Chapter 16 To Live
Chapter sixteen
To Live
Love is the base ingredient for magic.
-Tales From Meridea, Volume III
“Ican’t convince you to go to bed?” Noah asked.
Luci shook her head, watching crimson rose petals disintegrate into the cloudy water like red smoke. Consuming everything they touched without a sign of willow bark or peppermint that came before it. Nothing of what came before.
“You’ve made a lot of potions today,” he said.
Luci could feel him standing behind her, watching, concern evident in the heaviness of his voice.
It was easy to tell he was a good man. He never hovered or pried.
Instead, he allowed her to work in her gloom, offering suggestions to improve her craft.
In just two days, Luci’s skill level improved enough that she was filling two vials in the time it used to take her to fill one.
“I want to be prepared,” Luci murmured.
Flickering flame danced over the room, lingering on white surfaces and hugging the shadows on the walls.
A silent watch to her melancholy mood. The shadows edged closer with every pass of the flame as if they were trying to make their way to her.
Strangely, Luci secretly welcomed them and the truth they promised.
“I imagine coming to the castle has been a difficult change, but don’t let your mind convince you of something that isn’t true,” he said.
Luci lifted her head from her hands and narrowed her eyes at the healer.
He was kind, patient, and objectively handsome.
If she were capable of falling in love with someone, it would be someone like him.
Their future was written into the steady stream of lavender smoke erupting from the vial before her.
They would spend their days researching and experimenting.
They were tucked in tight to each other.
A relationship built on mutual respect. Together, they would make advancements in medicine that would change lives.
A good life.
Whatever he saw in her, Noah took a step forward and carefully brushed a strand of hair from her eyes and tucked it neatly behind her ear. Her heart didn’t leap, almost like it was too tired to try. The effort was not worth the push of blood throughout her body.
“She still needs you,” he said.
Luci’s eyes burned while her throat worked to produce sound. Maybe she wasn’t as secretive as she thought if the healer could see right into her mind and soul. To know the one thing that was destroying her.
“She belongs here. She’s happy, content, and healthy. I’ve never seen her shine like this. What if I’ve held her back all these years?”
The damning words were choking her even after she finally released them into the universe. For the briefest of moments, she considered maybe saying them aloud would be freeing, but it was worse. Now they existed in a space outside her mind.
Noah leaned up against the white countertop, angling his body close to her. When she didn’t look up, he gently hooked his fingers below her chin and lifted her gaze. Luci didn’t fight it, mostly because her body was weighed down too much to resist.
His eyes searched hers.
“Don’t let yourself sink, Luci. When you live for only one person, you lose everything you are in the process,” he whispered.
“All I have ever been is hers,” Luci confessed.
He nodded, releasing her.
“Maybe it’s time you learn just who Lucinda Blackthorn is,” he said.
Luci couldn’t think of a single more terrifying thought.
Two sharp knocks that resembled bangs more than any polite knock rang through the lantern-lit infirmary. Noah stepped away from her like she was made of poison, and maybe she was.
You are the symptom. Not the cure.
“Your highness. You startled me.” Noah said, clutching his chest.
“I bet I did.” Prince Ira’s voice was tight, punctuated with irritation.
“Is Brielle-” Luci asked.
“Fine,” Prince Ira said.
He wasn’t looking at her, though; his attention was all for Noah, and Luci was sure she didn’t think the prince capable of the coldness that clung to his green eyes like a forest devoid of light.
“You don’t usually work this late, Noah,” he said.
Still dressed in his finery of gold-trimmed navy blue, he was probably just getting through with dinner. A dinner where he made Brielle laugh and feel at home. The cure.
“We lost track of time,” Noah said.
“I’m sure,” Prince Ira snapped.
That was a new tone. A new side of the prince.
Did Max tell him about the map? Was he mad at her for not saying something sooner?
She would need to feign innocence. Say it just occurred to her.
Except she didn’t even know how Max presented the idea.
Did he say it was Brielle’s recollections or that Luci solved the problem?
Goodness, there were too many falsities and half-truths to wade through these dark waters.
Noah was forced to step to the side as Prince Ira drew closer, his eyes searching hers through flickering light.
“What’s wrong?” he asked.
There was a hardness edged into the word that made Luci wonder if he could use the sword he sometimes wore with ease. This close, it was easy to see the tension pulling at his clenched jawline. The tightness in his shoulders. He radiates tension.
Luci’s heart erupted like a herd of wild horses.
“What’s wrong with Brielle?” she asked.
Prince Ira’s eyes flashed. “I told you she’s fine, but I’m more interested in why you look like you’ve been crying.”
Strange. Luci raised her fingers to her eyes and stared at the glistening residue that came away. She didn’t remember crying.
“I- it’s just eye strain. I’m fine,” she lied.
His lips thinned, and it was clear he knew she was a liar. All he had to do was call her out on it, and she might just erupt into a puddle of tears that she wouldn't ever come back from. Too much emotion, too much feeling.
She nearly breathed out a sigh of relief when he dropped her gaze to peer at the potion brewing before her.
“What are you making?” he asked.
Oh. Actually, the previous question might have been preferable to all the times to walk into the infirmary and question her about her work. The prince really had the worst timing.
“I felt guilty about Calcifer,” she shrugged.
The corner of his lip pulled up as he fought to suppress it, and Luci wondered if there was a potion that could make her invisible.
“Lucinda Blackthorn, are you making a potion for me?” he asked, his forest eyes springing to life with mischief.
Luci groaned and lowered the gas lamp beneath the steaming brew. It slowly let its smoke dissipate into the room, and Luci wished she could go with it.
“You should have told us you were allergic to him. It was careless behavior rooted in chivalry,” she snapped.
He leaned his arm against the table and raised an eyebrow.
“You think I’m chivalrous?” he teased.
Impossible, aggravating man.
Luci spun towards him and leveled her most severe of glares at his annoyingly charming face.
“Don’t you have somewhere to be?” she asked.
He tilted his head and thrummed a finger against his lips like he was capable of thought. The urge to snatch that finger down burned inside her.
“Not that I can recall,” he said.
“I’m beginning to think that princes have far too much time on their hands.” Luci shot back.
His laugh was wild and free, lacking the constraint that the rest of the world suffered through. Godmothers and magic pumpkins alike knew that he was beautiful when he laughed. More than any man had a right to be. She had known men to be rugged and handsome, but Prince Ira was undeniably beautiful.
“I’ll just be on my way then,” Noah said.
Oh, Noah. For a minute, she’d forgotten about the healer. Giving him a small smile as she leaned to look past Prince Ira’s figure, she waved a hand.
“Thank you for what you said earlier. I needed to hear it,” she said.
The words were truer than she could admit. Already she felt lighter than before. Some of the weight was shed in the night.
He nodded his head before bowing it and murmuring a goodbye to Prince Ira, who rudely ignored him, his attention on Luci.
She shook her head and gave an exasperated sigh.
“What?” she asked.
“What did you need to hear?” he asked.
“So princes are nosy too,” she said, grabbing the potion and ignoring the heat still clinging to the glass.
The slight burn was a good reminder, though, of what she couldn’t have said.
“Only when it concerns you,” he said.
She could feel his eyes on her back while she carefully poured the now amethyst liquid into three separate vials and placed corks on each one, careful to seal them. Her heart thrummed obnoxiously in her chest, and she was quite ready to be done with the entire day.
Lifting the vials, she turned and shoved them into the prince's chest, careful not to meet his eyes.
“They will either help with your allergies or kill you. Noah is fairly confident it's the former, though. Ingest at your own risk,” she said.
With nothing left to work on, she huffed out a breath and faced the hard truth.
“I’m going to bed. Feel free to stay here,” she said.
“I think you give more orders than I do,” he said.
“Wasn’t an order.”
“It felt like it,” he said, following behind her.
“Well, you clearly aren’t listening,” she said.
The open door led to the burning lanterns of the castle that illuminated every gold-trimmed wall. Sure enough, the prince was in fact not listening as he came up beside her, vial tucked away into his pockets.
“Don’t you want to know if the one I just took kills me?” he asked.
Luci stopped, her heart stalling in the process. She stared open-mouthed at the idiotic man before her who grinned like a fool.
“You took it already?” she asked.
He reached into his pocket and held out an empty vile before flipping it into the air and catching it.
“Wasn’t I supposed to?”
“It was still warm,” she said.
He squinted, “That was a bit strange, but overall it tasted nice- floral, but sweet.”
This man.