by Eva Brandt
“If she has, that’s none of your affair,” another patron said. He threw a glance toward me, and in the dim light inside the tavern, I could distinguish the glint of his emerald eyes. “She hasn’t offered, so you’ll drink your ale, eat your food, and leave.”
The disgusting ruffian didn’t appreciate the command. His whole group got up, retrieving ominous-looking blades from beneath their long coats. “Is that a fact?”
The first man who’d come to my defense let out an irritated sigh. “I hate humans. No respect for people who are better than them. Oh, well. I was hungry today anyway.”
He wasn’t referring to food or to women. I wasn’t sure what he was referring to, but the end result was death.
I wasn’t unfamiliar to gore or destruction. When I’d been ten, my family had been killed by bandits right in front of my eyes, and to this day, I had no idea why I’d survived. But never in my life had I seen a death that was so unnerving.
My strange defender didn’t bother moving from his spot. He just extended his hand, and his eyes started to glow with an ominous, crackling light. The air in the room thickened with a tension that reminded me of the silence before the storm.
The stranger flicked his fingers, and just like that, the swine and his companions collapsed like puppets with their strings cut. An odd smoke rushed from their lips, into my defender’s mouth. He grimaced, as if he’d just tasted something foul. “I hate the taste of pirate. I would’ve preferred some ale.”
I had no idea who started screaming. Maybe it was a patron. Maybe it was one of my fellow tavern girls. Either way, mere seconds later, chaos exploded in the smoky room.
“Demon!” someone shouted.
“Run! Run away!”
“No, stand your ground, lads. We have to kill it here!”
The exchange didn’t impress the strange man in the least bit. “I’d like to see you try,” he said, and the words rang out against the walls of the tavern, even if he didn’t raise his voice at all.
Judging by the growing agitation in the patrons, the idiots intended to fulfill this wish. I didn’t get the chance to witness it, though. The green-eyed man grabbed my wrist and dragged me outside. Behind us, the sound of screams and cries for mercy echoed like a terrifying, yet somehow beautiful song.
He didn’t let go of me until we reached tentative safety, taking refuge behind a large wagon. “Are you all right, angel?” he asked me.
I opened my mouth to answer, but nothing came out. The world around me suddenly started to blur, as did the face of the stranger who’d helped me.
All of a sudden, voices started assaulting my mind. Some were familiar, others weren’t. Flashes of places and people I didn’t recognize exploded over me, and the splinters of incomprehensible conversations were my only guide.
“Angel, you can’t be serious. I’m still an Accursed. Getting close to me is much too dangerous.”
“Why don’t you let me decide what is too dangerous for me and what isn’t?”
“All right. I will do whatever it takes, as long as you think it’ll work.”
“You really are so much braver and better than I deserve. I am so sorry.”
“Isn’t that foolish, though? Foolish and selfish? To keep someone close to you, even if you know that will hurt them?”
“That depends on what the person wants. It is more selfish to push them away out of your own fear and concern if he or she wants to stay with you.”
“You must know that no matter what happens, even if I die, I’ll love you in this life and the next.”
“I know. I feel the same.”
“You can’t leave! You can’t abandon me.”
“I wouldn’t, if I had a choice. This fight, I can’t win, my queen.”
I tried to crawl away from the voices, but when I escaped their hold, I stumbled into something far worse. An icy, crushing darkness surrounded me from every direction, invading my lungs, making it impossible for me to see, breathe, or even think. I was drifting away, sliding into the depths of the ocean, and I couldn’t swim to the surface. My limbs felt weak, a weird numbness having already settled in.
There was no point to fight, I thought to myself, no point to live when everything and everyone else was gone. I wanted the ocean to end my miserable existence, to drown out the grief that I couldn’t escape.
Just as I thought this, the water around me started to glow. The voices crashed over me all over again and I screamed, desperate to escape the overwhelming anguish those murmurs brought along. “No! Get away from me!”
My eyes shot open and I flailed as I tried to fight off the phantasms haunting me. It took me a good couple of seconds to realize there was nothing there for me to fight.
I was alone, in my room in my aunts’ French home. The whole thing had only been a dream.
Something deep inside me protested that idea. It couldn’t have all been a figment of my imagination. It had felt so very real. I could still remember the scents in the tavern, the warmth of the man’s hand holding mine, the cold embrace of the ocean.
And then, there was Mathias Vandale. I didn’t know why I’d dreamed about him in such a way, but he’d been the one to come to my defense when I’d been harassed by those humans. His speech, weapons, and clothes had been odd, and he’d made that comment about piracy. Pirates these days had guns and weren’t very likely to hang around taverns, drink ale, or rely on swords. It had all seemed like something that had happened a long time ago.
Had it been a glimpse into someone else’s mind? Maybe into the memories of another person? But who? Whose mind had I seen? The voices made everything even more confusing. I could’ve sworn I’d spoken some of those words myself, but that couldn’t be right, because I didn’t remember having such conversations.
The door burst open before I could dwell on my dilemma further. “Lucienne?” Pierce asked as he rushed into my room. “Are you all right?”
I blinked at him owlishly. “Huh? Oh, yes, of course. I just had a bad dream.”
Delphine followed him, and her eyes glowed as she scanned me from head to toe. “A dream? What about?”
I intended to tell her about what I’d seen, to ask her what she thought about the odd voices and images. When I spoke, though, what came out was entirely different. “I don’t remember. It’s... indistinct.”
I hadn’t realized how tense Delphine had been until her shoulders relaxed and her stance became less rigid. “Well, it’s not really that surprising. You’ve been under a lot of stress lately.”
Pierce was nowhere near as satisfied with my explanation, but he didn’t try to ask about it. “Too much stress. What do you need? Water? Some fresh air?”
I appreciated his kindness, but what I needed was answers, and I doubted he could give them to me. Besides, I didn’t want to worry him even more. “No, it’s fine. I’ll be fine. I’ll try to get a little more rest. I’m sure it was nothing.”
“It’s not nothing if you’re so anxious that I could feel you from my room.” Pierce pressed our foreheads together in a gesture that made me want to take my words back. “Do you want me to stay to keep you company?”
Did I want him to stay? A part of me did, but on the other hand, maybe it was a bad idea. I’d been giving him a lot of mixed signals, and sharing a bed with him platonically seemed unlikely at this point. “No, you should go get some sleep too. We’ll have a busy schedule starting tomorrow.”
It was a stupid, pathetic excuse. I could tell he was too restless to go back to bed. Still, he didn’t push me. Pressing a kiss to my forehead, he pulled away. “All right, my love, but if you need me, you know where to find me.”
“Rest well, dear,” my aunt offered, already making her way out of the room. “And don’t worry so much about the meeting with the Alarians. You’ll have no trouble whatsoever dealing with them. They’re all bark and no bite.”
I wasn’t sure that was true, but I was too tired to argue with her, and I had a feeling it had nothing to do with
the late hour. I shot them both a weak smile and felt both relieved and anxious when they left.
“What is wrong with me?” I muttered when the door closed behind Pierce. “I’m better than this. Father and Clara wouldn’t want me to be unable to function because of their injuries.”
That knowledge didn’t help as much as I’d have liked. In the end, even my father didn’t know everything. If he had, he wouldn’t have ended up in a coma in the first place.
With a sigh, I threw off the covers and slid out of bed. The wooden floor felt pleasantly cool underneath my bare feet. I padded to the bathroom and turned on the tap, taking comfort in the sound of the running water. I felt hot, too hot, and as I placed my hands under the jet of cold liquid, I caught a sight of my reflection in the mirror.
I didn’t really like the person I saw there. I looked pale and wan, and small shudders rushed through my body. In that image, I couldn’t see any sign of Lucienne de Hastingues, a Dame Blanche, a nightmare’s daughter, the woman who could wield fire magic more devastating than a volcanic eruption. “How am I supposed to catch those plagues if I’m terrified of them in my dreams?” I asked myself. “I can do better than this.”
My reflection nodded, her eyes glowing with golden light. “Of course you can,” she mouthed at me. “You’re powerful, more powerful than anyone in this world.”
“I thought I was, but I’m not so sure about that anymore,” I said. “I certainly wasn’t powerful enough to protect my father, my aunts, and Clara. The magic I have is a curse, not a blessing.”
My reflection laughed. “Of course it is a curse, but that doesn’t make it weaker. You just have to stop being afraid of who you are.”
As those words processed, a jolt of realization shot through me. I was talking to the Lucienne in the mirror—not to myself, but to my reflection, as a separate entity.
That alone wouldn’t have alarmed me that much. I might have even deemed it another strange dream, a natural consequence of the one I’d just had. There was just one problem.
My reflection didn’t look like me. Well, she did, but we weren’t identical. Her hair was longer and a little lighter in color. She was also wearing something different, an ornate gown of some kind. I could only see the top part, but the embroidery glowed so brightly it was almost blinding. Meanwhile, I was in my pajamas. “What the hell?” I asked, and her mouth didn’t move. “Who are you?”
“I am a secret,” she replied. “The secret hidden inside you.”
“My power?” Was this a manifestation of the magic I couldn’t control? I’d read about such things happening under certain circumstances. That was usually why some mages had familiars. Their excess power created an extension of their bodies that allowed them to use their skills with ease. But as far as I knew, none of those people had a human-looking familiar, let alone one who looked like a copy of them.
“Yes and no,” she answered. “Everyone is lying to you, Lucienne. In your heart, you know that. You can’t forget the people who truly love you.”
“The people who truly love me? What the hell is that supposed to mean?”
Pierce loved me. So did my father, my aunts, Diane and Clara. I loved them just as much. They were my family.
“I can’t deny they are important,” the Lucienne in the mirror said, having obviously caught onto my thoughts. “That doesn’t give them the right to control you.”
“Nobody is controlling me. I’ve always made my own choices.” Yes, my father had always been a little over-protective, but that wasn’t a bad thing.
“The problem is that those choices might not be what you now think they are. You know, Lucienne de Hastingues, you can’t change the past, but you can rewrite it. People are defined by what they think they are. What do you think happens when they forget their true selves?”
At that point, I’d had quite enough. I didn’t know who the image in the mirror was, but it certainly wasn’t me.
Someone, maybe even a plague, was trying to turn me against my family, and I refused to allow it. “You’re right. People are defined by their beliefs. But they also live and die by them, and when they make the wrong choice, it can seal their fates. You’ve just made the wrong one. You should’ve never messed with me. I will track you down, and you will burn for what you’ve done.”
My reflection smirked at me. “I’ve tried that before. I didn’t much like it. I’m partial to the method of drowning my victims, but I’m sure you’ll find what works for you best.”
I wanted to reach into the mirror and shake her, but that wasn’t possible. “Fuck you. Is that supposed to be a threat of some kind?”
“Not at all. It’s just the truth, one of the few truths we have right now.” Her expression sobered, and suddenly, she seemed to be staring into my very soul. “I can’t tell you who or what I am, Lucienne. I don’t know. But I do know this. You can’t give up. There’s someone else waiting for you out there. You can feel it, feel them calling out to you. Their memory is hidden somewhere inside you, somewhere you can’t reach. You have to keep fighting, for them and for you.”
“I’ll fight all right,” I said darkly, “but only for my family.”
As I finished the sentence, magic began to dance over my skin, making the water still flowing in the sink evaporate. A throbbing migraine pounded at my skull and my chest felt hollow and achy. Nothing seemed to make sense except this, the absolute necessity to save my loved ones.
The mirror cracked and the power that had summoned the strange reflection vanished. In the shards, I could now see myself, the real me, dressed in sweaty pajamas, with black hair and haunted black eyes. I wasn’t sure I liked the change.
I wasn’t sure of anything anymore. I stared at the shards, and for a few seconds, all I could think about was the desire to pick one of them up and sink them into another person’s flesh. They’d be like claws or fangs, right? I could bleed anyone dry, if I just tried it.
I could pave the way for my family, my soulmates, my most beloved son, to come back, to be happy and free. No one else mattered but them.
“Help us, Lucienne,” a voice whispered in my head. “Help him. Please. You’re the only one who can do it.”
The mirror shards glinted and all of a sudden, I could catch a glimpse of something, or rather, someone else on their surface. It was Prince Darius Alarisson and he seemed to be staring straight at me. “Please,” he repeated. “Don’t let go of what we have.”
I didn’t remember ever speaking with the prince, but even so, there was something in his silver eyes that I couldn’t ignore. Like a woman in a dream, I picked up the shard and clutched it tightly in my fist. “There’s nothing between us,” I told his image, “but I won’t let go of you, not until I find you and you answer all my questions.”
He didn’t reply, and I dropped to my knees on my cold bathroom floor. Beneath me, the tiles started to overheat and crack. What was happening to me? What was I supposed to do?
* * *
Darius
There was nothing crueler in life than to have to kill a person you loved. I knew that very well. As I watched Declan scan the ruin that had once been a base of my underlings, I wondered how it had come to this, why we had to pay yet another cruel price for a future with our soulmate.
We’d only ever wanted a little happiness, and yet, no matter how hard we tried, our path was littered with dead bodies and bathed in the blood of our loved ones. Maybe we’d had it coming, for our arrogance and brutality. Those humans we’d killed at the prison had undoubtedly had families too, people who’d mourn them and feel the same grief we did now. They wouldn’t even have bodies to bury, because I’d robbed them of that simple mercy.
And it didn’t matter, because it was all for a purpose, all for Lucienne, to find her, save her, and finally end our story in a way that would stop our constant vicious circle of loss, destruction, pain, anguish, and death.
With that in mind, I made my way through the labyrinth of crumbled bricks and called out t
o Declan. “Well? Can you track him down?”
He got up and threw a glance toward me. “Yes, Your Highness. Of course. I’ve caught his scent. It might be tougher if they’ve chosen to use vehicles, but I’m sure I can manage it.”
There was no hesitation in his words or on his face. I acknowledged his reply with a nod, although inside, I was nowhere near as pleased as I wanted to appear. He’d been calling me Your Highness ever since we’d left the others in the healing wing and I wasn’t sure he’d noticed the difference. I hadn’t gotten the chance to tell him to stop. So far, the plagues hadn’t deemed it suspicious, so in that respect, I didn’t consider it a problem. But the reason for this change concerned me, regardless.
We had enough on our hands with me being unable to distinguish my own memories from Mathias’s. If something similar happened to Declan, if he drifted into the mindset of his past self, we’d have no way to fix it. I couldn’t blame him for compartmentalizing in this way. Of course it would be simpler to separate himself from his life as Declan if we had to end something that had been such an integral part of it. Still, I was worried.
If only we’d been able to find and rescue Lucienne. Had we taken her with us, none of this would be happening. She’d have anchored us, the same way we did for her. But our soulmate was not here. She was in the hands of a man who had even less scruples than we did and who’d stop at nothing to keep us apart.
I clenched my jaw and forced myself to shove away my concern for Declan. He’d experience grief over the imminent loss of his brother, but he’d accept it, just like I’d accepted my own losses—most notably my mother, who I suspected had been killed in the battle with Louis.
“Well then, if you have everything you need, let’s go. We’re wasting time here. I don’t like death I can’t consume.” Also, there were still humans lurking in the area, and if we crossed paths, more innocents would have to die. I wanted to avoid that at all costs.
“Of course, Your Highness,” he replied. “I’m ready.”