9. Lucina
LUCINA
Iswear my eyes are open, but I can’t see a thing.
There is a steady heartbeat, loud and strong and achingly familiar.
“Don’t let them see,” a man warns, then everything gets cold.
Like his words are fallen snow.
There’s a man at the foot of my bed. I can hear him breathing.
He’s death incarnate—the Shadow Man. Tall and pale and gangly. He’s watching me through that dark void where his face should be, and when I hear the heels of his shoes clack against the hardwood, my body screams at me to move.
But I can’t.
All the heat is drained from the room as he approaches my bedside, and it’s so cold that each panicked breath I take is a puff of white smoke. He’s not real. He’s not real.
The bed creaks. The mattress dips.
Then that otherworldly voice splits the air, from every direction; above, below, and all around the room. Every square inch of my brain.
“Don’t let them see.”
My pulse rushes violently through me, that ancient beast stirring awake with it, but there’s nothing I can do when the Shadow Man reaches for my face. Long pale fingers brush against my cheek in a frigid bite that lingers, and then the bed rises.
I hear a soft thud against the nightstand, then there’s a rush of icy air.
And he’s gone.
When I’m certain that it’s sunlight bleeding through my closed eyelids, I crack them open, and I’m met with an early morning sky peeking through the sliver in my curtains.
My cabin is haunted. There’s no doubt about it.
I rip the covers back, one foot thrown out onto the floor—
And then I freeze.
There, on my nightstand, as real as my racing heart, is a… sapphire.
It’s attached to a broken gold chain, the gem itself as big as a billiard ball. The streams of sunlight refract against the beautifully weathered jewel, casting a line of deep blue shadow across the wooden surface.
Real. It’s as real as my hand in front of my face.
The Shadow Man left me something tangible. Can ghosts do that?
…can demons?
Pax is waiting for me when I finally step out into the early morning humidity, dressed and ready for whatever grueling lesson the Dame has planned.
His brown eyes are tired, and his white long-sleeved shirt is wrinkled, having stayed up all night on my porch. It’s ridiculous, really, and a gigantic waste of the Captain’s resources to have one of his men watch me at all hours of the day. But these aren’t his orders, they’re the Dame’s.
“Holy shit, you’re on time,” Pax grins, perched against the porch railing. “Should I be concerned?”
My only reply is a scowl, exhaustion wearing on me too deeply to bite back at his jab, but normally I would.
Pax has been on my watch since Selumira three days ago.
The Captain and the rest of his coven left through the Banyan the morning after our glorious night of dancing, and Pax stayed back to keep an eye on me.
He’s honestly not bad to talk to, I just didn’t get enough sleep to banter.
“Come on,” Pax whines, following me as I storm down the porch steps. “This is when you tell me to fuck off.”
“Fuck off.”
His laughter makes my migraine swell.
All of Pirn is still sleeping, the amber lights that hang above cabin doors slowly dimming as the sky gets brighter, the horizon line being kissed by rising sun rays.
Going into a lesson with the Dame exhausted means I’ll probably need to be carried to breakfast, but being haunted by shadow men doesn’t seem like an excuse she’d accept.
I could switch cabins. But what if it’s me he’s haunting? Despite his horrific appearance and the blood-curdling terror I feel when he appears at the foot of my bed, he hasn’t…hurt…me. Yet. He left me… jewelry, as eerie and ominous as it is…so maybe he likes me? In a creepy stalker kind of way?
Chiaros, I’m only making my headache worse.
I feel Pax watching me as we walk. “Wanna talk about it?”
“About what?” I reply through a yawn.
“Whatever’s got you in such a testy mood.”
“Testy?” I glower at him. “Really?” He hums his confirmation, barely holding back his smile, his brown eyes bright in childish amusement. “What are you, twelve?”
“See? That right there,” he points an accusatory finger in my direction, splitting into a full grin before he can even get the word out, “Testy.”
I shove him off the path with all my might, but he catches his footing in time to avoid crashing into the thick bushes lining the walkway. Then he laughs, a deep, full-bodied laugh that, despite all odds, makes me smile.
Callan might have killed me for shoving him like that, and Devon would have snapped me like a twig, but Pax…Pax is different. He reminds me of Jude.
A few more morning walks, and I might even consider him a friend.
The Banyan tree comes into view as we crest the hill into the heart of camp. The golden basin from Selumira has been taken away to wherever it is stored until the next full moon, and the only evidence of our celebration is the turned-up dirt.
The dark webbed branches of the Banyan are shaded, and the rising sun barely hits the roots that sprout up through the dirt. Through the tangle of tree limbs, I can see the smooth trunk coated in deep brown bark. It’s sleeping with the rest of camp.
“Do you wish you had gone with them?” I ask, nodding to the trunk of the Banyan. “Your coven.”
Pax shrugs, the material of his white shirt bunching over his broad shoulders. “Of course I do. They’re my brothers.”
A few beats of silence pass between us. “So, you drew the short stick then?”
“No one drew sticks, Lucina,” Pax assures me. “I’m the only one Callan trusted with your watch.”
My brows bump up. “Seriously? He’s suspicious of me too?”
Pax avoids eye contact, and that answers my question.
“But why?” I ask, slightly annoyed. “I passed the Banyan tree’s judgement; my soul is ‘clean’ or whatever the fuck he called it, and I haven’t done anything wrong.”
Besides asking him to jeopardize the secrecy of Pirn to get a message to my loved ones.
But he agreed to it, which means he’s just as guilty of breaking the rules as I am.
“You’re a stranger, Lucina, and we haven’t seen a new face in years,” Pax says plainly, starting up the stone path that leads to the Den.
“But I’m not—”
“Look, Lucina,” his shoulders fall. “I feel like I’m a pretty good judge of character, and if it makes you feel any better, I’m not suspicious of you in the slightest.”
I watch him skeptically. “I feel a ‘but’ coming.”
“But…” he starts, “you washed up on a beach, wearing a Solian necklace, claiming you came from the commoner lands, and you expect immediate trust? That’s not plausible. The Dame is just being cautious, and so is the Captain. You’ll gain their trust eventually, just be patient.”
When I halt in the grass, he turns back to face me. “So, you trust me?”
“Gods, no,” Pax laughs. “There are only a few people I trust, Lucina. But I think if you had some master plan to kill us all, you probably would have done it by now.”
That has me smiling again, tired bones and all. “Speaking of murder…” I glimpse the field of wildflowers and the billow of starlit robes waiting for me there. “If today’s the day Her Grace kills me, promise you’ll bury me somewhere nice.”
The corner of his mouth kicks up. “The rolling hills?”
“Perfect.”
Then I go to meet the Dame.
She picked a blue wildflower. A larkspur.
Make it move, the Dame said… two hours ago.
It’s not like I haven’t been trying, believe me, I’ve been trying so hard, I swear I’m close to going insane.
I’ve done exactly what she says to do; I unleash that white hot magic until it pulses like a steady drum beat beneath my skin.
Then I imagine the larkspur lifting off the ground, my magic as the phantom breeze that moves it.
I’ve done everything as instructed.
And still…nothing.
“Again,” the Dame commands, sitting cross-legged in the grass beside me. “You can do this.”
The word, again, lost all meaning about thirty minutes ago, the same time I lost all feeling in my hands. I told her that, of course, but all she said was—
“Again, Lucina.”
I crack open that well of power inside me and let it run its course up my spine, whilst keeping the contents of my stomach where it belongs. I will it into my arms and down to my fingertips where it pulses expectantly.
Easy, that part is easy. It’s the next bit that makes me want to bash my head into a wall.
I focus all my attention on the deep blue petals and the long green stems. I imagine my magic as an extension of myself, like an extra hand or a third eye, and I’m seeing, moving, and floating with it.
With the wind of my creation.
Wind that will pick up the larkspur, because I command it so.
Heavy power pushes against my skin, begging to be set free. Power that’s ancient but new. Young yet old.
So very old, it whispers back to me.
Panic sets in, buried deep and blinding. I feel it coming up my throat and stretching out beneath my skin, as if there’s a beast inside trying to escape.
“Enough,” Delia shouts from some distant land she’s drifted off to.
Wait, no, it’s me that’s drifted off. Right off the face of the planet.
“Lucina!”
It takes more effort than it ever has to wrangle all that magic back into its home at the base of my spine, but once it’s all crammed inside, I find myself back on the grassy earth. Back in a pool of my sweat. Back on Vita and back in Pirn. Thank the gods.
My blurry vision focuses on the Dame, who’s wearing an expression I’ve yet to see from her. It’s discouraged and concerned—a twisted mix of the two. “That’s enough for today.”
“I can’t do this,” I blurt.
Delia freezes at my words, settling back down in the grass. “Today. You can’t do it today, Lucina. But there’s always tomorrow.”
I look down at my throbbing hands. “How long did it take you? To control it.”
“Three days.”
It’s my third day.
I lose the battle against my curiosity, my next question coming out before I can talk myself out of it. “And how long did it take the Captain?”
Her navy eyes flick to mine. Gemma told me that the Captain is the only other person the Dame has trained. Delia casts her gaze to the rolling hills and says, “A few hours.”
My mouth hangs open. “Hours? Are you serious?”
“Don’t compare yourself to him,” she says. “His father had been… preparing Callan to inherit his magic from the very moment he was born. I simply finished what he couldn’t.”
Callan was probably six or seven when the attack happened.
Gemma told me that’s how he lost his father.
And while I’m not sure how you train someone on a magic they don’t even have yet, I know it couldn’t have been easy.
He went straight from being a kid to filling his father’s shoes—at least that’s how Gemma put it.
“So, you’re telling me,” I peel my dry tongue off the roof of my mouth, “that Callan was able to control that silver tattoo-thingy only a few hours after his Split?”
The Dame nods, gathering her robes to stand.
“And if I learn enough control to show you mine…” I start after her, my legs wobbly as I shove them beneath me. “Will you take the Ajax coven off my watch?”
She falters only a fraction of a step through the grass, but she doesn’t slow her pace. “That depends, Lucina.”
“On what?”
“On whose daughter you are,” she mutters over her shoulder, and I halt in the grass.
Then the Dame leaves me in the wake of her silver robes.
“My cabin’s haunted,” I announce to the table, casually unfolding my napkin.
Kimber’s eyes shoot up from her book so fast, I bet she’s dizzy. “What do you mean?”
I shrug, tearing off a piece of my dinner roll.
“I’ll be dreaming, then I’ll wake up…except I’m not awake.
When I open my eyes, there’s a man at the foot of my bed, sometimes he’s in the corner.
Long arms, pale, faceless, mostly made of dark shadows.
He sits on the edge of the mattress, says some creepy shit, then he leaves. Last night he touched my face.”
When I look up, Gemma’s jaw hangs slack over her plate, and even Selene is gaping.
“What does he say to you?” Kimber says slowly, and something about her tone makes me uneasy.
“Uh—he said, I’m here now, and don’t let them see.” I chew through the last bit of bread, swallowing thickly. “Oh, and he left me—”
“Lucina, come with me,” Kimber blurts, and all three of us swing our heads in her direction. “We need to talk to Pa, and he won’t be up much longer.” The Diviner stands, gathering her things quickly.
“Kimber,” Gemma blurts, “what’s going on?”
The Diviner stiffens, green eyes darting to every face at the table, then settling on something she sees behind me. Chills break out across my skin.
“Kimber…” I say slowly.
“Lucina has two Velkans,” she blurts out and my eyes widen. “Her grandmother and someone who should be in…” Kimber’s voice trails off, the urgency in it dying. Then she whispers, “Pyra.”
Hell.