Page 12 of The Illuminated
With a flick of the wrist Lucius yanked it open, revealing a strangely quiet and unresponsive Christine, with her blond hair in loose curls and her body covered by a red cloak. Her small, delicate features were relaxed, only briefly glancing at Daelon and me before landing her eyes on Lucius.
I stole a glance at Daelon, who refused to meet my eyes.
“You may enter.”
Christine stepped forward, a small smile working its way to her lips. She looked so focused, so serene.
“Kneel.”
Oh, no.
I watched in horror as she knelt before Lucius, her palms face up on her knees and her head lowered.
“Daelon, you’re dismissed,” Lucius said, and Daelon hesitated.
Uh! What about me?
“Going to assume that I, too, can get the hell out of Dodge,” I said, slowly backing toward the door.
Daelon made a noise that sounded like a stifled snort, covered up by a clear of his throat.
Lucius cocked his head at me while simultaneously stroking Christine’s hair. His eyes had shifted into something I was suddenly horrified to realize I recognized all too well. Something I’d seen in Daelon, each time he looked at me like he owned me. Like he wanted to conquer me, to hold me under his complete control. On Lucius, as Christine knelt before him in silence, undisturbed by her audience, it made my stomach twist and turn. I’d never wanted to leave a room more.
“Yes, Áine,” Lucius purred. “You may leave. Unless you want to stay and watch,” he dared.
I raised my hands in the air, averting my gaze. “No, no, I’m good,” I stuttered, and I heard Lucius chuckle at my discomfort.
Something about his energy was so strong and so captivating now, like a deadly predator tricking its prey with false promises of deliverance. It was hypnotic, this current of energy that reached toward me, and for a brief moment I lost myself trying to read it and figure out its depths. But the way Lucius’s mouth turned up at my hesitation snapped me out of it, and I let the current recoil back to him, watching as it wrapped around Christine like a fiery red boa constrictor.
Daelon opened the door and stepped through, holding it open for me as he remained as stoic as a stone statue. He wasn’t fazed in the slightest, which made me swallow and look away.
Before the door shut, I snuck a peek back through, just as Lucius made a silent gesture and Christine’s cloak dropped to the floor, revealing nothing but her bare, pale skin. I quickly looked away, back toward Daelon and the hallway that stretched out before us. I felt his fingers trail down my back, pulling back when I shivered.
“I don’t even know what to say,” he murmured.
I wished now more than ever I could read past his shield. “Neither do I.”
He suddenly pushed me up against a wall, carefully placing his hand behind my head so it didn’t smack into the stone. His eyes were so intense, and I couldn’t help but compare their dominance to that of Lucius’s. The elixir was gone from my system, and now I was forced to actuallythinkagain. It was truly a tragedy.
“Someone could see,” I whispered.
Daelon searched my eyes, clearly unsatisfied with what he found there. “What is going on with you, Áine? Blowing out all the windows in the castle? Drinking elixir and hanging out with Lucius all day of your own accord? Has something happened?”
Oh, nothing. Except that our castle mystic told me I had to die in order to uncover Lucius’s evil plot and break his binding spell over the realm’s history. “I just got stressed out,” was the most truth I could tell him.
“Stressed out?” Daelon asked incredulously, his jaw tight and his brows raised.
I shrugged, squirming under his gaze. “Lucius has made it abundantly clear that I’m either to die or become Queen—losing my natural power and probably my entire sense of self along with it—and when I saw Amos earlier, I realized how out of reach the Akashic Records are.”
“How so?” he asked. “Last time we spoke you felt so confident about it.” He touched my cheek and brushed my hair behind my ear, his touch so soft and soothing. It made me want to cry—to tell him everything and hope for the best. To share this enormous burden like I knew he’d want me to.
I just shook my head, looking away, anywhere but his eyes. “We’re running out of time, Daelon. And I fear we don’t have a backup plan… in case something goes wrong.”
Daelon’s face hardened, determination setting in. “Leave that to me, okay? I’ve been thinking about it. Please stop worrying. It’s my job, in the most sacred sense of the word, to protect you. It wouldn’t have been given to me if I wasn’t capable of fulfilling it.”
I couldn’t stop my lip from trembling now, my eyes welling up. I took a deep breath and fought the feeling away, just as Daelon pulled me to him. “Daelon, I have to make you understand something.”
“What is it?” he breathed into my hair, rubbing circles on my back.
