19. Lucina
LUCINA
Iwake up to the smell of coffee, wrapped in sheets that feel like heaven.
My thighs are stiff, my head throbs, and my burnt palms scrape against the quilt from where the gauze must have slipped in the night. I reach for the glass of water I set on the nightstand, finding a steaming cup of coffee sitting next to it.
I stare at it for a moment.
It’s just a cup of coffee, but it’s the intention behind it that makes me pause. Gods, I hadn’t realized how low my standards were.
I take it with me to the bathroom, catching a glimpse of myself in the mirror.
I’ve looked…worse? My cheeks are hanging onto their color, despite all the smoke I inhaled, and there isn’t much evidence of exhaustion underneath my eyes.
I’d gotten decent sleep—the first night in weeks that I wasn’t tormented by my Velkan and his memories.
I grab my coffee and slip out into the hall. The door to the bedroom doesn’t even creak as I open it, but the hardwoods do.
The cabin is quiet. I peer out into the living room, heat flooding my cheeks when I spot the empty couch still out of place from where Callan had dragged it up to the coffee table.
The memory floods back to me violently—the soft-spoken words, the river of Sol Marks across his torso, the way his hands felt in my hair—
I rip my gaze away. It’s too early for this.
Or at least I think it is, if the birds chirping outside are any indication. I’ll kill him if he let me sleep through breakfast.
I hear voices on the porch, and the creak of a rocking chair has me backing up into the hall. The caffeine hasn’t hit my bloodstream yet, and I’m not ready to face the consequences of my actions.
My eyes snag on the door opposite the bedroom. It’s cracked, and for a moment I hesitate. This isn’t my place, and these aren’t my things.
My hip bumps the door open.
Oops.
Bright light streams across my feet as I step inside.
The curtains are fully drawn, revealing a floor-to-ceiling window that overlooks the dense green forestry behind the cabin.
The room is set up as an office—a round table in the center with six chairs around it.
The wooden surface is littered with paper and various leather-bound books and journals.
Naturally, I sink into the tallest of the six chairs, its back facing the window. The leather armrests are worn, and a rain-soaked cedar scent clings to the fabric.
My eyes dart to the door, and when a few silent seconds pass, I turn my attention to the endless pile of papers before me.
There’s a blueprint of a mineshaft on top with feminine handwriting scribbled in the margins. My eyes scan some of the comments:
Entry clearance is too low here.
This wall isn’t safe to cross under.
This won’t work; everything will collapse.
My brows rise as I take another sip of coffee, then I go to set it down on the table—
“Shit,” I curse when the edge of the mug slips, hot coffee splashing onto the hardwood. “Shit, shit, shit.” I abandon the blueprint, tiptoe out into the hall, and I’m back in the office a heartbeat later with an armful of kitchen towels.
I drop to my knees, coaxing the hot liquid into the scrunched fabric, then I search the ground for my mug.
Where are you…where are you—there you are! I crawl over to where it lies across some papers that have fallen to the ground, the tabletop having reached capacity. My fingers grip the handle, peeling away a letter that clings to the sticky side of it—
My heart stops beating. The door to the office creaks open.
No.
“Are you snooping?” Callan drawls from the doorway, and I stand slowly, my hands trembling. “And what’s with all the towels—” His eyes drop to the crumbled paper I’m holding, and the silence that falls is deafening. “Fuck.”
My letter.
Ivy and Jude’s letter.
He never took it.
White hot rage fills my bloodstream—burning and boiling over until I see red. A deep crimson that rocks me to my very core.
“Fuck is a pretty good place to start,” I grit out, and Callan stiffens.
“Lucina…” He carefully thinks through his next words. “I-I’m so sorry—”
“Why?” I ask, and my eyes begin to burn. Anger, I can deal with; anger is familiar. But fury…fury is a whole other beast, and she comes with tears. Lots of them. I can’t believe I let this happen. “They’re my family, Callan.”
Something in his face cracks the minute my voice does. “I know, I know,” he breathes, rushing into the room, but I step back. Far back. “Lucina, I’m so sorry—”
“You have thirty seconds to explain yourself.” My voice is unnervingly calm, but nothing inside me is. Magic sullies my veins, matching my fury with its own sort of chaos, and I swear the sunlight dims behind me.
His hand shoots through his hair when he realizes just how serious I am. “Lucina, I—I didn’t have the time—”
“Bullshit,” I hiss. “You had more than enough time. Now you have twenty seconds.”
He puts his hands out as if that’s going to stop his clock. It won’t. “Just let me explain, please—”
“Fifteen seconds,” I warn, the paper crinkling in my hand, and the gauze over my palms heating, raw power burning through the flimsy material.
Callan keeps his eyes fixed on me. I know he sees nothing of who I was last night—so foolishly admitting that I could see myself trusting him. Look where that got me. “I’ve had a lot on my plate, and I guess I…fuck,” he stammers, moving forward but freezes when I flinch. “Lucina,” his voice breaks—
I hold back tears. “Ten seconds.”
His mouth opens, and I get the sinking feeling that whatever he’s about to say will be the final nail in his coffin.
“I forgot.”
All the blood rushes to my ears, and a high-pitched ringing cuts through the blanket of silence that falls.
“I forgot, Lucina,” Callan says quietly, arms slack at his sides. “That’s the truth.”
The first tear falls, and I gently set the mug down on the table.
The second falls, and I turn back to face him. For a moment, I just stare. I wait until those two heavy tears hit my collarbone, then I say, “I don’t want to fight with you.”
Relief burns in his grey-eyed stare, and his mouth pops open to agree, but I hold up a steady finger.
“I wasn’t finished. I don’t want to fight with you, because I don’t even want to look at you.”
He stills, and instant remorse seeps through the calm mask of the Captain. Good. I hope it hurts.
“Four weeks ago, I stood in front of you, a stranger, and I laid all my truths bare. You remember that, don’t you? You wanted to know why I had no interest in going back, and I told you the truth—the ugly and tragic truth.”
Callan says nothing.
“But do you know that I’ve never said any of that out loud before?
Ever? Even Ivy got it in tiny increments, and some things she never got at all.
” Another tear falls, but I don’t acknowledge it.
“Don’t for a second think that makes you special, because it had absolutely nothing to do with you, and everything to do with them!
” I hold up the letter, the parchment shaking violently. “That’s how much they mean to me.”
His shoulders sink, and tears begin falling in twin rivers down my cheeks. “Lucina—”
“Don’t tell me you’re sorry.” I slam the letter on the desk. “It won’t matter.”
I shoulder past him, and he hurries into the hall after me. “Lucina, wait! Things were different then—”
I whirl around. “Different how?! You’re saying you had to stick your tongue down my throat to give a shit?” That stuns him to silence, and I laugh bitterly as I turn. “I’m such a fucking idiot.”
He knew how desperate I was to get that message to Ivy and Jude. He knew what I was willing to risk, and now…he’s let them suffer. They’ve mourned me for weeks.
Because he ‘forgot.’
The screen door slams into the side of the cabin as I throw it open, tumbling down the porch steps. I hesitate only a second when I see Gemma on the porch. She sees the tears in my eyes and stands quickly. I’ve no idea why she’s here, but I’ve never been more relieved to see her.
She hurries after me as I storm down the porch steps, but Callan cuts her off. “Lucina, please.” He catches up to me in an instant. “I can’t let you leave by yourself.”
“She’s not leaving by herself,” Gemma blurts, her blue eyes saturated with concern. “I’ll go with her.” She grabs my hand and healing magic flares at the contact, warm tendrils of power feeling around for injuries. But everything hurts. And she can’t heal what hurts the most.
Callan grinds his teeth, refusing to break my stare. “You need more protection than that.”
“Then send Pax!” I hurl back at him. “Or Devon or Phoenix… send your whole damn coven if that makes you feel better.” I wipe a tear angrily, cursing it for even falling. “Anyone. But. You.”
My words crack stone—a hairline fracture running perfectly through the center of him, and Gemma stiffens beside me when she sees the light leave the Captain’s eyes.
“Come on, Cin,” she whispers, gently pulling me away. I rip my stare from his, carrying no remorse for the hurt in those silver eyes.
Gemma walks with me in silence until the Ajax cabins are out of sight, then she stops us on the empty path. “Let me see the burns,” she says softly, holding out her hands to me.
Right. The burns. Callan must have asked her to come check them.
She carefully unwraps the bandages, my hands trembling still, but the fury is subsiding, and my heated skin is cooling slowly. I hiss when the humid air hits my wounds, and she lets out a string of curses.
“That moron should have brought you straight to me,” Gemma mutters under her breath. “The salve is for pain, not for healing.”
She touches the wounds lightly with her thumb, and gentle bursts of heat flood the skin, tingling like static as the burnt flesh knits itself back together. When she finishes, my palms look good as new.
“Thank you.” I smile, and it’s more painful than I expect it to be, but I’m trying. I flex my newly healed hands, looking past them and to my bare feet. Gods, I’m still wearing his clothes.
I think I’d rather be naked.
Gemma’s blue-eyed stare rolls up to me. “That smile is so at odds with the dried tears on your face,” she says bluntly, prodding the new skin for a second longer, then she straightens. “If you want to pretend that you’re fine, I’m game, but you never have to pretend with me.”
I chew nervously on my bottom lip. “I know that.”
Gemma loops my arm through hers, and we start back down the path. “Are you going to tell me what happened, then?”
I glance in her direction, the words twisting on my tongue. The letter is the catalyst for my anger, but that’s not the root of the problem. I feel stupid letting him get so close. For allowing him the leverage to hurt me.
I force down a deep breath. Gods, she’s going to freak out. “I kissed him—well, I guess we kissed each other, I—”
Gemma comes to a screeching halt. “Say that again.”
“Please don’t make me.” I rub my face with my newly healed hands. “It was a mistake; it should never have happened.”
Gemma’s eyes narrow when another tear slips down my cheek. “Oh, shit,” she breathes, her face falling. “It was more than just a kiss, wasn’t it? That’s why he was looking at you that way—”
I avoid the question, staring off down the path for a moment. “I kissed him under a false pretense.”
“Which was?” Gemma hurries back to my side when I take off walking, needing to get out of these damn clothes as soon as possible.
“The belief that he was a good person.” I catch my breath, grounding myself with it. “It was a mistake, G, and I can’t think about it anymore. I just need…” I lick my dry lips, swallowing past that horrible pain in my chest. “I need to get out of these clothes.”
That’s the extent of what I can make sense of at the moment.
She doesn’t ask for any further explanation. Gemma simply grabs my hand, and we walk back in silence.
The breath I worked so hard to wrangle escapes in a desperate woosh when I see my cabin. Or what’s left of it. It’s a pile of charred wood—only half of the frame still standing, and everything inside is…ash. Everything except my metal bed frame that stands bare in the center of the wreckage.
“Wow,” I think I say, stumbling over to it, but Gemma shoots an arm out to stop me.
“I’ve already been through it this morning; there’s nothing else to save.” I don’t fight her hold. “It’s a miracle you survived that, Cin.”
I didn’t survive anything; I was saved. But I don’t correct her.
She urges me up her porch steps. “Pax and Phoenix got out what they could when the flames got low enough, but they didn’t get much.
” Gemma unlocks the door to her cabin, and I follow her inside, instantly spotting the ash tracked across her floor that leads to a small pile of my things.
“They got mostly clothes and a few pairs of shoes.” She points to the boots I wore for the first Selumira; the brown ones with pointed toes and tiny designs embroidered in gold.
“I went back this morning just in case, but I couldn’t find anything else. ”
The picture of my mother.
“Thank you,” I say on a heavy exhale and when I turn back to face her, she has a change of clothes extended out to me.
Gemma’s silent as I get dressed, and when I reach for my boots, I catch her staring at me. “I’ve never seen him like that before, Cin.”
“Like what?” I feign confusion, but I know exactly what she’s talking about. I think I broke the Captain just now. But I don’t care. I can’t care. “G, he never sent my letter.”
Her tanned skin pales, and her mouth falls open. “What do you mean?”
“I found it in his office. He said he forgot.”
“Forgot!” she shouts, completely stunned. “He forgot?! Oh, I’m going to—”
“I don’t need you to do anything, Gemma. It’s done. I’m going to figure out some other way to get that letter to them.” Even if I have to hold Pax at knifepoint to do it.
Gemma twists her lips to the side, anger still simmering in her blue eyes. “Well, how can I help?”
I don’t deserve her.
“First, we’re getting breakfast,” I tell her. “Then we’re getting drunk.”
Her eyes are bright in wicked amusement, the second the words leave my lips. “By the lake?” Gemma asks, but she’s already reaching for the drawer her swimsuits are in.
The last time we did this, Pax had to carry me back to the cabin after Gemma and I spent ten hours roasting in the summer sun and drinking our body weight in some fruity cocktail she made. We haven’t wasted a day away since, but gods do I need it.
Is it the best way to deal with my problems? No. Not at all.
But it will numb them.
Some of my best plans have been conjured in the blissful state where nothing else matters.