14. Lucina
LUCINA
There’s a woman who looks like me—dark and wild curls framing her face. She screams, fighting against chains of shadows that bind her wrists.
Another memory flashes like a damaged roll of film, blurring in and out of focus.
The heel of heavy boots clacks against damp stone. Metal bars of cages. And coughing…lots of coughing.
There in a cell at the end of the hall is the woman, bound in chains, brown eyes burning, but not with fear.
With rage.
I tumble headfirst from my dream without warning, and when I open my eyes, no shadows are lurking in the corner, and there is no hazy fog sweeping across the floorboards.
Guess my Velkan didn’t have the energy to scare me shitless tonight.
But that memory was new…vivid…loud.
And that woman looked like me.
I huff, shedding my sweat-ridden pajamas for a new t-shirt and pair of shorts, then I hear a creak coming from the front porch.
I peek through the curtain to find the Captain, sprawled across the porch steps, various papers strewn out around him.
Moonlight dances in his dark brown hair, weapons gleaming where they hang from his padded vest. He looks almost… normal.
Callan is young, he’s just been forced into a position that requires him to act older. I wonder how much of it is an act—
No. I don’t wonder. That would require me to care.
I’m reminded of the spare key he has when I glance at my makeshift security system—a chair tucked under the doorknob, with a glass lantern balancing on top.
I roll my eyes at it, crossing the room to the window that faces the forest. I crane my neck to get a good look at the stars, but they’re blocked by the trees and the thick white windowpane.
I could get back in bed, but my body is too awake to sleep.
To alert after that broken and blurry memory.
My eyes dart between the front window and the back window.
Maybe I can go see the stars.
It can’t be that hard, right? To sneak away without Callan knowing. I used to sneak out of Catherine and Merrill’s house all the time, and the two of them never caught me. I learned to be as quiet as a mouse. I learned how to slip by undetected.
I ponder my options a second longer.
Fuck it, what’s he going to do? Kill me? If he catches me and tries to mess with my head, I’ll just start crying again. Can’t say I would have picked tears as the weakness of the Captain, but I guess everyone’s afraid of something.
I slide a shawl around me, shove my feet into some boots, and carefully pull the back window open. My heart pounds as I swing one leg over, then the next, pushing silently off the windowsill and falling only a few feet to the ground. I absorb all my weight in an attempt to land quietly–
The front porch creaks the second my feet hit the ground.
I drop to a crouch behind the cabin, one hand over my mouth to prevent any audible breaths from escaping. From underneath the raised foundation, I watch Callan stomp down the porch steps. And then he freezes.
The air in my lungs burns, begging for release, but I hold it in.
He stands there a moment. Turns. Stands some more. Then he stomps back up the steps.
I let go, and all the air flees my lungs, and only when the porch is silent do I smile. “Moron,” I mutter to myself, dusting my hands off as I stand. I can’t wait to tell Gemma how I’d snuck past the ever-feared Captain. I might even tell the entire camp—
There’s a violent crash, then glass shatters, and within seconds, a pair of boots hit the dirt behind me.
I whirl around, finding Callan with his arms crossed, staring right back at me. He’s barely breathless despite having just rammed through my poor excuse for a security system and I can feel the smugness rippling off him. “Figures,” is all he says, and my jaw goes slack.
“Well, if you knew I was out here, why didn’t you just walk around the fucking cabin?!”
“Why don’t you just follow the rules?!” he snaps back.
“Chiaros, you and your rules,” I groan, turning away from him. “I can’t sleep, so I’m going on a walk. Alone.”
Callan lets out a sharp laugh, then cuts me off in my path towards the forest. “You aren’t going anywhere alone.”
I throw my hands up in frustration, then I ball them into fists. “Callan, you said you didn’t have time to babysit, so don’t. You said you have a million other responsibilities, so tend to them. You’re wasting time following me around, all I want is to see the fucking stars.”
“You…want to see the stars?” He doesn’t ask it in a mocking tone; he asks as if he’s surprised. As if he really expected me to be sneaking out to kill someone or steal something.
I force out a deep breath, doing my best to be civil. “Yes.”
Callan’s jaw ticks, his grey eyes scanning the sleeping rows of cabins behind me. “Alright, Lucina,” he breathes, turning towards the forest. “Let’s go see the stars.”
The Captain takes off walking towards the tree line, and for a moment I think about giving up and trying my luck at sleep, but when Callan pauses at the edge of the woods and turns back to face me…there’s a challenge in his moonlit gaze.
I realize then how stupid I must look, standing dumbfounded in the grass. My pride is too strong to turn down a challenge, so I wrap my shawl tighter around me and follow the Captain into the woods.
“Can you slow down?” I call to the bobbing head of dark hair moving quickly through the trees ahead. I pick up my pace when he doesn’t do as I ask, cursing to myself as I navigate large tree roots and dodge spiderwebs.
We’re deep into the woods at this point, and I make the upsetting realization that this is the start of every horror movie I’ve ever seen: Girl willingly follows a stranger into the woods only to be chopped up into tiny pieces and sunk to the bottom of the lake—
His bobbing head disappears.
Vanishes entirely.
My voice is small and flat as it sounds through the dense forest. “Callan?”
Silence.
I hurry in the direction I’d last seen him, a scream tearing from my throat when I step out into thin air.
My stomach flips and my heart stops as I fall—
Callan catches my waist before I hit the ground, and the moment I have my footing, my fist rears back and connects seamlessly with his jaw. I reload when his head snaps to the side, but he snatches my fist before I can land another hit.
“Stop that,” he scolds, like I’m a petulant child, but I don’t listen. I fight against his hold with everything I have until his grip tightens. “Holy fuck, Lucina, you’re fine.”
He lets go only when the fight in my eyes dies out, and I can’t help but smile as he stretches out his jaw.
“That… was a solid punch,” he says, and I feel my smile widen— “for someone of your size.”
My face falls at the backhanded compliment. “Asshole,” I mutter straightening my shawl. My feet shift on uneven rocks, and I swivel towards the direction I’d fallen from. There’s a three-foot drop from the forest floor to…creek rocks? “Where are we?”
When I look back, Callan is off again, walking parallel to a wide babbling stream, maneuvering through jagged rocks like he’s memorized each one and knows how much they teeter. The sheer confidence he has that I’ll follow is infuriating.
I wait a second before I do, just to prove a point, then I take the same path he’s walking.
The sound of rushing water grows louder and louder, and at the creek’s end, the stream cascades into a small pool, a waterfall draped over moss-covered rocks on either side.
It’s beautiful, really, an iridescent glow to the water that reflects off the dark grey stone beneath.
Callan plops down on a flat slab before me. It’s perched high enough that you can see the shallow pool below, without getting wet.
I hesitate to join him at first, but he rolls his eyes at my caution, then pats the space beside him gently enough that none of it feels threatening. It feels innocent.
I slide in beside him, keeping to the edge—this rock isn’t meant for two.
My brows shoot up when the Captain abruptly unfolds himself and lies flat on the slab, his long legs dangling over the ledge, while his arms come up behind his head.
It’s jarring to see him sprawled so casually, his gaze fixed on the sky. For a moment, I just stare—
“Did you want to look at me or the stars, Lucina?”
A laugh bursts free before I can stop it, and I swear the corner of his mouth pulls up in response. “The stars,” I reply, lying across the rock beside him, pushing past how weird this all feels to be somewhat…cordial…with the Captain. “Holy gods,” I breathe. There are so many stars.
Thalvar—the tale-bearing star that guides travelers is right above us, and to the right is Nyxora, the daughter of midnight.
She only shines for the hour of twelve, then fades back into the inky black an hour later.
Zorath is further south, the red-misted star that Ivy’s nana called, the fury of the skies.
And shining brighter than all of them, as always, is Lune Sylra.
“How did you find this place?” I ask, making no attempt to keep the awe out of my voice.
“Pax and I used to play in these woods when we were growing up. I found it by accident—twisted my ankle falling into the creek bed. We kept this place secret; it was the only thing that belonged to just us.”
Just them, until… now? Maybe the secrecy of it faded over time, but this was their hiding place. I had plenty of those, but I’m sure the Captain and I were hiding from very different things growing up. Though I guess we were both raised somewhere we didn’t belong.
I can’t figure out what’s worse: being taken from a home you never knew, like I was, or being taken from one you did know.
Is being stuck with only the memory of how things used to be worse than never knowing what you missed out on?
I’m sure the same vacancy exists, regardless, the one planted deep in my chest that sits empty. The kind of space nothing can fill.
Callan has it too, I think, except he wears his like armor, and I wear mine like baggage.