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As much as Acacia loved the dark corners of Dock Town, the open courtyard at the Lighthouse was a breath of fresh air.
Heh. She smirked at her own joke, leaning into the burn as she stretched over her legs. The Fade’s constant daylight belied her sense of just waking up; in another life, she had done this under a dim Fereldan sunrise, to the tune of clanging swords. If she closed her eyes, the air here molded itself to her memory: crisp and cold, the smell of freshly fallen snow on evergreen trees.
She released the stretch and reached for her blades. Best leave that memory while it was still a good one.
The first few drills were routine. Thrust, parry, twist and disarm. Her muscles sang as she put them to use, seeping relief that centered and focused her. This, at least, was a constant. Sweat on her skin, the press of leather against her palm, steel sharpened and slicing around her like the shield it was. Her movements blurred as her practice flowed into a dance around the courtyard—up the stairs, over the banisters, off the balcony.
Most of the others were still asleep, or stealing the last moments of solitude before the day summoned them. She worked silently, preserving that peace for them. Her breath was barely a hiss between tucks and swipes and her boots hardly whispered against the cobblestones despite the force of landing and jumping. She had not survived so long by being heard. Or seen.
She was being watched.
She felt the eyes on her as she flipped off the crumbling statue above the caretaker’s workshop. A smattering of gravel cascaded down ahead of her. In one smooth motion, she sheathed her blades and brought her feet beneath her, landing neatly with her fingertips just barely pressed against the ground.
“You fight like a Crow.” Lucanis’ fingers were wrapped around a steaming mug of coffee and he was leaning against the dining hall exterior, quietly observing. As always.
Acacia raised a brow, but said nothing. She grabbed her canteen and took a slow sip of the icy water, enjoying the cool slide of it and Lucanis’ eyes on her throat in equal measure. “Something you just recently noticed?”
“I’ve been watching. Had my suspicions. It pays to know your allies’ strengths… and weaknesses.”
“Plenty of those here.” Acacia snorted. Lucanis smiled into his mug.
“Not so many as you imagine, I think.”
Acacia shook her head and smiled. Maybe he was right—but she would rather overestimate her shortcomings than be burned by one she never saw.
“So, like a Crow, huh?” She cocked her head. “You know, you guys don’t have a total monopoly on dual wielding. Yet.”
Lucanis smirked. “I’m not territorial; it was a compliment. But no. The… fluidity in your form. Like the combat is a performance as much as it is a necessity. And you are very quiet. It is rare among informal urban fighters like your Shadow Dragons.”
“Keeps me alive,” Acacia quipped. She pushed into the dining hall, sighing as the fire’s warmth enveloped her. Lucanis followed at her heels.
“You’re not going to tell me, are you?”
“You didn’t actually ask.” She dropped her blades on the table and leaned against the wall, gently pulling her leg into a cool down stretch. “Wondering if one of your houses is spilling secrets?”
“Wondering how they let you get away,” he corrected. Acacia laughed.
“It’s nothing so drastic, I assure you. But if you really want to know, perhaps a trade?”
“I’m listening.”
“You make breakfast, and I’ll regale you with the particulars of my training.”
Lucanis grinned and set his mug aside, gathering his hair into a bun. “Any specific requests?”
“Hot. And not poisoned.”
“Coming right up.”
Acacia pulled out one of the dining chairs and sat down, stretching her fingers out to her toes like a cat before the fire. Her braids dangled over her shoulders, wispy ends brushing the stone floor.
“Starkhaven,” she said, sitting up. “That’s where I learned to fight. And not from a Crow. Where he learned to fight well—“ she shrugged “—that was his business, not mine.”
“I should have guessed. Is that where you’re from, then?”
“No.” Though it was a common assumption, with her accent, and not one she was in any hurry to correct. Their error, her advantage. But she had no intention of elaborating on that. “I simply spent a great deal of time there.”
Lucanis scooped a pile of shredded potatoes onto the edge of his knife and dumped them into the pan already sizzling with onions. “So. Not from Starkhaven, but trained there. Formally?”
“Not in the way that you mean it.” Acacia ran a hand down the frizzy mess of her plaits, then loosened one leather tie and began methodically combing her fingers through the waves. “I was paying my way as a bookkeeper. One of my clients… inadvertently connected me to Starkhaven’s thieves' guild.”
Lucanis snorted, half interest and half amusement. Acacia hesitated—this could get complicated, very quickly. It wasn’t like the South, where it was safe to assume their knowledge of events beyond their own borders was limited. “You know of it?”
“In name only.” He glanced at her, cracking eggs into a bowl. “Keeping tabs on rival guilds wasn’t really my specialty. And thieves’ guilds are low on the Crows’ radar anyway. Our clientèle rarely overlaps where it matters.”
“Mhm. We stayed away from death when we could. Most people were in it for the profit, and so close to Antiva, the coin isn’t in killing unless you’re a Crow.”
“Were you?” he asked, whisking away at the eggs. Acacia cocked her head, confused. “In it for the profit,” he clarified. She hummed noncommittally.
“Not really. I mean, everyone needs coin. But what they really offered me was protection. A safe, consistent place to live and work, with people who were largely tolerable.”
“All too rare, these days.”
“Just so.”
“I’ll admit to some skepticism,” Lucanis said, mixing chopped vegetables and a healthy pinch of seasoning into the egg mixture before pouring it into a cast-iron pan. He slid it into their little oven and set about flipping the potatoes. “Most thieves I’ve known were ‘single dagger where it counts and get out’ type of people.”
Acacia leaned her chair back on two legs and fiddled with her still-bound braid. “They are. But I wasn’t a thief. I was just their bookkeeper.”
There was a long pause, broken only by the scrape of the spatula against the pan, the hiss of raw potato hitting hot oil. Finally, Lucanis set the spatula aside and folded his arms, leaning against the counter and raising a disbelieving brow at her. “That seems like a technicality.”
“Oh, it was.” Acacia laughed. “But it mattered to me, then. And they needed someone honest with numbers to stop up their leaks.”
“I imagine. That sort of business gets messy without a tight hand on the purse strings.” Lucanis picked up his coffee and leaned against the mantle, looking down at her. “So, how did you go from token straight-and-narrow to trained like an assassin?”
Acacia sucked her bottom lip into her mouth, considering, then pushed her hair back behind her shoulders. Her fingers slowly undid the laces of her tunic, baring her neck and treating her to the sight of Lucanis’ lips parted, an adorable blush rising in his cheeks. But both his embarrassment and her amusement faded when she tugged her collar aside.
A scar, jagged and gnarled like an old tree root, marred her collarbone. She traced a finger along to where it disappeared back beneath her tunic and wrapped around her heart.
“Ah.” Lucanis nodded. “Almost dying would be an incentive, I suppose.”
Acacia chuckled. “Yeah. It turns out that my technicality didn’t matter to the shops on our protection racket. One of the merchants figured he could buy an assassination for less than he was paying us, in the long run.”
She calmly laced the tunic back up. “Luckily for me, he was also too cheap to hire the Crows, and Lewis, my original contact in the guild, found me before I bled out.”
Lucanis laughed quietly. “Lucky indeed. And you decided the technicalities weren’t worth dying for?”
“It puts things into perspective. But the guild decided for me. If I wanted to keep my job, I had to learn to protect myself.”
“That is slightly more believable,” Lucanis allowed, returning to the stove. He broke up the larger chunks of potato and flipped them over. The delicious aroma of crispy hash browns drifted around Acacia and she licked her lips, resisting the urge to nick a taste before he finished. “But there is still a difference between defending yourself and an assassin’s style.”
“Sounds like a defensive assassin,” she teased, shrugging away his objections. “Lewis said the best defense was a clean offense. If they’re on the back foot, you never have to counter their attacks.”
“That explains why you never block.”
“Hey!” Acacia laughed a protest as he pulled the cast iron out of the oven and dished up two plates. “Didn’t this start with you complimenting my style?”
“It did start that way.” He set her breakfast in front of her and Acacia hummed, pleased and hungry as she scooted closer to the table. Talking about the past was a minefield, but at least she was getting a good meal out of it.
“No poison?”
“None,” he confirmed, amused. “So, how did you go from Starkhaven bookkeeper thief to Shadow Dragon?”
Acacia froze with a bite of egg halfway to her mouth. The origins of her training ended there; she hadn’t expected him to press for more. Blessedly, the door opened, sparing her a moment to think up a believable lie.
“Ooh, did Lucanis cook?” Neve strolled in and it was Acacia’s turn to appreciate an open collar. Until Lucanis stood and began fixing a third plate. She huffed.
“Oh, so she gets breakfast for free? Why did it cost me my life’s story?”
“I believe the terms of our deal were set by you.”
Glaring sullenly, Acacia popped a bite in her mouth. Her irritation melted away at the burst of light, fluffy flavor. “Fuck, that’s good.”
“It’s the salt,” Neve said, kicking her feet up onto one of the empty chairs. “Tarquin is allergic to the stuff, but Ashur gets offended if you suggest anyone else should cook. But anyway—we’re paying for breakfast with stories?”
“Finally going to tell us one of yours?”
Neve laughed. “No. But I can answer Lucanis’ last question.”
Ice flooded Acacia’s veins. She’d been relatively evasive with the Shadow Dragons—which no one called her on, because most of them were too busy being evasive themselves. So what did Neve know?
“Really?” Lucanis leaned forward, curious. “Been digging into our illustrious leader?”
“Didn’t have to. Something like that goes down in a guild so well-established, it ripples through the network. All the way to Minrathous.”
“Alright, I’ll bite.” Acacia pushed a shred of potato around her plate, feigning nonchalance. “What is it you think you know?”
“I don’t think anything.” Neve sipped her coffee and Lucanis winced. His fingers twitched like he was holding himself back from snatching her mug away. “They framed you for murder.”
Acacia bit down on her tongue to suppress what would have been an entirely inappropriate grin. This, this was explicable. Without really lying, even! For a moment, she’d wondered if Lace had gone back on her word—a foolish thought, in retrospect. She disguised her relief by sagging her shoulders and training her gaze on her plate.
“Yeah.” She set down her fork and loosened the tie on her other braid. “They did.”
“A classic. You were only framed?”
“Don’t tell me it would bother you if I had killed them?” Acacia snorted, separating the twists of her plait. Lucanis smirked.
“That would depend on the reason.”
“They said it was a power grab,” Neve offered, watching Acacia curiously. So she wasn’t completely confident in her source. “That you wanted to take over the guild and offed the leadership to do that.”
“That just goes to show it was a frame up, and anyone who was paying attention knew it.” Acacia dragged her fingers through her unbound hair slowly. “Not that many people were paying attention. But you couldn’t take over by murdering the people in charge of our guild. There was always a line of succession in place.”
“Wouldn’t that give them an obvious suspect? How did the blame fall on you?”
“He was the one who framed me,” Acacia said dryly. “Unfortunately, both he and the guildmasters were well loved, and I woke up by their corpses, covered in blood. I never stood a chance.” Her fingers stilled on her hair and she sighed. This story was an old wound, easier to tell now that she knew the way it healed, but every word still ached. “Lewis always was a charming bastard.”
“The man who recruited you?” Lucanis whistled lowly. “Ouch.”
“Yeah. It was a bid for power—his. He wasn’t content to wait out their natural deaths.” Acacia glanced at Neve. “How long have you known that was me?”
“Roughly since Varric told me he’d brought you on. He had some information, and I’d heard some things, and you were using the same name.”
“Not the same name,” Acacia protested. “Casey is a perfectly common first name! And I changed my last name.”
“Yes, to Mercar, that of a well-known general who was regularly in the papers.” Neve rolled her eyes. “Obviously fake.”
“So you just never mentioned it?”
“It never came up.”
“Sure,” Acacia rolled her eyes right back. “If you say so.”
Lucanis leaned back in his chair and hummed thoughtfully. “So, you went to the Shadow Dragons to hide?”
“Not quite. Lewis wasn’t content to let me run off—there were… other complications where he was concerned.”
Neve snorted. “Nothing like a jilted lover chasing you across Thedas.”
The legs of Acacia’s chair clattered against on the stone floor and she caught herself with a tight grip on the table’s edge. Their silverware rattled as she glared at Neve. She was going to kill Varric—a thought that throbbed between her temples, so she pushed it away. “Seriously?”
“Oh, that didn’t come from Varric. Or Harding,” Neve added, seeing Acacia’s next thought. “It’s just not that hard to read between the lines.”
“He chased you romantically when you ran? After framing you for murder?” Lucanis snorted into his coffee. “Mierda. Even I could read the room on that one.”
Acacia sighed. “He might have had a screw or two loose. When I broke things off with him, he tried crazier and crazier things to get me back. I guess he thought I would beg him to save me from the guild’s wrath. Maker,” she shook her head, digging back into her breakfast. “Saying it out loud like that sounds really, really stupid.”
“And you slept with him.” Neve snorted.
“Crazy and good in bed are separate measures.”
“Oh, so he was—“
“So,” Lucanis interrupted, coughing pointedly as Acacia and Neve snickered. “Should we be worried about him popping up as we run around?”
Acacia grinned wickedly, and Neve chuckled under her breath. “That’s a no, then.”
“He’s dead,” Acacia said. “He did catch up to me, eventually. Still hadn’t learned to take ‘no’ for an answer, so I introduced him to a few of my new tricks.” She pointed her fork at Lucanis and smirked. “Now there’s a murder I’ll cop to.”
“Fully justified, if I’ve ever heard one.” Lucanis set his empty coffee mug down on the table. “So if not protection, what drove you to the Shadow Dragons, then?”
Acacia shrugged. “Boredom? Proximity? I came north to escape the chaos in Southern Thedas. The Shadows had a good cause and the community I missed from the guild, with a lot less of the politicking. And maths weren’t my only skill any longer, so I had options.”
She popped the last bite of egg into her mouth and stacked her plate on top of Neve’s. “And there you have it. Sorry to disappoint, but any similarities in my style and the Crows’ is purely coincidental. Fairly bland tale, all things considered.”
Lucanis barked a laugh. “I think we have different definitions of fairly bland.”
“You’re part of an organization straight out of legend! You called being framed for murder a classic!”
“Exactly—it’s a classic for a reason. And no less interesting for it.” Lucanis stood and picked up the dishes, headed for the sink. “So, how did you come to the Shadow Dragons, then?”
“Uh uh.” Acacia shook her head, also standing and reaching for her blades. “You got your story, and I got my meal. If you want more, you can try again at supper. Neve and I have pressing business in Minrathous.”
“Do we?” Neve asked, brow furrowing. “I don’t remember—“
“A request from Ashur,” Acacia lied smoothly. It might not even be a lie; she was fairly certain they would have something for her as soon as she showed up. “I assume sooner is better than later.”
“It always is. We should bring Bel—she’s on about her serials again.”
“Leaving me with the clean-up. I see how it is,” Lucanis said. But he was smiling, and Acacia knew he didn’t mind. She looped by the wash basin and lightly squeezed his shoulder.
“Should have worked the dishes into the terms of the deal,” she said sweetly, laughing her way out the door. As it shut behind them, the detective nudged her ribs and gave her a pointed look. “What?”
“Lucanis might not know, but I’m well aware that what happened with your guild went down over a decade ago. You left out quite a bit of time in that little story.”
Acacia hummed, focused on weaving her hair back into its braids. “It wasn’t relevant to what he asked.”
“What he asked was to know more about you. I don’t think he would have minded a bit of extrapolation. Which means you are the one who cared.”
Acacia stopped short and propped a hand on her hip. “Are you planning to buy us a second breakfast in Dock Town?”
“Not particularly.” Neve cocked a brow. “Why?”
“Because that’s my new price. If you want the story you’re angling for, buy me a meal. What the meal is will inform what version of the story you get. And I promise,” she added, starting toward the main building again, “Hal’s fish is not the version you want.”
“Hey! I won’t stand for slandering Hal’s fish.” Neve laughed, snagging the door as she caught up to Acacia. “I’ll get it out of you eventually, you know. I’ve got the thread of it now.”
A chill shivered down Acacia’s spine and she paused by the stairs. It was a bad idea, really. The last person that wormed his way into her history like that, well—he was part of the reason she didn’t volunteer the story.
Unfortunately, she’d always liked a bad idea. Especially one with pretty eyes, and a dangerous smile. She offered one of her own and started up the stairs.
“I look forward to watching you try.”