Lightbringer

Chapter 1 Lyra

Lyra

Ican’t hear the screaming from up here.

But the telltale glinting in the distance tells me enough as I peer between the wooden slats. The morning sun threatens to burn my skin even through the small gap before I draw my calantica forward, shading my face from the uncomfortable heat.

For whoever is out there, it will be a hundred, if not a thousand times worse, helped along by the razor-sharp glass shards dotting the peaks that focus the rays of the four Solvandyr suns into lethal points.

There’s no shade to be found from the sun on the Glass Dunes.

I remember.

The shimmering flashes in the distance are beautiful. Or they would be if each one didn’t represent a traitor, screaming and burning beneath the sun’s punishment.

My lips press together as the flashes dim, muted by the gossamer white fabric that now covers my face.

They deserved it.

Whoever they are, they must have deserved it. But I look out toward the Dunes once more anyway, offering a moment of silence for the damned souls now strapped to its mounds.

And perhaps a moment for myself.

“Lyra.”

My back stiffens, but I’ve already been caught. Pulling back, I close the shutters that shade the small room and twist, my body fluid as it settles into an inspection stance.

Feet shoulder-width apart. Shoulders back. Torso straight. Chin and gaze lowered.

Deference, not defiance.

It’s a pose as familiar as it is formal. “I apologize, Lieutenant.”

My commanding officer, or as close to it to make it count, sighs. “There’s no need to be so formal. I’m alone.”

Beneath my calantica, my eyes flicker to the door. “With respect, there’s every need.”

Reena steps forward and tugs off my veil, leaving it loose around my neck. “Let’s not go through this again. Not with me. And not today. Will you at least look at me?”

I keep my position but let my eyes lift. Reena presses her lips together as she scans me. “He told me you’re leaving tomorrow.”

Tomorrow?

My silence stretches out, and Reena’s lips thin even further. Her face is expressionless, but her mouth never lies. “He didn’t tell you.”

Not a question. My eyes shift to the door once more. “A soldier doesn’t need to explain to his sword.”

Reena inhales. “You’re starting to sound just like him. You’re more than just his sword, Ly.”

No, I am not.

Not to anybody. Except, perhaps, to her.

That’s a nice thought. That when I’m gone, somebody will remember me. That she might offer up her own moment of silence one day, just as I did for the Solvandyr traitors. That I might continue to occasionally exist in the corners of her mind as she goes about her life.

“Lyra,” my sister whispers. “I don’t want you to go.”

I shake my head, force out words against the tightness constricting my throat. “Don’t. This was always the plan.”

“I could speak to him again—”

My head snaps up, my words harsh in the otherwise hushed room. “You will not.”

Not again. Once—just once, long ago—I’d hoped.

I’d allowed a persuasive Reena to go to him, to request a change to the plan that has shaped my entire life.

We were young enough, foolhardy enough, to embrace the possibility.

Idealistic and innocent and foolish beyond measure in the way that only children can be.

Reena still bears the scars against her spine.

Mine are long gone, of course. But the lesson was learned, nonetheless.

Reena swallows. “If things were different…if I was in charge, I would have stopped it. All of it. You deserved more than this.”

I drop my eyes again. It’s easier that way. Easier to speak to her. And easier to remember our roles. “This is what I was born to do. And I’m proud to serve Solvandyr.”

“Horseshit,” my sister snaps. “Don’t give me what you give them.”

I stare at the ground. It threatens to blur before I blink. “If that isn’t true, then what’s the point of any of it?”

What’s the point of me?

It has to be true. It is true.

Our eyes lock when I look up once more. Gold meets gold, mirrored flecks of shimmering molten metal with the familiar amber ring of flame.

Like looking into a fire. We could be twins, she and I.

Our features are similar at first glance, if only in the way all Lightbringers are.

High cheekbones, a strong brow, an almost hawkish nose that had irritated those around me for reasons I didn’t understand at the time.

Although I stand slightly taller, my hair tightly braided back into a length that brushes my lower back, while hers is cropped close to her skull in the same military cut every other Lightbringer wears.

The differences between us only stretch wider from there.

She belongs here. I was never intended to.

Very melodramatic today, Lyra.

When the shimmer in her eyes clears, I pull myself together. Offer my sister a small smile, and a bow, leaning forward at the waist and pressing my right fist against my heart, even as it tightens and constricts. “You’ll make a wonderful Commander, you know.”

My older sister, fierce and brave and every inch the Commander’s heir outside of this room throws her arms around me, squeezing until my palms raise gingerly, uncertainly, to press against her back.

She’s never done that before.

Reena’s words are muffled, spoken into my shoulder, but I feel every one like a blade. “Be swift, Lyra. And come home safely. Promise me. Once it’s done, things will be different.”

I keep my smile in place as she pulls back. After years of secrecy, I won’t ruin our last moments with unwelcome news. “Let us hope so.”

She’s right about one thing. Once it’s done, my mission completed, things will be different. Everything will change.

The war will be done.

Reena will be free.

And so will I.

She swipes at her eyes before we both stiffen. Muffled steps echo distantly beyond the closed door. They grow in sound as someone approaches the very top of the Sunspire, and we exchange identical panicked looks.

When the door swings open, Reena’s hand is gripping my chin so tightly I can already feel the dampness of my own blood as it trickles down my neck.

Harder, I will her silently. Make him believe it.

As if she can hear me, her nails dig deeper. Reena leans in, her face twisted. “You will not fail Solvandyr. You will remember your orders.”

You’ll come back.

I meet her gaze. “I will not fail you.”

I love you.

One final, fierce look, before her nails tear free, her words clipped and sharp. “Good.”

And then she’s gone. I lower my gaze, keeping it on the floor as a murmur passes between them, and the door closes behind her.

The only goodbye we’re likely to get.

The boots stop in front of me. “Soldier.”

“Commander.” I wait to see if he’ll release me from my standing position. Sometimes he does.

Today isn’t one of those times, it seems.

“You’ve been informed that you're leaving tomorrow?”

“Yes, sir.”

A finger lifts my chin, digging into already broken skin. Commander Vaelion scans my face, his features similar to Reena’s – to my own – but colder. So much colder. “You’re not ready.”

“I will not disappoint you.” I stay where I am as his hand drops and he begins to circle me. I can feel his irritation in every step of his usual inspection. He has always made it clear that he finds me lacking.

His huff sounds against the back of my neck. “You have always been a disappointment. But the High Solar is insistent that the time to act is now.”

“I am ready.”

The blow hits the side of my face, whipping it to the side as I suck in a breath. “It is not for you to decide if you’re ready.”

“I apologize.”

You fool, Lyra. You know better.

Reena’s visit has shaken me. I fight to stop my fingers trembling. He’ll see it. There’s nothing he doesn’t see. No weakness he won’t pick up on and punish.

Vaelion’s voice lowers. “I have many children, you know.”

“I know, Commander.”

I also know that I’m not on the list of his recognized progeny.

My name has never left my father’s lips.

Has never been acknowledged, not even as a by-blow.

Reena is the only sibling that has ever even known the truth of my existence, and only due to her position in the Lightbringer hierarchy.

The other formal heirs, two brothers, one sister, all died during my childhood, lost to Darkwielder shadow on the battlefield and leaving Reena as Vaelion’s only heir.

But there are other children, all of them formally recognized in the scribed Lightbringer family records.

All of them are given roles and responsibilities.

I have those too, but my name does not appear on any family record.

As far as Solvandyr is concerned, I am not Commander Vaelion’s daughter.

I am nobody. My father has spent my entire life making sure I know it.

“What are you?” Cold, so cold. As cold as the Darkwielder moon, I’d wager, and yet he wields Lightbringer rays with such finesse that he’s held our position in the war for more than thirty years. He’s held the Darkwielders at bay, his gifts revered and feared even by our own soldiers.

But I am his tipping point.

“A weapon,” I whisper.

“Good. Should you forget your purpose, remember that Reena can be replaced easily enough.”

I blink as the words filter through. Once. Again. And ice steals over my chest, the room dimming as I fight to keep my breathing steady.

Of course.

We had thought we were so clever. So careful. That we had hidden it well enough, that he believed she visited occasionally only to assess my capabilities in her eagerness to impress the male whose blood flows through both of our veins.

Highborn Lightbringer blood. Our veins are filled with it, so much so that we bleed light.

I should have known that he allowed those visits only to have something he could hold over me when the time came. “I understand.”

“Good.” The warning tone changes, turning crisp. “I’m sending you on a trial mission, before you leave for Umbraxis.”