12. Lucina
LUCINA
It’s been two weeks since the news of Iris made its way through camp, followed quickly by the confirmation of her death. Though I begged, Pax wouldn’t tell me anything aside from what he’d already told me; Iris had been taken by Rogues twenty years ago, and somehow, she survived.
She survived twenty years of Chiaros knows what, only to die the day she’d finally made it home.
That was all I could think about as I stood beside Gemma a few days ago, watching as they wrapped Iris’s body in the softest linen, tucking small reminders of who she was and who had loved her into the neatly pressed folds.
Only a glimpse of home.
It wasn’t fair, and maybe that’s why the silence had been so loud that morning as everyone gathered around a small, freshly dug grave, and watched Iris’s linen-wrapped body sink into the soft earth.
The Dame was there, dressed in her silver robes, while everyone else wore white, the symbol of peace and surrender.
It’s exactly what one can hope for during their Crossing: the separation of a spirit from its vessel as it crosses the veil separating the living from the dead.
The linen represents that veil; thin, white, gauzy, and the letters from loved ones—the old photographs and tiny trinkets—it’s to ensure that when the soul faces judgement, it’s never faced alone.
Two mornings after her Crossing, small purple buds had sprouted atop her grave. It was a gift to her parents, maybe—irises for Iris.
Hope bloomed alongside those tiny buds, and it spread through camp like wildfire. Pirn has gone restless, and all eyes have been on the Captain and his coven. Because, regardless of Iris’s death, she had survived. What if there’s more out there like her? In Streatham.
I found that I wanted to know the answers to that question as much as Gemma did. As much as all of Pirn did. Hope, as it turns out, is addictive and contagious.
Pax is with me most of the time now, and the Captain has hardly been seen. He’s likely holed up somewhere, avoiding the unrest of camp and all the unwanted attention it’s given him.
Even with all this chaos, the Dame’s orders still stand for an Ajax to watch my every move.
The only time I’m alone is at night, when my Velkan weaves his memories into my dreams. I can tell it’s taking its toll on him because they’ve come infrequently now, but when he does visit, it’s always the same memory.
Only bits and pieces of it come through, and then I’m dragged into some hazy consciousness and he’s there…
at the foot of my bed…reaching out for me.
I anticipate his visits now, and when the memory starts playing, fear doesn’t overwhelm my ability to pay attention. What he shows me isn’t any less fuzzy, but at least now I have the mental capacity to focus on it.
There’s a man and a woman. The man is my Velkan, I recognize his voice, but I haven’t any idea who the woman is. She rarely speaks, but I hear her heart beating. It’s a steady thrum despite the desperate breaths she takes.
They’re running from something; it’s the only logical explanation—not that any of this is logical.
As for what the memory is about, I have no idea. All I know is it’s cold, damp, and hard to breathe. To my Velkan, that’s not good enough. I’m not getting the message. But if he wants me to understand so badly, why doesn’t he show me something where my vision isn’t obstructed?
He wants me to use the Eldral, I know it. It’s the only way I can communicate with him directly. Sure, I’m curious, but I’m not dumb. I don’t know if I can take that risk. The Eldral is in a safe place, and I’ve always been good at hiding things. I had to be with “parents” like mine.
Even with something so damning in my possession, I remind the Dame during every brutal and futile lesson, that having me followed is senseless.
Especially given the more pressing issues surrounding the Sol and their people left behind in Streatham.
But she always insists otherwise, then throws another flower at my feet and says—
“Again,” Delia instructs, and I bite back the curses forming on my tongue.
“Are you going to catch me when I collapse, then?” I ask, leveling a glare at her. The rolling hills have become nothing but a splotch of green in the background of my blurred vision.
It’s not that I don’t have the power to lift it—I do. I feel it ripping through me like a violent current, hot and bright and blinding, but just when I think I’ve wrangled it, my hold slips. I either vomit in the grass, or nothing happens at all.
It bothers her as much as it bothers me.
We’re on hour three, and I’m a sweaty fucking mess. My knees are threatening to buckle, my hands are clammy, and I’m all of two seconds from crumbling, partly from exhaustion and partly from the sheer pressure of barely leashed magic—I’ve been teasing it for hours.
“You can do this, Lucina. Just focus,” she says calmly, readjusting her spill of silver fabric in the grass.
I wipe sweat from my face and roll out my shoulders. Heat floods my arms, and I bite back the urge to smother it, knowing damn well my body can’t hold much more without imploding. Still, I let it consume me entirely, because that’s what she wants, right?
The light, the heat, the fire.
I let it roar until it’s a steady drumbeat in my ears, thrumming in time to my erratic pulse. I zero in on the larkspur to the best of my ability, my breaths coming out short.
That’s when the world fades away.
I become distant from my body, from the grass beneath me, and the crisp blue sky above. Delia’s voice becomes distant too, and whatever she’s saying is nothing but mumbled words, as if a pane of thick glass has sprung up between us.
I think she might be shouting, but I’m too far gone to hear her. I’m too far gone to care.
There’s a rumble like the impending rush of a stampede, and then the ground shakes. Or maybe it’s me shaking… I can’t be sure.
I am sure, however, of the exact moment my vision goes black.
My body is no longer mine, and gods, I feel heavy…heavy and limbless. There’s muffled shouting from some faraway plane of existence—a place I don’t belong to anymore. Then something cracks—no, bursts. And then there’s—
Silence.
Sweet, blissful silence. I never want it to end.
My vision returns before my hearing does, the hot sun forcing me to squint, but the rest of me is still numb. Am I standing still? Surely not. Surely, I’m not whole enough to stand. Familiar feelings trickle through me, like static at first, and then it’s—
Blades of grass against the backs of my arms… poking the nape of my neck.
Not standing.
And holy mother of gods, the headache I have is outrageous.
My shoulders quiver as I pull myself up to my elbows, hauling my legs beneath me, knowing damn well I have no strength to stand.
“Lucina!”
I wince at my name, at the pounding that rattles my skull in response, and I try to peel my tongue from the roof of my mouth, but I can’t. I can’t do anything.
“Lucina!” Delia shouts again, and my eyes adjust, her silver robes coming into focus seconds before she’s hauling me to my feet. I open my mouth to tell her how incapable I am of standing, but the words fall away.
Everything falls away when I see what I’ve done.
Before us, there had been a beautiful field of wildflowers—hundreds of them. Blues, purples, yellows…but they’re no longer rooted in the earth.
Every single flower hangs suspended, hovering inches above the grass, spinning in slow circles. Larkspurs, marigolds, zinnias, dandelions…they’ve all been ripped at the root.
The Dame’s mouth is a thin line as she surveys the pasture, then her wild gaze falls to my hands.
“Close them,” she orders, a slight tremble in her voice that sharpens my senses. “Close them, Lucina.”
I do as she says and curl my fingers into fists. Every flower falls to the ground.
Hundreds, if not thousands, lay against the long blades of grass, tiny splotches of color as far as the eye can see.
Delia lets go of my arm, and I will my feet to stay beneath me, a buzz in my head sweeping down to my toes as she wordlessly picks up a nearby flower and holds it up to the sun.
She spins the Larkspur once between her thumb and forefinger, and my stomach churns when all its petals fall lifeless to the grass below.
Then a breeze shifts through the field, and thousands of shriveled petals blow away like ashes in the wind.
Realization dawns on me only seconds after it finds Delia.
They’re dead. All of them.
I wipe sweat from my brow, squinting still against the unforgiving sun. “I didn’t mean to—”
“Get something to eat and spend time in the sun today. You’ll need to replenish what you’ve just spent.” Delia’s eyes are almost somber when they meet mine. She isn’t disappointed, and she isn’t angry. She looks almost…apologetic.
But what does she have to be sorry for?
I don’t say a word when she turns on her heel and leaves me in the death-ridden grass.
“Fold,” I swear, laying my cards down.
“Me too,” Gemma adds, topping off Pax’s glass with the last bit of wine. He’d been stationed on my porch when the storm started, and not only did we convince him to come inside, but we also got him to agree to a glass of wine after he won the first hand of poker.
Gemma and I have been stealthily refilling it ever since.
His eyes are glossy, his fair skin flushed, and he’s smiling like a Cheshire cat. Pax looks down at his cards before his hazy eyes zero in on Selene.
“Fuck this game.” Selene folds, throwing her cards down on the table.
Kimber looks up at Pax to find him already staring.
“Just me and you, Kimmy,” he grins, “I hope you have some good cards in your hand.” I glare at Gemma when his words come out slurred.
Maybe we’d given him a little too much wine.
My eyes fall to the armed vest he’s unclipped and let hang around his shoulders.
We should confiscate his weapons.
Kimber tucks her cinnamon hair behind her ears before pushing all her candy into the middle. “All in.”
Pax’s smile only grows wider. “Yeah, right. You’re bluffing,” he chuffs. “There is no way that you have a better hand than me.”
Kimber’s eyes flash in amusement, and the corner of her mouth twitches slightly, but then she quickly schools her features into neutrality.
Pax’s smug grin fades only a fraction, his eyes narrowing on the pile she’s pushed into the middle. He contemplates a little longer, looking down at his remaining pile of multicolored candy, then he slams his cards face up on the coffee table in defeat.
Four of a kind; all sevens. It’s a decent hand, I’m pretty sure, but he thinks Kimber has better.
“Show us what you got, Kimmy,” Pax says smugly.
The Diviner is smiling as she flips her cards over for everyone to see.
Gemma’s laugh is boisterous, and Pax’s face pales.
She has nothing. Absolutely nothing.
“Atta girl,” Selene grins, picking a few pieces of candy out of her massive pile of winnings. Kimber bats her eyelashes as she gathers it all, and Pax sits utterly dumbfounded.
I pat him on the shoulder. “Don’t be a sore loser, Paxton.”
He scoffs, tripping over the edge of the rug as he stumbles to the bathroom. The storm has died down enough that he can finish his watch shift outside.
“Alright.” Selene stands, gathering her things. “The wine’s gone, so I’m gone. I’ll see you two at breakfast.” Kimber yawns, following Selene to the door, and we quietly mutter our goodbyes.
“I should probably stay here,” Gemma announces, cocooning herself in the woven throw blanket. “I’ve had a lot to drink.”
I snort, bending down to pick up the candy wrappers that litter the floor. “Gemma, you live 10 feet away.”
“Too farrr,” she whines, dragging out her words, and settling into the couch.
I nearly jump when Pax pushes the door open with such force that for a moment I think it’ll fly off its hinges. He stumbles out of the bathroom, muttering something angrily under his breath. I look back at Gemma for all of two seconds, and when my bed creaks, I whip around in time to see Pax—
Crawling into my bed.
“No!” I tell him. “No, no, no—Pax, you can’t sleep here.” I tug on his ankle in a poor attempt to get him to move, but he dismisses me with a lazy wave of his hand. “Seriously, Pax.”
“Roses,” he drunkenly mumbles, and I freeze.
“Roses?”
“Kimmy,” he blurts, and I swear a blush creeps up his cheeks. “Kimmy smells like roses.” Pax’s voice slows, and his eyes flutter shut as he buries his face in the pillows.
I sigh heavily, “She does.”
After a few more minutes of tugging on his leg, I come to the painful conclusion that without any help, I’ll never get him out of this bed.
The sunrise is only a few hours off, and I might be strong, but Pax is a couple hundred pounds of pure muscle.
I slide under the covers with a huff, throwing up a pillow barrier between us.
“You better stay on your side, Pax,” I huff. “I’m a kicker.”
A brief silence passes, and I think he’s fallen asleep until he whispers into the dark cabin, “Callan was right about you.”
My head snaps up. “Oh yeah? And what was he right about?”
I wait patiently for his response, but all I get is a low chuckle, followed by a deep snore.
That motherfucker.