“No, I just thought it would be fun to give myself an extra challenge by staying out the first night.” I walk to the next tapestry as he approaches, making a point to keep distance between us without ever putting my back to him.
“You really don’t trust me, do you?” Lucan has never said anything so blunt to me, so it startles me, even if the observation is right.
“I don’t know you.” Cautious. Truthful. Better than the way-too-honest answer of,I’d trust a copper dragon not to eat me before I trusted you.
“You’ve spent years with me.” He steps closer, and my whole chest is tighter as he draws near. I’m focused on the slightest sway of his shoulders. The small bounce in his hair. Maybe my training is really paying off. He’s not going to get a surprise attack on me when I’m this aware of every move he’s making.
“Yearsaroundyou,” I clarify. “There’s a difference.”
“You might have spent yearsaroundme, looking through me like nothing more than another one of the vicar’s sycophants. But I’ve always seen you.” The way he says it causes my heart to race again. His hazel eyes are big enough to see the entirety of my soul.
“What do you mean?” I work to keep my head and voice level, wandering to the center statue to get some distance. He followsafter one last glance at the tapestry. He looks almost…wary? I don’t dare think that maybe he’s also unnerved by the sight of dragons.
“I’ve seen how you never pray, yet you ask the curates for prayers upon you so you can retreat into your own mind. The way you stare out at the wall like you’re searching for something—no,yearningfor it. How you scratch yourself whenever an artificer sigil is being drawn,” he says, and I’m grateful for the waning light. It hides the heat in my cheeks at realizing I’ve been so thoroughly observed.
He continues, “How you pull the collars of your shirts up when he isn’t looking, probably for the same reason that you wear your hair down even though it’s more likely to get you hurt in a fight: because it upsets Vicar Darius.” His gaze drops to my chest. It’s only then that I realize I’m pressing my palm into my scar. It’s throbbing, as if the scarred seams of my flesh are about to rip back open andsomethingis going to escape. If he could see all of this, then what else might Lucan know about me? What else that I try so desperately to hide… And what right does he have to know it? “And, of course, how you rub your scar in the presence of Etherlight.”
“So studious. I’m flattered.” I can’t even feign sincerity as I turn away. This is…creepy.
“And I bet that, even now, you’re so scared around these tapestries that your heart is almost beating out of your chest. So scared that I’m shocked it doesn’t finally stop entirely.”
I halt, looking back to him warily. He knowstoomuch. This is why he knew just what to say to make me trust him that day. Fooled me into thinking he was someone else.
Lucan approaches with slow, deliberate steps. He almost infringes on my personal space but stops short. The air in the room is suddenly too thin, the laces of my jerkin too tight, and I wish he was closer and across the room at the same time. There’ssomething completely foreign to his stare. Something that I couldn’t name even if I tried…and a part of me does want to try.
“Why have you never shared these observations before?” The question is as sharp as the point of a crossbow bolt, and the next shoots from my tongue just as fast. “Saving them for your evening discussions with the vicar?”
He scoffs at that.
“No?” I lean forward, trying to regain the edge in this conversation. But closing the gap myself only makes me more aware of just howhothe is—he’s warmer than the stones of a hearth that’s been blazing all day. Warm enough that my cheeks are definitely flush, and I hate that he’ll probably read into it. “You’re always so eager to run to him.”
“Is your hatred of me all because of that day?”
That day.It absolutely is, you two-faced liar. “It’s because you do nothing buthisbidding,” I retort a little too hastily. Then I add, “But what you did that day didn’t help.”
“Isola—”
“One day off.One. That’s all I wanted, Lucan! You made me think I could trust you.”Made me think you liked me. I’ve had very few friends since becoming Valor Reborn. Not many want to genuinely spend time with the “savior of Vinguard”—most are insufferable suck-ups trying to get close to me to improve their position somehow. I thought he’d know what it’s like being stuck under the vicar’s shadow. But I’m not about to tell him any of that. Instead, I take a deep breath and lower my voice so that no inquisitors lurking in the shadows will hear. “One day on my mother’s birthday to be with her.”
I shake my head and turn, walking away. I’ll do laps around this room all night if that’s what it takes to keep my distance from him.
His footsteps follow, because of course they do. “I told you I didn’t advise it.”
“But youlet me leave. Which obviously seemed a lot like agreement.” I don’t look at him. “If you were just going to run to the vicar, why let me go at all?”
“I couldn’t say no to you without going against the teachings.” He laughs. That gets my attention. It’s a bewildered sound, steeped in disbelief. “You really thought I could? And that I, an eighteen-year-old apprentice of the Creed, could cover forValor Rebornwhen she was suddenly missing—the most watched person in all of Vinguard—and everyone would just accept my word for it? You’re even more delusional than I thought.”
The words hit me like a slap across the face. When he puts it like that… Anger has my chest to the tips of my ears burning, but I can’t tell if it’s directed more toward him or toward myself. “Excuse me?”
“I’m just a cog in the vicar’s automaton, Isola.” He sounds…tired. “Grinding away at his command. Heeding his whims and executing his wishes.”
A cog?“But you’re the vicar’s son.”
“And you’ve seen me live such a privileged life because of it,” he says sarcastically.
When I think about it, he’s always in one of the same few outfits, unlike the vicar, who regularly changes his regalia. But I’ve attributed that to the rank and file of the Creed wanting to model the behavior it expects from the citizens of Vinguard. Though I’ve never seen him eating anything special, either. And even around the vicar, the two seemed… Lucan seemed more like a dog heeding its master’s call than a son.
“What did he do to you, Isola, for leaving that day?” Lucan comes to a stop before me once more, staring down at me. Why does he have to be so damn tall? I can’t even posture my way into looking down on him, and I am not short by any measure.
