Something soft curled around her legs as she walked, and she glanced down, finding Ven twining around her ankles. An echo of a smile touched Luella’s lips.
As she ventured below deck, their voices turned to a soft, hissed mumble.
"You need to rest. We’re switching shifts, so you and Vale can get some sleep," she heard Graves argue.
Tharen’s voice grew louder. "No, I’m needed here. Vale can go. I’ll stay. What if there’s another storm and you need my magic to help us get through it?"
"Then we’ll come get you," Graves asserted lowly. "Leave. You’re no good to us if you’re both dead on your feet."
The rest of their words were drowned out as the door latched above her, casting her in windowless darkness, with only a few flames flickering in the long, wooden halls. The sides were close by. So, she braced a hand on each side as she walked, allowing the steady sway of the ship to propel her listless body forward, Ven twining around her ankles and almost tripping her on multiple occasions.
She didn’t know where she was going, what she was doing… She just needed to get out. To be free. Even if that freedom was a farce.
21
WHISPERED THROUGH TEARS
LUELLA
Cold and weighed down by anguish, she drifted down the darkened halls, without a path, letting her feet take her wherever they might lead.
She stumbled in the dark until she came upon a small room. The wooden door gave way under her palms. As she entered, she was greeted by the sight of shimmering glass bottles, stacked atop one another, fitted into symmetrical holes in the wooden panels. Thick netting kept them secured, so they would not shatter on the floor with every wave. It smelled of dust and thick liquor; the burn was unfamiliar to her. She had drunk before at Solis, and a few glasses had been forced upon her in Serpentis—but nothing so heady. Breathing deep, she felt the urge to sneeze.
But there were no windows. No light, not even a candle.
It was perfect.
Luella let the door fall closed behind her, the wood rough under her bare feet as she wobbled into the room. It felt just like when she had been sightless. Her hands were before her, searching, reaching.
She wasn’t sure why she had sought out utter darkness, but her time robbed of her sight was something that she often thought of. It haunted her. Tempted her with the memory ofgiving in, relying on her other senses, feeling weightless—if only for a moment.
Her hands ran over the dust-caked edges of the glass bottles, and she found herself sitting heavily on the ground, wings behind her, crushed against the wall. Her fingers traced the shape of what must have been wooden crates, caged on either side of her. She fit herself deeper between them. Nestled, hidden.
"I am the Princess of Luna." Strangely, her voice did not waver, but it was soft. Not a broken sort of softness, however. More akin to resignation.
Among the scent of liquor and shrouded in darkness, time passed.
After a while, the burn in her nostrils faded to a dim memory. She wanted to have it back—it distracted her from the emptiness inside her.
"No, not emptiness," she breathed. She was far from empty.
She was full.
Of everything.
She fumbled for the glass bottles, and they clinked slightly, rolling against each other from her touch. Pulling one free, she felt the shape of it in her hands, skimming up to the corked top.
She shouldn’t. But she did.
Luella tugged the cork free with effort, feeling the muscles in her shoulders and back twinge as she finally got it free with a quietpop.
Rich liquor wafted from within, and she brought it up to her lips, nose wrinkling when she tasted the dust stuck to the glass on her tongue. She wiped it away with the pad of her thumb, then she fit the lip of the bottle to her mouth, tipped her head back, and let the burn of the liquor slide down her throat and wash away the truth pounding inside her like a war drum.
Bottles clinked on the floor as the ship rocked, but she was too far gone to care.
Voices pierced the hazy darkness, and she bundled a bottle close to her chest, hearing no liquid slosh within—empty. Like what she wished she could be.
Light filtered onto the floor as the door creaked open, bringing with it a wash of voices.
