16. Callan #3
“Who the fuck wouldn’t be?” she shouts back. It seems that anger rises in her the same way it does in me, rocking my vision and pumping blood into my ears. Angry is exactly where I need her.
“Don’t be scared.” I throw another, but this time she isn’t quite fast enough, and the blade grazes her upper arm— blood trickling down through the small slice.
Fury, unlike anything I’ve ever witnessed, burns in those honeyed eyes.
There she is. There’s that fire.
I keep my eyes pinned on hers, releasing enough magic to gather the gleaming metal.
“Those knives you carried,” I breathe, making sure my shields are locked in place, “is this how you defended yourself? By dodging?” I throw another, and she cracks the lid on her ravenous power, knocking the dagger off its course.
The blade stabs the hard earth and vibrates with the force she used to pin it there.
But her feet didn’t move.
“Good,” I tell her.
“Fuck you,” she growls.
I pinch the blade of the next dagger and throw it. “Who were you running from?” I ask, and the blade is ripped from the air before it can hit, clattering to the ground on the far side of the ring.
“None of your fucking business.”
“A friend?” I throw another.
“An enemy?” Another.
“Stop,” she snarls, knocking them all from the air. Her power eats through the space between us— a ravaged beast having been forced into a corner and only given two choices. Life or death.
I pinch the end of the last dagger, a heartbeat passing before I set it free.
“Family?”
The air cracks, and a violent current pounds against the shields I have in place. They hold, barely, and then the world goes silent. It’s a kind of quiet that has hair rising on my neck. A quiet that makes my heartbeat sound like a kick drum, and the dagger—
Chiaros, she doesn’t even look scared.
Lucina has halted the blade, the sharpened point pressing into her cheek only enough for a single bead of blood to drip down her face. Her eyes are pools of deep amber, and they’re welled with tears. Tears that don’t fall as she grips the pommel and pulls it down from her face.
I swear I can hear her heartbeat. Hers, mine and the heavy breaths we take.
She wipes the blood off her cheek, then those tear-filled eyes fall to study the dagger in her palm, and when they rise back up to me—
“Oh, fuck,” I curse, barely dodging it as she hurls it back at me. It sails through the air faster than a strike of lightning—faster than I’ve ever seen Pax throw a dagger, but then again, I’ve never seen him look at anyone the way Lucina’s looking at me right now.
Magic flawlessly whips out around her as she drags all the fallen knives across the dirt and flings them through the air with unnerving speed. I halt three mid-air, spinning to avoid the other two, and by the time I’ve got all five, she’s crossed the space between us, her fist reared back—
I snatch both of her wrists, anticipating the rise of the second, but failing to anticipate the knee she rears up. “Stop,” I growl in a tone I hate using, forcing her legs down with my own. “Enough, Lucina.”
“Flowers,” she shouts at me, trying to yank her wrists from my grip. “I choose the fucking flowers.”
“Why?” I ask calmly, despite the fury in her tone, then I lower myself to look her in the eyes. “Because it’s easier?”
She doesn’t answer.
“Remember what I told you about your Split? It’s the point of breaking.
It’s complete and utter collapse, and then it’s rebirth.
This process is no different, Lucina. You want complete control?
You want to understand what burns within you and own it?
Then break. Fall. Collapse. Strip away everything you have until all you’re left with is this,” my thumbs graze the pulse pounding through her wrists, “the ancient thing that runs beneath your skin, and the primal instinct to survive. To self-preserve.”
Lucina’s eyes flare, anger still simmering within them, but understanding burns alongside it; bitter, stunning, and hard to swallow.
“There’s a reason I picked knives,” I breathe, and she relaxes in my hold. “You won’t reach that point playing with flowers.”
I feel her pulse slow beneath my fingers, and the rise and fall of her chest soon matches my own.
Being this close to her…gods, she’s really just a woman who has been given something that she just doesn’t understand.
She’s been thrown into a world with no guidance.
She’s faced it beautifully, but she’s confused.
She’s overwhelmed. I can see it in her eyes, and I can feel it in her heartbeat.
“You hit old wounds,” Lucina says finally, calm enough that when she tugs on her hands, I let them go. “It hurt.”
“Hurt,” I emphasize the word in the past tense. “You survived them. Better yet, you defended yourself against them and you did it flawlessly.” I can tell she wasn’t expecting a compliment from me but the brief shock that passes over her face.
“You extorted them.”
I shake my head. “I used them to make you stronger, Lucina. Wounds into weapons.”
She lifts a dark brow, more of that fury funneling out of her stare as a calm and collected version of her resurfaces. “The Dame teach you that?”
“She did.”
“Must be a lesson she reserved for you.” She swipes her fingers across the scrape on her arm, catching a thin line of nearly dried blood that she flicks off into the dirt. “Or people she actually cares about.”
“I’m just a weapon she forged to have at her disposal, Lucina. Her lessons weren’t rooted in care.”
Her head tilts to the side, pondering that as I step over the training ring fence to put the knives up.
When I return, she’s tucking loose strands of hair back into her braid, face lifted to the…stars. Of course. “Alright,” I say, pulling her attention. “Let’s get you back home.”
There’s something in the way her face falls that makes me wonder if she’s questioning whether or not this place can be considered as such.
“It can be your home,” I tell her, and her eyes snap up to mine. “If you want that.”
“You stole that thought from my brain,” she accuses, and I snort.
“That’s… not how it works.” I move to stand before her. “I have access to memories, but only Lakelets can infiltrate unguarded streams of consciousness. I can teach you to shield against them, if you’d like.”
“No, thanks,” she replies instantly. “Selene’s helping me.”
“Be careful with what you tell her,” I warn, and she scoffs. “I’m serious, Lucina, she might—"
“Throw daggers at my pretty face?” Her smile widens when my mouth snaps shut. “I think Selene might be the least of my worries.”
I run my tongue across my top teeth, and she watches it closely. “I wouldn’t have let them hurt you.”
She stares down at the graze on her arm, then raises her brows at me. The color has returned to her cheeks, a pink flush blooming behind her tanned freckles, and her wide eyes are still burning—a honeyed hazel flecked in gold.
Not that I’d ever admit it to anyone, especially her, but she might just be the most beautiful thing I’ve ever seen. Even drenched in sweat and covered in dirt. It’s infuriating, really.
“I wouldn’t have let them kill you,” I clarify.
“Well, so far, the only person I’ve needed protection from is you, Captain.”
I inhale deeply, holding her stare. “What a bold thing to say for someone who’s superstitious.”
She’s the daughter of a traitor, I remind myself, but I take a step forward anyway. She doesn’t back up. Instead, she lifts that proud chin of hers and says, “I had my fingers crossed.”
My gaze falls to her lips, and she stiffens. “Of course you did.”
Lucina’s eyes flare when I reach up and scrape the dried speck of blood off her cheek, and there’s a noticeable flicker at the base of her neck—a stutter in her pulse. And the desire to touch it hits me so violently that I force myself back a step.
Lucina is a job. She is an order I have directly from the Dame herself, and if that’s not reason enough to stay away…
Esme Van Reenan was a traitor. Lucina can believe all she wants that her mother is innocent, but it’s already been accepted as truth. That’s like her waltzing in here and telling us the sky is red when it’s been blue this whole damn time.
She’s the daughter of a traitor.
Maybe if I say it enough, I’ll stop imagining what she tastes like.