80
WINGS
LUELLA
Luella slept.
And in her sleep, she dreamed.
It was the same thing, over and over again. A cycle of screams as Caliban drowned Enora in the lake, turned to screaming at himself for killing his lover, as if he could not believe he would do such a thing. Passionate lovemaking turned wrong. Reverent hands growing forceful, punishing. In dreams, the soft air of the lake whispered around her, mingling with the faint splashes of water as Caliban and Enora swam in the lake. All the while, Luella felt a surreal sense of familiarity.
The outline of her hand was fuzzy as she reached up to clutch the dream amulet around her neck.
She felt, with such terrifying certainty, that she had been here before.
Her wandering mind was broken by something at her back. Fluttering, weightless, and so warm—peaceful. She turned, but the thing seemed to be attached to her, for it moved with her body as she twisted, trying to sneak a peek at it.
There!
In the corner of her eye, a flash of pure white.
A strange, terrible clarity settled over Luella, making her dream-like body heavy. She sagged against the bed of the lake, blanketed by flowers and soft grass.
"I have wings," she whispered.
The wings in question fluttered behind her, the ends brushing the ground as she sat.
The pure white of them was dazzling, and she reached behind her awkwardly, brushing her shaking fingertips at the ends of the feathers. A sharp tingling sensation coursed through her body, and she gasped; the noise was echoed by the faint sounds of Caliban and Enora in the water, bodies entwined.
With one hand still touching her wings, making pleasurable shivers cascade down her spine, Luella watched the water and the lovers held within, knowing how their story would end.
This piece of the past was but one in the puzzle that was Caliban—the Tenebrae. Her Vincire’s half-brother.
Even in a dream, warmth bloomed on her cheeks as she watched the rippling, blue lake that covered their skin, hints of flesh rising above the water, Enora’s deep brown hair cascading down her back, sticking to her skin as she clung to Caliban.
Luella knew what pleasure felt like now.
The chain of the amulet dug into her neck as she tugged on it—she had never told Tharenyes, but had never given an explicitno, either. She had felt forced, but would she change it?
Her wings trembled behind her as she stroked over the soft feathers.
Sensations were muted here, and her emotions felt out of touch, as if shrouded by a thick fog.
She didn’t know how long she sat, crushing petals of flowers under her. But when the sun had fallen and risen and fallen and risen, and time stretched on too fast to keep track, the scene shifted to one that made her throat close up with fearful trepidation:
Echoing sobs through the thick line of trees. Heavy footfalls.
Cries.
Enora was not around for this dream.
It was only Caliban as he ventured deeper into the woods. Luella knew he would stumble upon a gateway to the Silva Noctis, somehow, and fall into it, be taken by somethingother—something ancient.
Unmoving, she remained on the lakeshore. As the treetopsrustled in the wind and the surface of the lake turned dark with night, she knew the male was being dragged into a deep hole by thick shadows.
Though the air was still, Luella swore she heard his faint cries of help, piercing through the fabric of the realm of the Silva Noctis, and floating to her on the breeze of the past.
The air rippled, her back twinged uncomfortably, turning to a steady, hot sort of pain.