Chapter Text
The boy does what he’s told.
It’s what he knows to do, and the years that led up only knowing this are a blur of misplaced memories and confusion. He knows this place is not home. No, home was a small run down apartment and a woman with brilliant light blonde hair who used to smile at him like he was her whole world. But that’s not right either, is it? Home is a single bunk, lost among rows and rows of others just like his, with the neighboring boy snoring so loud he once thought to smother him with his own pillow if only so he might get a full nights rest. Only that’s not true either. Home is being held down and screaming, begging, while a white hot brand is pulled from the flames and men in shining armor sneer above him.
Home is following a templar around, the only one who didn’t hit him, and helping him dress in his armor for the day. Home is the sound of crying, only he couldn’t understand why people would cry. Maybe he used to.
“I found him in Ferelden, the poor boy,” Dimitri is explaining. The scholar is more saddlebags than man, overburdened but only giving the boy a few things to carry himself. He looks mean but he’s nice. The boy followed his orders too. Stay here. Eat this. Hold these books for me. Don’t you worry, lad, I’ll get you some place where you can be helped.
That one was easy. The boy didn’t worry.
The woman frowns at him, and he thinks she might hit him. People usually frowned before hitting him. But she only shakes her head. She doesn’t look like a templar, but she doesn’t look like a mage either. Her brown hair is up in a bun, and she’s wearing the kinds of clothing the medic at the chantry wore, only more colorful. There’s no sick people around them, though.
Her frown deepens. “How old are you?”
“Fifteen.”
“Spirits. You’re too young.”
He doesn’t know what she means by that.
“Thank you, Dimitri,” she says to the scholar. “Your research in Ferelden will prove invaluable. The Mourn Watch will care for the boy. We’ll make sure he gets the help he needs. Follow me, child.”
And the boy does what he’s told, because that’s all he knows how to do.
Caius likes the wisps, and they like him. Not nearly as much as they like Neve, but there is so much for the spirits of curiosity to rifle about in her room that his own lacks. Stacks of paper, news bulletins posted to her board, a row of empty tea cups lining her window sill. The crate in the corner has become a new favorite, the wisps prodding at the edges like they might could slide inside to see what's been hidden from them. Copious amounts of interest aside, when he visits a good few of them part from her desk to float around him. One hovers in his hands now. He takes care not to keep his shuffling to a minimum as to not disturb it.
“A mage killer,” Caius says, voice deadpan. “And you think this is a good idea because?”
Neve smiles at him and shakes her head, like he’s the one sounding unreasonable. “He’s a Crow. He’d need a contract on you.”
“I’m sure there are plenty of reasons for someone to put a contract on either of us,” Caius points out.
“Oh, definitely.”
“That’s not reassuring.”
Neve gently shoos away a wisp from where it’s begun prodding at the papers on her desk. “His targets have been focused on blood magic and Venatori. Neither of us fall into that category, but our enemies do. I’ve heard less and less about him the past year or so, but if we can find him his help will be invaluable.”
The wisp in Caius’s hands floats away to settle at his feet. “So we are recruiting an assassin to take on the gods.”
“Only if you’re amenable. This is your show, now.”
Right. Add that to the growing list of things that have gone wrong.
Neve narrows her eyes at him. “Be amenable.”
Well, if she’s going to insist. “It’s the best option I’ve heard all day.”
Never mind that it was the only option.
***
The mouth of the Ossuary looms above them, decrepit with age and neglected in its current occupation. Stones lay crumbled on the ground and boxes of supplies wait to be ushered in. Caius leans against a barrel and eyes the Crow in front of him. She’s been silent since taking them underneath the water, and though she hides it well Caius can tell she’s uncomfortable. He can’t say he feels any different.
She won’t go inside. That much she made clear on the boat.
Caius slips his staff into the sling on his back. Harding is a better fighter at range. He’ll have to pick up the slack. The mage knife he pulls from its sheath is warm in his hands, the leather handle worn soft with use, and he flips it up in the air more to keep himself occupied then to reacquaint himself with it. He hasn’t had to use it since leaving the Necropolis, but he’s as familiar with it as he is with his magic.
A whistle pierces the air, and he raises his eyebrows at the doors. He’d sent Harding ahead to scout the area because he thought she’d be inconspicuous. Her all clear was anything but. He pushes open one of the doors just enough to slip inside, and pauses as he takes in the bodies before him.
All Venatori. Someone’s been cleaning house.
Harding hops down from the rock beside him, landing quietly. “It’s like this all the way to the entrance of the prison. Something is wrong.”
“Or something is right,” Caius says. “I won’t complain about having less Venatori to fight.”
Harding rolls her eyes. “Trust you to find the positive.”
“It’s a gift.”
They step across the bodies carefully, keeping an eye out for anything that might tell them what exactly happened here. The less they find, the more Caius grows nervous. He summons an orb in his hand, rolling it around his palm, as they grow closer to the prison entrance. A shadow passes above them, making them both freeze, but it’s only a shark in the waters above them. A large shark.
Caius eyes the the magic keeping the water at bay. “If that were to go down…”
“I’d rather not think about it,” Harding says. “Let’s just get the Crow and get out of here.”
“I don’t know how to swim,” Caius muses.
“ Rook. ”
“Sorry, sorry.”
They pass under the archway to the prison, and something prickles at Caius’s nose. Magic, lots of it, and not just the kind used to keep the prison from flooding. This is different. Darker. It leaves an oily feeling on his exposed skin, the kind that will take multiple washes to truly feel cleansed of, and he rubs the pads of his fingers together to try and get a feel for the nature of it. Unease grows steadily beneath his chest bone when he can’t pinpoint it, curling around like a serpent ready to strike. Venatori are bad enough, but this is worse than that.
Harding doesn’t seem to notice. She shifts her weight from foot to foot and peers over the edge of a broken bridge.
“Not that way, I guess,” she mumbles.
Caius eyes the steep slope to their right. Sand, lots of it, and he dreads just how much work it will take him to clean it from his robes. “This way?”
More dead Venatori. Shattered crystals. Whoever came this way left a trail of death behind. Caius had prepared for Venatori, even some demons, and the magic in the air is certainly taking on an additional static smell the corrupted leave behind but this isn’t the work of demons. Their destruction is more messy, dismembered bodies and blood splattering the walls. This is clean. The wounds on the bodies are precise. The throats are expertly sliced, and the puncture wounds slide between the ribs aiming for the heart.
“I’m not so sure this is a rescue mission anymore,” Caius says.
“You don’t think–?”
He sees it out of the corner of his eye, blood misting up from the ground and the glow of a staff, and he’s shoving Harding out of the way before she can finish her thought. The blood magic misses her by a fraction, and she rolls backward with the momentum. Caius throws out a hand, a wash of magic interrupting the next spell aimed at him, and a whistle at his ear heralds the arrow that the Venatori only just dodges. This is the source of that oiliness, the grime that stains the ripples of the fade, but Caius doesn’t have the time to lament that thought before he’s rolling under the next attack.
“ Razikale, Dragon of Mystery. Lusacan, Dragon of Night. ”
Of all the pantheons to follow…
Caius prepares the orb in his hands, fire licking along his exposed fingertips but not burning him, only warming him. Before he can fling those flames at the Venatori he’s racing towards, something drops from the ceiling.
Someone drops from the ceiling.
Caius is only stunned for a moment – he thinks anyone would be to see wings sprouting from a man – before falling into the fight himself. An arrow thuds into the shoulder of a Venatori to his left, and his knife finds his mark across their neck before they can find their footing. Those wings brush against him as the man twists to intercept another Venatori, and it’s like an alarm that screams up Caius’s spine.
Demon.
They make short work of the rest of the Venatori, but Caius doesn’t relax the hold he has on his knife. He watches the man warily as the wings vanish from his back, materializing into the abomination’s likeness off to the side. He glances at the spector briefly, but neither notice as the man sheiths his blades.
Huh. Antiva sure does make them handsome in a rugged sort of sense. Caius has spent far too long outside the Necropolis if he’s finding blood stained clothing and messy hair attractive.
“Lucanis Dellamorte?” Caius asks.
The man narrows his eyes. “Who are you? Who sent you?”
Caius takes that as a yes. “Rook. Caterina sent me.”
“Rook,” Harding says from behind him, warily. He glances back to see she still has an arrow notched in her bow.
“I know.”
Lucanis looks back and forth between them. “Neither of you are Crows.”
“And you’re possessed by a spirit,” Caius says.
“It’s complicated.”
“When is it not?”
The spector beside Lucanis bears their teeth, “Can he see me? Ask him if he can see me.”
It takes an effort to ignore them. Caius can practically taste their anger in the air, and until he knows for certain the nature of this possession he’s not keen to draw the spirit’s attention.
The irony is not lost on him.
“Your grandmother promised us your services if we broke you out of here,” Caius explains. “Though it seems you are doing a fine job escaping on your own.”
“He’s an abomination,” Harding says. “We can’t trust him.”
“We’re fighting gods,” Caius raises an eyebrow at her. “I think we can let this one slide if he will help.”
“I don’t like this.”
“I can still work,” Lucanis says.
Caius eyes him, judging his words against his physique. Being imprisoned for the better part of a year must have left its mark, but without knowing him prior it’s hard to say where the damage might lie other than with the possession. His eyes are bruised from lack of sleep, and there's an air of exhaustion in his features, but he holds himself steady despite the spirit pestering him between the lapses in their conversation.
And he’s already proven he’s as dangerous as the rumors say.
“Good,” Caius finally says. “Because there’s more than Venatori outside the Ossuary. We need all the help we can get.”
Lucanis shakes his head, “I can’t leave yet. They have a vial of my blood.”
“A phylactery?” Caius frowns at him. “I didn’t take you for a mage.”
“I’m not,” Lucanis hangs his head. “They have a vial of my blood. They can use it to control me. I cannot leave it in their hands.”
“A phylactery,” Caius repeats. “Just with a little extra blood magic woven in. Easy enough to destroy.”
“There’s more,” Lucanis continues. “I still have an open contract, and the target is here. Calivan. Crows don’t break contracts.”
“We want him dead,” the spirit hisses at Lucanis. “We want him bleeding and suffering.”
Not a great influence, this spirit. Caius nods. “If you’ll help us after, consider it done.”
“I’ll owe you.”
Caius looks around the room, rubbing a hand across his face. “I think we’ll owe each other before this is all over.”
***
It’s not an easy fight to get to Calivan, but that’s at least something Caius had prepared for. Everything else, not so much. Harding’s unease with Lucanis doesn’t lessen as they move through the Ossuary. Caius can’t say he blames her. He’s in a rather unique position to better make sense of Lucanis’s condition, but that doesn’t mean understands it in its entirety.
Lucanis calls the spirit Spite. It’s rather on the nose.
“He smells different,” Spite hisses, pulling away from where he hovered over Caius’s shoulder. “Like home.”
Lucanis, to his credit, does a great job at ignoring him. “Calivan should be just past here.”
Caius continues on as if Spite isn’t breathing down his neck. “Fantastic. I’m eager to get out of here.”
“How do you think I feel?”
“I want. To talk. To Rook!”
“Are you sure this is the right move,” Harding asks in hushed tones. “Abominations never end well.”
Well that’s not entirely true. “He seems rather put together, considering the circumstances.”
Lucanis doesn’t turn to look at him, but his shoulders grow tense. “I can hear you, you know.”
Spite bears his teeth at Harding, and Caius does his best to put himself between the two as inconspicuously as he can.
Once Calivan is dead, Caius leaves Harding to rifle through his belongings for anything of note. It gives him a modicum of privacy to talk with Lucanis.
“Smells like blood. Ashes.” Spite says. “Not done. Not yet.”
Caius looks at the spirit quizzically, and realizes the mistake he made when both Lucanis and Spite twist to look at him.
A delighted smile spreads across Spite’s face. “Careful. They know. They know we’re not right.”
Lucanis just looks incredulous. “You can–?”
“Not here,” Caius says quickly with a shake of his head. He eyes Harding pointedly. “Later, if you wish.”
Lucanis looks like he wants to argue, but he swallows it down. “Alright. I could use some fresh air.”
Caius inclines his head at Spite, and impossibly the smile grows wider. “I like you.”
Great, because it’s always good to have the attention of a spirit of spite.