Chapter 16
Callan
The name unleashes a feral part of me. A side that I’ve worked tirelessly to smother.
Tenebrus.
It rattles through my skull and eats away at my composure, making it harder and harder to see straight.
Tenebrus.
Alaric Tenebrus. King of Rogues. It was one of his descendants—his lackeys—who took Streatham. He cursed our Disciples. He orchestrated the army of yellow-eyed beasts to steal our families and rob us of our home. Our glorious home. All of it is gone. All because of him.
Magic bursts from me in thick, heavy waves, kicking up dirt as it barrels through the Yard, searching and scanning.
It’s an extension of myself, the rest of my focus split between swallowing my fury and holding the line of fire Alaric is circled in.
But still…nothing. I can’t find Lucina, and I’ve always been able to find her.
There aren’t that many people here, but Lucina isn’t amongst the ghastly pale faces darting between Kimber, dangling in the sky, and the godsdamn King of Rogues.
How did Ceres even manage such a thing? She’s power-hungry, I know, but this? Betraying her people? I can’t believe she’d take it this far. Can’t believe she’d put all of Pirn’s safety at risk. After all we’ve done to keep this place hidden…
“Come on out, now,” Alaric taunts, golden irises scanning the crowd again, not at all threatened by the fire raging around him. When no one moves, he spins his long, pointy finger, and Kimber spins with it, screaming as he jerks her around like a puppet. “I’ll let her go if you do.”
Beside me, Pax grunts in pain, pouring more of himself into the flames he’s wielding.
Alaric hisses, patience thinning as he snarls, “I KNOW YOU’RE HERE!” Kimber screams, clawing at the restraint that must have tightened around her waist. “I’LL KILL YOU ALL. EVERY LAST ONE OF—”
“Here!”
I nearly lose all concentration on our only line of defense when Lucina emerges from the tree line, putting herself directly in his line of sight.
“I’m here.”
“Cin!” I shout after her, but she doesn’t even look my way. Doesn't even flinch.
“Let her go,” Lucina says softly, hands raised and empty. Fucking empty. I gave her her knife back, and she has a sharper weapon in her veins, but I don’t sense any of her magic in the air.
“Please,” she begs as Alaric slowly turns to face her. “Please, let her go.”
“There you are,” he purrs, his voice grating and slimy as it crawls over my skin. “Come across this fire, and I’ll let her go.”
“Don’t you dare.” My demand carries through the space, loud enough that anyone in a fifty-foot vicinity could hear me, so I know she did.
Lucina takes a step forward anyway.
Rushing towards her, I drop my hold on the fire. “LUCINA, DON’T—”
She steps through the break I unintentionally supplied her, both of her booted feet crossing into the circle of flames.
Pure terror rushes through me at the sight.
Only a few lousy feet separate Lucina from the man who started all of this. The most vile thing to walk this planet.
My Lucina.
Her hands stay lifted in front of her. “I’m here. Let her go.”
With the snap of his wrist, Kimber falls, piercing the sky with a scream as she does. Pax rushes forward, but there’s no time to do anything but watch, and when she collides with the ground—
It catches her. In a way that’s…unnatural. Dirt softening around her body, bowing at her weight, absorbing her into the suddenly soft earth.
Lakelet magic.
One glance at the line of bushes beside her confirms it as I meet Selene’s fearsome eyes, sharp with concentration.
When the ground hardens, Kimber pulls herself up to her elbows, the white ribbon in her cinnamon hair coming undone as she crawls back to her friends.
Gemma snatches her arms as soon as she’s close enough, pulling the Diviner up to her knees and yanking her into a tight hug.
Gemma’s relief lasts only a heartbeat, panic seeping back in when she looks over Kimber’s shoulder and sees Lucina.
And the monster prowling towards her.
I cross the space in a matter of seconds. I don’t have a plan. All I know is that this will not happen to her. I refuse it. She doesn’t deserve it, and I won’t survive it.
I’m close enough now that I can see the whites of Lucina’s eyes. I can see her grim expression. “Lucina—”
Shadows burst through the space between us, darkening the already black night until I can’t see those in the Yard. I can barely see her through the smoke. I whirl around and meet putrid yellow eyes through the sudden darkness. Alaric’s pupils narrow to thin lines.
“Don’t. Move. Captain.”
Sensing the severity of the threat, I freeze. My heart pounds in my ears.
When I remain motionless, the shadows clear, but when they do, there’s a smoke-laced dagger poised right over Lucina’s heart. It looks sharp enough to slide right through, taking everything I love in this world with it.
Alaric sees it—the moment I run out of options.
The King of Rogues cocks his head, daring me to take another step.
“What do you want?” I rush out instead, chest heaving, my clothes suddenly feeling too tight on my skin. “I’ll give you anything you want.”
Lucina doesn’t blink, shadows dancing up under her chin as the blade inches closer to her chest, mere centimeters from slicing through that dress I love so much and plunging into the beautiful heart behind it.
My chaos. I can’t take the threat of losing her. Can’t stomach it. Not again.
Alaric’s brows rise as if he interprets my offer as a challenge.
The flames in front of me lower, Pax and Phoenix likely thinking I’ve got some escape plan drummed up and just need clearance through the flames, but all I have is a willingness to burn this whole place to the ground. This whole world.
I have a willingness to trek through Onyile, find Alaric’s physical body, and skin him alive.
If I could mess with Rogue minds the way I can do the Sol, I’d take every memory of his away except for the feeling of his death and me being the last face he saw.
If he takes her from me, I will find a way to end his miserable, immortal existence.
I’ll make sure he spends eternity paying for it.
“Anything?” Alaric taunts, yellow eyes raking over Lucina with an edge of curiosity that boils my blood. “You’d pay the price of anything for…this?” His laughter is dark and wicked as it rumbles from his chest. Looking over at her again, Alaric tsks, “You’ve got them all fooled, don’t you?”
She doesn’t say a word, but her eyes lock with mine across the low line of flames.
“Anything,” I repeat, my pulse thumping in my ears, the beat of my heart wild behind my lungs. “Name it.”
The dagger twists, a hairsbreadth away from the beading of her dress, and still she doesn’t blink. It’s as if she’s accepted it, but I simply won’t. Can’t. There’s no world where I survive the slip of that dagger.
“Chaos,” I plead with her, my voice breaking. I’m not even sure what I’m begging her for, but I know it hurts. I know it will be a million times worse if that smoke breaks her skin. The dagger sharpens, and Alaric’s smile grows wider.
“Anything!” I scream, but all it serves is his amusement, another laugh on his pale lips. “You can have anything!” Just not her.
“Yes, yes, I know,” Alaric drawls, nodding as if the statement is redundant. I’m forced to watch—completely powerless—as he prowls behind Lucina. “But what I want, Captain, what I really want.” He pauses just behind her shoulder, raking his gaze down her figure before looking back at me. “Is her.”
My heart drops.
“As foul as she is.”
“Lucina,” I beg, but her expression remains solemn, her vacant eyes avoiding mine. “Fuck.” Shrugging off my jacket, I find that I’m still being suffocated. I still can’t fucking think.
She’s right there. Right in front of me. And I can’t get to her.
I should have known she’d do anything to save Kimber. Lucina would never hesitate for her friends. Maybe not even for a stranger. But I hate that the thing I love the most about her might be the very reason I lose her.
“Baby,” my voice breaks, “what—” I look around as if I might find some last-minute way out of this, “What have you done?”
As soon as the words leave my lips, Lucina…evaporates.
The image of her fades, leaving the dagger poised at nothing. Alaric roars, a grating sound that splinters through the Yard, and then his body slumps lifeless to the ground.
By the time he hits the dirt, it’s Ceres that lies there instead. And Lucina, my Lucina—her flesh and bones—stands behind her, chest heaving as she looks back at me.
“I was buying us time,” she exhales.
An illusion.
A fucking fantastic one.
My gaze drops to her outstretched hand, to what she’d pulled out of Alaric’s grip, and I almost don’t believe what I’m seeing. The blue of the stone is unmistakable, even as it reflects off the orange hue of the flames around her.
Ceres had an Eldral? The thought is incomprehensible. How?
Tears well in Lucina’s eyes within the three steps it takes to get to her. Pax and Phoenix cut the fire, the former taking off in the direction of Lucina’s friends while I surge across the last of the dying embers and yank her towards me as soon as I’m close enough.
She’s warm in my arms, heart beating in her chest, but she’s safe and alive and out of harm’s way. Away from that knife and the monster threatening to use it.
“I thought that was you,” I breathe against her forehead, a hand fisted in her hair as I walk her away from Ceres’s body. “Gods, Lucina, I thought that was you.”
“That was kinda the point,” she says softly, pulling out of my grip to wipe her tears away. She stares down at the wetness on her fingers and scowls.
Taking her face in my hands, I rush to kiss her, needing the familiarity of it. Needing to fill my senses with her smell, her taste, the bones beneath her skin. I’m so godsdamn tired of nearly losing her.
My hands slide from her face to her neck, breaking the sweet contact to check the dilation of her pupils. “Are you okay?” I scan her trembling frame. “Are you hurt?”