17. Lucina #2
“Six hundred and forty-three years after the Chiaros was formed,” Kimber starts, and the three of us groan.
“Belvora experienced a winter so harsh, trade routes along the Ivory Canal were halted due to freezing temperatures. Civilians in the port cities were forced to either trek across the barren plains of Griseo for provisions, or they’d what?
” she asks, pulling back her toast-dagger to take another bite.
Gemma shakes her head, throwing her hands up. “We don’t know, Kimber.”
“Or they’d starve.” The Diviner smiles at Selene, as if she’s won a competition that only she was competing in. “Starvation is one of the answers. So, you’re wrong. Give me my book back.”
Selene’s dark eyes bore into Kimber, flat and bored. “Shut up and eat your toast.”
She does, reluctantly, some color returning to the tops of her supple cheeks as she finishes off what was left of my breakfast.
Between the shocking news of my heritage, the brutal training sessions with the Captain, and the nightly torments my Velkan makes me suffer through, meals with my friends are the only sense of normalcy I have.
Gemma almost passed out when I told her I was a Van Reenan, but Kimber said she suspected it, and Selene admitted she stole the thought from my brain the morning after I’d found out. Then she reprimanded me for having my shields down.
Kimber is optimistic about it; she thinks it’s a good thing—the fifth Disciple-born bloodline did continue when everyone thought it had ended with Esme. And sure, that makes it sound worth celebrating, but my family’s name isn’t celebrated anymore; it’s tarnished.
Gemma tries to hide it for my sake, but she’s scared. She knows what being Esme’s daughter means and what it makes me.
A target.
My fingers flex around the porcelain mug, and my foot taps impatiently against the floor.
The nightmares are worse. They are more vibrant and real. I find myself avoiding shadowed corners and dreading sleep. I’ve been dreading darkness of any kind out of fear that my Velkan is lingering there…waiting for me—
“Lucina, do you know what the Whistles are?” Kimber asks, cutting through my thoughtless spiral, and Selene and Gemma groan.
I shake my head, taking my last good sip of coffee before it hits a lukewarm temperature.
“Upon our Split, Diviners receive a direct line of communication with the ancient founders of our coven, it’s part of becoming initiated.
We call them the Whistles because that’s how it sounds when they speak to us. ”
Gemma exchanges a knowing glance with Selene, as if they’ve both had this lecture before. Either that or they’re silently making fun of the goosebumps that just sprang up over my arms.
Kimber pays them no mind. “There are limits to the things I can and cannot tell you, and the Whistles have the authority to stop the words from coming out of my mouth should it not be time for you to hear them. If I told you anyway, I’d be violating the will of the Matrons and I’d be violating Fate herself.
” She makes a poor attempt to straighten her tangled hair, then gives up, tucking it behind her ears instead.
“I’m telling you all of this, so that you pay attention to the things I can say—it reflects the urgency behind what I can’t. ”
My breathing hitches, fear trickling down my spine as a heavy presence settles just behind my shoulders, dark and cold and dreadful.
“You’re right to be afraid,” she breathes and my brows furrow. I look to Selene and Gemma who are watching Kimber with the same confusion.
“Afraid of what, Kimber?” I ask.
Her head tilts, her lips twisting to the side. “The dark.”
“Shut up, I’m trying to focus,” I snap, keeping my eyes locked on the task at hand while Callan unhelpfully snickers behind me. I pay him no mind, holding out my open palms while my upper lip curls in concentration.
“I can see that,” he drawls, and anger flares.
“Pointing it out—much like snickering—is not. Helpful.” Sweat glides down my neck and bleeds through the fabric of my clothes, but I continue my stare off even as my vision blurs.
“Come on, come on,” I beg, my legs quivering from the absurd number of laps I’ve had to make around the training ring, dumbbells in either hand while I grit through heavy lunges.
Gods, I can’t do another lunge.
“Maybe we should call it a night, little Reenan.” Callan steps into my line of sight, but I don’t break my stare. “Let’s send the poor frog back home to his family.”
“No!” I shout when he reaches for it, keeping my focus on the slimy brown toad in front of me, memorizing every bump and patch of leathery skin. “Just a few more seconds.”
At the start of tonight’s training, Callan bet I wouldn’t last two hours without hurling up the wine I’d had at dinner, but I’d made it three.
As a reward, he agreed to a lesson on illusions.
I get now why he wanted me to master basic magic first; this was fucking impossible.
But I won’t dare admit that out loud, I’d rather go blind staring down a gods-damn toad than admit defeat.
Spinning illusions requires memorizing every detail of the thing you are trying to create, and I mean every. Single. Detail.
Flattened head with green and brown specks, webbed feet and long forelegs, white underbelly…
I etch its description into my brain, and I pray that this time I’ve got it right.
I’ve made some terrifying-looking frogs so far; some that were mere splotches of leathery skin, some without legs, and one that honestly…
will haunt me for the rest of my life. Callan’s too, no doubt.
Feeling slightly more confident this time, I release the tingling rush of power, and it sweeps across the dirt, laced with the image of a frog exactly like the one before me. I hope. I keep my mind focused on the details I memorized: the murky skin, the beady eyes, the wide mouth—
The illusion forms, and I hold my breath, plastering on a triumphant smile when the image sharpens. It’s identical, down to the strategically placed bits of green, brown, and white.
“Ha!” I cheer, bouncing on the balls of my feet. “Told you I could do it—”
The illusion opens its wide mouth to croak, and a blood-curdling scream comes out instead— so sharp I slam my hands over my ears and Callan stumbles backwards. I sever the tether connecting it with my magic, and it vanishes.
The sudden silence is jarring, and Callan is…fighting to keep a straight face.
I scowl a second before his laughter bursts free, tumbling through the air much like magic would. He laughs so hard tears spring to his eyes, unable to do anything but point to the dumbbells sitting by the fence.
My legs threaten to give out right then and there. I can’t. Do. Another. Lunge.
“Come on,” I groan as he wipes the tears from his eyes. “The frogs looked the same; that has to count for something.”
“That,” he says, laughing harder, a scar-flecked hand pressed into his sternum. “That was the most ridiculous thing I’ve ever seen.” Callan points again to the dumbbells. “Go.”
I grit my teeth and turn, my fingers trembling as I lift against the strain in my arms and force myself into the first lunge. I can only pray I’ll go numb here soon; it’s the only way I’ll survive the run back.
I alternate which knee hovers above the dirt, careful not to touch the ground. The last time I did that, he made me start over.
Callan walks beside me as he’s done with every lap, hands casually shoved into his pockets.
He’s nicer to look at when that scowl line between his brows isn’t so prominent, and right now there isn’t a single crease marring his face, except for the short lines around his mouth. But those aren’t from scowling…
“Stop smiling,” I grit out. My thighs are past the point of burning and have graduated to painfully numb, each dip down strains the muscles so intensely that tears spring to my eyes.
Callan comes to an abrupt halt beside me. “You can be done.”
He must sense the impending collapse of every bone in my body.
“You’ve never gone easy on me before,” I force out, taking another vicious lunge, salt on my tongue from the sweat dripping off my upper lip. “Why start now, Captain?” I haul myself back up and take another step.
“Going easy on you?” He catches up to my side in two long steps, grey eyes assessing my tired and burnt-out body. “Your face is flushed, your skin is overheating, and your thighs are trembling.”
“That’s how you want me, isn’t it?”
Unfortunately, I failed to think through how that might sound out loud, and heat floods my cheeks, raising my internal temperature until I’m seconds from bursting into flames. Callan stumbles a step, but I keep lunging, if only not to die of regret and embarrassment.
He’s back at my side in seconds, not that I made it far. “Drop the weights,” he commands.
Gods, that’s all I want to do. Then I want to melt into the dirt and hope Gemma can stitch my limbs back together.
“Is that an order?” I ask, with all the stubborn pride I can muster.
“Lucina,” he growls, and the weights hit the ground, dust kicking up as they sink into the dirt. Callan steps into my path, and I’m forced to tilt my head back to meet his darkened stare. “It is.”
I cut him a glare. “Ordering me to stop when I’m more than capable of continuing is the definition of going easy on me—"
“No, Lucina,” he shakes his head slowly. “I was answering your first question.”
My stomach plummets. Then twists. Chiaros.
His mouth splits into a taunting grin. “I’ve never seen you speechless, little Reenan.” He plucks the dumbbells from the ground as if they were mere feathers, and my mouth opens, then shuts.
Dear gods, I am speechless. I…I have nothing.
Callan smirks, gathering both dumbbells in one arm. “Why ask a question you don’t want the answer to?”
“The question came out wrong…I didn’t mean—” I’m going to curl up and die right here.
Callan shrugs. “I meant it.” He crosses the training ring to put the weights up without another word. My mouth hangs open like a fish. Like a godsdamn fish.