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Rook came back home so late that her daughters were already sleeping. She sighed: she’d been in Minrathous for the whole day, and she hoped she could come back to spend some time with her family.
Instead, work with the Shadow Dragons had kept her in her hometown far longer than Rook expected. She said good evening to the staff and walked to the dining room of Villa Dellamorte, where the cooking staff had left a plate for her.
Rook thanked them and asked, “Is my husband here already?”
The young man shook his head. “No. Messer Dellamorte hasn’t come back home yet.”
Rook nodded and ate her paella. It was delicious, and she recommended the staff to make a lot of compliments to the cook.
There was something weighing on her chest—quite literally. Tarquin had given her a letter, claiming it was from Dorian and that she should read it when she could process the information.
That had immediately worried her, and she’d decided to wait to talk about it with Lucanis.
Her husband didn’t make her wait. He arrived when she was still halfway through her dinner, and sat next to her.
He’d turned fifty last year, and he had some grey in his hair and beard, with some wrinkles at the corner of his eyes and mouth. None of that had ever made him look less attractive to Rook.
Lucanis kissed her on the lips and said, “Good evening, amor. How was your day?”
“You know how Minrathous is, still chaotic and still Venatori are around.”
Thirteen years after Dorian had become Archon, there were still people who used Blood Magic and exploited slaves. It always felt like their work as Shadow Dragons had just began, even though they’d spent many years in the process.
An Imperium can’t be dismantled in a few years, after all, Dorian always said in the moment of greatest discouragement. They were making small progress, and they should enjoy those little victories.
“And yours?” Rook asked, wanting to distract herself from that line of thoughts.
Lucanis sighed. In those moments, he showed all his age and the years he’d spent as the head of the Antivan Crows.
“Busy. Distributing the contracts to the various houses so that no one can accuse another of favoritism will never get easier.”
She grabbed her amatus’s hand to show him her support. He smiled and kissed her on the knuckles.
Rook chuckled, her heart fluttering. She loved that, after so many years together and three children, he could still make her feel like a giddy little girl with a simple gesture.
She waited for him to finish dinner before telling him what was bothering her. They both said goodnight to the kitchen staff and, as they walked towards the main hall of Villa Dellamorte, Rook said, “There’s something I have to tell you.”
His brown eyes went darker with worry. “What’s wrong, amor?”
She stopped and fished out the letter from the hidden pocket of the Shadow Dragon suit, right on her chest.
“This is from Dorian, I haven’t opened it yet but—”
Lucanis raised his hand to interrupt her.
“Flavia Dellamorte-Mercar, come out from behind that column.”
For a moment, nothing happened. Then, a child moved aside from behind the column.
Their eldest daughter had just turned ten, and she was a mischievous little girl. Rook knew that she tried to listen to their conversation regarding the Crows or the Shadow Dragons, but, thankfully, Lucanis was always a step ahead of her.
Flavia didn’t look remorseful at all, and Rook had to fight the urge to laugh. Her daughter reminded her too much of herself when she was younger, and she used to eavesdrop on her father’s conversations with the Viper and begged him to let her join the Shadow Dragons.
But Rook didn’t do it. She and Lucanis had agreed to always be a united front with their kids, so she crossed her arms on her chest and stepped at her husband’s side as he scolded their daughter.
“We told you many times you must not eavesdrop on our conversations. If you come to know too much information about the Crows, you will be a target.”
Flavia looked at the floor. “I’m sorry, Dad.”
Lucanis looked like he was going to apologize to her and tell her that no, she could listen to them sharing sensitive information all night long, so Rook intervened.
“If you don’t really want to sleep,” she said. “You can check that your sisters are alright.”
“Yes, Mom!”
Flavia ran upstairs. She was too young to realize that Villa Dellamorte was the safest place in all of Treviso—all of Antiva, maybe—and sometimes Rook took advantage of her confidence in her ability.
It always worked: Rook could send her eldest daughter away from the discussion she and Lucanis were having, and Flavia would believe she was actually protecting her sisters.
(Rook knew perfectly that in twenty minutes or so she would find her sleeping in the corridor, between the doors of the other two girls’ bedrooms, and she or Lucanis would pick Flavia up and take her to her bedroom.)
Lucanis’s long sigh took her back to reality. “She’s becoming incredibly good at hiding. I almost didn’t see her.”
She chuckled and kissed him on his cheeks. “I think she’ll ask you to join the Crows within a couple of years.”
Lucanis flinched. Even though he’d spent the last decade and more changing the Crows for the better, he still didn’t like the idea of their daughters joining them.
“Her training won’t be like yours,” Rook said, holding his hand.
Her amatus’s face relaxed. He unclenched his jaws.
“You’re right,” he conceded.
To distract him, Rook said, “Let’s go up to my office.”
They both walked upstairs. Villa Dellamorte was so big that both she and Lucanis had their own offices, but they’d chosen two adjacent rooms that were separated by a door. After all, they needed to exchange and cross information all the time.
A few weeks after they’d defeated the gods, Rook had moved into Villa Dellamorte, but she hadn’t forsaken the Shadow Dragons. In the last thirteen years, she had acted like an ambassador between her faction and the Crows of Antiva, traveling on a weekly basis between Treviso and Minrathous.
When she went to her own city, Rook brought with her documents and trackings of slave traders and Blood Mages directed to Tevinter, and her fellow Shadow Dragons dealt with them. When she came back to Treviso, Rook gave her husband information about Venatori living in Antiva, and Lucanis assigned their contracts to the Crows.
If the mentioned Venatori were in Treviso or at a reasonable distance from the city, Rook herself went after them and killed them to free their slaves—to whom she then asked if they wanted to join the Shadow Dragons.
The only time she had sent someone to track and kill in her place, was during her two pregnancies. Among the Crows or the Shadows, there was no shortage of volunteers to kill Venatori and free slaves.
It was an alliance that had only brought advantages to both sides. When Dorian called her up to the Archon Palace—it still felt weird even after many years of visiting—he praised her job and made her notice how convenient it was that she married the First Talon of the Antivan Crows.
Rook had an idea of the content of the letter, since it was something Dorian had mentioned a few times. She’d always given evasive replies, or avoided the topic altogether, but it wasn’t something she’d never thought about, if she had to be honest—
Once the door of her office was closed behind her, she opened the letter and read it in front of Lucanis. The first part were pleasantries she skimmed over, but then she arrived at the part she was interested in.
For the effort you put into hunting Venatori both here and in Antiva, and to make Tevinter a better place, I’m hereby offering you the position of Magister.
Rook almost dropped the letter. She had suspected that was the reason why Dorian sent her the letter, but reading it caused her a totally different effect.
Her heart felt like it had almost stopped for a moment, and her hands started shaking.
“Amor, is something wrong? You’re very pale.”
She gave him the letter. She saw his eyes dart through Dorian’s words until they stopped. Lucanis looked at her with an incredulous look.
“Magister?”
Rook nodded.
“The Magisterium never came back to the numbers before Elgar’nan killed them,” Rook explained, not able to keep the edge of her emotion out of her voice. “Dorian has been pushing to give the title to Soporati, too, but the people of Tevinter don’t change their mind that easily. In the last few years he’d been nominating Magisters that will satisfy the most conservative families’ criteria, which are being a human Tevinter mage.”
She sighed.
“I satisfy all the conditions. Dorian has been venting the possibility for years, but he’d never asked directly.”
And, of course, there were all the other reasons that Archon Pavus had listed in his letter, right after the offering: that she was the hero who saved the world, she’d fought slavery most of her life, she would help Tevinter be a better place, and her marriage with the First Talon put her in a great position and secured an alliance with Antiva.
No one, the letter ended, was more suited to the role of Magister than her.
Lucanis, who had finished reading the letter, looked at her.
“It doesn’t seem a bad proposal, you would have more power than you have now and you could shape Tevinter into a better place,” he said. “The girls are still young, but they’re old enough to travel through the Crossroads if one of us is with them.”
Rook sighed, and confessed the main reason why she’d never given Dorian a clear answer when he’d subtly introduced the subject during the years.
“I don’t want our girls to see the Imperium.”
Her words hung between them. Even though the Shadow Dragons had worked hard to change Tevinter, a little more than a decade wasn’t enough to change centuries of traditions.
There were much less slavers, but still some Magisters and rich people owned slaves. Dorian, Maevaris and all the Shadows fought Blood Magic, and many mages were discouraged from using it, but it wasn’t illegal yet.
For how much Dorian and Mae had pushed for a law that would make Soporati Magisters, the Magisterium was still composed by Mages.
And that was only Minrathous, their reform hadn’t been as efficient yet in other cities, and the rural areas were still far from changing their ways.
Of her daughters, Rook knew that in the future only the youngest, Isabel, would be respected in Tevinter, because she could feel some traces of the Fade on her and she knew her magic would manifest in a few years.
Flavia had no magic on her, though. And Oriana…
She and Lucanis loved all their daughters the same, because they saw no difference between their two natural children and the one they adopted, but Rook was painfully aware that it wouldn’t be the same in Tevinter.
Oriana was an elf, and Rook knew that many people wouldn’t see her as equal as her other human children. She’d rather try all Viago’s poisons blindfolded than ask Oriana to hide her pointy ears, and she knew that people would assume she was her servant—another pain Rook wanted to spare her daughter.
Lucanis was inclined, and she learned long ago it meant he was listening to Spite.
“Spite doesn’t like the idea of sending the girls to Minrathous, either,” he said. “But you could help the Archon shape a new Imperium. With you, there will be one less conservative Magister and one more supporting Dorian’s new laws.”
He was right.
The Archon had chased most of the Venatori supporters who survived Elgar’nan, and if Rook joined the Magisterium, her support could help outweigh the most conservative Magisters. She could help make new laws that would change Tevinter for the better.
She imagined a Minrathous where she could walk the streets with Lucanis and their daughters where all of them were treated equally. Where Flavia wouldn’t be treated as a second-class citizen because she wasn’t a mage, and where Oriana wouldn’t be speculated to be her servant—or worse, her slave—because she was an elf.
Rook found herself smiling. She could make it happen.
Rook would fight for all her life for an Imperium like that, and not only for her daughters. She would do it for all the future Tevinter children.
“I’ll write Dorian tomorrow to tell him I accept,” she said, seeing her husband smile. “I want to talk to the girls first.”
Lucanis kissed her.
“We’ll find a solution. We use the Eluvians to travel already, so the girls don’t see most of Tevinter anyway.”
That gave Rook an idea, something so simple she didn’t believe she hadn’t thought so herself.
“I can ask Dorian to put the Eluvian in the Archon’s Palace, the girls wouldn’t even see Minrathous until they’re old enough.”
She cupped her husband’s face. “I think it’s a good idea,” he said, and she kissed him.
“The only problem,” she said against his lips, “is that I don’t know if the other Shadows will listen to me.”
Lucanis grinned.
“Your fellow Shadow Dragons will have to listen to Magister Mercar.”
“Kaffas, it still feels weird,” she said with a laugh.
Lucanis pulled her up on the desk. Her heart beat in anticipation as he smirked, and Rook felt a familiar heat between her legs.
It was incredible how, after so many years together, their passion was still unmatched.
“You’ll get used to it. Let’s celebrate your promotion.”
He knelt between her legs and she spread them more to give him space.
Rook pushed all her worries aside for the moment. Her amatus was right: her job was an uphill road, but now it was the time to enjoy his celebration.