Chapter 10 Lucan
Lucan.
It’s not her voice that calls out my name in my head.
Four days I’ve been waiting. The moon rises each night and still she doesn’t come.
This voice though, these thoughts, are as familiar as my own. Birthrights do that to you: connect you to the ones closest to you, the ones who are there for you, always. Even when you don’t want them to be.
I could pick out the cadence of Vivian’s voice anywhere—distinctly female, yes, but it’s not as smooth or soft as Saskia’s.
Saskia, I repeat in my head, just as I’ve done a hundred times since she let it slip. That name is like a whisper of moonlight. The way it rolls off my tongue in a—
Lucan, Vivian says again firmer. You need to rest. Eat. You’ve been like this for four days.
I thought I asked you not to shift?
Well, you didn’t exactly command it, she says innocently.
Get out of my head, Viv, I growl. If only it was as easy as taking off a necklace.
It’s not healthy, she insists. You need real food and a break.
I’m fine.
You need to shift back, Vivian bites out. And then you won’t have to listen to my scratchy voice in your head.
Yeah, but then I’ll have to listen to it in real life, I grouse.
A sudden burst of electricity powers through my veins.
The hope gathers in my chest, but Saskia’s voice doesn’t follow.
It was just a blip, as if someone brushed the vial with their pinky, and now I’m left wondering if I imagined it.
An uneasy craziness settles over me. I know Vivian is right, I need to take a break, but I can’t. Not yet.
No, I want to be ready if she comes back, I tell her. She’s our only way in. Our last chance.
I must have been too hard on Saskia, pushed her too far. No one can process that much information all at once, especially someone who’s lived her entire life under the Guardians’ creepy pale thumbs, believing that their way of life is the only way.
Over and over, I’ve replayed what I said to her—and what I didn’t.
I didn’t tell her I’ve seen humans like her fall from the Wall dozens of times before over the last couple of centuries, and not because the Guardians throw them over to feed me like their stupid fucking myths say.
No, these humans jump, I’m almost sure of it.
In a desperate attempt to escape that hellhole they’ve been locked away in, they fling themselves off the top, but they’re all dead as soon as they hit the ground.
No human could survive a fall from that dizzying height.
Saskia’s the only one I’ve been able to exchange more than a few words with, and I might have scared her away for good.
There’s just something about how her mind races that I can’t put my finger on.
How her thoughts overlap and clash, as if the buried ones are trying to break free.
How she suppresses them and only lets those that have been ingrained in her churn to the top—but she has gears.
Rusty, sure, but they’re there, desperately trying to turn.
You’ll know, Lucan. As soon as the human comes back, you’ll know. Please shift, Vivian replies, empathy lining her demand. Come on.
I throw one last howl into the night before I tug at my form from the inside-out.
The shift is harder than usual after being in this monstrous form for four damn days. My veins twist and tighten. My bones scream as they snap inward, reforming themselves within my skin. My skin itself burns as it shrinks, as my claws retract and my body shudders into place.
Exhaling a shaky breath, I grit my teeth once more at the Wall before turning back toward the woods, away from Saskia and the parasites who keep her imprisoned.
This time on two human feet.