Archive of Our Own

Chapter Text

There was something not quite right about her new husband, Rook thought as she stood opposite Lucanis Dellamorte in a resplendent gown of white. Something strange. Something… off.

Outwardly, he looked perfectly normal; handsome, even, in sombre black velvet and silver trimmings, with a silk cravat at his throat and his raven hair in a queue. His face was unsmiling but he wasn't frowning—showing neither pleasure nor displeasure at his upcoming nuptials. His voice was steady when they exchanged their vows. His hands were too when he slid her wedding band firmly onto her finger. But his eyes, as they watched her own hands shake to place the matching ring on his, were far too intense to be anything but warning.

When Rook managed to fit the ring past the callous of his second knuckle to the base of his finger, she swore his brown eyes flashed violet. For a second, she felt the temperature drop several degrees—as if a cold wind had descended upon the Villa gardens—and the hairs on the back of her neck, sticky now with unexplainable cold sweat, stood on end with the uncomfortable feeling of being watched by something… other.

And then it passed.

The warmth of the sunny day in the Villa Dellamorte gardens returned, and Rook's ears rung with the applause of their guests and witnesses. Someone was tossing flower petals in the air and it rained like blood drops above the pair—but Rook couldn't look away from her new husband's dark, knowing eyes.

And though his lips were warm when he slanted his mouth over hers, though his hand at her back was steady and strong, and her lungs were filled with the scent of coffee and blade oil and something indescribably electric—Rook couldn't help but shiver violently.

There was something off about Lucanis Dellamorte. But Rook couldn't say what it was.

The previous First Talon, Caterina Dellamorte, had three requests before her death.

The first was for her grandson Lucanis to succeed the title. He had been named First Talon before her body had even gone cold.

The second was for him to wed. Caterina had a curated list of candidates she had hand-selected, with merits and disadvantages listed beside each one. Rook had not even been near the top of the list—but it was to her that the only marriage contract had been delivered, just days after Caterina's funeral. Viago had thought it to be a mistake.

The third request was for him to sire an heir to continue the Dellamorte bloodline. The clause was not hidden or glossed over, but stated explicitly in the contract that arrived to House de Riva. Lucanis had not cared for the gender, nor how many heirs—he just needed at least one, and he would consider the request fulfilled.

These three things, Lucanis Dellamorte dutifully honoured—but it seemed he cared little for anything else.

Being wed to the new First Talon was no small affair. The wedding ceremony took most of the morning and the celebrations continued long into the night.

Rook felt as though every Crow in Antiva had been invited—certainly each of the Talon Houses had. Though Viago had reassuringly been close by for most of it, she could not hide behind his cloak anymore like a Fledgeling.

Her left hand, burdened with the unfamiliar weight of a ring, was tucked into the crook of Lucanis' arm as he stoically accepted the well-wishes of various guests. Her other hand held the stem of a glass filled with wine as dark as blood. She clutched it like a lifeline as she smiled tightly at the rolling compliments; 'Oh what a beautiful bride you make!' and 'What a fine match!' and 'It's about time you found yourself a wife, Lucanis!'. No one commented on how stiffly they stood together.

Rook had desperately caught Viago's eye several times. Each time she hoped he would call her away, or Maker-forbid, ask for a dance—but he always replied with a somewhat apologetic look and a minute shake of his head.

"Lucanis!" a smooth voice cut through the haze. Rook's gaze flickered back to her husband, and then at the unfamiliar man in front of him. Tanned skin and a flash of white teeth, and long hair bound neatly at the nape of his neck. "Will you not introduce me properly to your new wife?"

Rook startled as the man's piercing eyes were turned on her—blue as the sky she had been wed under not hours before. Lucanis' arm loosened around her hand, allowing the other to draw it into his gloved one to press a kiss to the cool metal of the ring.

Lucanis seemed unperturbed. "My cousin," he introduced tonelessly to her, "Illario."

Illario flashed her a wink. "The more handsome Dellamorte," he said with a crooked smile. He moved so animatedly—so much more human than her statue of a husband—that it made Rook slightly more at ease.

"I'm sure you heard my name at the ceremony," she replied politely, "But I go by Rook, to my friends. I hope we can be that in time."

Illario pressed his hand over his heart. "More than that," he corrected her, "We are family now." He gave his cousin a good-natured nudge with his elbow. "Lucanis is like a brother to me. I'm sure you will be like a sister before long."

Lucanis' expression remained unmoved. Illario's smile faltered for a moment. Then he forced it wider and gestured to the dancefloor behind them. "Would you care for a dance, Rook?" he asked courteously. "I have not seen you yet enjoy yourself. Surely my cousin is willing to part with his bride for a song?"

Rook's feet were aching from standing and talking, but the thought of a dance and getting away from her icy husband for at least a few minutes was just too enticing. She turned her eyes hopefully to Lucanis'.

He was expressionless for a moment. Then his eyes flickered oddly—as if he saw something out of the corner of his eye. He shook his head to clear his mind. "Very well," he said, gesturing them onward stiffly. "But keep an eye out, Illario."

"Don't worry. I'll keep her safe," Illario promised as he took Rook's hand again. It felt warm in hers, even through his gloves.

As they descended onto the dancefloor, the band began to strike up a new song, and the strange chill she had felt since Lucanis had kissed her at the altar felt like it was finally beginning to dissipate. Music and dancers swelled like a storm around her, and Rook soon found herself lost in the spinning waves and the warmth of another's hands.

And once she started, she couldn't stop. She danced until her feet bled—twirling from partner to partner—suddenly desperate to take her mind off the wedding, and her husband, and what she knew would soon follow that night.

But no matter how far she danced or whose arms she was in, she swore she could still feel a strange, dark gaze strike between her shoulder blades, scraping like a blunt knife down the bones of her spine.

Rook performed her marital duty on her hands and knees at the foot of their bed. Her forehead, beaded with sweat, was pressed to the mattress, and her hair spilled forward like wine, dark against the white sheets. Lucanis pushed into her slowly but unrelentingly.

He was still fully dressed in his wedding garments behind her. One hand was braced on the mattress by her trembling shoulders, and the other splayed tight across her bare hip bone. His wedding ring was cold against their flushed skin. Though earlier, he had given them both a pink vial of aphrodisiac—a gift, he said, from Viago, to ease their first night—Rook's anxiousness kept her body tense as a bow.

Her fingers fisted in the sheets as he moved inside her, devastatingly slow as her body struggled to take him in. She fought to keep silent when he seemed unable to go deeper—when she seemed too tight to allow him further in—and he was forced to twist his hips back sharply and nudge her knees wider apart.

The bed shuddered as he tried again.

Rook muffled the moan with her own teeth in her arm. The foreign feeling of his body burying itself so fully in hers was both exhilarating and overwhelming—stretching her taut like he was crawling into her skin, settling himself within her throat. She tried to cant her hips forward, to escape the unforgiving pressure, but he just followed her deeper with a shaky groan.

"Too deep," she gasped. She reached back blindly to grasp at his hand on her hip. "It's too much." She tugged pleadingly at his wrist.

He withdrew again. This time, he thrust back in shallower.

Lucanis set a jerky rhythm behind her. It was uneven at first as they both grew accustomed to the unfamiliar sensation. Then, as her body relaxed fractionally around him, he settled into a more comfortable pace. It gave Rook more room to breathe.

She tried to focus on counting steady breaths as he worked. She turned to gaze blindly at the candlelight by the bedside—anything to distract her from the strange friction growing between them and the odd thrumming in her belly. The flames flickered slightly in the night air, jostled perhaps by the vigour of their coupling—but strangely the longer she continued to watch, the more violently they wavered as if in the winds of a hurricane.

She frowned.

A shiver of shadows suddenly pulsed through the room as every candle flickered as one. She felt Lucanis shudder above her. And then that unnatural chill again, like Winter's grasp, flooded the air in an instant. The corner shadows grew—blooming like a bloodstain, dark and sudden across the bedroom walls in a familiar shape. Wings.

Like the wings of an angel. Or perhaps a demon. Or something else unholy in between. They unfurled from the shadow of her husband, flexing and flaring until they seemed to encircle the whole room. In a blink, the yellow light turned purple—and there was a sudden, eerie feeling that there was something else in the room with them.

Gasping, Rook tried to turn around—tried to look over her shoulder to see if there was truly something coming out of Lucanis' spine—

—but then his hips stuttered. He fell forward, catching himself on his forearms and pinning her to the bed. The breath was driven from her lungs. She was consumed with the feeling of his heavy weight pressing deeper inside, the cool metal of his coat buttons against her naked back, and then the unfamiliar intimacy of liquid heat pooling in between her thighs.

The darkness seemed to recede from the room. When Rook blinked and looked up again, the candle flames were yellow and steady, with not even a hint of a flicker. There were no shadows on the walls except that of her and her husband's bodies tangled as one.

There was no one there, but them.

Viago had made sure she knew what she was getting into. A few weeks before Rook had even accepted the betrothal, he had ushered her into the privacy of his office, locked the door, and grimly handed her a dossier. It was several pages thick of everything he knew about Lucanis Dellamorte—all his biological quirks, his mannerisms, his skillset, and course, his contracts. And it wasn't like she had never heard of him before. She had already known his nickname from how often he was mentioned in the news columns. The Magekiller, was what many called him, or the Demon of Vyrantium that haunted the Tevinter Imperium. He was there on a contract more often than he was home in Treviso.

But Rook hadn't expected he would leave so soon.

After they had consummated their marriage, he had all but fled from their chambers. Rook slept restlessly alone in the unfamiliar bed, in the new master bedroom in the Villa of a House she had not even been joined to for a day—unable to forget what she swore she saw when he had driven himself deep inside her. Nothing in the dossier had hinted at anything like that.

Strange dreams plagued her, of a thousand violet eyes watching from the shadows, of black feathers soaking in a pool of blood, and of being sunk several hundred leagues beneath the sea, unable to breathe or to speak, as fish the size of castles swam serenely above her.

Rook awoke to the sun was streaming cheerfully through the windows, and Lucanis having long since left the city.

Dear Viago,

I have tried not to write too soon, lest I appear like a Fledgeling on her first contract away from home—but it appears two weeks is my limit.

It has taken me longer than expected to find the Dellamorte's rookery, but the caw of the birds and the rustle of feathers in their cages gives me comfort in an unfamiliar place. It takes me back to the memory of where you first found me and my namesake. Even now as I sit here under a similar table, I wonder when I look up, if I will see you crouching there with your hand outstretched to take me home.

House Dellamorte is like a tomb. I do not know how it was when Caterina still lived, but it is now run by a grim-faced skeleton crew of servants who I am certain are avoiding me—or else perhaps they have been instructed to respect my privacy and leave me be. It is like I am the only person here alive.

'Where is Lucanis?' I can already hear you asking. My husband has been in Tevinter since the wedding. He has apparently left some instruction for the servants on how things should be run while he is away, but he has left no message for me, nor any word of when he is to return. I think he cares not for what I do at all.

But fear not—I am staying put as you have asked me, so that I keep my end of the contract. I spend my days exploring this enormous Villa and cataloguing every room. I think it is the only thing that will keep me from going insane.

Viago, if you are able, I beg you to send some work my way. I am still a Crow, even if my husband thinks I am some sort of trophy wife he can leave dusty on a shelf. Let me feel useful again instead of rotting here in this opulent coffin.

Rook de R Dellamorte

Notes on the Villa Dellamorte
Room #6

The Kitchen & Pantry

This is the only room in the Villa where I have regularly encountered the servants employed by House Dellamorte. They cook here three meals a day, and disappear every other time, but at least I have the place to myself when I want a snack.

The kitchen is large and fully stocked with foodstuffs and ingredients to feed a family of ten—and yet I am quite sure I am the only recipient so far. Everything is neatly labelled and organised into sacks and baskets. For some reason, there appears to be an excessive abundance of coffee beans buried in the lower cabinets.

Someone has moved my favourite tin of tea to the top shelf, where I cannot reach without climbing the cabinets like a child.

Four weeks after the wedding, Rook stumbled downstairs in the early hours of the morning to find a surprise guest in the kitchen making himself coffee. He had his back turned and was barefoot, in nothing but a half-buttoned shirt and a pair of silk sleep pants. Strangely, there was not a servant in sight.

He didn't notice her until he turned to pour his cup.

"Mierda!" he cursed. He spilled nearly half of the brew on the counter. "Rook! Maker's breath. I forgot you lived here." He had to set the pot back down to mop up the spilled coffee.

Rook stepped forward cautiously, tying her own dressing gown tighter around herself. "Well, you're not the only one," she replied wryly. "Do you need… help?"

"No, I just—mierda. It got on my pants," he huffed exasperatedly. "I had a long night. Thought I'd come home for a bit and make a coffee. I forgot I'm not the only other Dellamorte in here now."

Rook took pity watching Illario try to herd the puddle of coffee when he was clearly hungover. She rinsed a dish rag into a basin of water and then nudged him out of the way. "Here. Let me."

"Ah. Thank you." He cleared his throat a little awkwardly. Rook could smell the alcohol on him and see the dark smudges under his eyes—doubtless from the productive evening before. "Forgive me," he rubbed his face tiredly. "It's been… a night. I didn't mean to disturb your morning."

She methodically wiped the counter. "You're not. In fact, I could do with a disturbance."

He blinked. "You could?" He paused. "Well. Then, let me make you a cup too. It is the least I can do."

He twisted to reach for the cupboard above her head with the ease of someone who knew this kitchen well. His shirt rode up, exposing a sliver of his waist as he plucked a matching mug by the handle and set it beside his. "Do you take your coffee with cream or sugar?" Illario asked, pouring her cup first. "We have honey in the pantry too, I think." The comforting smell of freshly brewed coffee wafted through the air. It felt oddly domestic after weeks of silence.

Rook tossed the soiled dishrag into the laundry hamper in the corner. "Just cream, if we have it."

He found a pot of it as Rook began assembling a breakfast tray. "Lavender-infused," he read aloud the little label on the jar. "Hm. Wonder what that tastes like." He gave it a tentative sniff. Then turned and wiggled the jar at her. "What do you think, Rook?" he said with a half-hearted grin. "Coffee with honey and lavender cream might be an interesting combination."

Rook's lips twitched into a smile despite herself. She shrugged. "Sure," she said as nonchalantly as possible. "Why not?"

She finished slicing a small loaf of fresh bread, and added it to her half-assembled tray. She blinked at the assortment. Pastries, butter, and fruit. She had unconsciously gathered enough for two people. She slowly looked back up to where Illario was stirring cream into both their mugs.

"Illario?" she asked tentatively. "Do you want to have breakfast with me? I've appeared to have made enough food for the both of us."

He lowered his spoon, surprised. "You… want my company?"

She cleared her throat, suddenly nervous. "I mean, only if you aren't busy." She tucked a lock of hair behind her ear.

He watched her for a moment. His eyes flickered over her in her dressing gown, the ink stains on her hand from writing all night, and the tiredness in her eyes that mirrored his. "…Sure," he echoed her earlier answer slowly. "Why not?"

Rook,

I regret to say that as I am no longer the Talon of your House, I cannot assign you a contract like I have in the past—but I have heard your plea. I will see if I can send some work your way which you can accept on behalf of House Dellamorte. It may not be your usual jobs but it will at least give you an excuse to leave your extravagant tomb.

For Lucanis to have asked for you personally and yet not made use of your full capability—either makes him a fool, or makes me extremely suspicious. Regardless of the circumstances, they do not excuse the neglect my best Crow. Let us both make sure to remind him of this, and so we do not regret accepting his offer in the first place.

Know that I do not take lightly what you have traded away to secure my position as Talon. You have always been my most loyal supporter, Rook. I will not forget this, no matter how far we are between cities, and no matter how many times you change your surname. Whatever else you wish or require, ask, and I will see what I can do.

Continue to write to me. Your letters will inhabit the rookery here in your absence, in that little place under the table.

Viago

Illario began to drop by more often. It was not always regular—sometimes he would be there every day of the week, and other times, just the once—but Rook found herself looking forward to waking up to the now familiar scent of coffee and honey and lavender cream.

With the servants continuing to make themselves scarce, it felt like the Villa came to life every time Illario was home. The kitchen felt warmer and lighter when Rook peeked around the corner in her dressing gown and saw the tall Crow there. He would always make them matching cups of coffee—with honey and lavender cream like the first time— and he would turn around silhouetted in the sun, with that crooked smile and twinkling eyes.

They would chat a little by the kitchen counter, drinking slowly and savouring both the warmth of the brew and the company of another. Illario would tell her of his latest contracts and the outside world (for Rook had not ventured much outside the Villa in case Lucanis was to return). His retold escapades were always dramatic and at times, raunchy, and oddly hilarious. The kitchen would echo strangely with their laughter, as if unused to having that sound within its halls.

Rook would in turn, ask him questions about the different rooms of the House that she had discovered the day before. He always had an interesting fact or story to go along with them, and knew every hidden passage.

"I can't believe you found the secret hallway behind the Music Room," he snorted as he swirled the coffee in his cup. "Lucanis and I only found it when we were ten because I'd tossed him into the wall!"

Eventually, they began to take breakfast together too. Rook's favourite spot to eat was in the solar of one of the guestrooms—which she had decided to move into instead of the master bedroom as it faced the morning sun. The balcony windows opened straight into the garden, and they'd bathe in the warm light as they picked indulgently at their pastries and fruit.

Illario was the picture of lazy elegance that morning as he lounged beside her in a dressing gown, half-open over his bare chest with his long legs crossed at the ankles. The light played lovingly along the slant of his cheekbones, shimmering against the golden tint of his skin. The steam from their too-sweet coffees curled gently in the air.

"It's still not as good as Lucanis makes it," he grimaced after the first swallow. "He always had a knack for brewing it just right every time."

Rook blew gently over the top of her steaming mug. "Luckily for you, I wouldn't know any better," she answered coolly. She took a tentative sip. "And I quite like how you make it."

The corner of his mouth pulled up into a smile.

It stunned her, for a moment, how beautiful he was. His hair was casually loose for once, falling in gentle waves around his face. It softened the sharp planes of his cheekbones. His smile put a dimple in his cheek, and the softness in his eyes that sparkled blue like the waters of Rialto Bay made the pit of Rook's stomach burst into butterflies.

The moment broke as Illario cleared his throat suddenly and tore his gaze away.

"Lucanis should be returning home soon," he said abruptly. "I think I read in the papers that a certain magister in Marnas Pell took a tumble out of the tallest tower in the city. I'm pretty sure that was his target."

"R-Right." Though she had been waiting for him, the thought of Lucanis returning and breaking the strange sort of peace Rook had settled into in the Villa was oddly disappointing. It would probably mean less breakfasts with Illario and more waking up to her husband's cold back.

She hid her discomfort by idly traced the rim of her cup. "Illario," she said slowly, "Has Lucanis… said anything? About me? I am afraid I've displeased him somehow, but I honestly don't think we've had enough conversation for there to be anything to be displeased about."

Illario raised his eyebrows. "Why would he be displeased with you?" he said in surprise. "I thought he picked you for himself out of a list of eligible Crows."

Rook shrugged. "I am as lost as you. We'd never met before this. But I… we haven't really talked, since the wedding. I fear he is avoiding me."

Illario's expression softened. "I'm sure it is nothing you did," he consoled her gently. "You've been dutiful. And kind. I… I'll talk to him. He's an idiot sometimes, with people—I'm sure this is just a misunderstanding."

She lowered her eyes to her coffee. "Thank you," she murmured. "I wasn't sure if… if he was always like this. Or if it was just with me."

Something like pity flickered in his eyes.

"It's not you, Rook, it's… He's always been a little dour, but he has been more aloof since Caterina passed away. And even before that since he returned from the one-year contract in the Ossuary." Illario hesitated. Then carefully reached across the table and patted her hand comfortingly. His hand was warmer than the sun. "So it's nothing you did, I promise. Let me talk to him. I'll tell him to come home at once and to be more considerate to his wife."

Rook flushed. "I-It's fine," she said hurriedly. "This was an arranged marriage. I don't expect to be—"

"Arranged or not, you are a Dellamorte now," he interrupted, "And Dellamortes always look after our own. I think he has forgotten that." He cleared his throat. Then added quietly, "And besides, I know what it feels like to be left behind. It is... not a pleasant feeling."

Rook's eyes stung hot with unwanted tears. Illario tactfully didn't comment when she clutched his hand back and turned her cheek into his shoulder, nor when he felt dampness through the thin robe. They both just turned their gazes out at the blue sky outside and finished their coffee in silence.

Notes on the Villa Dellamorte
Room #14

The Library

The Villa boasts a large collection of texts and tomes, which according to Illario, have been handed down through generations. There are maps and ancient lineages, histories and combat manuals, as well as the journals of previous Dellamorte heirs. I have tried to read two of them, but they are so sad and violent that I have decided it is better for my health if I stopped.

There is also a copy of every contract a Dellamorte Crow has completed. I have taken some time to read more on my husband's history. He has been taking back-to-back contracts since he was sixteen—which is awfully young, I think, for a newly Fledged Crow. Illario had mentioned a contract in the Ossuary which he took one year to complete. It is by far the longest in his recorded history and the strangest, for all details that had been meticulously described in his previous contracts are missing from this one. It is as if someone has removed them entirely.

All I know is that his target was the Venatori prison warden named Calivan, and that when he returned, he took two months break from work—and then married me. It is the longest gap in his history. 

I must ask Illario more about this job later, as the description of the Ossuary matches what I have seen in my dreams. I think it may hold some answers to the peculiarities that plague my husband.

Rook's knife was still satisfyingly wet with mage blood when she swung her window open and landed soundlessly in her bedroom. The moonlight poured in with her; silver and luminous, and pooling across her bedroom floor like a river. She followed it absently as it ran across her woven rugs, the cold tiles by the fireplace, and up a silhouetted pair of boots—

Lucanis snatched her throwing knife from the air with an infuriatingly lazy swipe, just inches from his face.

"L-Lucanis," she breathed when she recognised the shape of his hair and his broad shoulders. She slowly lowered the second knife she had poised between her fingers. "You… you startled me."

The moonlight threw his features into sharp relief as he stepped forward, dressed to the chin in his combat leathers. "You're not using the master suite," was all he said in reply. He pointedly glanced around her bedroom.

Unlike the opulent but impersonal room that housed their wedding bed, this one was filled to the brim with all sorts of trinkets and souvenirs from her contracts and travels. Viago had sent up boxes of them to try and make her feel more at home. Lucanis viewed them all expressionlessly as he slowly set her throwing knife on her desk. He idly picked up a random bauble—an Antaam Commander's pin.

Rook had wanted to be calm when she met him. To not show how much it had hurt when he had abandoned her for two months, and to ask him why he had been avoiding her. But the sight of him in her most personal space and touching her most treasured possessions sparked something a little ugly instead.

"Why should I?" she retorted coldly. She swept forward and snatched the pin from his hands. "I have no need for a room as large as that when you're never here anyway." She slammed it back down on the desk.

He paused. Then crossed his arms. "So it seems," he said coolly. "Where were you tonight?"

"On a job." She returned her throwing knife to its sheath on her gauntlet.

"Where?" he repeated.

She stepped carefully around him to her armoire in the corner. "Porto Blanco," she replied shortly.

"You were not to leave the city."

"Porto Blanco is just the next town over. And I did not stay there overnight." She began unstrapping her weapons. "Not that I owe you reports on my whereabouts when you haven't had the courtesy to do the same."

His face was unreadable. "I asked you not to leave the city unguarded for your own safety," he reminded her warningly, "And I'm the Talon of this House, not you. I need to be made aware if you take a contract."

She shrugged as she took out all her knives and began to hang them up on their proper hooks in the wardrobe. "And you will be. When I file the report officially." He would be entertained, she thinks, or perhaps insulted, when he finds out that her client had been initially looking for the Magekiller. But Rook figured that in this case, they wouldn't really know the difference, and she could kill a mage just as easily as her husband.

She left out her bloodier knives in a separate pile to clean later. "If you are afraid I have not been fulfilling my end of the contract, don't be. I haven't left Treviso for months. You were just unlucky to have caught me on the one night I was out."

"Or perhaps you are the unlucky one," he countered swiftly, "To have been caught at all."

Perhaps she was, Rook thought idly. She removed her boots and hung up her cloak. She was about to unbutton her tunic when she hesitated—more than aware of her husband's looming presence behind her—but then remembered he had just about seen everything anyway.

She began to disrobe. "Why are you here, Lucanis?" she asked, deliberately not looking in his direction. "Breaking into my bedroom in the middle of the night? Surely whatever it is can wait until morning."

Lucanis watched her with arms crossed and his head cocked like a predatory bird. "I think you know why I have to be here," he said quietly. Her clothes fell carelessly into the pile at her feet.

She let out a humourless laugh as she scooped them up as one heap and tossed it into the laundry hamper. "So this is it, then? What our marriage is to be?" She reached next for the cloth at her wash basin to wipe away the blood and dust from her job. "Months of silence—in which we are mostly not even in the same country—interrupted by random nights where you turn up at my door and I let you between my legs?"

It didn't look like she was going to get a nice, relaxing bath tonight, she thought dismally. Instead, she dunked the cloth in the basin's cool water and scrubbed at her face until her shoulders relaxed. She sluiced it down her neck and her arms, and across her ribs. All the while, Lucanis watched silently.

He took a step forward. "You signed a contract," he reminded her. She glanced up to see he was watching her slide the cloth down her hip, but his eyes remained cool. "I have given you peace and privacy. I have not disturbed your life."

His next step brought him but a metre away from her. She slowly straightened to full height. "All I ask in return is an heir," he continued softly. His eyes flickered to her flat belly, bare and glistening softly from the damp wash cloth. "And since you are not yet with child, you know we must keep trying."

She felt a jolt in her abdomen from the heat of his gaze—but it twisted into a restless coil at the thought of carrying a child for her distant husband. She masked her uneasiness with a scoff. "F-Fine." She swallowed and tossed the cloth back in the basin, ran her fingers through her hair and untangled it roughly. "Fine. Let's get this over with. Though you'd better have one of Viago's potions with you. I can't say my body is exactly eager at the thought of us doing that again."

Lucanis' eyes flickered down once more. Her body betrayed her—trembling and peaking under his attention in the moonlight. She flushed.

But Lucanis didn't call her bluff. He merely plucked two sealed vials from his potions belt in a familiar pale pink. He handed one wordlessly to her. She took the aphrodisiac with unsteady fingers.

His eyes didn't leave hers as they drank it in one swallow, at the same time.

She set the empty vial by her bedside. "How do you want me?" Rook asked with a voice steadier than her limbs as she moved naked to the end of the bed. "Same as last time?"

Lucanis followed behind her silently. "Yes," he replied. He didn't take off any clothing, but had to unbuckle a few straps to get to his belt. "Don't worry. I'll make this quick."

Rook rolled her eyes as she kneeled on the bed. "Exactly what any wife wants to hear," she muttered. Her husband didn't reply.

Like before, Lucanis didn't touch her any more than he had to. The aphrodisiac did most of the work to get her warmed up—just pliant and wet enough to allow him entry. His hand settled on her hip to steady himself—gloved this time, she noted, as if he could not bear to touch her skin—but that was the only place he dared to hold. She inhaled sharply as he mounted her in one smooth stroke.

There was no candles she could watch this time to distract her; only moonlight across the headboard, the leather grip on her bare waist, and the rocking of his body. And though he was not cruel, not rough—for she could feel the way he held back his strength and the shortened length of his strokes—he still stretched her uncomfortably full.

She tried to focus on relaxing. Tried to focus on being professionally detached like he was. She shifted her knees further apart and counted her breaths, anything to stop herself from being distracted by the growing friction of his body moving hot within her.

But it took longer than he promised. More than a few torturous minutes in which she began to feel sensations not wholly unpleasant—gradually warm and tingly—before Rook felt his rhythm start to shift. Long and slow strokes gave way to a tight circle grind, hitting a part of her that shot sparks of ecstasy dancing up her spine. His breath began to quicken as he chased his own pleasure. And there—!

Violet flashed across the walls like lightning. A strange purple glow that could not be attributed to moonlight burst from behind her. A gust of wind ran up the backs of her thighs, followed by the brush of something soft. And then that same sudden chill descended like a fog and raised goosebumps on her flesh.

The grip on her waist tightened painfully hard. A soft murmur came from behind her—so low she could barely hear it—"No, no… not here!" But before she could turn around, Lucanis was pushing her head and shoulders into the mattress.

He spilled his seed inside her as she gasped facedown, and he held her there until he finished trembling. The entire time, she was afraid to look up. He knew, she realised, wide-eyed in her own sheets as violet lights flashed around them like a storm. He knew there was something wrong, something there, and he had stopped her from looking. It was the confirmation she needed to know everything she had seen and felt so far was real.

But how was she to voice it?

Lucanis didn't give her a chance. Once he caught his breath, he withdrew abruptly. She felt the absence of his body immediately as he was replaced with the cooling night air. A slide of metal as he refastened his belt. And then her curtains were swaying back into place, and he was gone.

But not without a trace.

On the carpet next to the bed where he had stood, lay three scattered black feathers—much larger than that of any messenger crow—edged in violet.

That night she dreamed of iron bars and swaying cages, the creak of rusty chains and the whimpering of the damned. In the shadows she saw a monster completely swathed in dark feathers, whose body she could see nothing of except for six glowing, violet eyes. They looked directly at her and she felt as if they could see her to the bone.

A croaking voice she never heard before cried out, "HELP US!"

And then she woke with a start.

Notes on the Villa Dellamorte
Room #21

Illario's Room

There are many bedrooms within the Villa. Most of them are empty, or for guests that the family never seem to entertain. But today I have found the wing where the children used to live—well, when there still used to be children. Illario's childhood bedroom is still here.

Illario doesn't linger in the Villa. Though he breaks his fast with me often now, he only seems to visit the kitchen and his bedroom to sleep off a late night. He told me I could have a peek, if I wanted, and he wouldn't be offended. He has another apartment in the city where he keeps most of his personal belongings.

His bedroom here is not lavishly furnished but the rugs and the linens are of good quality. There are some books here—more frivolous in nature than I expected—and old toys, such as the well-worn carvings of Crows and knights and ships. There are some boardgames and decks of cards stashed in corners, as well as favours from previous lovers and admirers in a box (ribbons and pins and the like).

There is also a hidden door that leads to the room beside it. It is furnished nearly identically to this one, except the books are all poetry and escapist romances; the toys are more of deadly snakes and wyverns; and though there is no box of ribbons, there is instead the most impressive array of ornate knives. I have a sneaking suspicion this room once belonged to Lucanis.

If so, then it is difficult to reconcile the boy who once lived here with the cold man that is now my husband. I would have thought a man who so loves his romances would not treat his wife with such apathy.

It was rare for Rook to see Illario in the evenings, but he had surprised her by turning up at her door at sunset with a bottle of Orlesian brandy and a familiar boardgame tucked under his arm.

"I forgot I had it until you mentioned you saw it in my room," he said excitedly as they set up the chessboard on a table in her solar. The setting sun was golden through the arched windows of the room and warm against the floor tiles. "I used to make Lucanis play against me every night," he laughed. "He got sick of it after a year or two. And since then, well…" He shrugged with that same lopsided grin again. "I guess I never had anyone else to play with."

The game brought out a boyish side of Illario that Rook found both amusing and endearing. They fixed themselves some snacks alongside the board and poured a generous glass of brandy each. All the while, he rambled a little about the history of chess and the different variations that were played in Southern Thedas compared to the North.

"What colour do you usually play?" Rook asked him once the board was between them and all the pieces lined up.

"Lucanis always played black and I would play white. But you can choose whichever colour you like," he told her graciously.

Rook chose black.

The sun sunk slowly below the horizon as they began to play at a leisurely pace, moving one thoughtful piece at a time with plenty of snickering commentary inbetween. Rook was no chess master, but she knew how to play, and figured Illario was just looking for a slow, easy game that night.

"More brandy?" he offered when she had lost half her pieces in the first fifteen minutes.

She grimaced and nudged her empty glass across. "Might as well. Can't play worse than this." She crossed her legs as she shifted in her seat—then winced.

Illario noticed and frowned, lowering the bottle. "Are you alright?"

"I'm fine," she waved him off.

"You were in pain."

Rook flushed. "Just a bit… sore," she admitted reluctantly. "Lucanis visited me earlier in the week."

He paused. Then lowered his voice. "He wasn't… violent with you, was he?" he said uneasily. 

"No, no," she said quickly, "Nothing like that. He can just be a little intense when we…" She trailed off embarrassedly. She cleared her throat. "Well. You know. Always just takes me a little bit to recover."

Illario didn't look relieved. His frown only grew deeper. "He should know his own strength," he said slowly, "Lucanis is always careful with how he interacts with others."

"Well perhaps it's different when he's in the throes of… passion," she said lamely, though passionate was hardly the word she could use to describe their coupling.

…But if she did think about it, Lucanis' stiff demeanour and tight control only seemed to unravel when he was deep inside her—when he would start to hold her too tight, or push in too far—as if he was no longer wholly in command of his own body. And it was always at these times when those strange, unexplainable events would start to occur.

The sun was a sliver now on the skyline. She watched as the last of its golden light glimmered, and then disappeared with a wink.

"Illario," she said slowly as he took an agitated sip of his drink, "I've been meaning to ask you... Have you noticed anything odd about Lucanis lately?"

Illario's hand stilled.

Rook went on carefully. "If he's been acting strange or… or unusual since he's come back from that contract in the Ossuary?"

He put down his glass slowly. "The contract in the Ossuary?" he repeated. "What… do you know of it?"

She shrugged. "Not much. Only that it is the only contract missing from the records. And that he was there for a year, which was unusual."

Illario sighed. "It was." He idly spun a chess piece between his fingers. "He is usually very efficient in his contracts. But that time… he was gone so long, we thought he died. And when he came back alive as if nothing happened… we almost couldn't believe it."

"But you agree he's been a bit… off? Since then?" Rook pressed.

He met her eyes hesitantly. "Look, Rook, he… doesn't talk about it. What happened there. I think…" He cleared his throat and lowered his voice. "I think he was tortured," he admitted, "Badly. Maybe worse. He won't tell a soul about what happened. He…" Illario raked his hand agitatedly through his hair. "He… was never this aloof. Not this quiet.

"When he came back, he'd ignore any suggestion I'd make to reconnect—to go for drinks or do anything together. Like he'd forgotten we were like brothers once. Instead he would lock himself in his room and not come out for hours. I'm pretty sure he stopped sleeping at some point too. Whatever happened…" He swallowed. "It was bad. And if he is a little different because of it, I'm not surprised."

"Of course," she murmured. She felt a pang of shame at jumping to conclusions. "I never meant to… I mean, I'm sure it was a very traumatic experience. He can't have come back the exact same man he was."

He gave her a solemn nod. "Everything has happened so fast since he's returned. Caterina passing away. His rise to First Talon. His marriage to you." He softened. "I know he's been cold to both of us but… I think he's still processing everything. We just need to give him time."

Rook gave him a tight smile. "You're right. I'm sure it will… fade away soon." She looked down at the chessboard and moved a piece at random.

They played a few more turns but the playful air of the evening had vanished with the sun. She steadily lost more and more pieces but she hardly cared. Her mind was still turning the peculiarities of her husband around in her head; his too-careful movements, the unexplainable chills, the violet lights she would see flashed in his eyes or across the bedroom walls. The feathers.

"You're still troubled," Illario noted as he slid his queen to checkmate. "About Lucanis." He leaned back in his chair.

Rook gave a humourless laugh. "I… I don't know, Illario. I think maybe I'm just losing my mind."

"Rook, you are probably the most sane person in this household." He poured her another drink. "Tell me. So that I might ease your burden."

She bit her lip. Dusk had settled now, a quiet blanket of darkness over the Villa. The only light came from the stars and the oil lanterns in her room.

"I see things, sometimes," she confessed quietly in the secret of night. "Strange things when I'm with Lucanis. Shadows and lights and wind where there shouldn't be any. And I feel cold… so cold. And a…" She swallowed. Raised her eyes nervously to meet his. "…A presence. Like there's someone… something else there."

Illario frowned. "Something else?" he echoed, but Rook was glad he was taking her seriously.

"Yes," she whispered. "Something not of this world. Something from beyond the Veil." Illario stiffened. Rook swallowed. "You've never felt that?"

He shook his head uneasily. "He can be strange, yes, but I've never felt anything supernatural."

Maybe she was crazy, Rook thought. She licked her lips nervously and tried one more time. "Is… is Lucanis a mage?"

He startled. "A mage? Lucanis?" The confusion threw him slightly. "No, no. He has always been sensitive to the Fade and to magic being cast but he has never shown signs of any magical ability."

"Right," she said slowly. "Okay. I just had a thought that maybe he… had somehow picked up a cursed object or a malevolent spirit there." She swallowed. "But I-I supposed if he isn't a mage then… it should be impossible, right?"

"That's impossible," he agreed. "A spirit would have no interest in a non-mage."

Rook laughed nervously. "Yes. Of course."

"And he's the Magekiller," he continued reassuringly. "He knows how to defend himself from spirits and curses." He gave her hand a pat. "So don't worry, Rook. It can't be that. He has no connection with the Fade. These strange sensations you've felt… maybe it's something in the Villa and not from him." He waved his hand around the room airily. "Maker knows it's an old house and there's some weird objects and rooms here. I wouldn't be surprised if the Veil is a little thin."

Rook forced a smile back. "I'm sure that's it. Newlywed nerves and big empty house." Though she had never felt those sensations when Lucanis wasn't there, she thought privately.

Then Illario's warm hand was on her shoulder, soothing her anxieties with a touch. "You just need time to settle in," he told her gently, "And Lucanis needs time to get used to life here again. We just all need to be a little patient, Rook."

She relished in the warmth of his hand as she pressed hers against it. "Thank you, Illario," she said with a more genuine smile this time. "Well, at least I have you to anchor me in the middle of all this madness."

He gave her that favourite crooked smile of his. "And I have you," he agreed, "And you are infinitely better company than Lucanis these days." Then he picked up his rook chess piece and wiggled it at her playfully. "Now. Ready to lose another game?"

Rook laughed. "Alright, another round then." She reached to reset the board. "But next time," she said with a smile, "We're playing Wicked Grace."

Later, she would check in secret the drawer of her bedside table to see the three black feathers she had nestled there. She touched them gently to make sure they were real, and sighed in relief when she felt them soft beneath her fingertips.

Notes on the Villa Dellamorte
Room #33

The First Talon's Office

I know I shouldn't be here, but I still need answers. My instincts continue to tell me that whatever plagues my husband is from beyond the Veil. Though Illario is right in that a spirit can only possess a mage, that doesn't mean they can't inhabit other objects.

I am looking to see if he brought anything back from the Ossuary. If he did, I'm sure he would have kept it in his securely locked office. The windows had hair trigger traps and the door knob was coated in a corrosive acid—but I wouldn't be Crow of House de Riva if I couldn't get past a few minor obstacles.

It is an intimidating office for the workspace of the First Talon—thick drapes that block the light, dark mahogany wood, and tall, looming furniture. Designed to impress. It is filled with paperwork, contracts, and research papers. I found three cabinets filled with dossiers alone. There are a few trophies; foreign trinkets and blades and bones from contracts I probably don't want to hear about. But nothing that looks to have been brought back from a Venatori prison.

A slight chill emanates from the large desk in the centre of the room. I find the source in the bottom drawer: several vials of blood, dark and thick and recently drawn. I am not certain whose, but I can guess. If I hold one up to the light, the blood swirls as if it has a life of its own, and I think I can see a flash of violet.

It was the middle of the night when Rook startled awake at a sudden sound. Glass breaking and a muffled thump. Something heavy being dragged on carpet.

In a split second she is sitting upright and wide alert—her years of Crow instincts kicking in. She gripped the knife hidden under her pillow and padded barefoot to her bedroom door. She pressed an ear to the wooden surface. There was a creak of another door opening but not quite closing.

Rook slowly but silently turned her own doorknob. Almost complete darkness greeted her. Only one brazier was lit in the hallway outside, but it was burning low on oil. In the dim glow, she could make out an empty corridor. No figures loomed there, but as she continued to look, she saw something glint wetly on the floor.

Blood. A pattern in the shape of a man's dark footprints, trailing along the hallway and disappearing into the master bedroom.

She tried to steady her shaky breath. She should probably stay put, she thought. She could see in the morning if there was anything worth worrying about. Or she could go and get Illario. But there was no guarantee he was in the Villa at all. His nights were usually when he worked his contracts.

Or she could go by herself now, the small part of her mind whispered to her. If the footprints belonged to her husband, then maybe she could confront him. It was an extremely rare occurrence that he would be home and not have gone to see her. She would be catching him off-guard.

Her feet were moving before her mind caught up. The brazier's light flickered as she crept up the hallway. Her bare feet made no sound on the carpet alongside the bloody tracks as she kept her eyes on the door at the end of the corridor. It was still left ajar. In the gap she could see light—soft and flickering from a freshly lit candle.

She barely dared to breathe as she neared it, stifling any sound with her own hand pressed over her mouth when she reached the doorframe. She could hear ragged panting inside. Then a pained grunt. Rook froze.

Was he… injured? For some reason, the thought that the blood had belonged to him had never crossed her mind. Guilt flashed through her, of being a terrible wife.

"L-Lucanis?" she dared to whisper. "Are you alright?" She pushed the door gingerly. It swung open with an eerie creak.

The room was almost completely dark, save for three candles that had been lit in the corner. There was a trail of leather armour on the floor, unbuckled haphazardly—and then she saw her husband's silhouette leaning against the wall. He was sitting on a low divan by the wash basin. Next to him were rolls of bandages on the side table and a wicked-looking dagger. As she stepped closer, she could smell the salty, metallic tang of blood and a hit of strong alcohol.

"…Rook?" His voice was rough—gravelly and uneven, strained in pain.

"You're hurt," she realised. She closed the door behind her. Left her dagger on a side table. "Maker. That's a lot of blood."

"Leave me." The command was brusque—but there was no bite to it, only pain.

Rook was too shocked to be offended. "Don't be ridiculous. Let me help." She was kneeling at his side before she knew it. His hands were bloodied to the wrist trying to bandage his own side. A knife wound—small but effective, if the way he was hunched over gave any indication. "Do you have healing potions?"

"They don't… work…" he said raggedly. "Alcohol. Stitches." He pointed weakly to the tools he'd set out on the side table. Clearly part of a medical kit he'd packed.

"The old fashioned way," she muttered. She automatically picked up the bottle of whisky first. She soaked a clean rag in it, grimacing at the smell, and then turned to face Lucanis. He grimly lifted his shirt, and then the bloodied hand that had been holding his wound shut. She replaced it swiftly with the rag and pressed hard.

He groaned out loud, the sound ripping from his throat like a growl. For a moment she thought his eyes flashed purple, but it was gone before she could blink. "I… I have to clean the wound properly," she said slowly. "You'll have to take off your shirt."

She couldn't see his expression in the low light but he was silent for a moment, breathing unevenly. Then he began fumbling for his buttons.

It felt oddly intimate, she thought, to see him undress when he had never done so in her presence before. His movements were jerky—stiff with discomfort. "What did you mean when you said the potions don't work?" she asked to distract him. The rag was swiftly beginning to darken.

"I'm immune," he replied shortly. He reached the last button and then tried to shrug out of the sleeves. "Used too many in the past. Now they don't—ngh—" Rook felt his side spasm in agony as he twisted too far. She used her free hand to help unhook his arm from his sleeve. "—they don't work like they… they used to."

He was naked from the waist up now. Rook tried not to stare at the swathes of sinewy muscle, rippling in the candlelight, nor at the multitude of barely-healed scars that clawed up his body. Far too many to be accidental, and far too new to have been from anything other than from the Ossuary. Evidence of torture.

Illario had been right.

Lucanis half-reclined on the cushions as she worked. She cleaned the wound as best she could before taking the needle and thread from his medical kit. Beneath her hands, she could feel him trying to regulate the way his chest rose up and down with his breaths. The weight of his dark eyes were heavy on her nimble fingers sewing up his side with neat, even stitches—the way Viago had taught her—and then as the pain or the delirium got to him, she felt him gaze upon her face.

"Why… are you here?" he asked her after a while. The candles were beginning to burn low. His voice slurred slightly. "You could have let me bleed out."

She glanced at him. He looked strangely softer in the light. Younger, somehow. "I am your wife," she replied curtly. She returned to focusing on her stitches.

"Not a happy wife."

"Oh? What gave it away?"

"…Illario said so."

She snorted. She hadn't realised he could be funny. "Doesn't mean I want my husband dead." She cut the thread with the dagger. Then smeared a liberal amount of healing salve on the closed wound and prayed it did its job. "Sit up again," she urged him, "I have to bandage your side now."

He propped himself up groggily. He seemed so vulnerable in this situation. So human. Rook tried to ignore how his muscles tensed under his weight, the way they flexed and shifted as she wrapped rolls of clean bandages around his middle. The way they twitched when her fingertips grazed over his abdomen.

"Careful," he grunted warningly when they swiped a little too low in her haste. A muscle jumped in his thigh. He gripped her wrist and pulled her away. "I'll… I'll do it."

She flushed and dropped the bandage. Let him finish pulling it across his body as she cleared her throat and turned to tidy up a little. She tried to wash his blood off her own hands in the basin, but it was so dark she could barely tell if the water ran clear or scarlet.

Afterwards, she helped him stagger to the bed—their marriage bed, she recognised, which had been untouched since their wedding night. She tried to lower him gently, but he was heavier than she anticipated. She stumbled. They tripped with a pained groan across the covers.

His face landed inches from hers. He was so close, she could see the pupils of his eyes dilate in the low candlelight and feel his uneven breath on her lips. And she realised that despite everything they'd done, this was the most intimate they'd ever been—him half-naked and her in her nightdress, both stained with his blood and tangled together on their bed. 

Her breath caught in her throat as Lucanis stared back. His eyes, glazed with pain and delirium, traced slowly over the curve of her cheek, her hair that spilled down her neck and their sheets, and finally her lips, half-parted in wonder.

Then he flinched. "You… You can't be here," he murmured, "With me." He turned resolutely to face the ceiling. "Go back to bed."

"Lucanis…"

He needs time, she remembered Illario telling her. She reached out hesitantly to touch him, to comfort him—but Lucanis was faster. He caught her wrist before she could land. His eyes had hardened coldly. "Don't touch me."

The rejection stung like a barb. Like an ice cold knife hammered in the space between her ribs. It hurt more than Rook wanted to admit.

"Is this really how our marriage is to be?" she whispered.

Lucanis closed his eyes and turned his head away in response. Rook's wrist went limp in his grip. "Are we really to have no relationship outside our marital duty?" she said hollowly.

His silence rang in answer.

She swallowed hard the lump in her throat. "I see," she said, voice shaking slightly. "Then forgive me. I… won't try again." She wrenched herself from his hand and pushed herself upright. "Goodnight," she said hurriedly. She stumbled to her feet in the dark, half-blind with tears. "And please see a healer in the morning. I'll leave you to—"

"Rook."

Lucanis caught her arm again. The momentum swung her back into the bed, sending her sprawling to her knees beside his thighs. "I don't mean to..." he tried, "...I can't…" She caught herself inches from his face. In the reflection of his eyes, she saw the wetness on her own cheeks. He dropped his gaze and released her abruptly.

"Why not?" she begged tearfully. "We're married, Lucanis!" He winced. "Bound in contract. Sealed in blood. I am stuck in this house with you forever." The finality of the words scared even herself. She felt them both shudder violently. "…I am a Dellamorte now, forever," she repeated softer. She brushed a hand against his shoulder, her wedding ring a cool reminder against his skin. "Are you really going to push me away for the rest of our lives?"

He leaned into her hand helplessly, drawn irrestistably like a moth to a flame. "Are you never going to touch me?" she whispered, "Never going to confide in me what haunts you?" He stilled beneath her. Her voice cracked. "Will you really only seek my presence to find pleasure in my body?"

When he raised his tortured eyes to hers, they were full of agony.

Rook felt more tears spill uncontrollably down her cheeks. She lowered her voice, trembling. "Will you be this distant when I finally give you an heir?" she whispered. "B-Because I don't know if I can do it, Lucanis." Her breath came faster and faster. "I-I don't know if I can do it alone in this empty house. If I can raise a child when their father won't even look in my direction. If I can tell them that their father still loves them even though he never comes home, even though he leaves for months at a time without a word of when he is to return, even if he has never shown a hint of affection for me—"

Lucanis stilled her lips with his own.

He tasted like warm blood and coffee, salty tears and the tang of the whisky she had used to clean his wound. "I'm sorry," he murmured against her quivering lips. His beard brushed against her skin as he pressed an apologetic kiss to the corner of her mouth. "I'm sorry."

Rook wept silently as she kissed him back. Couldn't help but clutch his shoulders as she pressed feverishly to him—wanting, despite herself, for any scrap of affection he'd give her. He sighed as she ran her hand through his hair and grasped at the scarred skin of his back.

She let him lay her down on their wedding bed—let him crawl back over her, open her mouth with his lips and apologise with his tongue until she moaned. Perhaps she was wrong, she thought hazily when he finally broke away for a breath. Perhaps she was wrong and this was the man beneath the stone cold exterior all along and she just had to find him. Her eyes slid shut as he kissed his way downwards—hot, open-mouthed kisses as he sucked bruises on the column of her throat. She could feel the raspy texture of his beard and then a sharp graze of teeth, as if he couldn't help himself to test it against her skin. His hands slipped her lacy sleeves down the curve of her shoulders.

When he took the peak of her breast in his mouth, she cried. She tangled her hand in his hair and raked her other down his back until he groaned. Her spine arched into his searing mouth, and she was tugging him desperately for more.

She didn't notice the temperature in the room dropping until her gasps began to fog. Then her roaming hands on his back hit the base of something strange—something feather-soft and moving in between his shoulder blades. The feeling was so foreign that it pulled her out of her daze. Her fingers followed thin membrane and feathers and—

Rook's eyes snapped open.

Black wings burst from the body of her husband—stretching long enough that the feathered tips skimmed the walls and the ceiling, eclipsing the candlelight behind him. On each of his wings was a glowing violet eye—six altogether—gazing down at her like stained-glass windows in a chantry.

"L-Lucanis..." Her breath stuck in her throat. Her trembling hands fumbled for the edge of his jaw, and then she was urging him to look up at her, to face her, so she could see for herself—

It was not Lucanis.

It was his face and his features but it was someone else in his skin. 

For his brown eyes were filled violet with unholy light and his lips stretched demonically in a too-wide smile—revealing a row of pointed, razor-sharp teeth.

She screamed.

She dreams of the Fade. It is infinite and expansive—an endless swirl of colours and light and memories long forgotten. She is floating. Peaceful, like how a star drifts in the sky. And then she is ripped from it—torn in half and wrenched through a pinhole to a screaming cacophony of pain and blood and horror—

A woman's voice sings. It is unfamiliar and pitched low in a lilting Tevene accent. "My beautiful crow," she croons, but all Rook could feel is waves of revulsion and fear and terror—

There is a door. It is iron-barred and creaking ominously on its hinges. Rook has a strange and intense feeling that she needs to escape. When she pushes against the door, it gives way easily, swinging to reveal… another door. Wooden, this time, and carved with the Dellamorte crest. She presses it with a palm but it doesn't move. She throws her whole weight against it until her shoulder aches, and it explodes into a shower of splinters. She runs through it gasping—but the next door is steel.

She has to get out.

She hurls herself at it, again and again, claws at it with her nails until they bleed. And she knows after this door, there will be another. And another after that. But there is only one way out and it is through here and so she must keep trying—SHE HAS TO KEEP TRYING—I MUST KEEP TRYING—I WANT OUT—OUT—LET ME OUT—LET ME OUT—

Rook blinks awake in the master bedroom of Villa Dellamorte. She is alone. There are no bloody footprints in the hallway outside, nor blood on the divan or in the water in the basin. In fact, there is no trace that her husband had been there at all that night.

When she pushes herself unsteadily to her feet and sees she is still fully dressed in her nightgown in the mirror, she relaxes. Maybe it was all a dream after all. But then a smudge of red draws her eye.

A lovebite in the hollow beneath her jaw. Another, dark and bruised purple over the pulse of her throat. Her heart beats faster and faster. She pulls the neckline of her gown aside and there's more: a passionate trail of teeth marks in growing blooms of mottled red and purple, all the way to the peak of her breast.

She meets her own haunted eyes in the reflection of the mirror.

Something was very wrong with Lucanis Dellamorte. And Rook was very sure he was possessed by a demon.