Chapter 51 - Lucian
The night hums with static. The safehouse’s power lines hiss like snakes, the fluorescent tubes flickering above the cracked concrete ceiling.
The rebels sleep in patches, some curled on old mattresses, some hunched against walls with rifles across their laps.
I don’t join them. Sleep hasn’t belonged to me in ages now.
Since Declan’s face stared out of the dark.
The loop plays whenever I close my eyes: the gaunt face, the broken laugh, the last words, Remember the brook. Eight years of mourning turned into a weapon the Crown wields against me. They knew precisely where to strike. And now every silence carries his echo.
I stand at the far end of the safehouse, staring at a wall covered in peeling paint and graffiti.
It reads: No chains last forever. Marta’s words, copied from her journals.
The others find comfort in them. For me, they are only questions.
My brother’s chains still bind him. How do you break a shackle that’s sunk into the soul?
***
The console chirps. Not the usual channels, something harder, deeper. A drop-packet. My pulse jerks. My mouth dries.
Another video.
I want to smash the screen. I want to hurl the entire rig into the wall. Instead, I move closer. My hands are steady, though I feel like they shouldn’t be. I key the decrypt.
The room shrinks to the glow of pixels.
Cassian again. Different this time. His face more wasted, his eyes rimmed with red as though sleepless for weeks.
The Crown’s insignia blazes behind him, sharp, deliberate.
His voice is flat, without inflection. “Lucian. I serve now. I am their voice. You should not resist. You should never have resisted.”
The screen shakes; someone grips him from behind, forces his chin up. His mouth trembles before the words spill. “You left me. You buried me. You forgot me. Eight years alone in the dark.”
The footage cuts, an edit so sharp I flinch. He’s strapped to a chair now. A hand enters frame, tilts his head. A voice off-screen: “Say the line.”
Cassian whispers, hoarse, “The brook. Remember the brook.”
The video loops it twice. Three times. Four. His voice breaks until it’s no longer a command, just a shatter of sound.
I slam my fist against the table. The rebels stir in their sleep, muttering. None wake. None see. This is mine alone.
The feed continues. Cassian’s head lolls. His eyes flick once toward the camera, and I swear there is something in them, recognition, or a plea. Then black.
***
I don’t remember standing. I don’t remember the console sparking under my fist. I only know Vera’s voice cuts into me like light. “What happened?”
She’s awake, moving across the floor, her hair loose, eyes sharp even in half-sleep. She reaches for my wrist. I push her hand away before I know what I’m doing. The look in her eyes makes me wish I hadn’t.
“They sent another video,” I manage.
Her breath hitches. She doesn’t ask who. She knows. “Cassian.”
I nod once, jaw tight.
She wants to see it. I can tell by the way her gaze flicks toward the console. But she doesn’t ask. Instead, she presses her palm flat against my chest, grounding me. “It’s meant to break you.”
“It already has.” My voice is raw. “They’ve made him a mask. He speaks their lines. He calls me the one who left him.”
“You didn’t leave him. They stole him.”
The words should matter. They don’t. The Crown doesn’t just chain bodies; they chain memory, identity, and blood. They have Cassian, and through him, they have me.
***
Morning brings no relief. The rebels rise, groggy, unaware of what pulsed through the night.
Elira sharpens her breaching axe. Rourke curses at a jammed rifle.
Abigail hums a tune as she ties her doll to her back.
Life stirs, raw and ordinary. And over it all, the weight of the second video crushes my chest.
I catch Vera watching me across the hall. She sees the tremor in my hand when I lift a canteen. She sees the shadow under my eyes. She doesn’t speak of it. That silence is worse than any word.
***
Later, when the council gathers, I speak little. Elira demands we move on a convoy rumored to be carrying prisoners. Rourke warns it’s a trap. Maps sprawl across the table. I barely see them. I hear only Cassian’s voice: You left me. Eight years alone in the dark.
The others argue. My silence presses them harder than any order. Finally, Vera lays a hand on the map, her voice level. “We move. We free who we can. Every chain we break is one they can’t use against us.”
Her words echo Marta’s. They steady the room. But not me. In the back of my skull, the loop plays still.
I wonder how many more packets they’ll send. How many more fragments of my brother they’ll carve and stitch and fling at me until nothing of him remains. Until nothing of me remains.
***
The council disperses at dusk, their arguments still sharp in the air.
I linger, alone in the hall, staring at the maps they left behind.
Red pins, black lines, circles of ink. It should mean strategy, paths forward, answers.
To me, it looks like a snare drawn tight, every thread leading back to the same place: my brother’s face on a screen.
The walls close in. I step outside into the open yard.
The air is sharp, winter-tinged, and smoke rises from fires where rebels warm their hands.
They laugh, trade stories, sharpen blades.
Hope lingers here, thin but real. And I stand apart, poisoned by the sound still rattling in my skull. Remember the brook.
I cross the yard, pass into the shadows near the gate, and brace my hands against cold stone.
I try to breathe, but the breath comes ragged.
I want to tell someone, to let the weight slide off me.
But what would they hear? That the great Lucian, the Wolf, the Breaker of Chains, can’t silence the Crown’s tricks?
That every order he gives now is spoken under the shadow of a brother he buried once already?
No. Better they see steel, even if inside, I’m all rust.
***
Vera finds me anyway. She always does. Her boots crunch softly in the frost. She doesn’t speak at first, just stands close enough that her shoulder brushes mine. The warmth is steady, solid. I almost lean into it.
“You’re bleeding,” she says finally.
I glance down. My knuckles are torn raw, blood smeared where I’d struck the console earlier. I hadn’t noticed. I flex my fist; the pain is a gift. It anchors me.
“They’ll keep sending them,” I murmur. “Until I break. Or until there’s nothing left of him to send.”
“They send them because you scare them.”
I bark a hollow laugh. “That’s not strength. That’s bait. Every frame they cut into him is a hook they bury in me. I feel it catch every time I breathe.”
Vera turns, catches my face in her hands. Her palms are rough, scarred, and warm against my skin. “Then breathe anyway. Let them bury their hooks. You’re still here. He’s still in there somewhere. Don’t give the Crown what they want.”
Her words pull me to the edge of something dangerous.
Not collapse, but confession. I want to tell her about the dreams, how the video plays even when I sleep, how I wake choking on Declan’s laugh.
But the words knot in my throat. I press my forehead against hers instead.
Her eyes close, her breath steady. In that moment, the loop goes quiet.
***
Night deepens. I lie awake on my cot while the others sleep. Every creak of the safehouse sounds like footsteps. Every flicker of shadow could be a hand pressing Declan’s chin up to speak. The silence is a chamber, and the loop plays in it.
At some hour too late to measure, I rise and dress. The night guard nods as I pass, but I barely see him. My boots crunch on frost until I reach the perimeter fence. Beyond it lies the empty road, the black stretch of forest, the unknown.
For a moment, I think of walking. Leaving the rebels, the military compound, Vera. Walking until the road takes me to the place where they keep Declan. Alone. Silent. It would be easier. I could end this torment without dragging the rest of them down.
But then I hear Marta’s words again, carved into the walls and whispered by Abigail at night: No chains last forever. And I know leaving is just another kind of chain. The Crown would win without firing a shot.
I grip the fence until the metal bites my palms, and I stay there until the urge passes.
***
By dawn, orders are expected. The convoy Elira pressed for must be addressed. Rourke leans back in his chair, flask in hand, waiting for me to speak. Vera watches, unreadable. Elira drums her fingers, impatient.
I clear my throat. The words come heavy. “We move. We strike the convoy. If there are prisoners, we free them. If it’s a trap, we spring it on our terms.”
Elira grins, fierce. Rourke mutters something about suicide. Vera just nods once, as though she sees through me but accepts the decision anyway.
Inside, the loop still runs. Cassian’s face and voice, but the Crown’s script. But I push it down, bury it under orders and maps and movement. If I can’t silence the echo, I’ll drown it in action.
***
That evening, as the rebels ready for the march, I retreat to the console again. The screen is blank now, the last packet burned from memory. My reflection stares back, hollow-eyed, unshaven, older than I remember being. For a heartbeat, I almost expect Cassian’s face to replace mine.
“I’ll find you,” I whisper to the dark glass. “Not as their weapon. Not as their mask. I’ll find the boy at the brook. And I’ll tear you free, even if it kills me.”
The glass holds my oath in silence. Outside, the rebels chant my name, but it feels far away.