A Crow Rookery

When they stepped up the stairs to the ruins camp, their collective energy made Strife shift and cross his arms. The others held back as Rook approached the stoic man.

He had all the brooding and self importance of Viago, but, as capable as this revered elf was, Rook couldn’t muster the fear of danger from him. Maybe it made him cocky. Maybe it made it look like bloodlust, never backing down from a fight. Never losing.

They reported on D’Meta’s Crossing.

Met the Witch of the Wilds.

Viago silenced a group of young Crows sharing and scaring the fledglings with tales of The Witch of the Wilds turning an Arainai Crow sent to kill the last of the Wardens. They warned if they didn’t go for the kill in every duel, she would be able to take over their bodies and murder their whole house. Viago made them drink his new poison and they vomited for a week. Viago also made everyone else take the poison, but at lower doses. They only vomited for the rest of the day.

She knew about Solas. She looked into his eyes as if she saw him there in his head. Solas screamed at her in old elven Rook couldn’t understand. He bit the inside of his mouth until he was drinking blood trying to keep the others from noticing how affected he was.

Bellara broke the entanglement. She can repair the Vir'revas.

She said aloud what Rook had been keeping in the depths of his guts. Our Gods Are Back. How DO we stand up to that?

Everyone gasped, expecting the boat to tip, but his acrobatics and finesse barely made a ripple.

“What would that have accomplished? What does this?” Neve took Harding’s help loading into the small boat. “You made us all accomplices to your bloodlust, Crow.”

Rook’s eye widened. “Bloodlust!?”

“That human was instrumental in erasing an entire town, Neve.” Bellara also took Harding’s help.

“I could go back. Invite him to the team. Maybe he would be a better leader.” Rook stood.

Harding shoved him back down and waited for the boat to settle before loading in. The detective grasped at the walls of the boat, desperate to stay out of the water.

“Don’t be ridiculous.” Crossing her arms and hoping to look less 'scared cat' and more 'cool cat' she stared over the glassy lake.

“Now I’m ridiculous.” Rook seethed. Varric was wrong. Wrong about everything.

You did what you had to do. Solas’ voice tickled the back of his mind.

“Not the time.” Rook mumbled.

Neve’s eyes snapped at him. But she could sense the weft of blood magic, see the winging on Rook’s face.

“It’s done.” Harding pushed off. “If he has the talent for it, he will survive. If not...”

“A whole town, Neve. People I knew.”

“I get it,” the detective relented. “I shouldn’t call you 'Crow', as if you haven’t a name.”

“It’s not like anyone uses my real name.” Rook pulled his hood over his head, trying to keep Solas out.

“Rook’s not your name?” Bellara watched Rook and Neve in turn hoping someone would clarify.

“It’s a nickname.” Rook sighed. Better than Viago's for him, he supposed.

“Varric gave it to him when we first picked him up. Because a rook is a young Crow?” Harding couldn’t quite recall.

“Who’s Varric?” Bellara stunned them all.

Harding hid her face in the shadow of the growing night. Neve watched Rook for how to proceed.

“Varric Tethras. Rook, Scout, Slick.” Rook pointed at the owner as he named them.

“The author?” Bellara knew is books.

A pang in his head stopped him from saying more. Somehow over the water the connection to the Fade was easier. Solas was trying to find information. Rook was trying to keep him out.

“I’m sorry. I shouldn’t pry.”

you've just watched a blood sacrifice. you hear screams for help. you enter a clearing and see a massive wad of blight writhing and calling for you.

But the earth quakes again. And you're face-to-face with

you're feral instincts engage. all freeze, flee or faun has been slowly beaten out of you since childhood. every encounter is a duel to the death.

but it's yours to fight. you hold the others back. dwarfed and tiny and probably pair well with a nice dark red.

you may have been ready for death since childhood. and every time death cheats you. so what's one dragon?

Rash Idiot. Viago screams in your heart as you square up to impossible odds.

But a voice calls to the dragon and it flies before breath, before bite. all that remains is to unknit a bawling ball of blight.

A nepotistic nonce, a wealthy welp happy to be the voice of gods who will eagerly destroy your life with you as the weapon, now asks for mercy.

No point arguing with a dead man. Besides, casual delivery of death is your specialty.

He was bundled tightly in his bedroll and cape to stave off the chill of the night air, but not, as it seemed, the chill of a caged blood mage elf with zero patience. Thanks to Viago, every moment of training refused him any comfort of a warm night by the fire. Yet his body had worked him into a cocoon of perfect warmth. It took every ounce of will power he had to sit up. Not until his stomach pinched hard did he stir.

He tightened his cape close around his neck and pulled over his hood.

“I’m beginning to understand why so many forest elves wear long hair.” He held his small mug in hopes there was hot drink to spare. He approached the Jumpers slowly.

Bellara snagged it and filled it. Steam coiled around her graceful neck and played in the long locks she let loose for sleep. “No one calls us forest elves.”

“Why not? I get called a city elf all the time. Even though I was born in the wild.” He waved his hands lightheartedly over his head. It was an expression Antivans used for The People.

Bellara held his mug out to him, unamused. “You are Dalish?”

Strife scoffed somewhere in the makeshift infirmary, letting the visitors know he was always listening. And judging, apparently.

Rook took the mug gingerly, all the excitement for the morning, a new chance to get to know Bellara before Neve woke was already crumbling. “Well, technically.”

The others stared at the Crow. Hood to boot a Crow. Strip off the clothes, the posture, his cadence, the Antivan flair to his vowel sounds. Whatever Dalish was in him was long stamped out.

He took a sip, trying to ignore the glares. The liquid seeped down his throat like lava. High tones of mint played off an umami that satisfied like coffee.

“Ma serannas.” Rook raised his mug to the cook in the Antivan style. They all stared at him. Bellara blinked a few times before moving.

“You sound…Dalish.”

“Why are you so surprised?”

“Most city elves sound like…”

“Shemlen?” Rook chuckled. A human Jumper leered at him.

“We don’t say that here.”

“Of course not.” He chalked that up to another point lost. “But it’s said a lot by a lot of elves in Salle, where I grew up. I studied how to be Dalish. Not from them. They are mostly freed slaves or refugees. I had the best. Tutors and all. And then I got contracts where being Dalish got me into or kept me out of all the right places.”

“It’s not a disguise.” Bellara turned and sat across from the fire. “It isn’t a character to play. For murder.”

“Assassination. Murderers don’t-“ the Jumpers shifted and whispered to each other. Rook slouched a bit, trying to make himself as small as he was feeling. “…never mind. I am Dalish. Dalish born. In the south, somewhere. Near water. I just had to relearn a life I would have had if not for some unscrupulous marauders.”

Bellara avoided him a long moment.

“Is that authentic enough?”

“Nere.” Her lips puckered trying desperately to contain a smile.

Rook finally sees what the (whom he dryly called Forest Elves last night. No one found it funny) fuss over Arlathan is. Images of the Kirkwall chantry sift through his mind as he looks at the floating ruins. He didn't spend much time there, but he saw enough to wonder if that rebel mage used blood magic or not.

Harding somehow looks worse.

Rook totally notices how aloof Bellara is when Neve is watching, and sizzles at how she smiles at him when she thinks no one else is looking. Even the smallest grin can be read a thousand ways. But the thoughts melt to the cold welcome of the docks.

(To ANYONE trying to say this game isn't dark. WTactualF? Without the flycam, this would have been a dev's little giggle nightmare fuel. I still can't stop thinking about it.)

Then they stumble into the last throws of a blood ritual. The blight they swan through was just the magic needed to manipulate a town. The big show is lapping at their boots.

Jahel, actively being sacrificed has enough sentience to warn them. The magic of the ritual already released and brewing kilometers below.

The earth shakes. Once. Twice. Three times. Neve crouches on her strong leg, Harding, a child of the stone, is barely shaken. Bellara cowers, either terrified of the earth shaking, or expecting some intense magic or artifact to suddenly change the day for the worst. Rook looks to her first, already choosing favorites, it would seem. Or maybe his is month accustomed to Harding refusing any of his help and Neve...well, she already feels more like the one in charge now. Her magic will save them before Rook can unsheathe a blade.

Help cries out from beyond the crucible of blight and blood that soaks their soles.

First adventure with Bellara and it ends with an ogre and almost being disintegrated by ancient elven magic. Rook can't tell if he's having the time of his life, or if he's definitely Viago's protégé, the way he is distrustful of everything about this Nadas Dirthalen.

The way this dweeb can't take his eyes off her.

I love how Neve and Rook are sure it will explode and ADHD is standing there frozen as if she didn't just drop a hella powerful crystal.

Rook stood over the ogre’s corpse. Neve and Bellara stared at the Crow. They both were under the impression Crows were much more elegant after dispatching a target.

“This was not a target.” Rook tried to explain, his hands still shaking from the encounter. “Why did it exclusively target me? You were the one doing all the fancy magic to the room.”

Rook haphazardly pointed his sword at Bellara, who dodged darkspawn blood oozing off the tip. He ran the sword over a handkerchief tucked in the nook of his elbow and cleaned the blade.

Later he would explain to them Viago’s letter, how he frequently had referred to Rook as Idiot as if it weren’t his real first name in the months leading up to his “long term contract”.

“So it kind of was a target, as long as you’re under this contract?” She meant well, the Dalish woman was increasingly curious about Crow life and being a city elf.

“I’d like to see Viago kill an ogre.”

“We were there,” Neve puffed in her pipe, “we did help.”

“I didn’t see that thing take one Maker-cursed swing at you.” Rook sipped on wine he had smuggled out of the Lighthouse. He kicked at a loose log on the fire.

“And yet you did see it moving unreasonably slowly from time to time.”

“And I do know combat healing.” Bellara’s eyebrows raised high but she avoided making eye contact with Rook.

“Maybe I am an Idiot.” Rook sulked a bit over the fire.

Bellara, however many questions she had for him, had ten times as many for Neve. The two were thick as thieves already. He sipped his wine and turned his attention to Harding. She slept, uneasily. Her wounds were turning yellow, half her face was swollen. She looked so uncomfortable.

Rook ran his fingers over the lessening lump on his own head. Harding would slap this wine out of his hand if she were awake. Alcohol was bad for head wounds. But he needed to steady his nerves. They were heading across the lake in the morning. Towards his people’s gods. Bellara was unfazed. She had chatted easily with the other Veil Jumpers about the changes in magic and the power the gods probably held still. They were all a bit edgy around him. City elf. Crow. He knew how the Dalish saw him. He knew how humans saw him. Outside his house, he had no real allies until Varric. Harding’s trust seemed harder to earn. He was sure he lost whatever he had. And Varric still wanted him on point over her, which seemed a point of contention with her since he joined.

“Rook?” Neve and Bellara were staring over the fire at him.

“Sorry. What?” He placed his empty glass on the log behind him and tried to give them full attention.

“Can you say it?” Bellara was almost brighter than the fire. “Say it once. Oh! Unless you can’t. You’re sworn to only say it to targets after you’ve just slit their throat.”

“Slitting throats is pretty messy. It’s something blood mages do, not Crows. Unless they are doing it to a blood mage…”

“So can you say it?”

“The Crows send their regards?” Rook asked unceremoniously.

Neve and Bellara sighed in disappointment.

“No! Say it like, like you just stabbed me, and I’m dying.”

Rook grumbled as he stood. But if drama was what she wanted…he snagged the fire-poking stick, flipped over the fire, landed with his right knee outside her left thigh and his left foot at her right hip. The stick in his left hand was gently pressed over her heart. His lips brushed on her left ear.

“The Crows send their regards.” He cooed. He lingered a few racing heartbeats, she was breathless.

He stood, the stick still touching her but not with any pressure. The ash didn’t even get on her blouse. He loomed over her, his eyes gleaming in the light of the candles on the desk further behind her. A grin like a crescent moon cocked asymmetrically on his face.

He then threw a small smoke bomb he always had on hand and was gone before the stick had time to fall to her lap.

Bellara looked around for him, but he had disappeared into the night. Rook pressed against the stone wall of the ruins the Jumpers camped in, laughing quietly to himself.

“Everything you hoped for, Bel?” Neve puffed on her pipe, unbothered.

“I certainly hope he never gets a contract for me.” She said through stuttered breath.

“I’m sure he’d love you as a target.” Neve said coyly.

Bellara grumbled, not getting the innuendo. Rook sighed. Neve was right. He was smitten by her and she was obviously not thinking of him that way. He quietly found his pack and set up his bed roll near the cliff face, good optics of both paths in on him, just in earshot he could listen but just enough out of it he could ignore. The night air bit a bit harder out here. He pulled out the dingey, fraying cape he wore when he killed those Antaam and freed those slaves. He was never allowed a change of clothes.

“Those were good enough for you to betray me in! Where them to rags for all I care!” Viago turned him away from their wing at the casino. “Or go back to Salle for your old kit. I don’t want to see your face again until you are summoned.”

Rook pulled his cape tightly around himself and slithered into the bed roll. Three days he slept on the streets of Treviso before the steward of the casino found him and handed him his summons. Twenty four hours later he was in a carriage to the Free Marches. Kirkwall. Where Varric had to resupply before they picked up the trail again and wound their way to Minrathous.

The spirit abandoned the machine as it grounded to a halt. Before Rook could breathe a sigh of relief, a second, smaller one bared down on him, a blade to his eye.

It froze as he held swords to deflect the blow, he glanced at Neve who was equally shocked. He peered around the machinery as the spirit was slowly pulled. The fade-lit path swung up to the cutest elf he had ever laid eyes on. Fresh-faced, snarling with power and confidence, she took the remaining energy into a gauntlet wrapped up her left arm.

“Gotcha!” Her face beamed as her strange, ancient, golden brace closed the power in.

Rook’s blades hung in the air but his jaw dropped. He’d met Dalish before. He’d even pretended to be one, but the energy beaming from this woman made his heart race.

Neve snickered.

“Ooo! People!” She leaped off the felled tree. “Where’d you come from?”

She asked it as if she was already used to not only wheres but whens people suddenly appeared.

Rook straightened and sheathed his swords. Neve watched as the Crow tripped over himself. She smiled awkwardly for a full ten seconds.

“Bellara?” Stumbled out of his mouth. It didn’t sound like a real word. He’d been saying it in his head, as if he’d meet multiple elves in the forest and would need to differentiate. Neve shot him a grounding scowl. “Bellara Lutare?”

Rook cocked his hands onto his hips and puffed up his chest. Neve’s massive eyeroll wasn’t lost under her veil to the Crow, but the Dailish woman smiled awkwardly goofy smile as her head slightly tilted at how this obviously city elf knew her name.

Rook deflated a little when she was more intrigued than flirtatious. “Strife and Iralen sent us.”

It almost sounded like a question. In his concussed haze, he wondered for a moment if he had imagined them earlier.

She still didn’t respond in any genteel way. “Who are you, exactly?”

She eyed the elven man and the human woman, both obviously from some money, by their clothes, but far from it, by the wear and tear.

“Call me Rook.” He smiled way too eagerly again. Bellara tilted her head just as slightly the other direction.

“Neve Gallus.”

Bellara lit up with a fervor. “Wait! I know that name!”

Neve was stoic, as if she didn’t hear the fanaticism in Bellara’s voice. Rook figured she was used to the fame, or infamy.

“But-“ Bellara turned back to Rook.

She started to recognize small bits of feather design in the stitching, Antivan metalwork, a fancy R on his chest plate. A Tevinter mage and a Crow!? Out for her! She panicked at the sudden notion she was about to be assassinated.

“Protocol is to wait a full week before they send anyone out to look for me. I’ve only been gone three days.”

“Well, the situation’s changed. For the worst. Unfortunately.” Rook’s voice dripped with charisma. It put both Neve and Bellara off guard. He shifted back onto his left leg and steadied his gaze under a heavy brow. His big green eyes glistening in the afternoon light. A slight smirk on his face.

That old Crow charm, disarmed both women. Bellara was sure she was toast. She was not even remotely prepared for his next sentence.

“Our gods, Elgar’nan and Ghilin’nain, they’ve escaped from Fen’Harel’s prison, and by all accounts, they want to destroy the world.”

He was too calm. Nonsense childhood tall tales dripped from his handsome face and she could not take him seriously. Until his face showed no sign of levity.

“Oh!” She uttered as she realized his earnest expression. “Yes. That is very much for the worse. Okay. Right. I need a second.” She dropped her head and rubbed her temples.

“I’ve had a couple days and I’m still trying to wrap my head around it.”

Neve scoffed again, being the primary caregiver to his concussion the past few days.

“It does sort of explain a few things, though.” Bellara ended on that. Her brain obviously moving on to multiple things and how they connected to gods.

Neve sighed in pleasant amusement. “Like what. Exactly?”

“The surge of raw magic in the area. These artifacts started waking up a while ago, but in fits and starts. One here. A couple there. Then, a couple of days ago, the sky split open. And now, raw magic, thick as fog. Only a god, or gods,” she nodded at Rook, recalling his mentioning both Elgar’nan and Ghilin’nain, “could have done that.”

Neve smiled at how Rook was entranced with every word she said. How she avoided his gaze but the smallest smile flickered across her face, her cheeks blushed just a bit, so she spoke mostly with Neve.

“There’s something kind of exciting about it. And dangerous.” She added, as if returning to the forest, these two city folk rapt on her every word. “Really dangerous. Dangerous enough I was going to head back to the Veil Jumpers’ camp, but.”

Her eyes wandered up the path they just descended. She watched the fog with a worried frown.

“But what?” Rook pulled her back to the moment.

“See that shimmer? That’s a Veil Bubble.”

Rook and Neve glanced at each other.

Bellara caught it. “It’s separating from the rest of the world, so to speak.”

Her hands bounced from Fade to Bubble as if the demonstration allowed the visitor’s understanding. They did not.

“You can only pass through it one way. Once you’re in, you can’t get out.”

Neve stared back at it. Rook grinned. He recalled how the fog sizzled across his skin like static electricity.

“I prefer to stay in one piece, yeah.”

“Right! Me, too.” She smiled. Neve and Rook stared back; waiting for her solution. “But I think I can find a way out.”

Neve and Rook adjusted their stances and waited. Bellara, unused to such steady attention, scrambled for her thoughts.

“A bubble like that. There has to be something at the center that’s generating it. Something powerful.” She settled into her groove, Rook smiled bigger as she spoke. “if we find it and remove it -“ Neve crossed her arms, “safely, I mean- the bubble itself should collapse.”

Neve softened at the good news. “And then we’re back in reality?”

“I sure hope so.” Bellara exhaled and let some of her facade fall.

“Well, then, let’s get going.”

Something about how he stood, perfect posture, his relaxed face, his fingers relaxed but ready, she knew she was as safe as she had been in three days. Rook started back the way they came.

“Oh! We, um-“

He turned. She stumbled, unsure how to correct him.

“Should probably go back away from the bubble. Toward the, um, center.”

“No, makes perfect sense. Yeah.” Rook giggled. Neve had never heard Rook giggle. She had never heard of Crows giggling. He saw her grinning at him and cleared his throat. “Lead on!”

Only three days under concussion protocol, and going through the loud, buzzing mirror has Rook feeling a certain way. Varric's bed-ridden. Lace is beat tf up but honestly looks worse than he and is keeping it together far better. Why is Varric insistent Rook is second in command when Neve is literally the commanding one?

So I wrote about it:

Rook grimaced.

The concussion was still playing trumpets in his skull. Harding looked worse but appeared to be doing better. He knew she was playing it strong. For him? For Neve? Did she think Varric would see and let her age and experience lead the charge even after he doubled down on Rook earlier?

The mirror hummed. It too made his head pound. But they had to get through it. Three days was too long and they had to scout the ritual site for clues.

Neve stepped forward. The only one of the three who was relatively unharmed. When she moved, Harding moved. Which made it easier for Rook.

He had spent the last three days bouncing between wild fits of energy, chatting it up with everyone, exploring the new safehouse the eluvian took them to. The rest of the time Lace and Neve were busy waking him from the floor by Varric’s bed. He was surrounded by what few books he could translate, maps. Old elven medicine books.

“Should we worry?” Harding winced as she drank some elfroot potion.

“Grief is grief.” Neve shrugged. “But we need to wake him. His brain could still do him in. And I hate to think of Solas in there threatening him.”

“He said all he could do was threaten.”

“He wasn’t certain. He said that, too.” Neve moved softly in. The gentle tick of her metal leg barely audible.

She knelt next to Rook.

His head was on the bed, cradled in his arm. His other hand was draped over Varric’s body. Neve had enchanted his body until they could get it to someone. Perhaps finish this all soon so they could have a proper funeral. But seeing Rook so torn up made her wish they could move him sooner.

“Rook, hun. Time to check that injury.” She gently shook him.

“Hmm?” Rook raised his head, groggy, it took a second for him to realize where he was.

He looked at Varric and allowed Neve to help him up.

“Sit here.” She placed him back on his bed.

“Right.” He whispered.

His eyes were locked on Varric and he mumbled indecipherably. Neve palmed the back of his head. It wasn’t bleeding, but the lump was as big as ever.

“Lace, is there a spare potion?”

“Yeah.” Lace pulled another vial off a shelf behind her and gave it to Neve over the bed.

Neve took the stopper out and handed it to Rook. He paused. Smelled the substance. Dipped his pinky in and laid a drop on his pant leg. He watched and counted quietly to himself.

“It’s only-“

He snapped a look at Neve. His big green eyes still had one pupil dilated, but his gaze burrowed into her nonetheless.

He dipped his pinky in again, tasted a small portion and counted in between gentle snaps of his tongue on the roof of his mouth.

He checked his pants, his pulse, and pinched the skin on his left hand. Satisfied he downed the potion in one pull.

A rather cute video someone cut of their OCs of the first 3 games.

Fine. Whatever. It was fun. Not gonna hate that.

Comment below. “No Rook, as it should be.”

Which comes to my new mantra. “Makes you a fan of some games, not of the IP. You aren’t a Dragon Age fan, you just really like some games.”

Rook in elven. Playing with learning it for the head cannon of it all.

Mala lath athim, mir uthenera.

A few ways to translate this, but I like: Now their humble love goes on in countless stories.

Rook could not stop the grimace from his face as Neve casually insulted The Greatest Pasttime Ever.

“If your going to-“

Lucanis held up a hand. The First Talon holds up a hand and Rook instinctively clasped his mouth shut? The others had a collective head tilt at how The Leader Of The Veil Guard (that’s what Bellara started calling them and they all just agreed it was perfect) quickly submitted to his employee’s whim.

Crows first. It was a thing. Also an almost ten year seniority and the living-god status Dellamorte held. Rook was a different person in the shadow of Viago, Teia, and Lucanis. Crow rank was in his blood. They couldn’t understand why he was always acting like the second in command at The Litghthouse.

“Would it be more of a challenge if you were not allowed to use magic and Rook was bound to the floor?”

“It would be great for a laugh.” Neve’s eyes twinkled. She was cool in all the ways. “How many punches would it take to get to the juicy center?”

Rook tightened his disapproval and tried to loosen his scowl.

“Okay.” Lucanis thought a moment. “A two part duel. Rook starts with throwing knives. Neve with no weapon. We hide a bow and a staff on the grounds. There is no time limit baring Thedas suddenly blowing up.” Lucanis looked over at Davrin and Lace. “We have no pressing communications? The plans are in motion and we, indeed, can only wait?”

“We’re good.” Davrin leaned back against the desk they had moved to a distant corner to make a more formal dueling ring.

Lace, sitting on the desk, legs dangling, smiled. “We are very good.”

“So how do we watch after it leaves the room?” Taash scratched their cheek.

“Good point.” Bellara’s face stitched into deep consideration. “Rook maybe you should wear full armor and -“

“Why does everyone assume Neve is going to effortlessly win?”

“Do you have fire?” Taash shrugged.

“Or a shield?” Davrin chuckled.

“I have almost fifteen years’ experience fighting mages!” Rook threw his hands in the air in frustration.

“But Neve is-“ Bellara searched for the right word.

“Neve.” Emmrich finished.

“Not you too!” Rook shoved his hands under his arms and leaned back against the wall in a huff.

“Okay. How about this. We just fight?” Neve pulled out her wand and placed her pipe onto a table behind her. “Rook’s choice.”

Rook sulked a moment longer. He now was unsure how to even approach Neve’s fighting style. She was quick, could slow him with her magic. She could fill the room with ice and freeze everyone in it. He saw it before he knew her face. He’d seen her unknit a god’s blood magic.

He had access to weapons, potions, and alchemy.

“No holds barred?” Rook knew he’d need the gambit to have a chance.

“Again, boss, your choice.” Her face was placid, relaxed.

He took up two short swords with thicker blades for better deflection and strapped on a belt with all the de Riva toys attached.

As they prepped, the others chatted over what they knew. Styles, reactions, weaknesses. Neve was powerful, but her spells were usually broad, environmental. She could easily read patterns and anticipate movements. She wasn’t afraid to throw a punch.

Rook was quick, adaptable, and unpredictable. But he was bound to the short distance of his weapon. Neve could as easily hit you from range as she could up close. Rook had deadly aim, but ice was an excellent barrier as well as a weapon.

Rook did an elegant and deep bow. Neve gave him a quick and respectful nod. She was already extremely focused, reading his body closely.

They circled the room once, then twice. Neither wanted to make the first move, set the tone, begin the pattern the fight would fall into. Both knew a well timed reaction was more powerful than a quick start. Rook closed in the space slightly with every step.

Neve finally shot out a bolt of ice.

Rook could feel the heat pulled away from the air as the magic built. He watched her eyes and batted away the dart, flicking his elbow down but the rest of his body maintaining perfect posture.

The guard said nothing and watched the duelists keep on each other with the focus of hawks. She shot out four narrow icicles in quick succession and Rook swung his blades in a flurry, left up, right down, crossed and batted up, turned and booth blocked the last from his back. He rolled over his side and flung a knife at her that lodged in a small wall of ice that barely rise quickly enough . As he found his feet, Neve scrambled to make distance again.

No one spoke. The two were too quiet and no one wanted to intrude on the intimacy. Rook dug the frozen dagger out of the ice wall, using it with a sword to deflect her next barrage, and flung it back at her faster, harder. She easily threw up a second barrier and the knife shattered as the blade, still frozen, hit it.

Neve swung around her scepter and a torrent of ice magic peeled from her weapon and pushed at Rook, who, with crossed blades again, dug a knee into the ground and slowed the shove just before hitting the wall behind him. Lucanis gasped but straightened up when the others hushed him.

The temperature of the room was dropping. Rook could feel his blades stiffen with each spell. His fingers started to ache in the cold. He blocked another powerful shot and his blades snapped in two as he spun from the ricochet. Neve let out a triumphant ah-hah! as he threw the hilts to the frosty floor. He tried to run at her, to close the distance and as she spread a sheet of ice in the floor, he flicked a vial on it just after. With a flash of brilliant orange light, the fire melted the landing spot and he leapt and tossed two more blades. She dodged and threw up another barrier, catching the blades.

“Hes running out of blades!” Emmrich gasped to the rushed shushes of the party.

Rook threw two more to the spot Neve sought and she caught them with another spell. Rook closed in. Neve turned to one door. She had encased it in ice. She shout a weaker bolt, her mana being pushed to depletion, and Rook melted it by aiming a flask directly at it, exploding into light and water. He had naught but his clothing to block the icicle, and it was too sharp, he knew they would cut through.

Rook jumped high again, into a backflip, almost flying, his cape unfurled like Crow wings and he harried her steps with his last two blades. She shot another beam that caught the tips of his cape, breaking the fabric as it whipped with his movements. As he landed he tossed a third vial, a small explosive, at her feet. She tried to jump over it, but the floor she was forced to land on was a grate, directly above the astrolabe, frozen and fragile.

The grate disintegrated beneath her and she fell down with a scream, grasping at the icy floor as her prosthetic clamored off the astrolabe and hit the floor below with a hard clang.

Rook was on his side, he had her arm in his grasp, holding her from the fall herself. Her eyes narrowed and she grinned something from Aelia’s playbook.

“That’s a bit exposed, don’t you think?” She looked at his exposed forearm as she reached for her hair pin.

But Rook twisted his grasp. He wore a ring over his forefinger. It had always only looked like a Crow talon, but when he crooked his finger, it pierced her skin, drawing a thin line of blood striped down her forearm.

“Venhesis.”

Taash was already there helping Rook pull her up.

“De Riva! You menace!” Lucanis checked in on Neve before taking a closer look at the ring.

“Viago’s private line of accessories. For the more distinguished Crow.”

“I need one!” Lucsnis, taking First Talon privileges, pulled it off of Rook’s finger and studied the design.

“Viago will kill me!”

“Will kill me!” Lace, Emmrich, Davrin and Bellara said in unison. It had become a running joke, as Rook did many things for which his life was basically over once he set foot back in Antiva.

“That is three of three!” Taash went over and scratched another tally under the Rook scrawled in chalk on the marble wall. “Who’s next?”

“Me!” Lace jumped off the desk and wrote her name on the wall under the scratched out Lucanis, Emmrich, and Neve.

“But it’s a sniper contest.”

Rook’s face beamed a wide smile.

“Oh, great!” Bellara slid under Rooks arm and gave him a victory kiss on his cheek. “Now he’s getting cocky.”

“Now?” Emmrich tended to Neve.

“This’ll be good. I’ll put money on Lace here and now.” Taash pulled the redhead in close.

“You’re on!” Bellara held out a quick hand.

“You don’t have any money, Bel.” Rook pulled her away from the hole in the ground Davrin was holding a few swords over trying to cover the hazard.

“No, but you do.” She spun back into his arms and wiped a bead of sweat away.

“Rook loses and I get his money?” Taash lifted Lace and sat her on their shoulder. Lace giggled. “Heck yeah!”

“Are any of you going to help?” Davrin reached for another sword. Assan poked his head up through an open spot in the floor, grasping grate pieces in his claws and Neve’s leg in his beak.

“Perfect.” Emmrich patted the griffon’s head.

Lucanis duel here