#rookanite

In fact, none of this made any sense to her. She could not imagine how he might have been killed in the way he had, whether or not there had been some betrayal. Neither he nor Spite could have been brought down by a simple mark, regardless of how powerful a mage they'd been. Lucanis had killed a god; surely even a powerful mortal mage was nothing in comparison. She found it suspicious that Illario had been the one to find him, though she had personally proved that he had neither been present or involved.

It did not make sense that he had asked for this. That he had made such allowances for his own death. That he was dead at all.

"How could you?" she wanted to ask, looking down at his body, but duty held sway. Lenore was not just the beloved of the deceased. She was a member of the Mourn Watch—a senior one now—and had been specifically requested to preside over this ceremony. This was not about her grief, her hurt, her confusion. It was about Lucanis. It was about the wishes he had expressed for his death.

"Your memory will last beyond your death," she said, as she had said hundreds of times before.

With care, she passed a sponge over his skin, the herb-infused water spilling over his shoulders. His flesh would be burned away or eaten; there was no reason to clean it except to honor the job it had once done for the living. She had done it for so many strangers before; she could do it again now.

It was wrong to find his skin so cold now. Of the two of them, he had always been the warm one.

"What you have known and what you have done is etched in your bones and carried onward. Your thoughts, your regrets, your loves, and your victories remain though your spirit does not. Knowledge and life are never lost, but only shift from one state of being to another."

Water dropped onto his chest. It did not fall from the sponge, which she'd dipped back into its ceremonial basin. Lenore took a shuddering breath, tilted her head back for a moment, and pressed herself to go on.

The wound that had killed him was a clean thing. He would have approved, she thought, of the neat line that had cut between his ribs and to his heart. She cleaned this first, though she had cleaned it already (there had been so much blood, dried and huddled against his skin; so much blood she would have been shocked if it had taken him minutes to die).

Here, then, away from the killing blow. She turned to the swell of his thighs, the dark hair that drew wiry lines from hip to ankle. The hair clung to his skin with the scented water, which ran in rivulets to the stone table beneath him.

"May the spirits recall who you were and who you might have been. May they learn from your bones, which will be—will be a home until their occupants are returned again to the Fade, as we, in turn, are welcomed back to our home beyond this world."

Where was Spite? Nobody had said anything to her about him. Had he gone back to the Fade? Was he stuck in this world somewhere, lost and purposeless and without a home? It was a cruel thing, that she may never know what had become of the spirit she had loved so dearly. A cruel thing to lose both of them at once.

When Manfred had…gone, she had comforted Emmrich by telling him that there would always be pieces of him in the Fade, that those pieces would grow in knowledge and presence with time. Lenore did not want pieces of Spite. She wanted him back as he was.

Rook ran the sponge over the arch of his feet and found she had run out of body to clean. She'd no choice but to attend to his face now, though it had been blessedly covered by a length of silk until now. Slowly, Lenore returned the sponge to its basin. She dried her hands one by one, and had to fold the little towel twice before she could actually return it to its hanging rod. She folded the silk carefully, setting it aside

His hair was slightly mussed. Lucanis had always been careful with it, from the moment they'd properly left the prison he'd been kept inside. A way to reassert control after so long without it, she'd thought, and had never prodded him about it.

Now, she ran a comb through it and tried to arrange it the way he'd kept it. It was a difficult task to complete, for her vision was often clouded and the collar of her robes grew distractingly damp.

"Your memory will last beyond your death," she repeated, her voice choked. "For the living remember and the dead do not forget. As you live in the hearts of the living, so too will you live in the heart of the Grand Necropolis. You will be honored among the dead as all dead are held in honor by the mortalitasi. The Mourn Watch will guard and guide you and—and will hold you safe, for memory must persist beyond its earthly bonds."

His hair had only just begun to grow silver at the temples. She had thought it so dashing when she'd noticed it at first, though he'd seemed to care very little about it. Most Crows do not grow old, he'd told her, shrugging one shoulder. It is not something I have ever thought about.

It would never get any lighter than it was right now. His eyes would never wrinkle more at the corners. His hands would never shake with age, would never grow more fragile as old skin always did. She would never wake beside him some late night and know they had spent the greatest portions of their life together.

They would never make oaths to each other, would never vow to remain together until death. He would never wear a ring on his hand to mark the bond between them. She had denied him this, as she had denied him so much.

Lenore was forced to turn away for a moment, breathing hard and clenching her fists. The smell of ceremonial incense and scented water rose around her. It was usually such a calming scent, an air that reminded her of her deepest purpose and greatest responsibility. She had never disliked working in these rooms as some of the other Watchers did. To honor the life of the deceased was to honor their death, too; why should she care for one and not the other?

But—oh, she would have given a great deal to be anywhere else right now. Anywhere else.

After several long minutes, she dashed the tears from her eyes and gathered herself. Painful as it was, it was almost done. For reasons entirely beyond her, Lucanis had asked her for this. She would do it properly for him. He deserved that much.

"We welcome you to the number of honored dead, Lucanis Dellamorte of Antiva," she whispered, and in a most unprofessional gesture reached out to stroke his hair with her bare hand. "We welcome you home."

Home.

What a cruel sentiment it was, to welcome him home when he had never come here to live with her. Perhaps that was why he had asked her to do this. Perhaps it was a concession of sorts, to give her his death when he could not give her his life.

"You are finished," a voice came from behind her.

Grief, her oldest friend and closest confidant, drifted closer and rested a hand of bone on Lenore's shoulder. She had not been in the room when Rook had closed the doors. By all rights, there should have been no way in. Lenore did not question it. She only crumpled to the ground, followed quickly by the spirit, and at last allowed the sob loose from her chest.

"It isn't fair," she told Grief, as so many millions of mourners had told the spirit through time immemorial. "It isn't fair."

"I know," Grief said, as she had said to millions of those who grieved, would say to millions more long after Lenore was gone. "It is not. I am here."

For a time—only a time—Rook set aside her duty and grieved. Lucanis was gone. Whatever they might have had, every chance of it was gone now. Many possibilities had been snuffed with his last breath. Perhaps she could be circumspect about this someday. Perhaps she would recall all that they'd had together, all that they had shared, and she would smile.

Later, Rook would be a Watcher again. She would finish preparing him for a funeral ceremony that his remaining family would attend. She would feed all that was familiar of him to her beetles, would clean his bones so they could hold a spirit instead. She would be professional. She would be understanding. She would do what must be done, as she had so many times before.

About to drape the blanket back over him, she finds herself surrendering her hold on fabric as he moves to still wordlessly nudge at her with gentle determination, until she turns her back to him and lets him curl himself around her, dragging the blanket back over them as he settles down and gives a sigh of contentment, an arm wrapped snugly about her middle.

Nosing at her pulse, he murmurs, “Dreaming of,” and, “In arms,” and, “Warm.”

She allows a small smile to surface as she threads her fingers through his and presses a kiss to the back of his hand.

“Thought would like... real.”

In tones little more than a whisper, she asks, “And you?”

A quiet that feels more akin to contemplation than a return to that hesitance.

His, “Wanted real,” is a rougher thing, accompanied by a nuzzling at her neck and the tangling of his legs with hers.

The quiet that settles over them in an easy one, lazy brushes of lips traded as she slips between the waking world and an intermittent, not truly restful, sleep that has characterised her attempts to rest since arriving at the Lighthouse.

(She suspects that it has taken Lucanis a great deal of self-control not to outright brand her a hypocrite on the occasions that she has chastised him for avoiding sleep.)

Perhaps it is that an hour passes. Maybe more.

And then an arm tightens around her, only to go suddenly still with that tension still running through the embrace she is caught up in, hovering between pressing closer and relinquishing her.

“...Rook?”

Lucanis.

“Spite wanted a cuddle,” she tells him, reaching back to rest a palm against his cheek. “He thought... you might like to be here when you woke up. Apparently, you offered some... inspiration... in your sleep.”

A huff of amusement – of relief, perhaps faint embarrassment – and he secures his hold on her once more.

“How long do you plan on reminding me that I dream of having you in my arms?” he enquires, all warm pleasure and overplayed surrender to the inevitable.

She could tease him. Make him laugh again. Look back at him to catch a rare smile that might reach his eyes.

Only...

“I plan on making sure that you don’t have to only dream of it.”

A promise that earns her a soft sound full of longing.

A promise she intends to keep.