Lucille
Chapter
Seventeen
Every icicle in the Shard Field had snapped in half.
A shrieking tornado plucked them from the ground, ice glinting in the violent wind.
The accumulation of shards bulldozed through the field, breaking and pulverizing anything in its path.
Section by section, it leveled the leftover stumps, reducing them to a glittering white cloud.
“But—I thought with me here it wouldn’t happen.”
Ronen grabbed my arm, yanking me from the ground and dragging me toward Veil Forest. “It’s not supposed to.”
“It won’t let us escape, Ronen,” Alexei said, striding beside us. His normally sparkling eyes and smile hid behind an ashen pallor.
“I know.”
“We need a plan,” MJ agreed, appearing utterly unfazed. Whether it was hidden or she truly wasn’t concerned, I didn’t know.
Every line in Ronen’s body vibrated with tension. Shadows seeped from his skin, only to become frayed pieces of vanishing darkness, like he couldn’t hold onto his power.
His jaw ticked. His attention darted. His chest rose and fell in quick succession.
Heavenly Shit. He was scared.
The reality of that sent a rush of cold adrenaline through my system.
“Can’t we just lusceler—”
Part of the tornado ripped away into an unnatural line of wind and circled the perimeter in front of us. A hazy white wall glinting with ice stood tall and threatening. The wind had us caged in on all sides, stopping every mode of escape.
“So what’s our plan for surviving the massive, shredding ice tornado coming our way then?” Alexei directed the question to Ronen.
I signaled to my Glory, pulling up the warm energy and coating my hands. “Can’t we just melt—”
My white flames shuddered, becoming as wispy and insubstantial as Ronen’s shadows.
“It’s the Veil Wind. Try your Infernus,” Ronen ordered.
I did, and although my purple flames held longer, I wasn’t sure how they could help. I’d never used my Hellfire alone to melt anything. The black flame was not only draining but, without the aid of my Glory, burned slowly, designed to torture and prolong screams, not melt ice.
“I mean, it’s something.” Alexei nodded, scrunching his face before his attention drifted back over my shoulder. “Does the all-powerful pet have a plan to save us, or has he volunteered as the first to become ground meat?”
“What?” I whipped my head around, and Ronen’s grip tightened on my arm. Aspen had been right behind us with Rune. But it was just her now.
I furiously yanked on my arm. The guardian bond clawed at my desperation, forcing me to try harder.
Aspen knelt farther away, staring at the approaching storm with acceptance. That was what his fucking relief meant. A way to end his pain.
I jerked my head back to Ronen. “Let me go!”
“No.”
“Ronen!” MJ snapped.
Her severe tone did nothing to persuade him. He only squeezed tighter.
“Lucille purposefully mutilated her face for him. The consequences of their bond are taking effect, and the pet wants to die.”
That was his logic? Let Aspen die so I’d be safe?
“Is this your praesidium speaking?” MJ asked, her auburn brows pinching together.
“This is what’s best,” he retorted, neither confirming nor denying her assumption.
The invasive force cut through my mind, searching and discarding my emotions until it found what it sought. Violence bled into my thoughts and hooked into my muscles.
Slowly sliding a dagger from my sheath, I had a split second of doubt before the bond drowned it out. Then I pushed lusceler into my arm and quickly slammed the blade through Ronen’s wrist.
He cried out, loosening his hold. Rune growled, then whimpered. Their reactions should’ve upset me. But they were standing in my way. Taking advantage, I ripped out of his weakened hold and luscelered. Snow sprayed as I skidded to a stop in front of Aspen and dropped to my knees.
His glazed eyes averted from the storm, and the relief he’d felt spiked into fear.
“Leave,” he rasped.
“Never.”
“Yes,” Ronen pressed, having followed me along with Rune. She bumped her head against my chest, almost knocking me over. I shoved her away.
“Let me end it for us,” Aspen pleaded.
I framed his face. Tingles instantly vibrated through my fingers as I searched for a spark of will. Hope. Anything I could work with. But all I found was dimming light, dark acceptance, and a suffering I couldn’t comprehend.
“No,” I answered both of them, sharp and unyielding.
Aspen raised a shaking hand, lightly grazing my bloody cut. “I will not let you hurt yourself for me. I am not worth it.”
“He’s right. And we need to move.” Ronen reached down.
“Touch me, and it’s the last thing you’ll ever do to me.”
“Lucille, it’s the bond. Ignore it and look at me!”
It was partly the bond. But at least this time we were on the same side. Something fluttered in my chest—light and knowing. An intuition. It was beyond the bond’s control, and yet the bond welcomed it. I ignored Ronen, the fast-approaching footsteps, and Rune’s whimpers, knowing what I had to do.
“I can’t breathe for you,” I said to Aspen, forcing his eyes to meet the severity of mine. “But I can show you why I think you’re worth breathing for.”
Then I pushed through his fiery mental barrier.
Getting straight to work, I pulled on my Infernus’s undulating melody and wove two hallucinations in quick succession—or more like snapshots of us.
Moments I had with Aspen that made me think he was worth it.
But from my perspective, filled with my emotions, and with me at the forefront commenting while he watched from a separate body.
I started with the memory of when he first found me in my forest. But even after telling him this was the moment he saved me, his eyes remained lifeless, his emotions unbelieving. All I needed was a seed of light. Something to tell me he’d fight when I released him from this.
I quickly changed the hallucination to the next, knowing we didn’t have much time. “This will forever be one of my favorite memories of us.”
My mom and I had gotten into another vicious fight. Aspen found me teary-eyed, music blasting in my headphones, curled into my knees while resting against a tree trunk.
“What’s wrong?” he demanded.
“You always sounded like you wanted to take on the world for me,” I said, talking over the scene.
“Fighting with my mom again.”
Memory Aspen frowned. There was nothing he could do to help the fights with my mom. It was something we’d have to work out ourselves, which we barely did in the end.
“I’m sorry, Lucille.”
I shrugged. “It is what it is.”
Aspen nodded, then bounced, as if nervous energy dug into his heels and forced them to bob back and forth.
My memory-self’s eyes widened at the action, and I smiled.
“I still can’t believe you bounced.”
A sliver of something light hummed beneath his pain. “I thought I might’ve gotten the wrong one,” present-day Aspen explained.
Hope stung my eyes, and instead of turning back to us, I watched him as I wove the imagery I knew by heart, infusing it with my emotions.
Memory Aspen, dressed in his black uniform and cloak, his hand squeezing the hilt of his sword, pulled out a chocolate bar—one with a gold-and-blue wrapper.
A special chocolate available only at a specific store across state lines.
I had randomly told him about it one day, thinking nothing of it.
I never imagined he’d do anything about it.
Aspen watched my memory-self’s mouth pop open. She squealed, and a semblance of a smile crept onto his face. But the sliver of light didn’t truly grow until I heard the rustling of my feet and a soft oomph.
He’d made me so happy, I accidentally luscelered off the ground, then leaped on him.
Past Aspen’s eyes widened as we fell together. He laughed once we hit the ground, infecting me with the sound until my own bubbling happiness joined his.
I glanced at Aspen, witnessing the softness in his eyes before turning back to the memory.
Straddling him, I pulled back, my smile practically manic. Aspen tucked a few wayward strands of hair behind my ears, his gorgeous eyes crinkling with humor.
“Thought that might cheer you up, sweetheart.”
That had been the first time he ever called me that. The soft, adoring word had completely melted my insides. I couldn’t think about what I thought of it now. But back then, it was everything to me.
“I wanted to kiss you,” I whispered. “You’d turned my day from rotten to beautiful in a span of seconds, and I wanted to bridge that gap so badly. But I was scared.”
“I wanted to kiss you too,” he whispered back.
“Don’t you see, Aspen? You were my light—my moon.”
His face dropped, reflecting the twinge of sadness threatening to snuff out the small bit of hope I’d garnered. “Were.”
“That’s…”
Not what I meant? I couldn’t say that. Not after screaming at him only days ago about wishing I had never met him. Not while feeling hurt and confused about what he’d done to me under Lilith’s control. No. I meant were.
Still deep in the hallucination, Aspen tilted his chin in my direction, resting wearily against a tree on the opposite side of me with his hands in his pockets, waiting for me to complete that thought. His resignation and acceptance struck me with their bitter claws. I hated it.
He watched his mom desiccate in front of his eyes. His cordistella had been smashed against cement. He serviced Lilith as her supposed son. He lived for years in a numb shell, forgetting and unable to process, until now.
He wanted what I wanted—relief from the stone fist squeezing every ounce of strength from our chests.
Everything we’d been through was unfair.
It didn’t make sense, and I didn’t know how to help myself, let alone him.
But I had to try. Truly, I had no choice in the matter.
The guardian bond had eased its control, hovering at the edges of my mind.
Yet the mere thought of leaving Aspen to suffer had it creeping forward.
I walked over to him, staring him dead in the eye. “Yes, were. I can’t promise we’ll have what we used to. I’m no longer that young girl blinded by what she didn’t know and seeking an escape and a handsome prince to come save her.”
“Save her,” Aspen mumbled, disheartened.
“You still don’t get it.” I laughed in disbelief. “Aspen, you did save me. From this.” I swept my hand around the earthly forest, then pointed at the memory of me still straddling him. “She hoped and dreamed again because of you.”
“Then I captured and almost killed you.”
“No. You were what I needed. You gave me the push to become who I am now and opened my eyes to the world I was born for. You always fought to protect me—or pushed me away in hopes it would save me.”
His humming sliver of light grew to the size of a beautiful pearl. Still small, but I hoped it’d be enough when we opened our eyes.
“Before I pull out of your head and we face the Shard Storm, I need you to understand something. Your life—it’s not something you get to throw away. I will not let you.” I pressed my hand to his chest. “Your pain will shape you, Aspen, and you can either let it haunt you or empower you.”
“Wise words.”
“Ones I can’t take credit for.”
He hummed, a frown crinkling his forehead before smoothing out. “Now what?”
“Now we go face the Shard Storm and survive.”
He entwined his fingers with mine. “I did promise you the day.”
“And you’ll be promising me a lot more of those too.”