25. Lucina
LUCINA
Ipeer down over the top of my sunglasses, examining the dense forestry behind Pa’s little hovel, then I glare skeptically at Kimber. “Why do the trees look like that?”
Her pupils are blown wide, a perfect rosiness to her cheeks–as flawless as a baby doll.
She yanks the sucker out of her mouth, and the potent smell of cherries hits my nose.
“What if that’s how trees have always looked?
” she ponders. “What if you’ve just been too closed off to see them for how they really are? ”
I blink back at her, my face flat. “Hey, listen,” I pull my leg in from where they had been dangling over the side of the wooden bridge, and turn to face her. “I agreed to trust you with whatever you put in my tea, but I would like to know what it is.”
Kimber twists her heart shaped lips to the side, the stick of the sucker tilting, then she looks back out into the dense forestry. “Azhrith,” she says finally.
The bridge sways as she kicks her feet, and I give her a stern look to stop.
“It’s a psychedelic that opens your third eye and peels back the layers of reality until you are left with something much purer.
” Kimber waves the hard candy around as she talks, then plops it back into her mouth.
“The way you see the trees now is how I always see them, like living, breathing beasts.”
I’m not sure I needed my third eye opened, but these days, I’ve been abnormally welcoming to any distraction.
“Kimber,” I exhale, and even the feeling of the breath leaving my lungs feels new and different. “No offense, but what if I didn’t want to see things like you do? I don’t have the stomach to see dead people today.”
She yanks the sucker back out of her mouth and points it to the tree line. “You see him?”
My eyes dart in the direction she points. “No…”
“Then I didn’t give you enough to see dead people.” She resumes the casual swinging of her legs, and nausea rolls in my stomach. “You’re welcome.”
We’re nearly thirty feet from the ground, hanging off the side of the Diviner enclave in the trees while Pax and Hunter are inside talking to Pa, trying to get information on a topic that I can hardly think about without spiraling.
Callan hasn’t come home.
None of them have.
When one week passed, we weren’t worried; we just assumed they’d been caught up in the storm and had to wait it out. But then another week passed, and now it’s been sixteen days. Something doesn’t feel right. Hunter and Pax feel it too.
It’s pathetic to be so devastated by the mere thought of something having happened to him, but there is no logic involved in the way I feel.
I just hadn’t realized how much space he took up until he was gone.
I hadn’t realized how safe I felt until he wasn’t here to provide that protection.
I guess somehow, I created this notion of Callan in my head that he was invincible, and that nothing could hurt him.
When he said he’d come back, I believed him wholeheartedly, and I still do.
If he could be here right now, he would be, and that’s what scares me.
Something is preventing him from coming home, I feel it deep in my bones.
I’ve always felt him that way. Even before I kissed him, and even before heavier emotions got involved.
I admire him as a friend and a mentor and a person, because underneath it all—the armor and the weapons, and buried beneath the magic and power and strength, there’s a stunning version of him that I miss more than I thought I would.
And I’m afraid if he doesn’t come back, I’ll miss him for the rest of my life.
I haven’t said that out loud to anyone.
“I thought you could use the distraction,” Kimber admits, leaning back on her hands. “Sometimes it helps to see things from a new perspective.”
Using the Eldral gave me a lifetime of new perspectives, but I can’t tell her that. I promised her and her grandfather I wouldn’t use it. And I don’t plan to… ever again. “I’ve kept myself busy.”
“I know,” Kimber sighs. “You’re the one now with your head in a book for every meal now, and when you aren’t busying your brain, you’re exerting yourself physically.” She takes a deep breath, avoiding eye contact. “Selene didn’t want us to say anything, but we’re worried about you, Cin.”
“Don’t say that.”
“It’s true.”
“I’m fine.”
All three of Kimber’s eyes narrow on me, then they follow a few passing birds. “You know, what Callan’s doing could potentially reunite over sixty-five families.”
The weight of her words settles in my chest. “I know.”
A few more birds flutter past, a blue and a red one. “If there is anything Pa can tell Pax and Hunter about his vitality, he will, but most of this Cin, will be left up to fate.”
“I don’t think I’m in good standing with Fate, Kimber.” She gives me an incredulous look. “I’m serious. Do you think it was Fate that I ended up with an Eldral?” I ask quietly, and Kimber rolls the sucker in her mouth before answering.
“If you had the Emerald, then yes."
A door creaks open, and the sound of three voices rounds the corner. My cheeks blow out when the wooden bridge sways and the tree trunks it’s tied to groan. Gods, I’ve got to get back to the ground.
“Cin,” Hunter calls, and I carefully get to my feet, the Azhrith making the bridge a bit fuzzy, but at least I’m able to see the edge clear enough to stay far from it.
“Wait!” Kimber stands, hurrying past me.
“I have something for you.” She runs inside while Pax and Hunter bicker back and forth about something.
Whatever it is, it can’t be good, judging by their pensive stares.
When Kimber returns, she’s holding a pale-yellow envelope, the same color as her sundress. “Open it.”
My eyes narrow skeptically, but I take the envelope and pull out a worn and wrinkled—
“Kimber,” I breathe, looking back at her wide-eyed.
It’s a picture of Esme. She can’t be more than twelve years old, dressed in white robes, her mass of brown hair wildly unkempt.
Behind her is Sable, dressed in molten silver, a golden diadem woven into the softly curled locks of her then brunette hair.
Esme is beaming ear to ear, and there is something entirely unstoppable about that smile. I wish I could have seen it in person.
“H-how did you find this?” The one I’d taken from the Dame burnt along with most of my things.
“It took a while, but Callan told me you lost a picture of her in the fire. I figured there had to be another of her somewhere.” She starts doing that thing where she forgets to breathe between sentences.
“You can’t tell Pa, but I cut that one out of a scrapbook one of the Scribes made, gods, he’d be furious if he found out, and—”
“Kimber.” Her mouth snaps shut. “What did Callan tell you?”
“He said the picture you had of Esme burned,” she replies slowly. “He came here a week before he left and asked me to find you a new one.”
My eyes fall to the picture.
“Cin,” Pax calls this time, looking rather serious as he stuffs his hands into his pockets. He hasn’t smiled in days, and the way he’s frowning is enough to send my heart racing.
I give Kimber a quick hug. “Thank you,” I tell her, then I keep hold of her shoulders as I pull back. “But leave my third eye alone, please.”
She smiles sheepishly. “I did it out of love.”
“Yes, I know, and I love you too, but there are other ways to tell me to calm the fuck down.” I release her only after it looks like she understands. “I’ll see you at dinner.”
I meet Pax and Hunter at the end of the bridge, and we walk the entire way to the Yard in silence. I don’t have the courage to ask what they found out, and it seems like they don’t yet have the strength to tell me.
It wasn’t until Hunter started wrapping my knuckles with tape in preparation for today’s lesson that I felt brave enough to ask. “Are they dead?”
“We don’t know.” Hunter’s jaw ticks, his eyes downcast on the tape.
“Well, what do you know?” I glance between him and Pax. “I know Pa told you something.”
There’s a long and drawn-out silence as the two exchange glances, then Pax shakes his head firmly.
Hunter goes back to my hands. “We don’t want you to worry—”
“I’m already worried.”
Pax shifts on his feet, staring back at me for a moment, and then he exhales. “Sometime last week, Easton summoned his Velkan.”
“Okay…” I say slowly, eyes darting back and forth between the two of them. “That doesn’t mean—”
“Pa was able to confirm that Callan did too,” Hunter says quickly, then snaps the end of the tape off with his teeth and moves to my other hand.
Dread erupts inside me like a volcano. “So, the two of them…” I stammer, “they were…”
“Dying,” Pax blurts, and the ground shifts beneath my feet. “And we don’t know if their Velkans were able to save them.”
My eyes snap up to the bags under his eyes, to the dull flicker of life on his cheeks, to the overgrown stubble on his jaw.
Two weeks ago, he told me Callan was going to be okay. Two weeks ago, we were worried but not afraid.
Now we’re afraid.
“W-we have to find them,” I stutter through my words, tears pricking my eyes. “We can’t just—”
“No,” Hunter snaps, and Pax scoffs. “No one is leaving. We were given strict instructions to stay put, to keep you alive, and to maintain your training. So that’s exactly what we are going to do.” He finishes with my hands and slides his own into the focus pads, holding them out for me to hit into.
“They’re coming back,” Hunter tells me, but it feels more like he’s telling himself. “They have to.” His chin jerks to my wrapped knuckles when I don’t put up my fists. How could I? What would be the point? “Come on, Cin.”
I glance at Pax, to the worry etched in his face and to the anger that burns there too. That must be what they’ve been fighting about; Hunter wants to stay, and Pax wants to go save them. His brothers are out there, and my—
Nothing… I guess. My nothing.
The first punch jerks my sore muscles awake, violent enough that tears spring to my eyes.
“Again,” Hunter says.
The second hit comes from a furious place inside me, a dangerous well to tunnel into, but fury is easier to swallow than fear.
“Faster, Lucina.”
The third and fourth hits knock Hunter back, and then I’m gone entirely, slipping peacefully into the maddening calm that I can only achieve when my entire focus is on the strength behind the next punch.
I hit the pads until the white tape rips, but I don’t let Hunter pause to patch them.
I hit until the white turns red, and the coppery tang of blood makes my nose scrunch.
I hit until tears fall, and the crickets come out, the moon peeking over the horizon. The night he left, it was just a sliver, and now it’s nearly full.
“We’ll be back before Selumira,” he said.
Liar.
“Be good, Chaos.”
I miss you.