Lucian’s voice sounded all around her, as inconsequential as floating dust motes and as powerful as a storm. “It’s alright.”
A rush of emotion, not all of it hers, surged through her as Lucian’s entire life began to replay all around her, all at once. There was no rhyme or reason, simply Lucian and the events that had made him.
His past stretched out before her, moments taking shape like ink dropped into a pool of water. They swirled and converged, no less complete for their transience. Entire centuries passed this way in a matter of seconds.
She experienced them with an odd kind of duality. First, as if Lucian’s memories were her own, but also simultaneously as the woman in love with him. Her heart broke with his loss while her pride rejoiced at his accomplishments. Wonder filled her at the discovery of his artistic gifts, and jealousy reared its head at those that had known pleasure at his hand.
No one event took precedence until Effie’s own face was reflected back at her. She recognized her tangle of curls and her overly large blue eyes, but this was not her face as she’d ever seen it. Without the filter of her own insecurities, it was like seeing herself for the very first time.
From there, the floodgates were opened. Effie was looking at herself through Lucian’s eyes. Each image of herself colored by his reaction to her. She felt the acidic bite of his fear as she sprinted toward a Shadow, the purple flames of Shadow Fire burning in her eyes as her mouth opened on a savage battle cry. Then there was a flare of frustrated amusement warring with begrudging respect as she refused to be left behind. That was followed closely by the burn of unfulfilled desire as their bodies moved against each other on the shower floor. Before she could catch her breath, she was consumed by bone-numbing grief as she looked up at Lucian with milky-white eyes.
The intensity of it shocked her back to the present.
“How do you stand it?” she stuttered, her body trembling from the onslaught of Lucian’s past.
“The power?” Lucian asked, his deep voice ragged, the memories as fresh for him as they were for her.
Effie swallowed and shook her head. “The knowing. How can you carry the weight of all you learn without succumbing to the burden?”
Lucian’s eyes flashed with understanding, the bronze flecks momentarily overtaking all other color. “You learn how to close yourself off from all but that which you are seeking. But there will be times when you find yourself a slave to the power, helpless to do anything but absorb everything regardless of your own will. That you can only endure.”
She shuddered as she remembered Smoke’s reaction to her past; the tormented sound of his voice in her mind as he revealed what it had cost him to relive it through her. Now she understood. The inescapable horror of living through someone’s pain and not having a way to process or purge it.
“It is part of the balance,” Lucian explained.
Effie nodded mutely. The man from his memory—his uncle—had said that Guardians maintain the balance. She’d misunderstood at first, thinking he spoke of something as simple as good versus evil. But what he’d really meant was the cost of a Guardian’s power. Their gift came with a price. Immortal they might be, and granted the ability to transform the world around them, but that did not make them immune to the darker side of nature. If anything, they were more intimately aware of it. Souls may be beautiful, stunning even in their purity, but no one was untouched by the cruelty of pain or desperation. In order to be worthy of the beauty, they had to also experience the sting of despair.
She had no doubt only the strongest among them could withstand it.
All of this she expressed without speaking, her eyes never leaving Lucian’s as she fought to control the unexpected tempest his memories had unleashed within her. They were a part of her now, just as hers were part of him. Because of it, they were united in a way not even death could unravel.
Lucian cupped her cheek, the gentle scrape of his thumb against her skin as tender as his whispered words. “And now you know.”
Effie’s heart ached with equal parts joy and sorrow. He wasn’t just referring to how to tap into her power, but also what she’d learned about him and what he felt for her in the process. She hadn’t doubted that he loved her. No man would willingly go through hell and back to save a woman he didn’t love. What she hadn’t realized was just how long he’d been waiting for her.
There was one memory, so well-worn and faded it was clearly a favorite. Effie had been confused about how that could be since they’d only just spent hours wrapped around each other in the prison a few nights past. Given her newfound understanding of sharing and taking prophecies, she now recognized the vision for what it was.
Kieran might have dreamed of her, but he wasn’t the only one to know before Effie was born that their fates would be intertwined. Someone had told Lucian Effie was coming, gifting him with only that one moment as proof of what he could have if he was brave enough to fight for it. Miranda had broken every rule to give Lucian that piece of his future, but her love and hope for her granddaughter had made her bold.
Her grandmother’s words, spoken to Lucian so many years ago, passed between them. “She will need you, Guardian. The Mother is generous, but Her most precious gifts never come without cost. See what can be, and know what will be lost if you fail.”
Taking Lucian’s hand in hers, Effie pressed it over her heart. “All this time, you knew . . .”
Lucian’s eyes burned with emotion. “I hoped. No future is certain, and when I saw—” he broke off, his voice rough. “If the Triumvirate know anything with certainty, it is that a Keeper’s vision is simply one potential path. A single choice can determine what comes to pass. I was told not to fail, and when I found you in the citadel after the attack, I feared I already had. But I had to try. For decades all I had was the promise of you, but then I met you, and it was only then I could truly appreciate what my failure would mean.”
It was a battle not to cry, but somehow Effie managed. There were no words she could give him that would do justice to the gift he’d just given her. But Lucian didn’t need them. Connected as they were, he already knew.
Taking a deep breath, Effie glanced around the room. “I guess I get my rule-breaking tendencies from my grandmother.”
Nord and Kael had remained silent, providing her and Lucian with the illusion of privacy, but at her words they burst into laughter. It wasn’t long before Effie joined them, her shoulders shaking as she chuckled.
Grinning, Lucian leaned forward and pressed his lips to hers. “Thank the Mother for that.”
Chapter 20
Now that Effie had discovered how to tap her power, it was much easier the second time. There was no need for her to picture a door opening within her mind. It was as Lucian had promised, all she had to do was breathe and envision her lungs expanding with power. Her Guardian gifts came eagerly, crackling within her like unformed bolts of lightning.
“There’s something I still don’t understand,” she murmured, reveling in the feel of power surging through her veins.
“Just one thing?” Kael asked with a playful lift of his brow.
Effie shot him a look. “Okay, lots of things, but just one thing in particular at this exact moment. Better?”