Chapter 11
Lucina
Iwake to the sound of familiar voices in the living room and waste no time sliding from the warm sheets, frowning when I find them empty.
Pulling a thin cardigan around my shoulders, I step out into the hall, a smile spreading over my face when I confirm who the voices belong to.
“There she is.” Pax grins from the kitchen, covered in dirt from head to toe. I tug my sweater the rest of the way down my arms and hurry to hug him—dirt and all. “Happy initiation day, little Reenan.”
My stomach flips.
It’s today.
Turning from Pax, I notice Nix in the living room with Easton and Devon, and Hunter is leaning against the counter—just as filthy as the other two who just got back from Streatham. Thank the gods they made it back at all. And in one piece.
Callan turns from the counter with two cups of coffee hand.
It’s rare to see him dressed out of his uniform, wearing a pair of old jeans and a black hoodie.
His hair is a little out of sorts from sleep, as if he’d heard their voices and sprung right up out of bed without so much as running a hand through the dark brown strands.
His eyes are sharp, though—always awake and alert. But they soften as they meet mine.
Callan wordlessly hands a mug to me, and I mutter a thank you as I slide into an empty barstool, wincing at my stiff joints as I pull my legs up in the seat with me.
“So, how did it go?” I ask no one in particular, blowing the steam off my coffee.
Callan settles against the counter beside me, watching me while I watch Pax and Hunter.
“Could have been worse,” the latter admits, glancing in Callan’s direction. “Bad news or good news?” Hunter asks him.
Callan’s demeanor shifts, the warmth he’d been observing me with slipping away as he steps into the Captain’s shoes. When I look up at him, his back has straightened, and the line of his jaw is tight.
“Bad news,” he decides.
Pax looks to Hunter, who looks to Phoenix, who rolls his eyes dramatically before confessing on an exhale, “I’m in love.”
Callan blinks, and Pax lets his head fall to his hands.
“Don’t be mad!” Phoenix shouts, reading the sudden tension in the room.
“I caught a Rogue,” he explains, “and at first, I was sticking to the usual; torture and question, torture and question, etcetera, but…” He pauses.
“She was different. I can’t explain it, and it’s making me sick.
I spent three days trying to kill her, and well…
” Phoenix shrugs, “I couldn’t. So, I left her alive.
Tied up in our bunker. It’s really not that big of a deal. ”
Silence falls.
His mismatched eyes dance around the room, trying to gauge reactions that no one is giving him. We’re all too…stunned.
There’s a weighted thud as Callan sets his mug down on the counter. “Phoenix…” he exhales. “What exactly do you mean by that?”
Nix blinks back at his Captain. “I couldn’t kill her, so I left her there.” Another shrug. “That’s what I mean.”
To my surprise, Callan shoots a death glare at Pax, who does his best to avoid eye contact.
“You left a Rogue in our bunker? Alive? Because Phoenix…” Callan’s tone is sharp as he struggles to find the right words: “loves her?”
“Yes, dammit!” Nix roars, fists slamming into the coffee table. The entire room flinches. “I hate it more than anything, and I wish it weren’t the case, but here we are! This is all I could come up with, because she can’t leave that bunker now that she’s seen us, and I. Can’t. Kill. Her.”
Callan stares daggers at Pax.
Pax puts two hands up in defense. “He wouldn’t let us near her,” he explains, eyes darting to Hunter for support. “We would have handled it ourselves, but you know how he gets about things.”
I’m equally curious and terrified as to what that means.
“Sorry, boss,” Phoenix blurts out, but there is zero real emotion or remorse in the apology. “I’ll fix it,” he assures us. “The next time we go back, I’ll be ready to kill her.” Nix uses his finger to draw an X over his chest. “Cross my heart.”
Callan’s jaw ticks, his eyes narrowing on Phoenix like he’s trying so hard to understand. After he’s taken a few deep breaths, Callan nods slowly, rolling out his shoulders. “Just…tell me the good news.”
Pax straightens, tucking his thumbs into the sides of his vest. “Alaric and the other four Rogue Disciples aren’t in Streatham. They’re in Onyile.”
Callan’s brows furrow, and I bounce my gaze between them.
“They’re not in the Estate with the Sol?” Easton clarifies, and Pax shakes his head.
Callan presses both of his palms into the counter, still trying to work through what was just said. “Then who is ruling Streatham?”
Hunter swallows a sip of his coffee before replying, “Nix’s girlfriend is low-ranked; they only sent one small search party for her when she went missing, and they gave up quickly.
All we heard was mention of Alaric’s inner circle in the south and someone they call the Countess ruling the Estate.
We don’t know who she is or her relation to Alaric, but she isn’t a Disciple.
” Hunter glances at Pax. “The rest of their conversation was gossip and rumors.”
It’s huge—the Disciples being in Onyile. It means Streatham and the Sol trapped there aren’t being guarded by immortals that we stand no chance of going up against. They’re being guarded by lower-ranked Rogues.
Without the threat of Rogue Disciples in our rescue mission, the ward around the Estate just became our biggest obstacle.
And I know the way past it.
Callan nods, the tension in his shoulders softening. He takes the coffee pot from Hunter, refilling his coffee and mine. “What else did you hear?”
Sinking onto his elbows, Hunter braces his weight against the counter and shakes his head. “Gossip and rumors, boss.”
“Anything could help,” Callan retorts.
Sighing, Hunter obliges him, “They said Alaric has the Hound.” He holds up his fingers in air quotes. “Kneeling at his feet in Onyile.”
Something uneasy settles over the room.
When no one else speaks up, I blurt the question burning on the tip of my tongue. “The Hound? As in, Pyra’s Hound?”
Why am I the only one who feels afraid right now?
Pa had told a story about the Hound at the last Selumira.
About how Etis sacrificed her soul in exchange for his help in breaking the curse on our Disciples.
Truthfully, that story is the extent of what I know about him.
Aside from the widely known belief that he’s the devil’s right hand.
Growing up, belief in Pyra’s Hound went hand in hand with faith in our Gods. Even as commoners.
The looks I get in response to my shock are borderline sympathetic.
“What?” I glance around the room. “Why isn’t everyone freaking out right now?”
“Because it’s not possible, Cin,” Callan huffs a laugh.
“As I said,” Hunter shrugs, “gossip and rumors.”
It doesn’t do much to settle the sudden race of my heart.
After a few beats of silence, Easton speaks up from the couch behind us, “But if it is true—”
“It isn’t,” Callan snaps back, definite and resolute.
“I said if,” Easton continues. “Maybe we should be prepared…just in case.”
“And how would we prepare for that, E?” Pax asks. I’d been thinking the same thing. “You think we can outrun the Hound?”
“Well, we do have the Banyan,” I chime in, and am met with avoidant stares. “Right?” The silence lingers. “The Hound would have to pass through the Banyan and make it through judgment like the rest of—”
“Lucina,” Devon interrupts, his voice deep and his tone blunt. “The Hound is a God. If he truly wanted into Pirn, he’d snap the Banyan like a twig.”
More fear sinks in my gut as I imagine what that would look like—a crack through the center of the trunk, heavy limbs splitting and falling to the ground, deep roots yanked from the earth. All of us in Pirn with nowhere to hide. We’d be utterly defenseless.
“But…if that’s true,” I swallow against the tightness in my throat, “how would Alaric be able to control him, then? To have him kneeling at his feet?”
“He isn’t,” Callan says sharply, and I try not to take offense at his tone.
“That wouldn’t be possible. It’s likely a power tactic Tenebrus is using to rally the Rogues.
He wants to make them think that they have a god at their disposal when, really, it’s all a bluff.
” Callan shakes his head at the absurdity of the thought.
“There isn’t a single person in the Chiaros that the Hound would willingly bow to. ”
I roll my lips together, choosing to swallow the rest of my burning questions.
“Lucina.” Callan pulls me out of my blank stare. “Tell them what you found out.”
Right. The threshold.
I ended up telling him about my little experiment at the breakfast table. Only because he kept asking, and I couldn’t come up with a plausible excuse for why Selene and I were mixing our blood in a glass and passing it back and forth through her ward.
“I, uh—had Selene’s help, but we figured out that the threshold to pass a blood ward is fifty percent. All we’d need is enough Rogue blood to counteract the same portion of Sol blood, and it should…nullify or cancel out. Then the ward would be passable.”
By me.
“Disciple Rogue blood,” Easton corrects, and my brows furrow. “It’s not a bad plan, Lucina, but we can’t just kill any Rogue; we’d need one from their original bloodlines to do something as risky as tricking a blood ward. You know…Harmlet, Quillen, Peregrine, Slater, Tenebrus…one of them.”
“I know…” I sink back into the barstool. “It was just an idea.”
“The only one we have right now,” Callan adds. “What Aster suggested is too risky.”
“It’s all risky,” Devon points out as I chew nervously on my bottom lip.
I just have to make it through tonight. Once I’m initiated, I’ll tell them. I just have to get through tonight.
Callan takes a deep breath and gestures to his coven. “Let me think about all this, and we’ll regroup tomorrow.” Everyone begins to peel themselves out of their positions around the living space. “Initiation starts at sunset,” he reminds them. “Don’t be late.”