Chapter 21 #2
Ceres looks ghastly. She’s pale and lifeless beneath the covers, her body still, and her wrists cuffed to the bedrail. The shackles are familiar—a magic-suppressing metal, if I had to guess.
Gemma has her fingers pressed into the dull red hair at the crown of Ceres’s head, mender magic forming lines of shimmering gold across her forehead, keeping her alive.
Callan passes me, making his way to her bedside, and my feet take me to Pax. I decide it’s the best place for me to be.
But he doesn’t take his eyes off his mother as I approach, a mass of confusion, betrayal, and a detached sort of sadness on his face. It makes me bold enough to reach out and take his hand.
I lace our fingers, squeezing once, and the way his expression softens nearly breaks me. Pax’s hand tightens around mine, and he lets out a shallow exhale.
There’s a new bond between us, now that he’s seen my worst memory and I’ve seen his. I suppose Pax and I always had a connection, but now it’s more of a tangible thing. A tie around his heart that connects to mine. It reminds me of the bond I have with Jude—innocent and endless.
The sound of Callan’s voice pulls my attention. “Gemma?”
“I’m positive,” she replies, nodding in confirmation. I’m not certain what the confirmation was for, but if I had to guess, she is absolutely sure that Ceres is past the point of saving.
As wrong as it feels to mess with a soon-to-be dead person’s memories, Ceres forfeited those decencies when she decided to summon the King of Rogues.
Kimber could have died last night.
Pyra, we all could have died last night. He might not know our exact location, but because of Ceres, Alaric now knows that the Sol still exist. That his attempt to snuff us out failed.
The Captain glances at Delia, and it takes her a second to acknowledge the silent request for permission, but the nod of her head is quick and confident.
Callan turns to Ceres, and there’s a brief moment of hesitation before static fills the room, prickling across my skin in familiar waves. Gemma keeps her hand in place, a continuous stream of mender magic flowing through Ceres’s head.
While I know very little about Callan’s abilities of the mind, I do know he can make it painless as easily as he can make it hurt.
When he tampered with Aster’s memories, he did it too fast for her to feel anything, but right now…
judging by the pinch between her brows and the twitch of her unconscious body…
He’s making it hurt.
Callan stares off blankly, deciphering through memories until he finds one worth noting and announces to the room, “She found the Eldral in the woods.”
Panic shoots up my throat, and I quickly swallow against it, realizing there’s a very real chance that Callan will see me in that memory.
I’m not sure how Ceres found the Eldral, but she had to have followed me into the woods. I just hope that’s not the scene unfolding before him.
I should have confessed to that, too—the Eldral belonging to me—but the news of who my father was sort of…overshadowed everything. I was so focused on the big secret that I forgot to tell him about the small ones.
Oops.
“How did she find it?” the Dame asks, attention darting from Ceres to Callan.
I drop my gaze to the floor when he clears his throat, fisting his hands at his sides. “I don’t know.”
He knows.
The breath I was holding rushes out of my lungs, but the relief is quickly replaced with the sinking feeling that I’ll be in a world of trouble when we leave this room.
Fucking fantastic.
“I want to know why she did this,” the Dame snaps, her impatience spilling over. “We’ve been here for twenty years. Why now would she—” Navy eyes find mine, and I furrow my brows, unsure as to why it’s me she’s looking at.
Slowly dragging her gaze back to Callan, she drops her hands at her sides. “Find her memories from the night of the attack.”
I look to Callan as she does, but I’m confused, and she seems confident. He shifts on his feet, ignoring the room as he takes his time sifting through her head.
I briefly glance back at Delia, but before I can interpret anything on her face, Callan flinches, stumbling back a step—away from her bedside.
His power ceases at once, the static in the air retreating.
“What is it?” Laverna asks, eyes wide.
“She…” Callan blinks a few times, staring off at Ceres’s unconscious body. “She had a deal with Alaric,” he says finally, his words sinking like stones in the stillness of the room.
“What deal?” I blurt, heart racing in my chest.
I don’t think I’ve ever seen Callan so disheveled. It’s like he can hardly believe the words coming out of his own mouth.
He looks to the Dame. “Ceres knew they were coming for Streatham,” he reveals. “Alaric offered her a chance to rule it, but he didn’t uphold his end of the bargain. Power in exchange for…” Callan shakes his head, his words getting away from him.
“For what?” Delia demands.
But I already know. I’m expecting his answer. The rising temperature of my blood is expecting it too, and when grey eyes find mine, they’re so solemn it hurts.
“For opening the gates.”
Ceres invited them in.
Ceres framed my mother.
My hand falls from Pax’s, the silence of the room growing quickly, morphing into a high-pitched ringing.
For the first time in days, I feel my father’s presence, cold and imposing at my back.
And for the first time in well…ever…I’m not afraid of him.
A sudden anger takes over my body instead, hot in my throat but frigid everywhere else.
Magic that I cannot expel in this room slithers up my spine, and it’s just as furious as I am.
More than I am.
The Dame is asking the Captain questions, but I can’t hear his answers.
The room breaks out into a frenzy of chatter, but I can’t hear a single word.
“Lucina?”
Gemma.
I lift my gaze to hers.
All of a sudden, the emotions coursing through me feel foreign, rising to a level of wrath that—in all my years of experience with the feeling—has never felt like this before.
I manage to decipher one sentence through the muffled sounds pounding against my eardrums, begging to be let in. One sentence that pushes me right over the edge, spoken from the mouth of the man that I love.
“She killed Sable.”
I throw myself out of the door and into the hall, pushing my feet faster than they are willing to move. Fire and smoke crawl up my insides, burning my lungs. And if two things can even be possible at once, the blood in my veins ices over, stiffening my limbs.
Faster. I’ve got to move faster.
“Lucina!”
Footsteps bound down the hallway after me, and I pick up my pace, barreling outside and nearly tripping down the front steps.
I grit against the weight of my magic, doing everything I can to force it back down. Not here.
The part of me that’s Sol listens without question, but the part of me that isn’t—
Hasn’t been properly trained.
Stupid. Stupid. Stupid.
My heart thumps louder and louder every time my feet hit the ground, and by the time I break through the trees, it’s thrashing in my chest. Beating up the sides of my neck. Tainted blood rushing into my ears.
I lurch forward, dry heaving into the dirt, tears streaming down my face as I fight with everything I have to keep it inside. Just a little bit longer.
Twigs snap beneath my feet, and one more bounding step has me falling down the short drop to the creek bed. I barely catch myself from slamming into the hard ground, forcing my body upright as I begin racing down the rocks, not stopping until I reach the edge of the stone overlooking the waterfall.
All I manage is a short inhale before I throw myself off the edge, plunging into the pool of water beneath it, and as soon as the lukewarm water envelops me, I let go.
Every muscle contracts, my skin stretching against my bones, the release of pressure blurring my vision, but I can see the water around darken, the rocks lining the pool absorbing each wave of magic as it’s expelled from my body.
There’d been so much of it trapped inside that as soon as it’s gone, I’m utterly empty.
Despite how light I feel, I sink straight to the bottom, and not even the silence beneath the water grants me solace. There’s no relief to be found.
Whatever that was, it was too close. Too much. I’ve never in my life felt anger that intense, and I’ve entertained murder…on multiple occasions. No, that was foreign.
My lungs begin to burn, a painful reminder that I’ll need to breathe soon, but I hold out as long as I’m able. I wait until my consciousness blurs, threatening to slip, then I break the surface with a gasping breath.
I force my eyes open and freeze.
Callan stands stock still on the rock above me, one foot forward as if he were about to jump in. But he stopped. And I don’t think he’s breathing.
“I’m sorry,” I start, fumbling for a way to explain myself. “I’m fine, I just—”
“Your eyes.”
My brows pinch. “What?”
He’s still not moving. Not even blinking.
“Callan?” I move in the nearly black water, flinching when I catch a glimpse of my reflection in the darkened surface. It’s too blurry to make out anything other than two flashes of gold where my eyes should be.
Without even taking a breath, I force myself beneath the surface, scrubbing my face with my hands until my skin burns. When I pop back up, Callan has made his way to the edge of the pool, and whatever I just did must have worked, because his shoulders visibly fall, relief softening his features.
My hands begin shaking as I move them through the water, pulling myself towards him. The urge to cry is strong. To scream or run or drown or dissolve into nothing. It takes over my entire body, and I’m far too weak to fight back.
I don’t reach for the hand Callan extends. I don’t even take a breath as I slip under the surface again, stilling my limbs until I’m weightless.
I know he won’t let me drown, but I just need another second to gather myself. Suddenly, everything is too much.
I hear the splash it makes when he jumps in, the water rippling around me. A strong arm slides around my waist, pulling me to the surface.