5. Lucina #2
“Time?” she scoffs, pushing past him to get to me.
“Of course I have time.” Gemma smiles, her voice calm and sincere, “It’s nice to meet you, Lucina.
We don’t often see new faces here; you’ll have to forgive my coven for staring.
Let’s get you out from underneath the microscope.
” Gemma gently slides her arm through mine, taking me past Callan.
“I’ll be quick and then we’ll get you a hot shower and a change of clothes, how does that sound? ”
“Good.” So good.
I look back, feeling the weight of the Captain’s stare down the hall.
He’s waiting, settling against the desk, and a small part of me panics at being led away from him.
Chiaros knows why. He said I’m the weakest, and now I feel like one of those small fish, clinging to a shark for protection: A symbiotic relationship, except I’ve got nothing to offer him.
I’m not sure what Callan sees in my stare, but it has him pushing off the desk, nodding to a few more people and their bowed heads, and then he’s trailing down the hallway after us.
Gemma pulls open the door to a small exam room.
There’s a single table in the center, a long counter along the back wall, and wooden shelves above it packed with dozens of glass vials and neatly labeled jars of various herbs and tinctures.
I step inside cautiously, and when Callan moves to follow, Gemma shoots her arm out across the doorway.
“I’ve got her,” she tells him. “Please go fix yourself, you’re scaring the children. ”
Callan throws his hands wide, gesturing to the vacant hall. “What children?”
“Hypothetical ones who could walk into the Infirmary at any moment,” Gemma fires back, her hand still blocking his entry. “They look up to the Captain, they don’t want to see him covered in blood.”
“Oh, don’t worry,” I chime in, propping myself up against the exam table. “It’s not his.”
Both of them stare at me. Callan’s face has gone blank, but Gemma cracks a smile. “I like you,” she says, nodding as if she’s making that sentiment permanent, then she turns back to Callan. “Go on, get out. Have Rory look at your ‘not really’ wounds, and don’t come back until you’re clean.”
Gemma doesn’t give him time to argue before she shuts the door in his face.
She turns to me. “Where does it hurt?”
“Everywhere.” I wish I were lying.
Her blue eyes flare in concern, and then she gestures for me to climb up onto the table. “Can you tell me what happened?” The paper crinkles as I lower myself onto it, teeth gritted with the effort to move.
“Got caught in a riptide and yanked out to sea,” I tell her dryly. “Then I woke up on a beach to six men who looked like they’d spent the last year on Pyra.”
Gemma steps forward to examine my eyes, a smirk playing at her lips. “Fate’s funny, isn’t she?”
“Hilarious.”
“She always gets you where you’re meant to be.” Gemma nods to the silver pendant hanging around my neck. “Hold still.”
I do as she says, letting her press her palms to my temples—
A rush of adrenaline sweeps through me, warm and swift, and jarring enough that I rear back. “I’m sorry,” Gemma blurts. “Did that hurt? It shouldn’t have hurt.”
She keeps her hands raised between us, and I stare at them. “No, it…didn’t hurt, it just—what was it?”
“Healing magic.” Gemma wiggles her fingers, and my face falls. “You don’t know it?”
I shake my head, gripping the edge of the table. “No, I grew up in…the commoner land.”
Her blonde brows furrow. “How’d you get there?”
Someone abandoned me on a doorstep with fifteen years’ worth of silver.
“Fate was being funny again.”
Gemma snorts, “Well, healing magic is good stuff, Lucina. If you can stomach it for about fifteen seconds, I promise you’ll be good as new.”
“Fifteen seconds?” I ask skeptically. “I’m pretty banged up, Gemma.”
She nods, lifting her fingers to my temples. “Count.”
Warmth floods my veins, and it takes all of five seconds for her magic to find every tear, ache, and ailment.
Then another five to heal them. Ten seconds.
That’s all it takes. Relief cracks through me like a dam breaking.
I feel my mind piecing itself back together, the pounding in my skull subsides, and the swelling in my joints settling back to normal.
“Holy gods,” I breathe deeply, the strongest breath I’ve taken in what feels like years.
“Better?” she asks.
All I can manage is a nod, and Gemma grins.
“Thank you,” I tell her finally. Her magic can’t reach the raw feeling still buried deep in my chest, but the air is easier to breathe, and I at least feel capable of standing on my own two feet.
“It’s the least I can do for Fate’s latest victim.” Gemma lifts her chin to the bathroom door on my left. “There’s a shower just through there. You go ahead, and I’ll find you some new clothes.”
Her kindness catches me off guard. I’m just not used to it.
“Thank you,” I say again, feeling like a broken record, and Gemma smiles, stepping out into the hall. I hop off the exam table on perfectly stable legs and make my way to the bathroom.
When I step in front of the mirror, I regret it instantly.
My eyes are bloodshot, and my lower lashes have clumped together with who the fuck knows what—sand probably. My usual olive-toned skin is a deathly shade of grey, not a single nip of color anywhere on my body.
Like I’m in black and white.
I shed Callan’s jacket, turning the dial in the shower until warm water sprays over my outstretched fingers. I toss my bathing suit into the trash and turn the faucet until it’s hot enough to burn, letting the sand and bits of seaweed wash away like remnants of a bad dream.
Slippery thoughts surface—of Ivy and Jude. How worried they must be. Tears well in my eyes, and I scramble to wrangle it all, the guilt, but it’s too late. It’s too heavy to hold back, and too loud to silence.
I decided to come here. I told Callan I didn’t want to go back, and it felt like the right decision at the time. A scary and selfish one, but right all the same.
Ivy and Jude were the only good things I had in Draycott.
But I can’t stand the thought of them mourning me, searching the deepwater Cove for my body, which they’ll never find.
Jude will go home to that wretched place every night without me.
Without someone to protect him. He keeps saying he’s old enough now to protect himself, but he’s been saying that since he was eleven.
And that’s never stopped me from trying.
He's going to Orison in a few weeks, I remind myself. He’ll get out of that house, and he’ll hate that I’m not there, but he’ll be okay. So will Ivy, she has Flitrose. She has dreams to chase.
My tears sting like acid.
I can’t do this here. I choke back down. I don’t have time to fall apart and force myself back together before Gemma comes back, and I’d be mortified if she had to peel me off the shower floor. Although, I doubt she’d judge me, and I’d much rather her find me than Callan, but still.
Not here.
I scrub until my skin is raw and my hair is free of sand, and I’m wrapping the towel around myself when there’s a quiet knock on the bathroom door. “Lucina?”
Gemma.
“I found you some clothes,” she says.
I pull open the door, taking the folded stack out of her hands with another ‘thank you’, hating how dull it sounds, but she smiles all the same.
“I’ll wait out here.”
I change quickly into denim shorts and a plain white T-shirt, taking the time to detangle the matted clumps in my hair. When I step out of the bathroom, Gemma has a pair of brown boots waiting for me, socks laid over the leather pull straps.
“You look better already.” Gemma smirks, leaning against the wall by the door.
“I no longer want to crawl out of my skin, so I guess that’s a pretty good start.” I slide my feet into the boots, the tops brushing my mid-calf.
“There’s an empty cabin next to mine. If you get to stay, Callan’s going to make sure you get it.”
If I get to stay. “I’m guessing the Dame will make that decision?”
“Yup. You’ll be fine, just smile and nod and bow when you see her.” Gemma reaches for the door. “She isn’t—Chiaros, Callan!” Gemma swears. “You scared the shit out of me.”
Callan stands in the doorway, arms crossed, not a single ounce of remorse on his face.
He’s clean: A fresh black t-shirt, dark wash jeans, a pair of black leather boots, and a padded weapon-clad vest clipped over his torso.
His dark brown hair is damp, curling slightly at the ends, and his skin is no longer caked with dirt.
It’s… beautifully tanned, with that same glow to it that everyone here has.
His stern grey stare slides to me, the silver in his eyes flickering.
“Better?” he asks, and I nod. “Good. Let’s go. ”
“Where?” I follow him into the hall, thanking Gemma…again. “To see the Dame?”
“Yup.”
“Who is she?” The sun is blinding when we step out into the sticky summer air, the smell of that rich soil mingling with freshly cut grass.
Callan rolls out his shoulders, setting a pace that I’m forced to keep up with. “The Dame is the High Priestess of the Sol. Nothing goes without her approval.” That menacing silver-stare trails my freshly healed skin. “Especially you.”