Chapter 50
“I’ve learned that you’re quite clever.” Lucan answers my question.
“That’s obvious to anyone remotely paying attention.” I allow myself to be a bit arrogant for the sake of provoking him. The brief narrowing of his eyes makes it worth it.
“You’re actually a really good shot with a crossbow.”
“I’m offended by the use of ‘actually.’” I inspect my nails.
He laughs softly. “You actually have a bit of a sweet tooth.”
“Guilty.”
“You have a complicated relationship with your father.”
I sit up straighter, muscles tensing, surprised he’d noticed such a personal thing. “What makes you think I have a ‘complicated’ relationship with my father?” The last time we spoke was good. But, before that, Lucan’s right.
Lucan shrugs. “You love him, and he loves you. That isn’t in question, but I think beyond that, it’s complicated.”
“You could say that about a lot of people.” I pull away, leaning back in my chair and catching my breath in the space I’ve reclaimed from him.
Lucan mirrors my movements yet again, sitting back and taking a deep breath, as if showing he’s aware of the tension he’s created. “But it hits you differently to lack that relationship with him. You want it—something like what you have with your mom. But you can’t seem to find it.”
“What makes you so sure about that?” I cross my arms over my chest. He’s spot-on, frustratingly, and I want to know how. Well, spot-on before the last talk with my father, but I didn’t tell him or Saipha all the details of that.
Eyes still on mine, he says, “I saw your expression when your father turned you over to the vicar for training. The way you looked back at him in betrayal as you walked away. His beaming pride that never quite seemed to touch you.” I stare down at the table, throat tight with emotion.
“I also saw how he always deferred to the vicar, and how every platitude killed you inside.” Lucan’s words are gentle, as if he knows how delicate the topic is.
That instinct of his is right. “He’s enamored with you being Valor Reborn, and that drives a wedge between you two. ”
His words make my skin feel tight. They remind me of how just one productive conversation and good intentions can’t completely wipe away years of complicated feelings. Even if I want them to.
I stand and cross to the window, leaning against one side of the narrow opening to the outside world. Even with the iron-barred glass, I can peer through and catch a glimpse of Vinguard and the massive wall that perpetually looms beyond. My world.
It suddenly seems so small, and a part of me yearns for something more. Something beyond…this.
“I would’ve said you were completely right, if you’d told me this a couple of days ago,” I murmur, thinking of the last time I saw my father. There’s so much I never understood in how and why he and Mum acted as they did.
“But not now?” Lucan stands as well, crossing to lean against the other side of the window. It’s narrow enough that we’re mere inches apart, which causes my body to buzz with energy, like every time we’re close.
“I feel as though I’m beginning to understand my parents,” I say. “There’re so many layers to them, to our relationship… Ones I’m just beginning to understand.”
He considers this a moment. “It’s difficult when you’re several people at once, isn’t it? When you have different truths depending on who you’re with.”
I blink up at him in stunned silence. He has an ability to understand my situation as though he has lived it himself. Though I suppose he has, having navigated a life around the vicar, the Creed, and how his position impacts how Vinguard views him.
“Sometimes I wonder if it wouldn’t be better to just…” I shift my gaze to stare out at the wall beyond the window, chest aching with longing for something always out of reach.
“Just?” he presses.
“Just live as we want.” I whisper the confession. “If that means the scourge or the dragons ultimately get us, then so be it. At least we’re not spending our lives tested, fenced in, and cowering. At least we’re not living lies.”
“Is that what you want?” His question is sincere enough that I realize how long it’s been since anyone asked, truly asked, what I want, and wanted to hear an honest answer and not just what I’ve been taught to say. I think the last person was Mum. But even she, after a point, stopped asking.
“I want to stop the scourge,” I answer.
“By going to Mercy and killing dragons.”
I study him. My pulse quickens as I wonder if I should say more. Any whispers that Valor Reborn doesn’t want to be a Mercy Knight and slay dragons mindlessly would be considered absurd and an affront to the Creed.
He studies me like I’m one of the heavy scrolls the curates read for hours on end. “Will you really be content living by their rules for the rest of your life?”
“Of course.” I shrug and look away, hoping to end the conversation.
He says nothing for what feels like forever, never taking his eyes off me. My skin flares hot, and I force myself to not fidget. It feels as if he’s seeing right through my skin, beneath my scars, straight into my heart.
“You’re lying,” he says, finally.
My chin jerks back in his direction, brows furrowing. I almost instantly regret it. It’s like I’m about to shatter with one look from him. I barely manage an, “Excuse me?”
“You think I don’t see it?” He pauses. “You want more than being a Mercy Knight—than being Valor Reborn.”
I could deny it. I should deny it.
“Isola.” His voice is soft. “Trust me, like I trust you.”
The words hang in the air between us as I stare into his eyes. I want to trust him, and every instinct in me pushes me to, but a lifetime of guardedness and deception is hard to overcome.
“We’re more alike than you think,” he says.
“I don’t want to kill dragons,” I confess.
His eyes widen.
“I don’t think killing them is the way to stop the scourge,” I say.
“Then why go to Mercy?”
“Because I’m ‘Valor Reborn,’ and going there will keep me and my family safe.”
“So you don’t want to kill dragons,” he repeats like he’s trying to make sense of it.
“If I had to, I suppose I would.” In a way, I already have, six years ago.
But it doesn’t feel like it counts—like nothing about that day was real.
“But I don’t want to. I’m so weary of bloodshed and struggle.
It shouldn’t have to be like this for any of us.
There must be a better life than this. I don’t think a scourge of death will be solved with more death.
I don’t think the solution to a curse we don’t even understand is killing our fellow citizens. ”
His eyes shine in the fading light, and his tone is thoughtful. “It does strike me as noteworthy that you, out of all people, are the one who should be destined for Mercy…a woman with no interest in killing dragons.”
“Do you think me lesser for that?”
“I should.”
“But do you?” I press, not entirely sure why this means so much to me. My heart thunders in my chest as I bite my lip, wait for his answer.
“Not in the slightest. If anything, it makes me admire you more. It requires a lot of bravery to go against what you’re taught and told—to venture from the path others have set for you.”
His words immediately settle the unease in my shoulders.
But then he adds, “Though Vinguard isn’t a place where rebellion does particularly well.”
And I stiffen. Is that where my thoughts are leading me? Rebellion?
He stares out the window, over the city, gaze unfocused.
It gives me an opportunity to study his profile…
the strong bridge of his nose, the fullness of his lips and how they round into the pronounced curve of his chin.
The setting sun highlights it all in a fiery orange, and for a moment, I find it hard to breathe.
The golden outlines make me think of him at the Font, and my knees nearly give out at the memory.
Vinguard isn’t a place… My body feels like it’s lit up with Ether, every inch of me heated and alive. What is wrong with me? I’ve never been this distracted by…anyone.
He turns back to me and smiles—not smirks, or grins, or coyly regards me—just…
smiles with pure fondness. The same fiery intensity that lights up the sky shines in his eyes.
As if they are burning. As if that fire could incinerate me to the point there’s nothing left but ash.
That same heat that threatened to burn me alive when we were just outside the Font.
His hands all over me, holding me up, pressing me into his warmth.
Part of me feels I should be afraid. Terrified, even. My heart is racing…yet it’s not from fear.
Touch me, a voice within me whispers; it is entirely my own, yet a voice I’ve never heard before.
It’s so sudden and unbidden, it freezes me in place.
It’s confident. The demand of a woman grown, with desires and needs.
I want him to touch me, and the second I realize it—admit it—I want it so bad, I ache all over.
I want our clothes to be so thin they might as well be nothing.
I want to feel my skin fusing with his again.
Fear immediately follows the revelation. But it’s not him that I’m afraid of. It’s me and what I want. Things I’ve never wanted before. Things I barely have names for.
Even though this voice of mine is a stranger to me, even though he cannot hear it, it’s as if he responds to it. His hands twitch. I can imagine him reaching for me. I can feel the pull of his grip on my hips. Imagine the taste of his lips on mine.
Lucan shifts away from the window, and my heart pounds even harder. If it keeps beating at this speed, it’s going to stop completely.
“You’re afraid.”
“How can you tell?”