House of Winter

Chapter 2, Part 2

LUMI

"For the same reason I have always looked over you, Lumi. To protect you. When I had a daughter, I knew immediately that she would not be safe in the Fire Lands if she was a winter starrling. And I knew she would not be safe in Norrlund if anyone knew I was her mother. I had to keep it a secret."

"You could have told me," Lumi said, and she found her voice breaking. "How can I trust you if you never trusted me?"

"I have always kept my secrets close to my chest, Lumi, and it has only ever been to protect the ones I love. You and Sanna and Tai are the ones I love."

Lumi felt a tremor of sadness to hear her aunt's love was now divided into three. She couldn't compete against her aunt's own daughter for her love. Lumi had always loved Auntie V like a mother, and up until her sixteenth birthday, Auntie V had always returned that love tenfold. But now, Lumi realised, she was not her aunt's daughter, and she never would be.

Lumi had always had to share. She had shared the affection of Auntie V and Empress Kiyo with her brother. She had always only received half. And then when she went to Lombardia, she had hoped she could receive the full love of Prince Raphael. And she had discovered that he loved Katja more than her.

It broke Lumi's heart to realise that no one had ever loved her with their full heart. She was selfish to think it, and she tried to banish the thought, and yet it clawed inside her. She had never been deserving of the full love of anyone.

Except Jinni.

But Jinni was probably already dead.

Lumi sucked in a breath of the biting ocean air. When she had first woken on the ship she had screamed and cried and raged. She had fought against her aunt, hurled objects across the cabin, set fire to everything within her reach. She had threatened to burn the ship and its crew unless they turned around and sailed back to Lombardia.

Nothing had worked, and despite Lumi's rage she'd found herself incapable of burning the ship. She could not set fire to this huge wooden structure, drifting on the ocean, and know that in doing so she was condemning an entire innocent crew to death.

Now, the rage had all left her, and she had nothing left but desperate sadness and regret.

She stared at her aunt, wanting to look at her, truly look at her, and see not just the caring crinkle in her eyes, but the hardness of her jaw. She may be Lumi's beloved aunt, but she was General Virani, of the Fire Army. Her hair was as white as her tiger's, although she was not old. She wore the sharp uniform of the army, and kept her hair in a tight bun, which didn't break from its setting even as the wind whipped around them.

At her throat, she wore a silver chain, just visible at her neckline before it was tucked into her uniform. Lumi remembered being enchanted by the necklace when she was a child, drawn to it, when her aunt had leaned down to hug her. Strange, that a necklace could hold such treasured memory for her, of happier days when she trusted her aunt completely.

Now she knew she could never trust her aunt, or anyone, again.

It ached to feel so alone in the world. All Lumi wanted to do was trust in the adults around her, to take care of her and tell her that everything would be alright. That's what they had done when she was a child.

But Lumi remembered how naive she had been when she first arrived in Lombardia. If her time there had taught her anything, it was that the people around her each had their own motives and reasons for doing things.

"I want to be alone," Lumi said.

"Very well, my love. But why don't you come inside? The storm is just beginning. You'll be more comfortable in your cabin."