Shattered Souls (Guardians of the Maiden Book 3)

Lucenna looked around her enchanted tent, at the piles of books and the glass orb on her desk, her massive bed, at everything that filled up the space, and yet it felt so empty. She took a step and her boot hit something. The wooden training ball bounced across the ground, bumping into her bedpost. With a flourish of purple mist, Lucenna recalled the ball and it landed in her hand. She brushed her thumb over the smooth crescent sigil of House Astron embossed on the surface.

Was Dyna all right? Were those fools taking care of her? The earthy scent of rosemary drifting from the tea cup steaming at her bedside table sent a guilty pang through her.

Gods. She shouldn’t be moping. She chose this.

A pulse throbbed against her temple and Lucenna sighed at the glass orb swirling with fog. She sat at her desk and tapped on the glass. Her brother’s worried frown greeted her. He must have just woken because he was lying in bed, his long white hair strewn around his pillow.

“I know what you’re going to say,” she said.

Lucien rubbed the sleep from his lilac eyes and sat up to lean against his headboard. “Go back. We both know you regret leaving her. I can feel it.”

She didn’t even have the energy to be annoyed at their twin link. “No. It’s for the best.”

“Was it?”

The candles flickered with purple flames and the charms on the ceiling clinked softly in the stark silence. Lucenna had been traveling alone for years. Why did she feel the loneliness so keenly after only spending one month with Dyna and the others?

“They have their own problems and I have mine,” she snapped. “Involving myself with them led to Father catching wind of me again. It’s best I travel on my own. I move faster and I don’t have to worry about anyone else. My mission hasn’t been compromised. I have memorized the map, see?” She cast a projection of the map in the air. The lines pulsed purple, Mount Ida’s island shining the brightest. “I can make my way there alone.”

“But you don’t have to be alone anymore, Lu.”

Lucenna lowered her head and hid under the curtain of her white hair, so he wouldn’t see her eyes welling. It was nice, she had to admit, having someone there when she woke. She missed their chatter and spending the days magic training with Dyna, even missed arguing with the grumpy Celestial. She’d found a second family. Cousins.

But she had a mission to complete, and that couldn’t happen if…

A tear spilled down and landed on the desk. “If Father found me while I was still with them…he would have taken her, too.”

That was why she left. Because she was a coward. Her father was too powerful and if Dyna ended up siphoned like her mother, Lucenna would never forgive herself.

“There is strength in numbers—”

“Please, leave it be, Lucien,” she said and wiped her cheek. “I don’t wish to speak of it anymore. It’s been days since we parted and they are most likely miles away by now. I’m leaving Azure. That’s final.”

He sighed and settled back on his pillow. “When will you reach Indigo Bay?”

“Tomorrow.”

She heard no one asked questions there. Gold was the only requirement and Lucenna now had plenty of that. Once she boarded a ship and sailed away from this kingdom for good, she could return to traveling without worry of being found.

“Good. Father arrived in the Port of Azure yesterday, so you will evade him with plenty of time. Good luck. I am always here whenever you need me.”

She gave him a wistful smile. “I know.”

“Lu?” He called before she ended the call. “It wouldn’t hurt to see how far they are.”

Then the orb cleared, reflecting Lucenna’s glower back at her. Nosy mage. Her brother was always—

A howl sounded outside. It sent a shock of goosebumps down her arms and she whipped around to the tent entrance.

“Zev?” Lucenna sprinted outside into the cold night, but her heart sank at finding nothing but the quiet forest.

It must’ve been a figment of her imagination. She made it clear she didn’t want to be followed, and Rawn was too much of a gentleman to go against her wishes.

But the howl came again. It sounded much closer, and different. She remembered Zev’s having a deeper pitch. Lucenna stared at the trees, straining to listen beyond the wind. The moonlight didn’t reach into the shadows.

She was struck with relief when a pair of yellow eyes appeared in the bushes. Until another set of yellow eyes slinked forward, then another, and another. Growls rumbled in the forest.

Lucenna scoffed a dry laugh at herself for getting her hopes up. They hadn’t come.

It was only a pack of wild wolves.

“Scram before I set your tails on fire.” Lucenna cast out a streak of purple lightning and they scurried away, yelping. Her long exhale swirling into the chilly air.© 2024 Nôv/el/Dram/a.Org.

Where were they now? Most likely avoiding the main roads with the bounties on all their heads. They would need a discreet way to leave Azure, too. She paused outside of her tent and looked back at the trees.

What if…what if they were also headed for Indigo Bay? If so, maybe she could meet them.

Lucenna ignored the inkling that they may not even want to see her now, and closed her eyes. She exhaled a low breath, letting her consciousness sink into the Essentia Dimensio. She landed in a pitch-black environment. It appeared empty, but its welcoming energy hummed through her being. Her Essence took the form of a brilliant purple sphere that spiraled with lightning.

At the flick of her hand, the sphere whooshed high above into the empty blackness, and burst into a shower of light. Streaks of purple shot out into the distance, expanding into a net as it searched the world for that green glow. But Lucenna’s Essence dispersed the further it went, until it completely faded away.

She snapped her eyes open with a gasp. It couldn’t be. Dyna’s Essence…it was nowhere to be found. Even if she was cloaked, Lucenna would have sensed her. But this feeling, this nothingness, it meant…

“No.” She wouldn’t believe it. Something must have happened.

Something was wrong.

Lucenna’s mind raced with a million possibilities except the one she didn’t want to accept. She looked to the north where a ship waited a few miles away, then to the south where she’d abandoned Dyna—and the same direction her father was.

Ever since she left the Magos Empire, the days had been tainted by risk and failure.

“I’m tired,” Lucenna had said to her mother on another night like this, when they were cold and starved and halfway across the world with no one to aid them. “I am tired of being afraid. Of constantly running and hiding. Of searching for something we may never find. Who are we to think we could change anything?”

Her mother had merely smiled at her with soft lilac eyes. “What are we fighting for if not for the future? It’s in your blood. No matter the battle or who you face, you are a woman. And they will learn you are a force to be reckoned with.”

Inhaling a deep breath, icy air filled Lucenna’s lungs. The scent of fresh pine and soil layered the foundation of her decision. She waved a hand at her tent. It rose and spun in the air with fairy dust, shrinking as it flew into her satchel.

Then she strode into the forest, and went south.