29. Lucina #2
“That wasn’t very nice,” the Captain grits out, yanking him upright by his collar, and the legs of the chair settle back on the ground a heartbeat later.
Rivulets of blood pour from Fenton’s crooked nose, bright splotches of purple already blooming beneath his eyes as he tries to focus them on Callan.
“I’ll be honest with you, Fenton,” the Captain starts, crouching before him.
“Usually, the questioning comes before the killing, but I’m finding it hard to give a fuck.
So, I’m going to ask you once and only once.
If you lie, I’ll make sure the only memory you enter the afterlife with is the brutal way in which I kill you. Sound fair?”
All the breath is knocked from my lungs, and Callan turns his head to me at the audible exhale. There is no mercy on his face, just a deadly calm that makes the hair on the back of my neck stand. His grey eyes are as heavy as storm clouds—a dark promise of brutal thunder.
“I did it and I don’t regret it,” Fenton rasps, spit flying to the stone floor as his confession cuts through the air. “She deserved it.”
The Captain stiffens, and a fury unlike anything I’ve ever seen sharpens his eyes. The slow turn of his head is predatory and static, pricks the air—so potent I’m nearly suffocated by it, and this time when Callan raises his hands, fire wreaths them.
“Wait!” I blurt, but he doesn’t stop, anger rippling off him in tidal waves. “Callan!” I shout this time, and his fire winks out, but the static still hangs in the air as he rolls out his shoulders and casts his wrathful gaze at me. I force in a deep breath. “Let me talk to him.”
Some of that anger tapers off at the sound of my voice, but he’s still drowning in it, I can tell.
Is this the Captain in all his glory? Is this what Pax had been talking about?
He’s someone else entirely in this room.
Gone are the gentle hands that traced circles along my thighs, and gone are the lustful eyes that fell hungrily down my skin. This is…he’s a…savage in this room.
Callan gestures with his hand wide to Fenton, allowing me the honors, but I shake my head. “Alone. I want to talk to him alone.”
“Absolutely not,” he barks back, his tone leaving no room for argument, but that’s never stopped me before.
“Callan he’s fully restrained, I can protect myself, and you’re scaring him shitless.” His head shakes, but I can tell his reservations are slipping, so I push on. “He tried to kill me.” Silver eyes snap up to mine. “The least I deserve is an explanation, and he won’t give that to you.”
The Captain inhales deeply then exhales fully, swinging his attention back to Fenton, who has wisely kept his mouth shut, but he flinches back at the stare Callan pelts him with.
“I promise you a fate worse than death if you so much as spit on her shoes,” he deadpans, and Fenton stills. Then Callan turns to me, his words clipped but confident. “If he pulls anything, don’t hesitate, Chaos. I’ll be right outside that door if you need me.”
The echo of Callan’s heavy boots on stone fades, then the hatched door to the bunker creaks open and slams shut. Silence falls.
I look at Fenton.
He looks at me.
I break the silence. “This wasn’t your idea, was it? The fire, the Ashvine—someone put you up to it, didn’t they?” It’s a hollow gut feeling that I can’t ignore. Couldn’t ignore. Which is why I’m here.
Fenton’s chin dips to his chest, staring up at me past lowered brows. “You already know the answer to that question.”
My hands flex at my sides, a wave of fear swelling beneath my skin. “Tell me what you know.”
“Why? Are you going to convince the Captain to spare me if I do? We both know he’s not letting me leave here alive.” Fenton spits blood onto the floor beside him, tears welling in his eyes from the pressure of his broken nose.
“I have sway with the Captain,” I tell him. “And you have none.” He tracks me as I approach his chair, eyes widening when magic saturates my veins—Sol magic. “Tell me what you know or don’t, but the odds of you surviving are zero if you refuse.”
Fenton spits more blood onto the floor, groaning when the movement disturbs the swelling in his face. He glares back at me for a moment, debating his odds, and then I see the realization hit him—I’m all that’s left of his odds.
He lifts his chin to the best of his ability. “Seeing past the Veil isn’t a blessing of Diviners, it’s a curse,” Fenton snarls, choking out the words. “The dead don’t have power over the living, that’s the will of the Matrons, but your Velkan doesn’t care about anyone else’s will but his own.”
The air thickens—I knew it. After last night I…I knew it.
“He showed himself to you?” I clarify, and he smirks. Kimber was never able to see my Velkan fully, nor was Pa—those kinds of spirits have certain privileges when it comes to disclosing their identities. And now that I know who my father is…I’m not surprised he hid himself.
Fenton curls his lip back, baring his bloodied teeth.
“He tormented me. Threatened to damn my soul to Pyra unless I help him get to you. He was careful with his words, but it didn’t take long for me to put two and two together.
I saw the bits of gold in your eyes,” he spits, and I flinch back.
“The hue matched the yellow in his. Your father put me up to this, dirty blood. He told me to get you close enough to death so that he could talk to you, but he never wanted to talk to you. He wanted to awaken the Rogue in your veins.”
The floor falls away. Everything falls away.
I suspected as much when I woke up in the infirmary. I felt…different. Raw. The same way I felt when I woke up on that beach three months ago, like my body wasn’t my own anymore.
“He wanted me to Split…again.” My voice is hardly more than a whisper.
“And it worked, didn’t it?” Fenton scoffs. “The Ashvine.”
My stomach knots itself, that dark void in the base of my spine twitching in response. It did.
“I had a feeling it would, but I was hoping it would kill you instead. You’re an abomination,” he spits out the word, more blood flying off his lip. “You deserve to die.”
Silence falls—thick and unwelcoming. This was never about being the daughter of an alleged traitor…it was about being the daughter of a Rogue. My father’s been trying to force a second Split. He’s been trying to awaken the beast I inherited from him.
And the poison…the Ashvine…Fenton—
It worked.
I am an abomination. The two sides of my blood don’t mix; it swirls within me like a violent storm that I didn’t ask for. I didn’t ask for any of this, but I have it now, whether I want it or not—there is no carving it out of me. It’s untamed and vicious, but mine.
And I have a chance to make it worth something. To do good with it.
“I can’t die, Fenton, I have too much to do,” I force out, a tremble in my voice that has nothing to do with fear and everything to do with the sheer amount of control it’s taking to keep this new beast within me silent and still. “My mother’s people need saving, and I’m the only one that can—”
“We are not your mother’s people!” he shouts, and my eyes flare in a desperate plea for him to be quiet. “She ruined us! Betrayed us all! And you will perish with her—”
Anger flares alongside fear. “You have no fucking idea what you’re talking about."
“Sick!” he screeches. “You’re sick! And everyone here will know it soon enough!”
“Stop. Yelling,” I warn, when the muffled sound of voices starts up from outside the bunker. I can’t have the Captain barging in here, if Fenton tells Callan who I am…What I am…
He’ll never look at me the same again.
Neither will Gemma, nor Selene, nor Kimber…
I’ll be done here. I’ll be killed or exiled, and not even the Captain will be able to save me.
He might even want to do it himself. I’ve heard stories of his trips through the Banyan at sixteen—an unquenchable bloodlust in those silver eyes.
He said he likes the gold in mine, but he doesn’t know where it came from.
And he can’t know. I’m not ready.
“Your father can damn my soul to Pyra for all I care!” Fenton hurls at me, blood and spit flying in all directions. “I’ll tell EVERYONE here—”
Magic cracks—and shadows move about the room, whispering things that make Fenton’s mouth snap shut.
“No,” I say calmly. “You won’t tell a soul.”
“Are you going to cut my tongue out then?” he hisses back at me. “That’s the only way I’m keeping your secret, dirty blood.”
Don’t hesitate, Chaos.
I shake my head, a tear slipping down my cheek. “That’s not the only way, Fenton.”
All it takes is two swipes on either side of his neck, the silver of my blade glinting against the crimson that pours from the fatal wounds. A third swipe for his tongue—so he can’t speak beyond the grave. But it’s merciful compared to the death the Captain had planned for him.
This way, he keeps his memories.
And he keeps my secrets, too.