Chapter Text
Francesca de Riva was already over this "being in charge of the group saving the world from blighted gods" shit. The last year of her life had her feeling like a different person; before her exile from the Crows she had been Ches the Fifth Talon's resident pain in the ass. Then she had rescued Varric from the Antaam and became Rook, Varric's second in command. She acknowledged that Varric was out of commission, and therefore she had to take the reins, but she felt wholly unprepared.
They had managed to recruit Bellara to their cause, which was great! No one better to help deal with ancient elven gods than an expert on ancient elven artifacts. She was currently working on repairing their eluvian, which would hopefully let them get someplace other than Arlathan Forest. Ches's stomach clenched as she remembered D'Meta's Crossing. The whole town overrun by Blight, and her decision to leave the Mayor behind. She didn't regret that decision—she had taken, and fulfilled, contracts for lesser offenses—and she had no patience for people in power who sacrificed those under their protection for greed. Maybe that was part of why she was having such an issue taking over for Varric, she had her team to look out for now, and they had blighted gods that needed stopping.
"Go check with Neve, see if she has any leads," the dwarf said, pulling Ches out of her thought spiral. "I'm gonna take a nap. Remember, you've got this, kid."
"I'm glad one of us thinks so," she muttered to herself as she headed down the stairs and out to the courtyard to Neve's room/office.
She rapped a knuckle gently on the door, waiting for a "come in" from the other woman.
"Hi Neve, hi wisps," she said in greeting. A couple of the little spirits floated around her head in greeting.
"I still don't know why they're attracted to this spot in particular," the detective said. "But anyway, that doesn't matter. You're here for leads."
"That obvious, huh?" the Crow smiled. "What have you got?"
"I've been thinking about what Morrigan said, about the gods being ancient, powerful mages. I think we need to have a chat with the Crows."
"Having one master assassin isn't enough for you?" Ches said with a cheeky grin, letting the quip do a lot of heavy lifting to disguise the anxiety that was curling in her gut.
"One master assassin mage is great, but what we need is a mage-killer. I'm thinking we need to bring in a specialist who has experience taking down blood mages and Venatori: The Demon of Vyrantium. Have you met him?"
Francesca shook her head. "Haven't had the pleasure, or misfortune, depending on how you look at it." Neve gave her a look that silently encouraged her to elaborate. "The Crows don't have a ton of mages, but possession is still a risk," she explained. "Best to keep the mages and mage-killers separate so things don't get complicated. Having to kill a friend is unpleasant, so we try to avoid it where we can."
"Right, that…makes a weird amount of sense, actually. Think you could set us up a meeting with your bosses? See if we can get the Demon to help us take down the gods?"
She thought about it, and that delightful letter she had received from Viago about six months back that was folded very carefully in a pocket of her pack explicitly telling her not to come back until her contract on Solas was finished.
"The Talons will give me an earful, or a dagger in the back, but I can try," she said.
"We can look somewhere else if we need to," Neve offered. Ches shook her head.
"No, we need the best, and the Crows have the best. I'll see who I can get to talk to me and I'll let you know."
"Rook, you alright?" Neve asked as they approached the eluvian that would take them to Treviso. The younger woman had been fidgeting anxiously as soon as they had gotten past the Crossroads spirit market.
She nodded. "I'm fine. Do me a favor though, if things start to go bad, just head back to the eluvian. Don't worry about me."
"I thought you said that we had the meeting."
"And we do," she replied. "I'm just not sure exactly which Talons are going to be there and whether or not they're any of the ones who still want my hide for the Antaam Incident." She knew at the very least Teia had her back, and the Seventh Talon was not someone who would be easily crossed.
"Nothing's ever easy with you, is it?" Neve said with a joking lilt.
"Oh absolutely not," she took a deep breath. "Shall we?"
The two women stepped through the eluvian and into the Treviso evening. Francesca inhaled deeply, breathing in the air of home for the first time in over a year. She led Neve out of the alcove that the eluvian was in—making a note to ask Teia if she could have it moved somewhere more secure, preferably the Diamond—and out into the bustling streets of the city. She took it all in, the lights, the sounds. It was home.
"Welcome to Treviso, the Jewel of Antiva," she said gesturing with a flourish. She paused, her face scrunching with disgust. "Currently under occupation." She could see Antaam marching around and clenched her fist so hard her fingernails dug into her palms. "Come on, one of my friends is going to meet us."
Neve let Rook lead through the bustle of people and to one of the bridges that overlooked Treviso's many canals. An elven woman in blue leathers was waiting. Rook's face brightened when she saw her, the two women embracing and kissing each other's cheeks in greeting.
"It is good to see you," the woman said. "I hear you're going by Rook now? Also what in Andraste's name are you wearing?"
Rook looked down at the ensemble she had been wearing basically the entire time she had been with Varric. Her face flushed, whether in anger or embarrassment Neve wasn't quite sure.
"Viago didn't exactly give me a lot of time to pack, and we were trying not to attract attention where we could avoid it. It doesn't matter." She turned to Neve. "Neve, meet Andarateia Cantori, the Seventh Talon."
"Just Teia, please," she said, giving the detective a smile. "Any friend of Rook's is a friend of mine."
"Teia, this is Neve Gallus."
Teia's eyebrows raised. "You have made some interesting friends. But we should get moving, the others are waiting." Teia began leading them the rest of the way across the bridge. "Viago is happy you're home," she called over her shoulder.
Neve heard Rook scoff. "I highly doubt that."
"It's true!" Teia insisted. "He complains less when you are around."
"Speaking of complaining…are you and him on again or off again? I just need to be prepared," she looked conspiratorially back at Neve. "They can never decide, and Viago is absolutely insufferable without Teia around."
What followed was a quickfire exchange in rapid Antivan that Neve didn't catch and Rook ending up with a shit-eating grin on her face. The grin quickly faded as they passed an Antaam patrol that was harassing one of the citizens.
It took every bit of Francesca's self control to not intervene, keeping pace with Teia as they jogged through the marketplace.
"I see the Antaam continue to make themselves at home," she said bitterly.
"Their time will come," Teia said, beginning to climb the trellis that would take them up to the Cantori Diamond. "I will see a knife through every would-be tyrant's throat. The Crows rule Antiva—"
"And Treviso will be free," Ches finished the sentence in unison with the other Crow.
"It is really good to have you home, Ches," the other woman said softly, giving her forearm a squeeze.
Ches could feel the burning behind her eyes and ordered the tears not to fall. She was a Crow dammit, and Crows did not cry. "Remember that, when Viago is ripping me to shreds, yes?" she said, deflecting.
Teia laughed and led them across the courtyard and towards the stairs leading to the upper levels of the Cantori Diamond. Ches couldn't help looking around, seeing Crows and fledglings milling about. She saw a couple double takes as some of the older Crows noticed her return. She rolled her eyes, give it five minutes and all of Treviso would know that the Fifth Talon's wayward protege had returned. So much for being inconspicuous. They entered the Diamond and Teia led them to one of the side rooms that were normally used by the Talons for meetings. Francesca tried not to think about the last time she had been in one of those rooms, and how that had ended for her. Teia left them outside, heading in to let the Talons know that they had arrived.
Not for the first time since they had stepped foot in Treviso, Ches was really wishing she had worn nicer clothes, maybe one of those sets the Veil Jumpers had offered her after D'Meta's Crossing. As it stood, she was going in front of the Talons in stained leathers and a particularly ratty excuse for a cape. Maybe if she was lucky, they would be too distracted by the news she was bringing to worry about how particularly un-Crow-like she looked. She took yet another deep breath as the door opened and she and Neve were ushered inside.
Her eyes found Viago first, he was standing there trying to look as foreboding as ever. In some strange way, that was actually making this whole thing less terrifying. The Head of House de Riva and Fifth Talon had been a fixture in her life since her mother's death when she was five. In the twenty-odd years since, he had filled several roles in her life—brother, mentor, superior. She wasn't sure which version of Viago she was about to get.
"Did you finish your contract on the Dread Wolf?" Straight to business then.
"Hello Viago," she said, smiling slightly in spite of herself. She'd never admit it out loud, but she had missed this. "And it's complicated."
She could see the little vein in his forehead start to pulse. "How many times do I have to tell you, a Crow always finishes a contract."
"But they just can't take initiative, right?" she scoffed. So much for the warm fuzzy homecoming feelings. "My run-in with the Antaam taught me that. And the contract was to stop Solas, which I did. We disrupted his ritual and kept him from tearing down the Veil."
A throat cleared to the right of the bickering de Rivas. Both Viago and Francesca turned, Ches's mouth snapping shut at the sight of Caterina Dellamorte, the First Talon. She was less impressed at the man standing at her shoulder. She hadn't seen Illario Dellamorte since the Salle job, and seeing him now was still too soon.
"First Talon," she said, inclining her head in respect. "I apologize." The old woman waved away her apology.
"Tell us about the contract."
Francesca nodded. Back to business. "The targets are two elven gods, Elgar'nan and Ghilan'nain. They escaped from the Fade when Solas tried to tear down the Veil. They are Blighted and have already destroyed at least one village, maybe more. They call themselves gods, but at the core they are incredibly powerful mages. We were hoping that the Demon of Vyrantium might be up to helping us bring them down."
There were a couple beats of intense silence.
"My grandson, Lucanis, was the one who took those jobs," Caterina said at last. Ches opened her mouth to reply only to be cut off by Viago.
"Lucanis Dellamorte is dead, he's been dead for nearly a year."
Way to go, Ches, her inner voice taunted. Come back to get a mage killer and not only is he the First Talon's grandson, but he's the First Talon's dead grandson. Couldn't have made a worse impression if you tried. Viago is never going to let—
"What I am about to say never leaves this room," Caterina said. She made pointed eye contact with Francesca, who nodded deferentially. "The body our people brought back was not my grandson. It was wearing his clothes, but they used blood magic to change his face."
For a brief moment, you could hear a pin drop in the room. Ches was pretty sure the "Maker" she heard from behind her was Teia, and she knew her own eyes were as wide as saucers. She glanced at Viago, his face was carefully neutral, but she could practically hear the gears turning in his head.
"My cousin is alive, and you never told me?" Illario was incensed. Ches resisted the urge to roll her eyes, of course he would be making this moment about him. She tried not to let her bitterness color her feelings too much, but it was a challenge.
"His ship was attacked," Viago said. "We figured someone had sold him out, so you kept your suspicions to yourself."
Caterina nodded. "Disrupting the Dread Wolf's ritual caused the Venatori to get sloppy. I was able to get the location of their prison: The Ossuary, where the Demon of Vyrantium is kept." Her attention turned solely to Francesca. "Find this Ossuary, bring back my grandson, and you shall have your god-killer."
"Yes, First Talon," she replied.
"Illario will take you to the boat. That is all."
Francesca nodded deeply to the Talons and turned to leave, gesturing to Neve to follow. They stepped outside the room and Ches led them a few yards away to a lounge area that was currently unoccupied.
"That was…intense," Neve said, finding it difficult to figure out the right words for what she had just witnessed.
Ches nodded. "Yep, that's the Crows for you. Believe it or not, that was actually probably one of the better possible outcomes."
Neve's reply was cut off by the door opening again, Viago and Teia stepping out this time. They both headed towards the women.
"We have a few minutes while Caterina talks to Illario," Teia said. "I'm going to go find you some clothes."
"Teia, you don't have to—"
"Hush," the woman turned and headed away, leaving Ches at the mercy of a definitely-not-happy-Viago.
"What in the Maker's Name have you gotten yourself mixed up in, Francesca?" Ches was grateful that this was his quiet whisper-yell instead of yelling for the entire Diamond to hear. "Elven gods? How did this happen?"
"I missed you too," she said with a half smile that caused Viago to deflate slightly. "The short version is that they were imprisoned, and when we stopped Solas by interrupting his ritual," she chose to leave out the bit about dropping a statue on him, she didn't need Viago's blood pressure to go any higher, "they broke out. And now they're trying to take over and/or blight the world. So we have to stop them." She also chose not to mention the blood magic that now had the elven god of lies taking up residence in her dreams.
Viago pinched the bridge of his nose, "You understand you cannot fuck this up, right?"
"Rescuing the First Talon's grandson or stopping the Evanuris? Cause I like my odds on one of those."
"I'm serious, Francesca," their eyes met. "Be careful. Don't be reckless."
"And don't die or else you'll come after me in the Fade yourself, I know," she replied, giving him a crooked smile. "I promise, I'll be careful. Speaking of the Fade though, you'll want to send a few Crows to the alcove near Giorgio's. There's an eluvian there that should be moved here."
"There's a what?"
"It's basically a magical mirror that lets me travel all across Thedas. I was in Minrathous yesterday. We don't want the Antaam getting their hands on it."
Viago looked apoplectic, but Ches was saved by the return of Teia.
"Here," she said, handing her a neatly folded stack of indigo fabric and leather. "Vi left your room just how you left it. These should still fit." Ches took the clothes, her fingers unconsciously moving over the familiar quilted tunic. "Go change, we won't let them leave without you."
When Rook stepped out of the room a few minutes later, Neve was shocked at how different she seemed. She knew the other mage was a Crow, but now she looked the part and carried herself with more confidence.
"Much better," Teia said approvingly. "Now you look like yourself again."
"Gratzie, Teia," she replied. Her eyes shifted to the door as it opened, Illario walking out and making a beeline for their group.
"Caterina wants to see the two of you," he said to Viago and Teia. The Talons nodded.
"Remember what I said," Viago said to Ches, his eyes boring into hers. She nodded.
Illario turned to Ches and Neve. His eyes traveled up and down, taking in Ches's new look. "Nice to know you can still clean up nice, de Riva," he said, quirking an eyebrow in an expression that was clearly meant to be flirtatious.
"Save it, Dellamorte," she replied coldly.
"Fine, come on. Caterina has a boat waiting."