22. Lucina
LUCINA
Iwait until the house is quiet, then I slip out the window.
I have an hour, maybe less, until Hunter does another bed check. I rearranged the pillows to make it look like I’m sleeping, but Hunter’s attention to detail is borderline supernatural. The second he opens the door to my room, he’ll know.
The night air is humid and thick as I move quietly through the edge of the forest. The only sound is the crickets, and the distant gurgle of water as I cross the path, then jump a few feet down to the creek bed.
I empty my pockets on a nearby rock, laying out the folded parchment with the Sol Marks Callan unknowingly taught me, a thin piece of chalk, and most importantly…
The deep blue gem flickers as it catches starlight, the gold chain it’s attached to clinking softly against the damp rock as I set it down.
This might just be the dumbest thing I’ve ever done.
Or maybe not. Maybe I can solve all of my problems right here, right now, then be done with it. That was the plan, at least. I’ve had enough of being terrorized at night, long, bony fingers reaching out to me.
My plan is simple—hear what he has to say, then get my Velkan to back the fuck off.
I grab the chalk, plant myself in the center of a wide stone slab, and get to work. I draw big circles, then smaller ones, using the Sol Marks on the pages as guides. I copy each one onto the stone in one giant circle around myself.
They’re for protection—all of them. As long as I stay in this circle, I’ll be fine. But I have to be quick, Hunter will check my room soon, and if he finds me gone…I’ll have bars on my windows by morning.
I drop the chalk into my pocket and dust off my hands, then I take the Eldral into my palm.
Requires blood—One drop.
I prick the tip of my finger with a pocketknife, wincing when blood beads there.
Manifest with the heart. Be wary. It wanders.
I focus entirely on the specific person I want to talk to, willing my heart to stay in that one place. I can’t let anything sway me.
Someone could slip through the opening, Kimber had told me. I can’t let that happen.
I imagine my Velkan exactly how I see him every night; long limbs, ashen skin, a deep, dark void where his face should be—
I smear my blood over the Eldral, and the ground at my feet rumbles, the sound of the water fading into the ether.
Cloaked in shadows, cold to the touch, the sharp click of heels on hardwood—
Something cracks through the silence, like a rock has been split in two, and I inhale sharply as the Eldral bursts into a cloud of dark smoke.
Then it falls quiet. Deathly quiet.
Long limbs, ashen skin, a deep, dark void where his face should be, I repeat. One place, one person. Only him.
My heart pounds a mile a minute, but I keep still even as the smoke reaches my nose.
I inhale, deep.
Then everything goes black.
I don’t dare move my feet when I come to.
My body is still planted in that circle. Somewhere. And my soul is now in another plane of existence—a void between worlds.
The Twilight Passage.
My throat tightens when my vision sharpens. The walls around me are… the walls of my childhood bedroom.
It’s intentional, it has to be. A fear tactic, maybe? The dead like to play. But I escaped this room once, I’ll do it again. I just can’t move my feet in the process.
The temperature plummets, and a shadow darts across the pale blue walls. My heart pounds low, heavy thuds when it freezes before me, hovering in a dark mist. Then it disappears.
Great, he’s going to tell his friends that they have a visitor.
Long limbs, ashen skin, a deep, dark void where his face should be.
No one else. I can’t open communication with anyone else. Only him.
Cloaked in shadows, cold to the touch, the sharp click of heels on hardwood.
A humming sound seeps through the walls, the deep tenor of it ringing low in my ears. My head swivels when three more shadows creep up the far corner of the room, emerging like bonfire smoke. And there’s more coming.
I can hear them.
Fear slams into my gut when the shadows come into focus, materializing on the wall.
There’s a silhouette of a man and a woman, watching me curiously, floating through space as if it doesn’t exist. The third ghost circles me like a vulture, ready to strike should I take one step out of this circle I’ve confined myself to.
His silhouette isn’t human. Humans don’t have wings.
“I’d like to speak to my Velkan,” I say, now that I have an audience, and more shadows spring up from the floorboards in response. You cannot bargain with death, and you cannot beg it for anything—Nana taught me that. “Get him for me.”
The floors creak as more and more shadows appear, their silhouettes forming on the walls as real people, walking around and assessing me. I can hear them talking—sharp whispers and long-drawn-out sighs, then my spine snaps straight when a cold breath sweeps past my ear.
“Get him yourself,” it hisses, then dark laughter ripples through the room, echoing off the endless ceiling.
“Stupid girl, stupid girl.”
“Dance for us, child.”
“You’re here.”
My gaze snaps straight at that final voice. “You! Come talk to me.”
Long limbs, ashen skin, a deep, dark void where his face should be, I lock my heart on it, refusing to let it wander, then I stop breathing entirely when a shadow bursts forward.
And all the other shadows…flee.
A man materializes right before my eyes. He paces back and forth in front of me like a caged animal.
I hear the drag of heavy chains, so loud it reverberates in my jaw, and I swallow against the fear gathering deep in my gut, my racing heart screaming—
The shadow ceases its pacing, and I freeze.
It straightens to its full height, then there is another creak of chains as it turns—
“NO!” I shout, and the shadow dissipates. I expel all the air from my lungs so fast that I sway on my feet. That was not my Velkan.
I get my breathing under control, then I reset my intentions. Cloaked in shadows, cold to the touch, the sharp click of heels on hardwood.
The room erupts into hungry shadows, and they move about the room like dark wisps of smoke, materializing as people, animals, creatures I don’t even recognize.
“Move, girl.”
“Come see us closer.”
I keep my feet planted, ears straining against the onslaught of harsh whispers in search of the one I’m looking for–
“LEAVE.”
My eyes shoot open. I know that voice. “You.” I focus on it entirely. “I want to talk to you.”
I hear the click of heels, and this time the shadows clinging to the walls don’t flee—
They bow.
A woman passes along the wall to my left, robes billowing out behind her. She steps through, materializing right in front of me—a vision of shimmering gold. She’s the only thing in this room aside from the pale blue walls that isn’t void of all color and vibrancy.
The image of her sharpens. She’s watching me with big brown eyes, her expression fierce, and when her voice booms in my ears, all the blood leaves my body. “Only your mother would have done something as foolish as this.”
Oh, my gods.
I’d found my Velkan, just not the one I was looking for.
“Sable,” I breathe. Sable Van Reenan—former Dame of the Sol. My grandmother.
Her hair falls in soft curls along her shoulders, silver like Delia’s robes, and her skin shimmers.
There’s an ethereal warmth to her that’s comparable only to the golden diadem pressed into her stern brow, bright and gleaming.
Sable looks down her straight nose at me.
“I thought you were smarter than this, child.”
“I took precautions,” I reply, replanting my feet on the ground. “I didn’t have a choice—”
“There is ALWAYS a choice!” I flinch when her voice carries, and all the shadows on the wall stiffen.
“And you chose wrong, Lune Sylra.” Sable straightens, clasping her hands in front of her golden robes, every bit the former Dame of the Sol.
“You don’t know who you are dealing with when it comes to him. ”
“Then tell me.” I dare a step forward, and her eyes dart to my feet as if she knows that’s where my protection lies. “Help me understand.”
“I can’t,” she hisses. “I’d be defying fate, just as you are right now. He should never have given this to you.”
The Eldral.
“I need to talk to him.”
“No!” The walls rattle, and the ghosts around us cower.
“It is not the will of the Matrons to communicate with the dead. He abides by his own rules, but he’s wrong, impatient, and impulsive.
I know he’s been reaching out to you, forcing his memories through the bond when it isn’t time yet for you to see them.
He’s throwing you into something you aren’t ready for.
You must trust me on that and stay away. ”
“But why?” I muster the courage to ask, and Sable’s eyes flare in anger. “He’s sworn to protect me, just as you are. He can’t hurt me—”
“He can and he will.” My stomach knots, my throat swelling shut. “He thinks he is protecting you, child. That’s the problem.”
A beat of silence passes before I brave another question, and the anger in her face simmers to a boil the second the words leave my lips. “Who is he?”
“A bad man, Lune Sylra,” she whispers, and a shiver skitters up my spine. “Very bad.” The shadows on the wall move—no, they tremble. “If he hadn’t sworn himself to you, he’d be rotting in hell.”
My hands flex at my sides, curling inwards then back out again—
“Your mother used to do that too.”
I freeze, looking down at my hands, then back up at Sable. A glossy sheen has come up and over her eyes, shimmering like the surface of calm water.
“When she was afraid,” she says softly, chin falling to my open palms. “She’d do that with her hands. Are you afraid, child?”
Yes. “Should I be?”
“Perhaps.” Her stare lingers on my curled fingers. “But if you knew the extent of what saturates your blood, you’d never be afraid again.”
“I have what used to belong to you,” I reply. “That’s what I inherited, isn’t it?”
“Yes.” Sable blinks, then readjusts her clasped hands. “That which belonged to me and all the women before me,” she recites.
“And my father?”