amount of blows on her even though he was down a weapon. The staff was twirling in her hands in that bizarre way again, and she knew this wasn’t sustainable.
A little desperately, she thrust the forked metal tip of her staff forward, catching it in the ornate, swirling cage of his rapier’s guard. The sharp sound of metal grinding against metal rang out as it locked, and she felt it in her teeth, but she didn’t stop. With a vicious twist, she wrenched the blade from his hand and swung her staff hard.
They both stopped, watching the rapier arc across the field until it fell with a clatter at the base of the towering cliff.
A dry, dangerous smile touched his lips as he spread his empty hands wide.
“You want to do this the hard way?” he asked.
Before she could answer, his wings flared out, and he vaulted into the air, delivering a kick that painfully wrenched the staff clean out of her hands. It too sailed through the air, heavy wood making swooping sounds as it flipped end-over-end before landing point-down in the dirt with an ominous wobble.
He landed lightly, flexing his fingers in preparation. “Fine. Let’s have some fun.”
Fists stood in easily for his blades, and without her staff blocking him, he landed more blows, though he seemed to be going to quantity over quality now. She dodged a little more nimbly without its weight, but only two sharp, successive punches to her ribs nearly knocked the wind out of her again. She twisted just enough to turn them into glancing blows, then slid back from a haymaker aimed at her gut.
Rook managed to land a few swings of her own, but they didn’t so much as make him blink. Even the kick she’d given him just above his knee for good measure didn’t stagger him as she’d hoped. So she crouched lower and propelled herself forward, turning at the last second and ramming her shoulder into the center of his chest.
Not even that brought him down. She dug her feet in, pushing hard, trying to hook an arm around his thigh to unbalance him. For her trouble, she got an elbow repeatedly smashed into her upper spine—making bright, dazzling bursts of pain pop in her eyes. Then he hooked his foot behind her own, bringing her to her knees.
Blinking around the sparkles still swimming through her vision, she chanced a quick look at him, and noticed a sheen on his forehead.
“You’re sweating now,” she said placidly, with a shit-eating grin.
The sound he made could have been a laugh or a growl. He shoved a hand roughly against her breastbone, but she’d been counting on that. She flung her arms around his thigh at last and held on for dear life as gravity pulled her backward.
Curving her aching spine, she rolled back across the ground and tossed him over her shoulder. He turned it into an elegant somersault, landing on his feet as if nothing had happened, but it bought her a second to scramble low into a crouch, one leg extended and at the ready, eyes flicking over her options.
The staff was too far away, even if she ran for it, as was the rapier—not that she had any idea how to use it half as effectively as he did. Especially since she saw the blunted dagger was back in his hand, recovered from where he’d dropped it near the edge of the sand. Her hand inched toward the mage knife at her hip.
“Touch it and I draw my real blades,” Lucanis said flatly.
She sighed. She should have known he’d brought the real thing, despite his earlier proclamation.
Dropping her hand, since she didn’t have a death wish, her eyes looked to the softer terrain of the sand she now wanted—if she was forced to rely only on magic and fisticuffs—and how he was blocking her path to it. They were more than a few paces apart though, and she needed a distraction if she was going to attempt it. She took a second to draw the wild magic all around to her again.
He lunged forward into a sprint towards her the moment he realized she was casting, but she didn’t summon a single bolt this time. She brought down a storm. With deafening booms that were more show than force—but still made her ears ring all the same—smaller bolts struck all across the field, centered around him, forcing him to dance out of their way repeatedly. Still he pressed on.
Which was precisely what she wanted.
Already on her feet, she started her own sprint in his direction. Just before they collided, she Fade-stepped out of the path of his slashing blade, slipping into the realm of magic and demons just long enough to pass safely through him.
Then a strange sensation met her: she felt hands grab at her. But the angle was all wrong for it to be Lucanis—he would now be running past her in the Crossroads. The thought disquieted her, but since she was trying not to think, she pushed it firmly aside.
When she stepped back out of the Fade, she kept pounding her feet at the hard earth beneath them. They had pushed deeper into the field than she’d realized, with the way her legs burned with the effort, wanting to seize by the time she reached the sands. But she heard the rush of wings now only a step behind her.
Arms caught her around the waist, spinning them both around violently with his momentum, his left hand reaching for her jaw. A sudden vision flashed in her mind—the first time she’d laid eyes on him, snapping a Venatori’s neck in the blink of an eye with the very same move.
No, was all she thought over and over, half-panicked, then reflexively brought up a mana shield.
Normally, she’d throw it wide in a protective bubble, but this time she held it close to her body. When his hand crashed against it, she shattered the spell, throwing the force outward. His arms flew from her at its impact, and she was able to get away from him, but he wasn’t staggered nearly as much as she’d hoped.
So she dug the side of her foot into the sand and kicked hard, aiming for his face.
“Mierda!” he spat, bringing up his cape and ducking his head behind it, because not even assassins were immune to sand in the eyes.
That was all she needed though; she Fade-stepped away from him again as his vision was obscured behind the soft swish of sand pelting leather. The only problem with this brilliant plan was that the hands were back, and this time they went further.
Arms flung themselves around her waist just as Lucanis had done seconds ago, accompanied by a growl of “No MORE. FIGHTING!” in her ear. The voice was not Lucanis’s, and terror jolted down her spine.
Whatever had a hold on her stopped her from stepping out of the Fade when she tried. Instead, it slammed a hip into hers and turned, aiming their backs toward the ground.
The nasally voice spoke in her ear again. “USE! This.”
She glanced down in confusion and saw translucent purple arms wrapped around her, wearing the same buckled gloves as Lucanis.
“Spite?” she asked, bewildered.
“OUR. Rook,” the thing behind her cooed, then forcibly ejected her from the Fade, arms releasing her so it could shove palms into her back.
Back in the Crossroads, she was still falling backward onto the sands, unable to stop the trajectory the figure set her on in the Fade. Time felt strangely dilated, like Neve had used a Slow Time spell, though she didn’t have any of that magic herself.
She watched as Lucanis dropped the cape, saw her fall and jumped, sailing above her, every one of his teeth visible in a terrifying grimace of concentration. His eyes were black as midnight. He held the training blade aloft, ready to make his winning strike once gravity prevailed and he fell atop her.
Then, still in slow motion, Rook watched as something she could not see slammed back into him, his body physically recoiling for an instant. Violet flooded his eyes so harshly it streamed in wisps from their corners. Wings of the same color unfurled and flapped fiercely once, slowing his descent for a single, crucial second.
Her eyes landed on the small dagger strapped to his chest as he fell within reach.
She reached out and grabbed its handle, and pulled it violently from its sheath.
Time sped up to its normal pace. She lifted his blade, pointing it at his throat, but she saw with heart-stopping realization that it was not blunted. Crying out in terror, she barely had time to get a knee up, but she did.
Lucanis crashed into her leg heavily with a grunt, making the joint of her hip scream in protest, but she groaned her way through it as she pressed her shin and pointed foot into his body, from sternum to groin, with the strength of her thigh. The hand not holding the blade pushed into his collarbone.
He came to a halt, his empty hand bracing on the ground next to her head, the other suspended above her with the training dagger still held high. The edge of the blade she’d only just managed to turn pressed against his flesh, but she’d stopped him from being impaled on it. He blinked in surprise down at her, the violet dissipating from his eyes. The wings folded back into nothingness behind him.
Rook watched as a single drop of blood rolled down the steel, almost lazy in its path.
“Holy shit,” she exhaled on a shaky breath.
His breathing was just as ragged as hers, and they stayed that way for a second longer, even though it felt like an eternity. She realized suddenly that she was trembling, and from more than just the effort of keeping him lifted off her. Then she realized it wasn’t just her.
It was evident in the way he carefully laid his training blade in the sand beside her head. She felt it in his hand too when, with gentle precision, he reached up and pried her fingers from the live-edged dagger still held against his throat, pulling it away with a soft hiss through his teeth.
He looked at his blood on the blade, then back at her, something close to disbelief painted on his face.
“Hurt, not harm,” she reminded him gently, just in case the assassin she’d just barely managed to best decided to stick that blade in her own throat.
For a second, she wondered if he still might, from the dark look on his face. A second later, it changed to something softer, and she wondered if he might kiss her. Even worse, she wanted him to, though she knew he wouldn’t dare.
Indeed, he did neither, rolling off her instead and stalking toward the edge of the island. Rook dropped her tired, aching leg into the sand beneath her and pressed shaking hands over her face, counting three big breaths before she peeled them away. She wiped the sweat from her brow, and her eyes, she told herself firmly.
Craning her head around, she found him looking into the vast nothingness that these strange Crossroads inhabited. His back was to her, hands on his hips again.
“Don’t even think about jumping just because you lost,” she called out to him, only half joking.
He scoffed in response but said nothing else, though he did walk back over, throwing himself to the ground with his back against the rock he’d stood on earlier, forearms resting on his bent knees. He tilted his head back against the stone and closed his eyes. She watched his throat work heavily.
“Are you alright?” she asked.
“Fine,” he snapped.
“Are you sure?”
“Rook.”
Getting to her feet with a groan, since he clearly needed another minute, she assessed herself quickly. Finding nothing too out of sorts—except for even more aches and pains than she started with—she took her turn stalking off, going to retrieve their abandoned weapons from the field. When she brought them back, he’d had the decency to open his eyes and watch her approach.
She held out the hilts of his training blades to him.
“Did you find your answer after all that, at least?” she asked as he took them with a nod of thanks, then tossed both carelessly in the sand beside him.
“Yes? No? I don’t know,” he said with an exasperated sigh. “Somehow, I have less clarity now than I did an hour ago.”
Guilt crept into her stomach. Wouldn’t Spite have boasted to Lucanis about giving her aid?
“When you see Spite, does he… look like you? But purple?” she asked delicately.
He narrowed his eyes. “Yes…”
“Ah. He uh… helped me.”
“Helped you? How?” he asked, his disbelief not quite hiding the edge of fury beneath.
“It wasn’t anything huge. But I didn’t step into the Fade intending to fall on my ass on the way out. He grabbed me and turned me around, told me to use it.”
“Turned you around?” His eyes snapped to her right for several seconds, and his scowl deepened into something that showed a lot more teeth. “Oh, he’s quite pleased with himself.”
He spat a rapid stream of unintelligible Antivan—save for the choice curses she was starting to recognize—to the empty space beside her, then he closed his eyes and dropped his head against the rock again. At least like this she could see the cut on his throat was very superficial, and had already stopped bleeding.
Rook crouched in front of him, placing gentle fingertips on his knee. “I don’t think this is what happened with Ghilan’nain, though, is it? Your eyes were your own when you leapt over me, then the eyes and the wings appeared. Once he left the Fade, I take it?”
“Something like that,” he muttered.
“Lucanis, if the wings had cut out at Weisshaupt because he was fighting you, you wouldn’t have just missed. You would have plummeted to your death.”
Death was the one thing he understood more than anything else, and he opened his eyes to look at her. She could see that simple fact resonating in him, as if he hadn’t considered that.
“You and Spite still clearly need to get on the same page about some things, it seems,” like me, she didn’t say. “But I don’t know that this is the catastrophe you think it is.”
He ran a hand over his eyes with that same bone-deep exhaustion from their earlier talk in her room. “Perhaps.”
“Good fight though,” she offered, giving him an out if he wanted it.
“It was,” he agreed, looking at her again. “The sand was a cheap shot. You fight a little dirty for someone leading a team against gods.”
She shrugged. “You run your mouth in combat a little too much for a master assassin.”
Lucanis laughed, delighted. “I don't deny it.”
Her knee was screaming at her and she couldn’t take another second of it, so she stood, then offered her hand to him in an imitation of their talk in her room. He looked up at her, snatched his weapons off the ground, then took her hand. She made sure not to pull him into her space, but the look he gave her was curious all the same.
“There is one silver lining to this, you realize,” he said, becoming serious again.
“What’s that?”
“I tell Davrin and Harding that they’ll have to put me down if I lose control of Spite.” He took a step closer. “It’s actually you that can make that hit, if need be. And that is… a monumental relief to me.”
Rook stood in stunned silence, then he turned as if nothing happened, sheathing his blades.
“We should get back to the Lighthouse before we cause a scandal.”
With that, he strode off, leaving her to wonder if, perhaps, this really was a catastrophe.