Chapter 30 Torrent of Musings
TORRENT OF MUSINGS
LUELLA
There was a soft knock on the door to Luella’s mind.
Her white hair fanned above her as she lay on the bed, tracing the cracks in the stone walls, wondering how many more it would take until everything crumbled.
Thunder boomed outside. Distant, but there. Rocking through the entire mountain.
She did not move as she sent a loud refusal battering against the door of her mind.
Get out!
She wanted no company, nor mercy from her thoughts. She was content to die in the torrent of her musings.
The knocking did not cease. A present, tap-tap-tap against the door of her thoughts.
She imagined it to be a door crafted of wood, with blooming flowers crawling up the sides.
Inviting and warm like the fragility of spring, right before the air turned thick and hot—the time of seasons in which they were quickly approaching. Spring.
Winter was relinquishing its hold on everyone and everything, and she felt it ever more clearly in the warmth of the Fallen Isles.
Luella imagined the flowers and vines snaking up the wooden door growing ripe with thorns, repelling the one who wished to steal into her mind. The interloper of her thoughts, the thief of her dreams—returned to her, again.
She had thought he had learned. But it appeared as though he had not.
A faint, thready whisper seeped between the cracks:
I must speak with you, pet. If there was another way, believe me, I would not be breaking my promise like this. So soon.
Luella knew he told the truth. They were trapped in solitude, unable to see each other or converse. And they had much to converse about.
She released a long-suffering sigh. You may come into my thoughts… Just this once.
She felt Bastian inside her, then, a presence drifting through her mind carefully with ghostly steps, as if not wishing to disrupt the litany of her thoughts.
She blinked up at the ceiling, breath hitching as his voice rumbled deep inside her, louder now that he was truly in her mind:
I’m sorry, pet.
"What do you have to be sorry about?" Luella spoke aloud, her voice a low murmur.
I took part in keeping Graves’s secret, Bastian replied.
She thought about it for a long while. Could she fault the vampire for helping to deceive her? It was not Bastian’s secret to share, but Graves’s. He should be the one coming to her in apology.
Luella told Bastian this. "It’s not your fault. It is his," she hissed. "Graves… But no. I cannot even call him that anymore. Can I? He is not Graves."
He is the same male you have always known, Bastian said.
"That is just it, Bastian. I don’t know him.
Not truly. I don’t think I know any of you.
You say you wish to make me a… queen." Luella could barely say the word. Didn’t even want to linger on the implications of how they would make her such.
"And yet, you will not share anything with me.
It is like I am still your prisoner, living at the behest of your whims." She swallowed, mind in a million places at once.
It was so easy to speak like this, with no one to see her.
"I know nothing; therefore, I must be nothing. "
Bastian’s presence in her mind swelled, consuming her in a soft sort of domination. Sensual and silken, he impressed himself upon each corner of her mind, chasing away the spiderwebs that clung to the corners, spun with self-hatred.
You are not nothing, Luella Eritrais, Bastian said into her very being.
You are everything. If the others gave themselves only a moment to think on it, they would realize how true that is.
They would realize that they have spent so long chasing after the one written in the prophecy that they have missed what has been right before them.
She thought she knew what he meant, but she whispered, "What?"
You.
They both grew quiet after that.
But Luella’s thoughts never did quieten.
She thought of how Bastian had said her name. Then, she spiraled. Was that… even her name?
It doesn’t matter, Bastian whispered. To me, you will always be Luella Eritrais. It is the name of the heirus Princess I first stole into the dreams of.
But what if it’s not mine? A thought so treacherous she could not bear to speak it aloud.
Make it yours, he murmured.
A wet sob crept up her throat, filling the room. She was so tired.
She scrubbed her hands over her eyes, black dots sparkling from how fiercely she rubbed them. And she decided to keep them there, her hands resting over her eyes, covering her, shrouding her in the dark—a place so familiar to her, yet not.
"You make it sound so easy," she said, into the dark.
Because it is. If you want to be angry, be angry at the Tenebrae. He took your name, so reclaim it.
Bastian had a way with his speech, ever the Advisor.
This was not the first time she had noticed it, however.
How he saw her clearly. She, a rippling lake, murky and dark.
And he, the sunlight that chased away the shadows.
He saw her fears, her worries, and plucked them from her mind like exploding stars.
In his hands, the death rattle of a supernova receded, and they glowed anew.
The vampire built her up with words wrapped in silk, whispered directly into her very being.
She turned onto her side, bundling her hands underneath her chin as she pulled her knees to her chest. The bed was comfortable and smelled faintly of the ocean. It made her wonder how vivid the islands would be if traces of them clung to this dusty cave. "Thank you, Bastian."
You’re welcome, pet. He settled deeper into her mind, no longer sensing her resistance. You should rest. Sleep.
"I don’t think I can. I worry—" A yawn threatened to crack her jaw, betraying her.
Forget your worries for now. Sleep. Bastian brushed against her mind, sending shivers down her spine and out through her wings. Do you want me to help you?
"How?" she mumbled.
You know how.
She thought on it, deciding that he had earned her trust in this. "Okay. Send me to sleep, but Bastian?"
He hummed.
"Let my dreams be good. Please?"
For you, only the best of dreams, he answered.
Her body grew drowsy in an instant, her lids fluttering shut as a relaxed sigh slipped from her parted lips. She sent him one last clear thought, ringing like a bell. I’ll leave the door open.
They both knew what the words meant.
Just as she fell into dreams, forced by the invisible touch of the thief of her thoughts, she swore she heard a scream shatter through the stone.
When Luella awoke from dreams of hopping among puffy clouds and drinking from glass cups filled with swirling, glittery liquid, she smiled.
Clutching the dream amulet tangled around her neck, she sent a quiet wave of gratitude through the cracked-open door of her mind, hoping Bastian would feel it.
What a gift he had given her. A dream of something that felt far out of reach, but not quite any longer.
A good dream.
He hadn’t lied to her.
He hadn’t tricked her.
Not at all.
It felt strange to not be the target of trickery—a novel feeling.
She waited there, on the bed, as if feeling like she was still suspended within a dream, and one wrong move would make it turn nightmarish.
But it never came. The roar of distant thunder permeated the stone walls, and the flame spluttered in the sconce, wax dripping to the floor as the candle reached its end.
She didn’t know what had awoken her until she caught the faint aroma of buttered bread seeping into the dank air. Her wings ached less than she remembered, and for a moment, she almost forgot they were there.
Her stomach grumbled, and she threw her legs over the side of the bed, rising with well-rested limbs. She teetered briefly, but caught herself with a hand against the wall. Was it just her, or had she found her balance easier this time?
On the floor next to the stone door, a small stone plate of steaming food lay. Her eyes widened.
Luella walked toward it and carefully lifted the plate, nearly dropping it as she stood. So, she decided to sit there, on the slightly warm floor by the door, legs crossed and wings folded behind her, the tips dragging against the ground as she ate.
She lifted the stone cup of water to her lips, smiling when it reminded her of her dream, and the sparkling swirls of stardust that had been tipped into the glass cup from the very sky itself.
One sip, and she realized how parched she was.
She downed the entire glass in an instant, her stomach protesting as the water sloshed inside.
She reached for the bread next, a loaf the size of her hand, the top dusted with golden flakes that fell to the floor as she lifted it.
She tore into it. Alone, with no one to lecture her on propriety and no one to keep up appearances for, her actions were far less than those fitting for a princess.
But at this moment, she did not feel like a princess—neither of Solis, nor… Luna. She felt like a simple female, reduced to the basics.
Luella smiled around the bread.
As she finished eating, she found the door to her mind was still open, just a crack. Enough for her to easily send a thought down, knowing who would hear:
Bastian, thank you for my dream.
He responded immediately. You’re welcome, pet. Did you rest well?
Yes. I did. She paused, chewing. Are the others—have you spoken to them, as well?
We have a link where we speak to each other, much like the one between us. Bastian brushed against her mind, and the sensation was indescribable. He was inside her, and she knew that he felt what she did, but still, he waited for her to voice it. We all need to talk.
She knew they did, and his words were a cold shock of water thrown over her. Suddenly, the bread turned to ash in her mouth. She sat it down, rising slowly and padding to the bed. The flame flickered, one gust of air away from dying entirely.
Change the candle, pet. You do not want to be in the dark, Bastian warned.