Chapter 20 To Be Free #3
"How did you figure it out?" she whispered, staring at her knees, barely feeling Az’s touch as he comforted her. Her voice was soft, but they all heard her.
"From the same females we chase. Merath and Emarelia," Graves answered.
"Who are they?" Jealousy stirred inside her. "How long have you known?"
"We found out only shortly before you. We were going to tell you, but did not want to make you upset. Not when your magic was so volatile." Air whipped around Vale as he spoke, lifting strands of his golden hair and making his shirt billow. "Emarelia is Tharen’s predecessor. The prior Prima."
At his words, she recalled an earlier time.
When she had been dropped, sightless, into a room because of her bargain with Tharen—when she felt pleasure, she would appear before him.
They had been discussing a prior Prima. Which had led her and Az into the library at the castle of Serpentis, searching for a recount of those who had held the title of Prima.
Their search had not gone far, thanks to Bastian and his sensually distracting ways.
"So we’re going to find T-Tharen’s predecessor?" Tharen smirked when she stumbled over his name. "Why would she know about me and my past?"
"Emarelia was close friends with the Queen of Luna. She’s a…
strange female, and she has well deserved her rest. We started to ponder over who could have been powerful enough to place a glamor on you for nearly two decades, so powerful that it would hide wings—only a Prima could.
So we started to search for her. We could not find her, but we found her lover, Merath.
When Graves and Tharen left for Medius, they were searching for her.
They found Merath, and she revealed that the Tenebrae"—Vale’s hands tightened on the ship’s wheel—"had coerced Emarelia into glamoring a stolen babe. "
There it was again. Consuming panic.
Luella nodded jerkily. "And Merath left the note for us to find… To go to them at the Fallen Isles?"
"Yes," Tharen interjected from her side. "We hope they have answers about your power. At least a better understanding, so we don’t have to tiptoe around you and risk upsetting your magic." He eyed her pointedly, but the barb fell flat.
Her chin brushed her knees as she hugged herself, her wings not even giving a twinge at her back. She felt healed, alight with energy, like she could dance and twirl until sundown. So why did she want to give in to the temptation of curling up?
They continued to talk, while she continued to spiral. Plans of what they would do when they arrive at the Fallen Isles, what they would speak to Emarelia about...
Luella was so wrapped up in her own mind, she wasn’t aware when someone was nudging her, calling, "Lu, Lu. Are you okay, angel? What can I do?"
She looked up, finding them all staring at her. How long had they been watching her like that—with overt concern?
"I think someone is having a crisis," Tharen taunted.
"Do not listen to him, pet. It’s normal—what you are feeling," Bastian sighed, "but if there is anything we can do…"
"I-I need to be alone," she managed. Slowly, she stood, feeling her legs wobble. She braced a hand on the wooden pole, staring at her feet, once more, and trying to ignore the sea wrapping around them from all sides.
She shivered violently, feeling the salt-tinged air move through the feathers on her wings.
Az stood, too, but she stared up at him with big, pleading blue eyes. "Alone, Az. Please?"
She tried to ignore the brief flash of pain that flickered over his handsome face—soft, for her only.
"It isn’t safe," Az started. "You can barely stand, let alone walk. Let me come with you?" He posed it as a question, for her benefit.
Luella shook her head, feeling the magic she had called back knock against the bars of the invisible cage in her chest. As if her ribs kept it leashed. Barely. "I c-cannot… I need to be alone. To think."
"Let her go," Vale ordered lowly. "We’re at sea. Where can she go?"
"Trouble has a habit of finding her, no matter the circumstances," Bastian intervened.
A soft snap drew her attention back to the King, fingers poised before him as his other hand gripped the wheel, steering them through the gusting winds.
"Stay below deck, Luella." With his full attention, she couldn’t ignore the deep shadows under his eyes, nor the haggard set to his posture.
He needed sleep. Worry filled her, and his shoulders tensed.
Could he feel her concern? She hated that.
"Go. Do not worry about me," Vale said.
She was trying not to.
Her chin dipped as she watched the deck, tiptoeing across the slick wood, a hand braced on anything she could reach to maintain her balance.
It was slow going, and she felt their eyes on her back, her wings shivering in time with the air that rushed over her.
The water lapped against the sides of the ship, and each soft sound made the anxiety inside her well up with fury.
As she carefully walked down the stairs, a hand braced on the railing, she spotted the door Az had led her through, set in the floor of the deck. That was where she went—not the captain’s quarters at her back, with the real bed and curving window that taunted her. She needed blissful darkness.
Something soft curled around her legs as she walked, and she glanced down, finding Ven twining around her ankles. An echo of a smile touched Luella’s lips.
As she ventured below deck, their voices turned to a soft, hissed mumble.
"You need to rest. We’re switching shifts, so you and Vale can get some sleep," she heard Graves argue.
Tharen’s voice grew louder. "No, I’m needed here. Vale can go. I’ll stay. What if there’s another storm and you need my magic to help us get through it?"
"Then we’ll come get you," Graves asserted lowly. "Leave. You’re no good to us if you’re both dead on your feet."
The rest of their words were drowned out as the door latched above her, casting her in windowless darkness, with only a few flames flickering in the long, wooden halls.
The sides were close by. So, she braced a hand on each side as she walked, allowing the steady sway of the ship to propel her listless body forward, Ven twining around her ankles and almost tripping her on multiple occasions.
She didn’t know where she was going, what she was doing… She just needed to get out. To be free. Even if that freedom was a farce.