Chapter 24 The Blue Mountain #2
A faith that only one other person ever showed her. The one person who loved her, flaws and all. The one she owed the world to.
Wiping at her cheeks, Luci stepped her feet into her mental resolve, and all at once she remembered why she couldn’t let him break her. It was how she found the strength to take the next step, following the rocky and slick path that followed the length of the lagoon.
Ira said nothing as he followed behind her, and for that, she was more grateful than any words of praise.
With every step, her heart beat a little faster, and her stomach rumbled in irritation.
She could take every step in the land, walk every stair, every mile, and she still wouldn’t be able to outrun the screaming inside her lungs.
It was all real. The night she’d stepped into the Glass Room, she stepped into a twisted and wild storybook. The voice she’d heard was real. The flower was real. Blythe, littered with rows and rows of feathered flowers, was real. Brielle. Brielle, happy, healthy, and vibrant, was real.
In the stories, there was always more struggle. Wrong choices made. Romances layered between the pages. Yet Lucinda was no heroine. She was an orphan who got lucky. One generous and kind-hearted noble girl loved her, and that was all she had to her name. No great loves, no magic powers, no destiny.
Soon, the lagoon gave way to a narrow river that climbed up the mountain with them. As if the ache in her legs put there by riding for two days wasn’t enough, her feet screamed with each step. The uphill climb was a painful battle that she refused to concede to.
“We need to rest for the night, Luci,” Ira said, behind her.
The first words either of them had spoken in hours.
It was impossible to know how long they’d walked.
In fact, Luci felt as though his words were pulling her from some sort of haze.
Her stomach was hollow and as cavernous as the cave around them, but worse was the pain in her feet.
They begged to rest, but real or not, Brielle was waiting for them.
“Luci-”
His hand wrapped in hers from behind, and her heart stuttered in her chest. Ache or not, she wanted to run. Maybe she’d fall on the sleek stone, but she couldn’t stay stagnant. If she didn’t keep moving, she would break. Splinter into thousands of pieces.
Only two people would be able to put her back together, and she couldn’t allow it. Wouldn’t allow it.
“I promise you, once we get to the top, we will move at the speed of light, but if you kill yourself getting to the top, you won’t be able to stand by the time we get there. It doesn’t have to be all night, but just for a little bit, rest. Please.”
He was a prince. He was the heir to all of Meridea, and he was pleading with her. He knew the cost, and still he asked this of her.
“We won’t be late,” he said.
In answer, her stomach growled much like a wild animal, and it was hard to argue with that. The scent of cinnamon faded amidst salt and water. Maybe it was a sign.
“All right,” she whispered.
Letting her bag fall off her shoulder, she half fell on the uneven stone and held her head in her hands. This internal torture was tearing her apart, but there was nothing to be done about it. Stuck in a cave of diamonds and softly flowing blue with hints of green water, she was unsaveable.
Ira slowly sat next to her and shuffled through his bag. Silently, he laid out a cloth and placed several pieces of white bread along with a block of cheese. He sliced her off one and broke a piece of bread, handing it to her.
Careful, not to touch him, Luci took the bread and stared at the gently flowing current.
Her stomach immediately growled at the first bite of flaky bread.
Whether in approval or anger at being denied for too long was hard to say.
She was grateful for the sound of the water as it made its way downstream.
It echoed off the walls and filled up some of the hollowness within her.
Ira was quiet as he ate as well. Two pieces of bread and three slices of cheese later, the grumbling in her stomach subsided, and her blood cooled enough that she didn't feel like she was an inferno beneath her skin.
The newfound quiet was a different kind of pain, though. It made her all too aware of the exact distance between her and Ira and the ever-encroaching walls of the cave. Nowhere to hide. No one to hide behind.
It began as an itch at the back of her neck.
A thickening in her throat that she imagined narrowing her airways.
It quickly delved into her eyes, and the burning began in earnest. Brielle used to say that it would take an act of magic to make Luci cry.
No happy ending or broken hero could create even a hint of tears in her eyes.
The thing that Luci never told her was that she’d already seen the saddest things the world had to offer, and they weren’t pages in stories.
They were starving children and broken women.
They were crumbs on dirty streets and painful memories.
They were an emptiness that filled her stomach with pain that felt a lot like death.
So the fact that she’d cried several times in several days seemed an unfair disposition.
That tears now fell in the middle of a cave with an errant prince and magic glittering walls seemed more like an inconvenience.
However, logic and the sense of justice could not hold them at bay.
Stomach full and chest hollow, the tears flow freely.
She tried to hide it, but there was no hope for it.
Knees pulled up, Ira rested his arms over them, fists clenched, and watched her. Face pale.
“How can I help?” he asked.
It was a terrible question. Probably the worst question anyone ever asked, and she very much wanted to throw something at him.
“You can’t,” she said through sharp breaths.
They were coming too quickly now. It felt like a lightning bolt was running down her chest, carving her from the outside, and darkness was seeping in.
Clear vision gave way to images that merged into one, and no amount of cinnamon or determination could save her.
She was dying. Crashing upon the shore over and over again with all the violence of a fate no longer to be outrun.
She knew she shouldn’t have. He was trying hard not to touch her with his clenched fist and tight jawline.
Probably scared she would turn feral and run away.
And so she would have if there was anywhere to run.
There wasn’t. There wasn’t anywhere to go, and she never needed human touch as she did in that cave.
So, despite the screaming in her head, she scooted over the empty cloth of crumbs and rested her head on his shoulder.
He didn’t hesitate, and it was just another reason for the tears to fall harder and her chest to burn with more intensity.
He wrapped his arms around her, and she buried her face into his neck.
Peppermint cemented into his skin regardless of the days of travel.
In his arms, she cried as she’d done when she was an orphan lost on Picadilly street.
Except then she’d had no one and didn’t know what safety felt like.
In a cave beneath a mountain, in a prince’s arms, Luci felt safe.
Like he wouldn’t judge her for her tears, like it would all be all right as long as she stayed in his arms, he didn’t say anything, and it was better that way.
A perfect cocoon created for a single moment in time.
Soon, she cried all the tears there were to cry. A lifetime of tears used up in one evening. Her breathing eased, and she’d felt like her body gave everything there was to give. She should have pulled away. Should have made herself forget what it meant to feel safe.
But the thing was, now that she knew what it felt like to have his arms around her and to feel the gentle pulse of his heartbeat in his neck, there was no strength left in her to pull away. And he didn’t ask her to.
So she stayed.
Safe and sound for just a moment in the arms of a prince in a cave under a mountain.