20. Lucina #3
“I’m sure she interrogated you within an inch of your life.” I couldn’t believe it. Couldn’t believe that he saw her…he saw Ivy.
“You could say that.”
Silence falls, but it isn’t filled with anger or resentment. It’s an impasse, a crossroads, and I’m not ready to fully choose the path that is Callan. He got too much of my trust all at once, and I won’t make that same mistake again.
I sniffle, pulling my hands away to tuck the letter into the pocket of my jeans, and Callan stills as if he’s scared I might turn around and bolt at any second.
“I’m…” My train of thought dies, and I try to start again. “Last night I…” Thought I could trust you? Gave a small fraction of my heart away, and you stomped on it? None of it felt right to say. “I want to trust—”
“Lucina, I don’t expect you to know how you feel, and you certainly don’t owe me anything.” My mouth snaps shut. “You could walk away right now, and I’d understand, but can I say something before you go?”
I nod stiffly, settling my hands at my sides.
Callan straightens. “When I took an oath to my people, protecting them became my life’s purpose, and I never let myself want or need anything else.
But then I found you. Fate sent me a storm…
a strong-willed, merciless, and beautiful storm.
I wasn’t ready. It knocked the wind out of me.
It challenged everything I’d ever believed in.
Every standard I’d ever held myself to. I probably don’t deserve you, Lucina.
Actually, I know I don’t. But I’d travel across the world collecting letters for you, if that’s what you needed. ”
My exhaled breath is the loudest thing in the room. That and my heartbeat.
“I have enough men to put on your watch to take myself out of the rotation, so if that’s what you want—”
I shake my head, a tear spilling over my lower lashes.
He means it. I can tell he means every word.
Honesty can be brutal and hard to swallow, but he doesn’t seem to have any problem speaking it freely.
Callan isn’t afraid of how the truth will make him sound; it’s more important to him that I hear it. And that…that’s where trust grows.
“I don’t want you out of the rotation,” I tell him, remembering what Kimber said at dinner. Remembering the kind of threat that I’m under. “I think I need all the protection I can get.”
Callan extends his hand out to me, a silent invitation, and I stare at it for a moment before lacing my fingers with his and letting him pull me towards him.
A shiver runs down my spine when he slides his other hand along my jaw, the expression on his face hardening into something devastating and serious.
“I’m never going to let anything happen to you,” he says simply.
The Captain’s promise settles like rain on scorched pavement and my voice is quiet when I finally have the strength to speak. “That’s a brave thing to promise the daughter of an alleged traitor.” Who's being haunted by a demon and is in possession of something that could have her killed.
“I don’t care whose daughter you are.” His silver eyes dart between my own and my throat tightens. “I care about who you are, Lucina.”
More of my resolve slips away. “And who do you think I am?”
The Captains response is an echoed whisper through the vacant kitchen, “Someone worth protecting.”
It’s the woman who looks like me, bound in chains.
She’s screaming, but no sound is coming out. The only sound is the pound of heavy boots, coming up the stairs.
“Round her up with the others,” my Velkan says. “She’s just a scribe.”
The Shadow Man is at the foot of my bed. Callan’s bed.
My Velkan stares back at me, through that swirling black void where his facial features should be. The room is cast in a shadowed haze, puffs of white smoke pluming in front of me at every panicked exhale I take.
He feels different—more powerful. As if his absence last night was only a means to replenish his reserves. Recharging his energy so he can—
“Lune Sylra.”
I fight to move, my body paralyzed, fear gripping me so violently my vision shakes.
“Requires—blood. One drop.” His voice vibrates the room, and the image of him flickers. Darkness weaves through him like ribbons of his being unraveling. “Manifest with the heart. Be wary. It wanders.”
I can barely hear him over the rush of blood in my ears, but his words echo like the lingering wail of a ghost.
“Who are you?” I try to speak, but my voice is gone—left behind in the plane of existence where my physical body is still sleeping.
My eyes grow heavy as the image of him fades, and the last thing I hear before my consciousness slips is, “Find me.”
Callan’s cabin is silent when my eyes spring open. Moonlight shines across the foot of the bed, pouring in through a sliver in the curtains. I take a minute to steady my breathing. Sweat coats my skin, and a rush of lethal adrenaline saturates my blood.
My Velkan is gone, but his words linger.
Find me…
But how can I find him without using the—
Oh, my gods. I sit straight up in bed.
Blood. Manifestations of the heart…be wary, it wanders.
My Velkan just told me how to use the Eldral.