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There is no remedy for love but to love more. ― Henry David Thoreau
I.
The Lighthouse, this place, was removed from the rest of the world. There was no one in the room but the two of them. They were safe. It was as if the universe had hidden them away simply so they could be together.
They were lounging on the chaise. Rook was curled against his side, playing with his hand. The book they had been reading together was momentarily forgotten, however, as a pattern emerged in how her fingers slid over and against his. With a bit more pressure behind the touch, she would be massaging his hand.
It was a technique used by Necropolis healers to ease stiffness and aches. Issues that left unchecked could worsen and interfere with casting or aim. Issues that could ultimately cost Rook her life. She had probably memorized the treatment due to how frequently she had required it during the War of Banners, the event that had sparked her to adapt more of a battlemage role than academic.
“Darling?”
“You can continue without me,” she said. “I’m getting too tired to focus on this the way I’d like to.”
Emmrich set the book in his lap and touched her jaw. A silent request Rook answered as her dark eyes lifted.
“Then you should rest. There is so much strain on you already without adding to it, and that includes your wrist,” Emmrich reminded. “I assure you that my hands are in excellent condition and don’t necessitate the care or attention you are contemplating.”
“You do have beautiful hands, but maybe I think you just deserve the care and attention.”
The corner of his mouth ticked up, and Emmrich curled his fingers around her aggravated wrist. Extracting it gently so he could press a solitary kiss to the delicate bones and tendons there.
“Your ability to compliment never ceases to amaze.”
“Someone has to tell you how wonderful you are.”
Her reply, the soft, sweet look she gave him— it made flowers bloom in the desert of his heart, and Emmrich was compelled forward by it, bowing his head to kiss her.
Alongside the brush of her lips against his, Emmrich felt the type of happiness he had observed in other people— the sort that did not need to be deconstructed or verified whether or not it was real— and was struck with a sudden clarity as to why.
He loved her.
It was far too soon in their courtship to express such sentiments. Emmrich would not even know where to start. As it stood, he could hardly begin to trace all the threads tying him to her or grasp how they came to be.
When he pulled back, Rook still wore the expression that could only be one of them, but the dark circles beneath her eyes had no place on someone so young.
“Sleep, dearest. You need it to keep your mind as fortified as possible so Solas cannot intrude outside when you initiate it.”
“Would you mind if I just slept here? I like it here, with you.”
“I’d welcome it,” Emmrich promised, then threaded his fingers through hers as Rook settled back into his side. “I can even read to you if you’d like.”
“See?” she said. “Wonderful.”
Emmrich continued to read aloud long after he felt Rook slip into the Fade proper, seeking to delay the temptation to dwell or question decisions already made.
II.
The first time Emmrich truly had an inexorable urge to tell her occurred several days later.
He was unsure when Rook had returned from Treviso. Only that it had been long enough for her to at least bathe and her dark, ashen curls to dry. But whatever had occurred had clearly wounded her.
Rook tried to hide it. Suppress it as she always did to keep her mental defenses up, then distract herself by tending to everyone’s needs but her own. However, this time, Emmrich could not abide by it. There appeared to be more than she could hold. The line of her shoulders was so rigid he was afraid the stress was beginning to cause her actual physical harm.
“Dearest,” Emmrich began. “I hope you know that you are not alone in this. I am here for anything you might need.”
Rook nodded, and then a faint smile flickered across her features. Whatever was on her mind must have been too heavy to allow anything more.
“I know,” she said. “Some days are just— harder than others.”
“May I ask what happened?”
She shrugged a shoulder and looked away. “I had to kill Chance because the Blight is still infecting people despite everything we’ve done to contain it. He had enough of his mind left to thank me for it, too, right before he died.”
“Oh, darling,” Emmrich sighed, gathering her into his arms. He trailed his thumb back and forth over the steps of her ribs. The tension in her frame loosened some as he held her. “I am sorry, but for what it’s worth, I’m sure it was sincerely meant.”
“Knowing that doesn’t help as much as I thought it would.”
“What will?”
Rook placed her hands on his chest and pulled back to look up at him. “Take me to bed? I’ve had enough of the bad lately, and I could really use a reminder of what it’s all for.”
His heart caught as he stared down at her, but there was nothing to say or do besides as she wished. Each minute, hour, or moment stolen with Rook before obligation seized her back was time he would fight, research, and lose sleep over to ensure there would be another.
Another kiss. Another laugh crinkling the corners of her eyes. Another chance to make love because that was what it was now— different in a way that could signify nothing else.
There was still skin and silk sheets and the incredible sensation of being inside her. The air still had traces of meditative incense and was dimly lit by light that seemed to come from nowhere and everywhere at once. Rook was limned by it, her spine straight, unabashed and unashamed as she moved above him.
Emmrich met the motion of her body, gliding himself in and out, unhurried but deep. Took pleasure in her and in the sight of her. But then their fingers entwined as Rook sighed his name, and Emmrich thought he had never experienced a moment more beautiful.
His toes curled into the plush rug as he tasted it on his tongue.
I love you.
Emmrich tugged on her hand, encouraging her closer to taste her instead.
Rook obliged, leaning over to kiss him. The shift in angle made the next roll of her hips exquisite, and she echoed the opinion, pressing her forehead against his as she gasped.
His fingers tightened on her. The pleasure growing until Emmrich was convinced he couldn’t last, couldn’t give her what she needed, but then Rook shattered. Clinging to him as Emmrich guided her hips so he could join her in bliss.
Afterward, when the silk bedding had been dragged up around them and Rook was kissing him, slow and lingering, Emmrich bit it back again. It was not the time. He would not risk disrupting the sense of contentment and peace he could feel in her now.
Rook had wanted to lose herself in something good, and that’s what this was. Good. For now, knowing she reciprocated that much was entirely enough.
III.
The comfort and serenity of his room suffered when he took it upon himself to oversee Johanna’s imprisonment in what was left of her mortal remains. It was a loss Emmrich felt immensely some days. Both in terms of his relationship with Rook and the sense of home the space provided. However, should the rooms in the Necropolis shuffle unexpectedly and Johanna become lost, the wrong Watcher could stumble upon her, and all of their efforts could be undone by her wit and cunning alone.
As a fellow Watcher herself, Rook understood the necessity, even if she despised Johanna’s presence unreservedly. It was a state of loathing Emmrich could not begin to feel himself despite everything, and therefore, almost envied. How much easier this must be fueled by anger or resentment versus the labyrinthian mess he was navigating!
At least, it was not wholly unfamiliar. Emmrich had mourned the loss of this friendship in the past, along with Johanna’s folly. Time was the answer. However, distance would undoubtedly be beneficial.
And Rook did so enjoy returning home when the opportunity presented itself.
“Emmrich?” she called from below as if summoned by these thoughts.
“I’m upstairs, darling!”
As quickly as his spirits had begun to lift, they fell again as Johanna chimed in. The acoustical properties of the room only provided fragments of an exchange Emmrich would rather not hear at all as equally as catch every word.
Volkarin’s paramour— at his age— actually fond of him—
Then, the sharp edge to Rook’s tone cutting her off, the one that said she had enough.
None of that unhappiness lingered or was redirected toward him, though. When Rook came into view and their gazes locked, she smiled so vibrantly that his chest ached. Truly, Emmrich did not know how he had merited such a soul.
“Rook!” Manfred greeted in the infinitesimal space Emmrich required to catch his breath.
“Hello, Manfred. Rematch later?”
“Yes!”
“I found some string you might like,” she said, holding up a golden thread.
“Thank you!”
Rook chuckled slightly and stepped aside as Manfred ran off to add it to his collection. “You’re welcome,” she said, then turned her attention toward him. “I don’t have anything for you, but I wish I did.”
“Your presence alone is a gift, my dearest,” Emmrich told her.
Rook came around the table and leaned against it. “I suppose that’s more literally meant than usual, considering this isn’t where you like to write your letters.”
“Johanna has been remarkably combative today.”
“I noticed.”
Emmrich sighed. “I am sorry that she continues to needle at you.”
“You still have nothing to apologize for, Emmrich, about any of this, and I know she says worse to you.”
“Clearly, there are new things for her to use against me,” Emmrich allowed delicately. “But overall, it is nothing I haven’t heard from her before in one form or another.”
“That doesn’t make it okay,” Rook said darkly, a hint of that malice rising along with the simple truth.
She really disliked the thought of anyone harming him, just as Emmrich disliked the thought of anyone harming her, but the idea fed her anger where it fed his fears. He could still recall how tension had shot through Rook when they overheard the gods singling him out as retribution for her actions against them. How anger had lanced through her so sharply the Fade seemed to pull toward her.
“It’s fine, dearest,” Emmrich tried. “I’m fine.”
Hearing the lie as she always did, (honestly, Emmrich was unsure why he ever attempted it,) Rook pushed off the table and straddled his lap.
“You’re not,” she said, her arms wrapping around him. “But you will be.”
The almost distant manner in which Rook spoke made him wonder if she was reassuring him or reminding herself. Emmrich lowered his head to kiss her pulse point in comfort, and then he buried his face in the hollow between her neck and shoulder for his own, inhaling the scent of her.
Oh, how he loved her. How desperately he wanted to tell her, too. But not when he was feeling so obviously maudlin. Rook deserved better. She deserved flowers and candlelight and to be made to feel like his greatest treasure.
“Don’t let her get to you, all right?” Rook murmured as her fingers sifted through his hair.
He brushed his lips over her neck again.
And again.
“I plan to return to the Necropolis to collect a few books from my office if you’d like to join me,” he said.
“As if I’d say no.”
IV.
There were other times Emmrich had wanted to tell her, but those three memories kindled like fire in his mind. Bright, where there had been shadows of doubt and fear, then casting new shadows of their own. Ones of regret. But that was Rook— radiant. A brilliant light driving away the darkness.
Or, at least, she usually was.
Currently, Rook was more akin to the sun above, eclipsed by something that should not be there. Still steady and unwavering, stunning in its own way even, but obstructed.
It was apparent in how Rook stared out over the sea toward their unseen destination instead of being present. As if their argument had caused Rook to suppress actual pieces of herself to keep her mind clear for the task ahead.
“I fear I have made a grave mistake, Taash.”
“I figured so,” Taash said. “Rook’s acting weird, and you’re not together. Weren’t together last night either. So, what’d you do? Something stupid?”
Emmrich sighed. He had chosen mortality. He had chosen to live in a way life had never granted him until Rook. Emmrich had wanted to confess why that choice had been so easy to make, and he did, in a way, but not before it registered what it would mean should Rook return the depth of his devotion.
The grief and loss that would wrack her when his death inevitably came to pass. How he would not be there to comfort her in her darkest hours. His mind had continued to race, unfolding one terrible scenario after another that Emmrich could not prevent from befalling her— nor himself— and those terrors that had plagued him his whole life worsened exponentially.
Simply put, he had panicked and tried to spare them both altogether.
“Incredibly stupid,” Emmrich admitted.
“Then, fix it.”
“What if I can’t?”
Taash shrugged. “Then, you can’t, but she’d do anything for us. Trying will at least remind her that you’d do anything for her, too. She deserves that much.”
Emmrich nodded, his heart sinking at how much he had failed Rook when she probably needed him most. Then, Emmrich made his way to the bow of the ship.
The wind was crisp and cold off the water. In any direction, one could see all the way to where the sky met the horizon. None of it made Emmrich feel any less trapped, however. Trapped by his fears and mistakes, by the knowledge how he felt only made some things harder.
“Rook? Darling? I wanted to say—”
She smirked bitterly, seemingly against her will, and glanced away. “Yeah, about that argument…”
Emmrich sighed. “It’s no time to apologize, is it?”
A gust caught her hair, making the curls dance as Rook hesitated before she finally looked up at him. This close, Emmrich could discern that her eyes were not only heavily lined with kohl but also with dark shadows from lack of sleep, making his heart ache anew.
“We’ll talk back home, Emmrich,” she said. “I promise. I just can’t afford anything else right now. You can stay, though, if you’d like.”
Emmrich did not verbally respond. He did not know what he could possibly say. With everything that existed between them removed, it all felt surface. Empty. And that— that was the worst part, but he did stay. The offer was more than Emmrich had expected her to give, and the faint spark of hope was enough to sustain him.
However, as Rook extended that allowance, giving him the peace of mind to be with her through the trials they faced, it struck him that he had, somehow, imparted the same upon her. By the time they were halfway to the summit, Rook seemed less spiderwebbed from head to toe with fault lines. Less like one more blow would break her because everything rested on her shoulders, and no one was there to help her carry it.
Emmrich swore to himself that when this was over, he would ensure Rook never felt even a fraction of that again. But then poor Davrin and Assan were the cost of felling Ghilan’nain, and he was unable to do anything but watch with horror as the Veil opened up and took her too.
V.
He did what he could to lock out the future that would be haunted by that moment to focus on the horrible present. To find a way to get Rook back while the world fell apart around them.
If it was to be done, Emmrich was the only one who could succeed. He was the only one who had extensively studied the Fade and Solas’ dagger. The only one who possessed not only the necessary expertise and precise measurements but was among the leading researchers in theoretical metaphysics of the Veil.
Kal-Sharok had been less than thrilled by his combined sense of urgency and ultraprecision regarding the lyrium blade’s replication. Nevertheless, a micron of difference in angle, size, or shape could prevent the dagger from making contact with the Veil whatsoever.
Emmrich was aware it had been a task that required time and considerable care, but he missed Rook so desperately that it was hard to breathe sometimes. The loss was almost physically painful, as though the hundreds of strings that bound him to her had not been broken but torn out.
Keeping himself dutifully occupied held the worst of it at bay, and after days of futile scrying and examining areas where the Veil was thin, hoping to detect even a trace of Rook’s magic, having the replica in his possession had been precisely what Emmrich needed.
Layering the Fade into the lyrium without runes etched into the surface or any form of external conduit besides himself was a painstaking, elaborate, and thus welcome venture. It required the ability to filter out distractions, of which there were plenty with the state of chaos the Fade had been thrown into, and focus on channeling it with extremely delicate nuance.
It was during one of these sessions of bending the Fade to his will that Emmrich sensed her.
He’d hoped—
But being blindsided by it still felt like being gutted.
Gravity reclaimed the dagger as his concentration shattered. Still, Emmrich caught the blade, clutching it to his chest like a lifeline because that’s what it was. A lifeline. Emmrich knew he could endure all things if the hope of getting Rook back remained.
And it did. It grew even.
Over the following week, her magical signature reached him in flickers with growing frequency and strength, allowing Emmrich to gradually trace her to Arlathan. However, with all of the raw magic and pockets of distortion surrounding the forest, it was difficult to further narrow their search.
He fell back upon searching places where the Veil was thin to no avail until one day, he seemed to happen upon her. It was reminiscent of the occasions Emmrich would visit the dining hall or return to his room and feel her magic greet him before Rook was given the opportunity herself.
“Rook— Esha, darling!”
His spirit soared when her presence strengthened as if Rook had heard and was coming toward him, but then, for some reason, it wavered. Emmrich worriedly called out for her again, but the response, the comforting feel of having her magic within reach, only faded back into nothingness.
In that moment, he thought the regret might kill him.
Emmrich desperately wished he had spent the night before Tearstone making love to Rook and holding her close. Whispering how he felt into her mouth as her arms wrapped around him. Because, rationally, Emmrich knew there was no guarantee he would have the chance to right that wrong. Not with his continued inability to get the dagger to work properly.
Rook was not Solas. She was not immortal. How long she could survive in this prison was one more unknown working against him.
A sense of utter hopelessness overcame him, and back at the Lighthouse, Emmrich retreated to his empty bed, and he wept.
+I.
Emmrich cried when he got her back, too. Tears of pure relief and elation had sprung into his eyes without warning at the feel of her in his arms again.
The force necessary to pull Rook through the Veil had sent them all sprawling on top of one another. Still, even when Rook could extract herself from them, she had remained, holding onto him just as tightly as he held onto her. Releasing her in the face of that had been difficult, and not only because Emmrich had missed her so terribly.
Rook had felt rather— fragile in his hands. She always seemed so indomitable, but the keeper of his heart was only human. Flesh and bone against odds that had been pushed higher and steeper until she reached a point of utter improbability and broke under the weight of everything.
That she had managed to pick up the pieces and find her way back to them only highlighted her strength.
Though, hours later, after Emmrich had finished his portion of the work to be done so Rook could rest, he found her in the infirmary, staring at a carefully folded jacket and the broken pieces of his crossbow. Emmrich could not help but wonder, then, how much of that unstoppable drive was attributed to the people around her. The individuals who lifted her up and gave her so much to fight for, even the ones she had lost.
Emmrich wished he had the privilege of meeting Varric. If only to thank the man who had helped Rook heal and grow when she had been unfairly banished from the only home she knew. He also wished he had discerned Solas altering her perception of reality. However, talking to the dead or seeking the comfort of a loved one’s presence in a shrine or an object of importance like this was nothing out of place for them.
“I was wondering when you were going to turn up. I was starting to think you were mad at me,” Rook said, but there was a faint glimmer in her eyes.
Emmrich wanted to cry again, but he only smiled as the flood of it passed through him. Of course, she would stand there and impart forgiveness in the form of a simple quip.
“I am the farthest thing from upset at having you back, dearest. I only stopped by my office in the Necropolis on a related matter. Something to discuss shortly, if we could.”
“Of course we can, but I was hoping you were getting some rest yourself,” she said. “The others might have sold you out, but honestly, all the work you put into that dagger already did.”
He sighed. “It was difficult to lose you like that. To know where you were but not how to get you back. So I tried everything. I didn’t know what else to do.”
Rook fell silent for several seconds as she glanced away, back toward Varric’s belongings. “I heard you once— before I was ready to,” she said. “I didn’t realize I wasn’t until the prison responded, and then, it felt like being rejected all over again.”
Suddenly, it hurt again. His hand lifted, but Emmrich refrained from touching her. “Esha, darling, I’m sorry. I am so sorry. I wish I had—”
“I know,” she said, taking his hand and threading their fingers together. “I knew it then, too, but what that place did to you… everything you regretted or hated about yourself was amplified until you wanted to give up.
“I don’t know if I could have done it without Varric, and it was him. His soul. No spirit could have withstood what I was feeling without being corrupted into Despair or Desolation. But he told me to listen to my team like I always did, then I heard you again…”
Unexpectedly, Rook’s eyes filled with tears, and then they spilled over, leaving bright streaks on her dark skin. “I love you, Emmrich. I have for a while, but I knew how much the comments about us bothered you. Some part of me thought I might doom us if I said it.”
“Oh, my dearest heart,” Emmrich said, wrapping her in his arms. He was taller than Rook, and her head fell just beneath his chin as if they were perfectly fitted to each other in every way. He wiped her tears away with his thumb and whispered soothing words into her hair.
“None of my doubts or fears were ever any fault of yours. When we met, I never imagined you’d be interested in me, then after you were…”
Emmrich gently separated himself from Rook to take her face in his hands. Like her soul, that spark intrinsic to who she was, Rook was devastatingly beautiful.
There was so much he wanted to tell her. Feelings Emmrich wished to express but did not have the words for. He could speak for hours, trying to capture how it felt to lose her. That absence of self, like his soul had been severed from his body only to feel whole again when she returned. And still have more to say.
“I’d given up on finding someone like you and having the life I always dreamed of,” Emmrich tried. “You are the most magnificent thing to ever happen to me, Rook.”
He pressed his lips to her forehead before bending down to kiss her softly.
“I love you too,” he finally told her, simply.
“Don’t try to leave me again,” she breathed.
“I won’t, darling. Nothing will ever part me from you.”
Rook nodded slightly, and when she kissed him again, it felt like the start of something that would be eternal.
Emmrich could almost see it, how it would all take shape when this was done. The ring he would give her as a symbol of what they shared, the dress she would wear when Rook officially made her heart his home. He would hold her tight in his arms every night and see her face each morning until one had to leave the other behind.
But even then, Emmrich would do what was necessary to find her again so they could continue to walk eternity hand in hand.