“Why were you laughing?”
“I simply thought your idle ways are clever.” After slipping on the straps, Dyna laced the leather bodice and buckled on her belt. Then stepped out and tugged on her boots. “How did you come up with the idea to enchant your chamber pot?”
Lucenna smirked. “I have many grand ideas.” She rolled over to face Dyna, her face softening as she gazed at the second chair tucked in the small dining table made for two. “It’s all due to my mother. She made sure I learned one thing: the lack of strength is overcome with intelligence. Whatever challenge you may face, the advantage of your opponent doesn’t matter. Be smarter than them, and you will win.”
Dyna smiled. “She sounds like a wise woman.”
“That she was. I applied the lesson to everything I came across, including the chamber pot.”
Dyna laughed and went to Lucenna’s bureau, where a basin rested with several bottles of oils and soaps. After pouring in water from an ewer, she washed her hands and face, then used a minty solution to rinse out her mouth.
“What was your mother like?”
It was a careful question, for Dyna sensed Lucenna’s mother was no longer alive. She’d come to recognize people touched by loss.
Lucenna continued gazing at the chair. “My mother was patient and kind. Brave.” Her voice hitched, her facing contorting. “She was everything I’m not.”
Dyna returned to sit on the bed beside her. “Now that I don’t agree with. You intervened on my behalf and saved me from Von. You accepted me as your apprentice when you didn’t have to. Whatever your reason is to be out here alone in the world, it’s tremendously brave.”
The sorceress lowered her head, her hair falling like a silken white curtain around her. “And you? What was your mother like?”
Dyna leaned back on her hands as she observed the crystals and charms hanging from the tent ceiling. “My mother loved to tell me stories. She liked to laugh and sing and work in her garden. She always smelled like lavender. My father—” Dyna shoved aside the image of his bloody face and replacing it with one of light and warmth. “He always listened to me when I wanted to talk, no matter how silly. He could be strict but patient, and he always took the time to teach me and Thane.”
“Thane?”
She inhaled a shallow breath. “My little brother.”
Lucenna’s expression creased with sympathy. “How long ago … did they pass away?”
“Nine years ago.”
“I’m sorry.” The sorceress squeezed her hand.
They sat in a moment of silence and in support of what they had lost. Dyna didn’t ask how Lucenna’s mother died, and the sorceress didn’t ask about her family either. Perhaps because she understood how much it hurt to speak of.
“Do you have more family?” Dyna asked after a moment.
“Lucien. He’s my twin brother and the only one I count.” Lucenna answered after a pause, and she rolled her eyes. “He is, occasionally, a nosy nuisance.”
Dyna had yet to meet Lucien, though she imagined he must be similar to Lucenna. His elegant voice was all she knew of him since Lucenna took his calls on the orb in private. But from the little she had heard, they had a close relationship. Lucien pestered Lucenna because he cared. It made her wonder what her relationship with Thane would have been like if he had lived.
The Shadow slashed through her memories like broken glass piercing her skin. She saw Thane’s form in the moonlight and heard her father screaming at her to run. The icy darkness enveloped her as her feet sunk in the hill of snow.
A white light pulsated in Lucenna’s orb with an incoming call.
Dyna stood. “I’ll leave you to speak to him.”
Lucenna hadn’t told her brother about them yet, so it surprised her when she asked, “Would you like to meet him?”
“I thought you didn’t want him to know about us.”
“It’s more like I don’t know how to explain who you are without him bombarding me with so many questions. But he knows I’m hiding something, and I’m tired of lying to him.” Lucenna shrugged, giving her a mischievous smile. “I’m sure he would love to meet you.”
She went behind the privacy screen to handle her business and change. The orb stopped flashing, most likely from the lack of response. Lucenna emerged wearing black leather pants and a matching redingote jacket.
“Come.” Lucenna went to her desk where the glass orb rested on its iron stand.
Dyna joined her, and the sorceress twirled a hand in a semi-circle around them. An electric force pressed against her skin with the power of Lucenna’s Essence. Golden sparks flashed on the ground, and they encircled the desk in a glowing ring with them inside. From the ring, a hue of golden light rose until it curved over their heads to meet in the center, surrounding them in a translucent dome. Dyna hesitantly touched the surface and found it solid, though their surroundings remained visible.
