Page 43 of Anomalies

“I’m sure Lila and Elliot would disagree, Your Grace,” I say on an exhale. “I think even bones are worth saving.”

I leave before she can reply.

Five months.

Cages.

Slaves.

12

LUCINA

It’s been two weeks since the news of Iris made its way through camp, followed quickly by the confirmation of her death. Though I begged, Pax wouldn’t tell me anything aside from what he’d already told me; Iris had been taken by Rogues twenty years ago, and somehow, she survived.

She survived twenty years of Chiaros knows what, only to die the day she’d finally made it home. That was all I could think about as I stood beside Gemma a few days ago, watching as they wrapped Iris’s body in the softest linen, tucking small reminders of who she was and who had loved her into the neatly pressed folds.

Only a glimpse of home.

It wasn’t fair, and maybe that’s why the silence had been so loud that morning as everyone gathered around a small, freshly dug grave, and watched Iris’s linen-wrapped body sink into the soft earth.

The Dame was there, dressed in her silver robes, while everyone else wore white, the symbol of peace and surrender. It’s exactly what one can hope for during their Crossing: the separation of a spirit from its vessel as it crosses the veil separating the living from the dead. The linen represents that veil; thin, white, gauzy, and the letters from loved ones—the old photographs and tiny trinkets—it’s to ensure that when the soul faces judgement, it’s never faced alone.

Two mornings after her Crossing, small purple buds had sprouted atop her grave. It was a gift to her parents, maybe—irises for Iris.

Hope bloomed alongside those tiny buds, and it spread through camp like wildfire. Pirn has gone restless, and all eyes have been on the Captain and his coven. Because, regardless of Iris’s death, she had survived. What if there’s more out there like her? In Streatham.

I found that I wanted to know the answers to that question as much as Gemma did. As much as all of Pirn did. Hope, as it turns out, is addictive and contagious.

Pax is with me most of the time now, and the Captain has hardly been seen. He’s likely holed up somewhere, avoiding the unrest of camp and all the unwanted attention it’s given him.

Even with all this chaos, the Dame’s orders still stand for an Ajax to watch my every move. The only time I’m alone is at night, when my Velkan weaves his memories into my dreams. I can tell it’s taking its toll on him because they’ve come infrequently now, but when he does visit, it’s always the same memory. Only bits and pieces of it come through, and then I’m dragged into some hazy consciousness and he’s there…at the foot of my bed…reaching out for me.

I anticipate his visits now, and when the memory starts playing, fear doesn’t overwhelm my ability to pay attention. What he shows me isn’t any less fuzzy, but at least now I have the mental capacity to focus on it.

There’s a man and a woman. The man is my Velkan, I recognize his voice, but I haven’t any idea who the woman is. She rarely speaks, but I hear her heart beating. It’s a steady thrum despite the desperate breaths she takes.

They’re running from something; it’s the only logical explanation—not that any of this is logical.

As for what the memory is about, I have no idea. All I know is it’s cold, damp, and hard to breathe. To my Velkan, that’s not good enough. I’m not getting the message. But if he wants me to understand so badly, why doesn’t he show me something where my vision isn’t obstructed?

He wants me to use the Eldral, I know it. It’s the only way I can communicate with him directly. Sure, I’m curious, but I’m not dumb. I don’t know if I can take that risk. The Eldral is in a safe place, and I’ve always been good at hiding things. I had to be with “parents” like mine.

Even with something so damning in my possession, I remind the Dame during every brutal and futile lesson, that having me followed is senseless. Especially given the more pressing issues surrounding the Sol and their people left behind in Streatham. But she always insists otherwise, then throws another flower at my feet and says⁠—

“Again,” Delia instructs, and I bite back the curses forming on my tongue.

“Are you going to catch me when I collapse, then?” I ask, leveling a glare at her. The rolling hills have become nothing but a splotch of green in the background of my blurred vision.

It’s not that I don’t have the power to lift it—I do. I feel it ripping through me like a violent current, hot and bright and blinding, but just when I think I’ve wrangled it, my hold slips. I either vomit in the grass, or nothing happens at all.

It bothers her as much as it bothers me.

We’re on hour three, and I’m a sweaty fucking mess. My knees are threatening to buckle, my hands are clammy, and I’m all of two seconds from crumbling, partly from exhaustion and partly from the sheer pressure of barely leashed magic—I’ve been teasing it for hours.

“You can do this, Lucina. Just focus,” she says calmly, readjusting her spill of silver fabric in the grass.

I wipe sweat from my face and roll out my shoulders. Heat floods my arms, and I bite back the urge to smother it, knowing damn well my body can’t hold much more without imploding. Still, I let it consume me entirely, because that’s what she wants, right?