Archive of Our Own ^beta

Lucanis had seen enough blood in his life to be numb to it. His own, especially. But there was something about the sight of hers—her hands, those delicate, freckled things slicked in crimson and light—that cut deeper than any blade ever could.

She sat close, her knees pressed against the side of the bed where he lay half-propped, skin pale beneath the glow of her magic. The hum of it filled the air between them—soft, electric, almost like the sound of her breathing when she slept. Her lips were pressed together so tightly they’d gone colorless, and the faint tremor in her jaw told him she was fighting not to break.

He could smell iron and smoke, the remnants of the failed attempt lingering like a stain that refused to fade. Somewhere downstairs, a Crow loyal to him would be cleaning the blood from the marble, disposing of the bodies before dawn. Another night, another warning, another enemy too bold or too desperate. He’d grown used to it long ago. This was his rhythm—the waiting, the killing, the surviving. But Rook... she was never meant for this kind of life.

Her magic pulsed again, light washing over his ribs where the blade had nearly found his lung. She didn’t speak. Didn’t even look at him. Just worked, efficient and trembling, her crimson hair falling forward to hide her face. The rounded curve of her belly brushed his thigh when she leaned in—life pressing close to death. It made something inside him twist.

There was a part of him that wanted to apologize—to tell her that this, all of it, wasn’t what he’d meant to give her. That he would burn the whole of Antiva before he let their child grow up in fear. But he didn’t. Because apologies meant nothing without the promise to change, and he wasn’t sure he could.

He watched her instead. Watched the rise and fall of her shoulders as she drew breath through her nose, the quick blink of tears she refused to shed. He remembered her once—laughing in the sunlight, ink staining her fingers, hair wind-tangled as she mapped ruins older than memory. She had been happy then. Content in a way that was almost holy. And now she was here, hands trembling over his wounds, whispering silent prayers to gods who no longer answered.

And maybe he needed to see it—to remember what it cost her, loving a man like him.

When the magic finally dimmed, she leaned back with a shuddering breath. The light left the room colder. He reached for her wrist, fingers catching her pulse where it beat quick beneath his touch. She didn’t flinch, but she didn’t meet his eyes either.

“Rook,” he said quietly.

She only shook her head, jaw still tight, as if saying anything aloud might make it real.

Lucanis didn’t push. He knew the words that lingered between them—the ones about safety, about promises neither of them could keep. Instead, he drew her closer until her forehead rested against his shoulder, and the silence pressed in again, thick and trembling.

He had lived his entire life waiting for death. She had lived hers seeking meaning. And somehow, fate had made them share a bed between those two worlds.

Rook’s magic had always smelled faintly of rain—ozone and petrichor, the memory of storms against stone—and the room was still full of it. The scent tangled with blood and smoke until he couldn’t tell where one ended and the other began. It clung to his skin, to the sheets, to the air itself. Like her. Everything she touched seemed to leave a mark he could never quite wash away.

Her head stayed against his shoulder for a while, her breath uneven against the line of his throat. He could feel the tremor still running through her, the one she tried to hide by keeping still. Outside, the night pressed close to the villa, thick with the hush that always followed violence. He could almost hear the sea beyond the walls, indifferent as ever.

“You should rest,” she murmured finally. Her voice was thin, rough-edged from restraint.

He almost laughed. Rest. As if rest existed for men like him. For the Crows, sleep was just an invitation for nightmares to come collect what waking had refused. “I will,” he said instead. It wasn’t a lie, but it wasn’t the truth either.

Rook shifted, pulling her hands into her lap. The faintest glow of her magic still clung to her fingertips—blue-white threads fading slowly into nothing. He could see the dried streaks of his blood along her forearms, spattered over the curve of her stomach, and it struck him again, sharp and gut-deep, how far she had come from the life she once knew.

He remembered the first time he saw her cast—her hands sure, her eyes bright with focus and wonder. That same magic had once been a language of discovery for her, a bridge between the living and the ancient. Now it was a shield, a desperate thing wielded against knives in the dark.

Lucanis swallowed, watching the rise and fall of her chest, the way exhaustion softened her anger into quiet grief. There was so much he wanted to say. That he hated himself for letting this touch her. That if The Maker gave him another chance, he’d take the blade again and again just to spare her this fear. But all of it would sound hollow. Words didn’t erase blood.

So instead, he reached for her again, slow and deliberate. His fingers brushed over hers—those same hands that had once mapped ruins and now mended him. “Come here,” he murmured.

She hesitated, then let him pull her closer. Her cheek found his shoulder again, and he felt her breath steady against him, felt the faint kick of the child between them—a reminder that something new still dared to live in the ruins of what they’d both been.

—

Lucanis found her on the floor.

At first, he thought she’d fallen—one of those small stumbles that came in the final weeks, when her balance had begun to betray her. But then he heard her breathing. Harsh, ragged, uneven. The kind that came from pain that had nowhere to go.

The fire in the hearth had burned low, throwing more shadow than light. She was kneeling before the bed, her hands gripping the edge of the mattress, knuckles white. Sweat clung to her skin, her hair darkened at the roots, plastered to her temple. He was across the room before he realized he’d moved.

“Eponine,” he said quietly.

Her head snapped up at the sound of her name—her real name—and for a heartbeat, he saw it make everything worse. Because she wasn’t her right now. Not the scholar who laughed in ruins, not the Veiljumper who’d braved forgotten gods, not the woman who slept tangled against him in peace. She was something rawer. Cornered by her own body, by fear and grief and the unbearable truth of what it meant to bring life into a world like theirs.

Another contraction hit, and she gritted her teeth, half a sob tearing from her chest. Her body bowed under it, and he felt utterly helpless. His hands hovered in the air, useless things—trained to wield knives, not offer comfort. A man built to kill, not to soothe. His world had never taught him what to do with love when it hurt like this.

“I don’t want to.” Her voice cracked. “I don’t want to bring this—her—into our world. Not here. Not like this.” She lifted her head, and the anguish in her eyes was unbearable. “Do you understand? It’s selfish. It’s cruel. To bring something so small into this.”

He did understand. Maker, he did.

He had thought the same thing every night since they’d found out—wondered what kind of monster raised a child under a roof haunted by knives and ghosts. But he couldn’t say it. Not now. Not when she was crumbling before him, her pain bleeding into the silence between them.

“Rook,” he said instead, soft, careful. The name she’d built for herself, the name that belonged to her. He sank to his knees in front of her, close enough to feel the heat rolling off her skin. “Look at me.”

She shook her head. Tears streaked down her freckled cheeks, cutting clean lines through the sweat. She pressed her forehead against the mattress, hands trembling, another wave already building inside her. Her breathing hitched, fractured.

Lucanis reached out, fingers finally finding her shoulder, tentative, as though she might shatter if he touched her wrong. “I'm here,” he murmured. The words felt clumsy, foreign on his tongue. Comfort wasn’t something he’d ever learned to give. But he meant it. Every word.

Rook’s hand found his wrist, gripping tight enough to bruise. Her nails dug into his skin as she cried out through the next contraction, and he could only hold her there—anchor her, somehow, to something that wasn’t pain.

When it passed, she slumped against him, gasping, trembling. Her forehead fell against his chest, and he could feel her heartbeat hammering through both of them, wild and terrified.

He pressed his hand against her back, feeling her muscles spasm beneath his palm. “It's alright,” he whispered.

But he didn’t know how to fix it. Didn’t know how to make the world any gentler than it was. All he could do was stay there, kneeling on the cold floor beside the woman who had given him everything he’d never deserved, and hold her as she fought to bring something fragile and innocent into a world that had never spared either of them.

—

The beach was quiet in that way only Rivain could be—sun-warm and salt-soaked, the wind curling lazy fingers through the tidegrass and carrying the distant hush of gulls. The sun had begun to bleed into the sea, molten light turning the water to gold, gilding the sand, painting their bare shoulders in fading warmth.

Rook sat beside him, knees drawn to her chest, chin resting lightly on them. Her hair was damp from the sea, curls drying into loose waves in the breeze. The opal ring on her finger—his mother’s, once—caught the sunset and scattered light across her thigh like broken glass. They had spent the day moving in and out of the water, her laughter spilling into his mouth between kisses, fingers in his hair, hips straddling his lap while the world—for once—left them alone.

It had felt like a dream. A fragile one.

Lucanis sat with his arms looped loosely around his knees, gaze cast toward the horizon.

She spoke softly. “You could leave, you know.”

The wind tugged the words apart as she said them. Still, they found their mark.

Lucanis was silent for a long time. The waves broke and retreated, over and over, as he stared out at the horizon. The sun was bleeding into the sea, turning the water into molten gold, and for a moment, he thought of all the blood he’d spilled that had looked just like that.

He didn’t look at her. Didn’t trust himself to.

She didn’t understand the Crows, not truly. The oaths, the blood debts, the invisible chains. But she understood him. And that was somehow more dangerous.

He’d brought her into his world in pieces. Letters, then stolen nights. She’d fallen in love with him in the spaces between jobs, between cities, between who he was and who he had to be. She hadn’t seen the sharp teeth of the Villa until after—after the vows, after the ink had dried, after her name had been carved into their history like another secret never meant to be safe.

He hadn’t lied to her. But he hadn’t told her everything either. And maybe that was the same thing.

He wanted to tell her that he wished he could. That if willpower alone could sever the ties, he would burn Villa Dellamorte to its foundations and scatter the ashes into this sea. But he couldn’t lie to her.

So he said nothing.

Rook’s head turned. Her eyes shimmered like the sea, too full of unshed things. “Be something else with me.”

He exhaled slowly. The sound of it was almost lost to the waves.

She reached for him—not with desperation, but with the kind of quiet resolve that had always undone him more than any storm. Her fingers brushed his, tangling them gently, grounding him. As if she could anchor him to something real, to something good, by sheer will alone.

That they could live in sunlight, not just steal it. And maybe that was her mistake as much as his.

He turned to her finally, searching the curve of her profile, the flush of salt on her skin, the soft crease of her brow. She was beautiful in a way that had nothing to do with the sea or the hour. She was his. And he had tied her to a future she couldn’t fully name.

“Rook,” he said, quiet. A warning. A plea.

“I know,” she whispered.

The wind shifted. Her hair blew across her cheek, and he reached to brush it back, the gesture instinctive. She leaned into his hand, eyes closing for a beat longer than needed.

When they rose to leave, the sun had vanished entirely, but the warmth lingered in the sand beneath them. They walked back to the small villa barefoot, her hand in his, her laughter softer now. Like she was already mourning something she hadn’t quite lost.