Chapter 17
Lucina
Idrop my gaze from his as soon as the word leaves my mouth.
I can’t look at him. Gods, only knows what I’d see in his eyes. Certainly not what I’ve gotten so used to seeing there.
Love. Devotion. Trust.
I broke it. I broke all of it.
Callan’s hands fall to his sides, and the sound of his boots against the floor as he takes a step backwards makes me wish I were dead. Makes me wish the illusion of myself that I had taunted Alaric with was real and that dagger had gone straight through my cold, vicious heart.
He shakes his head. “What?” I hate the broken edge of his voice. Hate that I’m the reason for it.
Swallowing a string of useless apologies, I lift my head and drift into that nowhere place I frequented as a child. Where all feelings are gone, and I’m left blissfully numb. I haven’t needed to go back there since being here. Since meeting him.
But right now I want to be numb. I want to be nothing.
There’s pain and confusion in Callan’s narrowed stare. I can practically see the denial he’s trying so hard to maintain. It won’t win.
“Alaric called me a defect,” I force out, my voice like a thrown stone in a still pool in this room where all the oxygen has been sucked out.
Where all the love and care has iced over.
I’ve never felt more like a stranger in front of him.
My bottom lip quivers as I gesture to myself, fighting the onslaught of tears to push the words out. “That’s exactly what I am.”
Callan’s brows furrow as he shakes his head again. He can’t seem to do anything else. “I…I don’t understand, Lucina.”
Of course, he doesn’t. How could he? I didn’t understand it at first, still don’t, but I’ve kept it from him. All of it. I’ve had time to process, but he hasn’t, and I’m fucking terrified that he never will.
Rain begins pelting the window, light taps against the glass, and I find myself counting them.
Five, six, seven. The drips echo through the silence as I try to think of something to say.
Some kind of explanation as to why I’ve kept this a secret without giving him a reason to kill me, where I stand.
Or worse.
Leave me where I stand.
“The night I was poisoned,” I start, actively digging a hole inside myself and haphazardly shoving my feelings inside it. They don’t all fit, but I pile in enough to keep going without breaking down in front of him. “You didn’t save me. My Velkan did.”
The pinch between his brows makes me sick. He’s trying so hard to absorb the words, but they just aren’t settling right in his brain. I’m dreading giving more of an explanation when Callan’s shoulders fall.
He takes another step backwards, and the distance he just put between us might as well be a canyon.
“My velkan is my father.” I feel so removed from the words I’m speaking. “My father is a Rogue, and the poison was my Split. The night my cabin caught on fire, the Ashvine…all of it was my father. He forced my inheritance of his power, and he was able to enlist Fenton’s help because Fenton was—”
“A Diviner.”
I nod.
Diviners are the only ones who can see and speak to spirits.
Callan exhales, putting the rest of the pieces together on his own as he runs a hand through his hair. He looks anywhere in the room but at me, unsure of what to do with the fucked up puzzle before him.
A dull pain settles in my chest. An achy throb that pulses against my skin, making me wish I could crawl out of it. This is exactly what I was afraid of—destroying everything we were with one single word. One confession.
Rogue.
“Callan, I’m so sorry.” The apology comes out broken, tears threatening to spill from my watering eyes. I drop my attention to the floor before they fall. I can’t look at his face anymore anyway.
I don’t want to be here, witnessing his whole world crashing down at his feet. Not even an hour ago, he offered Alaric anything in exchange for me. He offered the biggest enemy of our people anything in the world, for me. For the girl who’s been lying to him for weeks.
He told me he loved me.
I just wanted more time.
Selfish. I was so fucking selfish with it all.
With Callan, with Pirn, with my friends…
I thought, for one stupid moment, that I could have everything.
Even though deep down, I think I knew I didn’t deserve it.
All of it was too good. Too perfect. But Callan…
he made me feel like I did. He made me feel like I was right where I belonged.
The rain falls heavier, and I wish it would shatter the glass, rush in, and wash me away.
It feels like hours have passed when he finally speaks, “You’ve known this since Selumira?”
All I can manage is a shaky exhale, and that’s answer enough.
“Fuck, Lucina.” Callan scrubs both hands over his face now, and when he removes them, his expression is broken. Devastated. I slip further into nothingness. “Why?” he shakes his head. “Why didn’t you tell me?”
“I couldn’t.”
“What do you mean, you couldn’t?” He’s getting angry now, closing the distance between us. “Lucina, that doesn’t make any sense. You could have told me this. You can tell me—”
“Anything?” I find my voice. “Tell you that I was half your enemy? Tell you that I’m capable of the kind of magic you’ve spent your whole life wishing didn’t exist?”
His mouth shuts, the muscle in his jaw so tight it twitches.
“Why do you think I killed Fenton?” I continue.
“I’ve never killed anyone in my life. Never planned to.
But he threatened to tell everyone, and I was afraid!
” Using the back of my hand, I angrily swipe tears off my face.
“I was so fucking afraid that if you found out the truth, you wouldn’t look at me as someone you loved anymore.
I was afraid that the truth would mean Pirn, the first place I’ve ever felt like I belonged, wouldn’t be safe anymore.
That my friends…my friends…I…” I choke on the words as they race up my throat all at once, desperate to be free after being held back for so long.
They’ve been smothered and buried right alongside the power I didn’t want. Didn’t ask for.
“This place is the best thing that’s ever happened to me. You are the best thing that’s ever happened to me.”
Even when I nearly burned to death. Even when I was poisoned within an inch of my life. Even when I spilled my guts in front of Delia during her training sessions. Even when Albatross almost killed me.
Before tonight, Callan didn’t know what my childhood had been like.
Nobody did. But when he came back from witnessing that memory, he didn’t look at me like I was fragile—he looked at me like I was strong.
As did the rest of my coven. And so would Gemma, Selene, and Kimber if I confessed to how many times Merrill would bust through my door, shit hammered, and make it my problem.
I feel safe here. Wanted. Understood.
I miss Ivy and Jude more than anything, and I know I’ll see them again, but this place? These people? It’s the closest thing I’ve ever had to a home. A real one with real love.
Yes, I’ve been selfish, but I think I had a damn good reason to be. I was dealt shitty cards with no way to win. My entire life has been a series of unfortunate events and shitty timing, but gods, I just wanted this. All I wanted was this.
“Lucina…” Callan’s face is blurry in front of my eyes.
“I don’t want this!” A sob breaks free as I throw my hands wide, the few lanterns around the room flickering, their glass casings rattling at the anger spilling out of me.
“I don’t want any of it!” I repeat, and Callan’s broken expression mirrors the pain I feel.
“If I could get rid of it, I would. I promise I would.”
Silence settles in the wake of my confession.
All I can hear is the pounding of my heart, a deep thud in my ears, and the patter of the rain on the window.
I try to remind myself that I didn’t have a choice.
That whatever damage I’ve just done was unavoidable.
Ceres knows what I am. I knew she knew the second she stood up at initiation and called me the monster instead.
When she wakes up, she’ll tell everyone.
I’ll be ruined regardless. This… it was inevitable.
My time is up. The bomb’s been detonated.
There’s no patching up the holes left behind—there’s only learning to live with them. Learning to navigate the damage.
But Callan has no obligation to my damage.
When my vision focuses, I wish it hadn’t.
Callan stands stock still in front of me, hands slack at his sides. The shallow rise and fall of his chest is the only indication that he’s still breathing. His stare is vacant, cast in my direction, but there’s no depth to it. He’s watching me like he doesn’t know what he’s looking at.
The room gets smaller. The walls begin pressing in. And the silence is…suffocating. I can’t stand it.
“Say something,” I whisper, scared that if I speak any louder, he’ll explode or shatter or run. He feels too fragile right now, and I’ve never known him to be anything but strong. Resilient. Invincible.
I love you. I do. There’s nothing you could say that would change that.
Callan draws in breath, gaze still vacant as he scrubs a hand over his mouth and down his jaw. He exhales, letting his eyes shut as he straightens to his full height, and when he opens them again, his attention is softer. More familiar. “I understand,” is all he says.
I wipe more tears off my face, brows furrowing. What does he understand? Which part? All of it?
Callan takes two long and careful steps towards me, and magic roars in my veins. With it comes hope. A small, insignificant morsel, but I cling to it with all I have.
He comes to a stop before me, and when I can’t bear the silence a second longer, I open my mouth to tell him it’s okay, even though it isn’t. I want to tell him I’m sorry, even though it feels too small a word.
“I understand why you didn’t tell me.”