Page 67 of Lux

And it will ensure that I can hold her tight against the darkness and protect her from any and all shadows.

I’ve failed her twice already.

I won’t do so again.

I’ll kill anyone who stands in my way.

CHAPTER 22

Niamh

My mind keeps replaying that moment with Cyrus over and over again. I remember writhing in agony. Being pecked at by sharp, nipping knives. Or beaks. Or…

I can’t remember.

I do, however, recall him taunting me with knowledge of my mother—the fae he once ‘possessed.’ The lesson he taught her was something she would never forget. Long-term consequences. A consequence that he hinted would be around my age.

The more I relive those words, the more my heart breaks. I can’t help it. I can’t stop the darkness from creeping in the doubt from taking root.

I am a hybrid forged in violence. My father may have been a monster, and I might have been the one to kill him.

No,a voice in my head insists.You did not kill. That we know.

We. Not Caspian’s strong, confident assurances. Not my own egocentric, internal thoughts. No. Something else is in my brain:we. They speak to me in soft, harsh whispers that grow louder the more I seek them out.

You did not kill. The bad thing did. We watched. We hid. Inside of you, we hide.

Inside of me.

Flinching, I twist myself around to see my back. I can't see through my orange dress' material. I strip it off and toss it aside. Then I spin. Arch my hips. I go around in circles, trying so desperately to see.

Caspian watches me from the corner of our private space. He doesn’t move. Doesn’t react. He doesn’t even speak—in our combined mind or out loud.

No mirror is available here, nor do I have enough strength to approach the one in the bathroom. Slumping to my knees, I cup my face in my hands. Sobs rip from my throat. Soon, I won’t be able to keep the tears at bay.

From nowhere, a gentle touch sweeps across my shoulder blades, gathering my hand in a fist. That same figure crouches beside me, their body ice-cold, their voice stern but cautious.

“Tell me what you need me to see.”

What I need him to?

The tone of his question was soft and soothing. It's not one he's used to using. Still, he tries.

I clear my throat and blink any wayward tears back. “Just tell me…everything,” I rasp.

Everything from the time I was in the Citadel. Everything that happened after. I’ve spent so long ignoring my wounds and pretending my scars didn’t exist. So damn long.

All along, I was wearing proof of their lies in plain sight. Once upon a time, I had wings. Someone—the Lord Master perhaps—took them from me. They tore them out.

“I see...” Caspian tucks my hair over my shoulders and fans his fingers along my lower back. His touch sends shivers down my spine. There is something so intimate about it. We’ve been joined together in more ways than one and yet having him touch me and describe my body in a low, haunting tone feels the most penetrating of all. I can’t breathe as he traces a path up and down my spine. As his thumb ghosts over the line of a scar, I suffocate.

“I see beautiful ivory,” he says to me. “Lines of ebony and scarlet. Your scars seem fresh, as though they’ve barely begun to heal.” His fingers tremble as he traces the length of one.

It’s horrific, what he is describing, yet his voice is awed. He means every word he says.

“I can see marks here,” he says next, caressing around one shoulder blade. “Harsh, slicing lines. There are marks, round and identical on either side--”

My wings. Wings that existed once. That grew from me. I was born with them.

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