Chapter 30
Lucina
My name is the only thing that belongs to me.
I can’t stop thinking about it. The entire interaction has stumped me. There is just too much I don’t understand. Who is he? What does he want? Really want. And why does he want to help me?
I didn’t want to admit that there was any merit to the stranger's character, but as the night went on and morning came, no guards burst into my broom closet to haul me away. No one stopped Alesi mid-breakfast shift to drag me down to the dungeons, and as reluctant as I am to admit it, he did keep his word about not interfering. He’s trustworthy enough to have kept my disguise a secret.
For now.
Refusing his help is only half-rooted in stubbornness.
I came here alone and would like to complete my mission as such, but the last thing I’m going to do is risk the safety of the Captures by making a deal with a stranger whose intentions I can’t be certain of.
I can’t even be certain of his identity if he won’t even tell me his name.
It doesn’t matter. I don’t need his help.
Deciding to return to the kitchens this morning wasn’t an easy decision to make, but I was up half the night going over what he had said about getting rid of the sources that power the ward.
I need to find five direct descendants—one from each of the high-ranked Rogue bloodlines—and I need to get rid of them. Kill them, most likely.
I know for certain that the Countess is one, being that she’s Alaric’s daughter, but finding the remaining four will require lots of eavesdropping and subtle gathering of information, and that’s when I remembered what the Countess had said in the hall yesterday: Tell the Umbra to add an extra setting at dinner.
I’m sure now that the extra seat is for the stranger who saved me from the dungeons last night, but I started thinking about who else might be present at these meals. I can’t imagine the Countess would surround herself with low-ranked dinner guests…
I didn’t want to go back, but I have a false appearance to uphold as Alesi, and working in the kitchens gives me direct access to breakfast, lunch, and dinner with the Countess and whoever her inner circle may be, and I’m willing to bet every weapon on my body that my remaining four sources will be sat around that table.
It took a lot of convincing to assure the Umbra that I’d been cleared of my imaginary sickness.
She must have really needed the help because she gave in with a sneer of disgust and sent me out to gather eggs, warning me not to “trip in any chicken shit” while I’m out here.
The comment made half of the servants laugh, and I’m not sure how Alesi would have felt about that, but I couldn’t have cared any less. I got what I wanted.
Grimacing at the smell, I pull open the door to the chicken coop. There are a few cracked shells on the floor, strewn across a mess of hay, and all the hens are cowering in the corner, trembling as I approach.
Moving cautiously into the space, I scan the nests beside me. Turns out, chicken shit isn’t my problem; it’s the lack of eggs that might prove to be a challenge. Trying not to take any deep breaths, I sift through the empty shelves, and the hens begin clucking up a storm.
“Yeah,” I cough out, eyes watering at the stench. “I wouldn’t want to be in here either.”
A couple of gags, and many minutes later, I manage a whopping six eggs. The Umbra’s going to love this.
Making my way back across the yard, I halt in my tracks when I feel a sudden warmth on my face.
I squint up at the narrow stream of sunlight peeking through the thick sky of clouds overhead.
It’s the only sliver of sun in the courtyard.
In the entire city, even. A gold streak in the darkness above us.
I don’t question my luck, attributing it to Fate as I quickly absorb all of the light I can muster, filling my veins with it.
Heat funnels straight into my bloodstream, replenishing what I’d given up in the dungeons and then some.
I store all I can muster, snuffing the only beam of straight sun in all of Streatham, but the Captures need it more than the crops do.
Reinforcing my illusion with my replenished reserves, I enter through the servant’s door at the back of the Estate and emerge in the chaotic kitchen.
The closer I get to the Umbra, the more self-conscious I become about my pathetic basket of eggs.
I’m not worried about the pain that would come from another cold palm to the cheek—it’s what the slap might do to my illusion that makes me nervous.
Weaving through the bustle of the kitchen, I spot the Umbra hovering by one of the cooks' workstations. I wordlessly set the basket down before her, golden eyes cutting to the eggs as I turn to leave, wishfully thinking I could scurry off before—
“What the hell is this?” I turn around, and the Umber lifts the basket as it offends her. “Is this some sort of joke?”
“That’s all they laid.”
If looks could kill, hers would mist me. She throws the basket down, and the cook scrambles to keep the eggs from falling out. “Why don’t you try again at making yourself useful,” the Umbra grits out, “and set the damn table.”
Perfect.
Clenching my jaw to keep from smiling, I dip my head low and make my way into the empty dining room. A few other servants move about the massive table in the center, setting out polished silver and wiping marks off water glasses in preparation for our guests.
“Here.” I jump when Greer dumps a pile of wrinkled napkins in my arms, barely catching them all. “Fold,” she orders, then crosses the room to attend to something else.
Exhaling a breath, I take my napkins to the table, situating myself beside a boy and a girl who are polishing glasses.
His coppery hair is cropped short to his head, skin pale and cheeks gaunt.
Typical for Rogues, I’m gathering. She’s a little bit bigger, more full in the cheeks and hips.
I’m not certain they’re siblings—everyone here kind of looks the same—but the girl has the same shade of coppery hair, pulled into two tight braids on either side of her head.
They’re giggling about something as I approach, and I cross my fingers that they’re laughing about something that will be useful to me, but as soon as I walk up, their conversation ceases.
“What are you doing?” The boy asks me, exchanging a disgusted look with the girl.
“Um,” I gesture to the pile in front of me, “folding napkins?”
“Wrinkled?” the girl snorts, her tone incredulous.
Gods, these people really have nothing better to do than worry about a wrinkled fucking napkin. At least a hundred Sol are suffering beneath us—hundreds more hiding out in Pirn—and godsdamn skeletons hanging from the gates outside, but how dare I fold wrinkled napkins.
While I search for patience I don’t have, I mindlessly reinforce my illusion, fingers curled tight around the napkin I hold.
The girl laughs with her brother, pointing a pale finger at my pile. “The Countess would die if we served our guest breakfast on those.”
Good, I think. The Countess has to die anyway.
Ignoring them and their laughter, I plop down in a chair and flatten out the wrinkled napkin as best as I’m able. “We have a guest?” I ask, an attempt to shift the subject.
The girl giggles, and the boy rolls his eyes, reaching for another glass to polish. “Yes,” he answers, glaring at his sister.
“What’s so funny?”
For a moment, he looks like he’d rather die than talk to me a second longer. Perks of walking around as the most hated Rogue in this Estate, it seems. But then he sighs, busying himself with another glass. “None of the girls will shut up about him.”
“You’re just jealous,” she accuses.
“Of the King’s pet?” he fires back. “Yeah, right.”
He looks at me then, like I’m someone to confide in, and for a moment I think I’ve finally broken the collective shunning of Alesi. Until he says, “Being someone’s pet is nothing to be jealous of, isn’t that right, Alesi?”
The girl is silent for a moment.
And then she bursts out laughing. The boy begins to laugh with her, drawing the attention of the others moving about the table.
I feel my control slipping, anger eating away at my tether to sanity, so I stand, throwing the napkin I’d been folding back onto the pile. I don’t have time for this. People are dying below our feet, and there’s a permanent storm cloud over a city that doesn’t even belong to these people.
The last—and I mean the very last thing—I care about right now is being the butt of someone’s fucking joke.
“Where are you going?” the girl taunts through her laughter, but I don’t give her a response, slipping out of the dining room before my handle on my emotions falters and I slaughter them all.
As Lucina.
No one notices me step into the corridor off the dining room, and it’s early enough that the halls I move through are fairly empty, save for a few guards and other servants passing on their way to breakfast. I only pass one Rogue that wasn’t in a servant smock or a guard’s armor.
I took in every detail as they passed by, searching for any kind of marking that might tell me what bloodline they belonged to, but he wasn’t wearing any kind of necklace—as the Sol do—and there was no inked crown over his forehead like the Countess has.
I’m trying not to feel defeated, but I’m not sure how else to find the sources? I could…kill them all?
Actually, that isn’t my worst idea.
I put a pin in it, deciding that getting back into the dungeons is likely my best bet. Surely someone down there knows something that could help me. At this point, I’ll take anything I can get.
Finding my way down to the bottom level of the Estate, I skid to a stop when the entrance to the dungeons comes into view. This hallway isn’t empty—it’s full of guards. At least fifteen surrounding the small black door I’d crept through last night.
Fuck.
The dead guard. With everything that happened after, I forgot all about him—the crack, the twist of his head around his shoulders, the dull thud as his body hit the floor.
Shit. Shit, shit, shit. This isn’t good.
Silently inching forward, I try to get close enough to hear what they’re saying, but their conversations are too hushed for me to gather anything worth a damn. I need to get closer.
A quick glance around the hall confirms a lack of anywhere decent to hide. There’s a whole lot of nothing. Drapery, runners, outrageously large paintings…a bench?
Godsdammit.
I’m about to try my hand at illusioning myself as a plant when a scuffle breaks out in the center of the group.
“Back up!” a guard orders, pushing his arms out in an attempt to part the crowd and shoulder his way through. “I said back up!” he shouts louder, and the group finally parts.
They’re leading someone out of the dungeons.
I can see a man’s bare feet through the legs of the guards escorting him, thick shackles locked around his ankles, and a long chain connecting them to the ones around his wrists.
The guard has a hold on the chain, wisps of black smoke bleeding from the Rogue’s fingers and dancing over the metal he holds.
They’re headed this way, an entourage of guards trailing behind them, so I tuck myself against the wall, doing my best to look unsuspecting. Fortunately for me, no one seems to care about one of the Umbra’s servants. They’re all too focused on the slow steps of the man in chains.
His head is hung low, his clothes torn, and his skin is dirty. Despite the hollow of his cheeks and the obvious signs that he’s malnourished, he’s held onto some muscle somehow. They must be feeding them just enough, and he must be spending most of his time trying to maintain some kind of strength.
His hair is dark, streaked with grey, and each step he takes looks painful.
“Faster!” A guard shoves him from behind.
The man lifts his head.
I stumble backwards.
The resemblance is uncanny. They might be sunken and dull, but I’d know those eyes anywhere. Grey, but they used to be silver. I know it. And their bone structure is the same—a strong brow, straight nose. Even the shapes of their mouths are identical.
I think I’m going to be sick.
He was right. He was right the whole time.
The man sees me in the same moment I see him, his expression instantly softening. Then I watch something spark in his lifeless eyes. Recognition, I think. But I get the feeling it’s more than that. Much more.
Despite his many escorts, despite the chains binding his wrists and ankles, and despite the pain I’m sure he’s in, Callan’s father winks as he trudges past.