Chapter 12 #2
Gray is stunned into silence, and all he can do is blink at the sight of Draven Dalmar sprawled across the greenhouse floor, his shoulders slackened by sadness and his face pinched with unmasked pain.
This version of the Dalmar Heir is so far removed from the image painted throughout the entire Three Kingdoms—so different from the rumored insouciant and barbaric captain over the infamous Elefet aggregate.
Gray struggles to remedy the two opposing identities into one.
To view this version of Draven as the formidable, ruthless weapon known as Tynan Dalmar’s son.
With something now lodged in his throat, Gray presses on. “Those are strong words for someone who’s barely known her for a full season. How can you know you mean them?”
Gray braces himself to be met with a loaded threat or a dagger stare, yet Draven gives him none of that. Instead, his tired eyes remain fixed on something in the distance, and Gray finally traces his line of sight, curious to know what he’s been staring at.
“Nox’s Caelum,” he muses, surprised to find Lyra’s favorite flower amongst the sea of color filling the greenhouse.
“Nox’s Caelum,” Draven repeats with a rasp.
“I thought she might like to return home to them.” He releases a sigh and finally pulls his gaze away from the flower, meeting Gray’s eyes.
“Have you ever had your soul scream at you before? Not your heart. Not your cock. I mean your soul. A piece of you that is beyond comprehension.”
At first Gray isn’t sure if he is looking for an actual answer, but as Draven’s intense gaze bores into him, he realizes he is. “No,” Gray admits. “Not in the way you are describing. At least, not yet I haven’t.”
“From the very first moment I ever laid eyes on Lyra,” Draven begins, his eyes hazing over, seeming filled with a poignance Gray can’t place, “my soul shouted at me. Tugged at some invisible thread in my chest, as though sensing this rare, precious recognition in her.” He pauses, a deep wedge forming between his brows.
“I’m fully aware of all that’s left for us to learn about each other—all the layers left uncovered.
But I promise you, Nightenjoy, once your soul has decided it’s found its other half, there is no turning back.
Time does not exist for a soul—only feeling does. ”
Gray studies Draven, looking for any signs of deception.
He finds none.
And Gray suddenly sees what happened those few minutes after Lyra came through her Feargate—unconscious, unresponsive, and with gash marks all along her singed throat—in an entirely new light.
Wordlessly, Gray uncurls his fingers from his palm, and golden light pools in the center of his hand, the snake on his arm illuminating with a richly golden tone. Gray casts his magic outward, recreating the moment. He puts it on display for both him and Draven to watch.
Lyra’s back fell to the ground with a heart-wrenching thud, her chest rising with jagged pants of breath.
Gray strode forward to go to her—to hold her, help her, apologize for all the shadows he missed swimming inside her.
But before he made it a step, Draven rushed forward, pushing the crowd that formed around Lyra back with his magic, whispers of horror swirling in the air.
He immediately dropped to his knees, and he gingerly—tenderly—pulled Lyra into his lap.
His fingers traced her marred skin, and Gray couldn’t help but feel like the touch looked nothing short of reverent.
His face was filled with so much pain. Like he, too, was feeling what Lyra had just felt.
Yet he also possessed the calmness of a person who had experience with similar tragedy.
“I’ve got you,” he whispered so low, Gray nearly missed it. “I’m here.”
Another emotion rested within his downturned eyes, and Gray blinked against what he saw, convinced he was mistaken.
Pride.
That was pride swimming in his eyes as he gazed down at Lyra—like he couldn’t even begin to mask how proud of her he was for facing her demons. For walking away from the Abdite. For facing her greatest fears and still having the courage to fight back against them.
And that pride clung to another emotion. Something uninhibited, unadulterated, and entirely unmistakable.
Gray curls his fingers into his palm, killing the illusion. “I wasn’t convinced of what I saw that day,” he offers in way of an explanation for what he’s shown Draven. “But you may have just convinced me.”
Draven stares at the space where the illusion had just resided, his brows knitted together. He redirects his gaze to Gray. “Neat trick,” he mutters.
Gray huffs a laugh, the corner of his lip tugging up. “You have no idea.”
Draven grunts, as if the tiniest bit amused, and a flicker of satisfaction flares in Gray’s chest. He enjoys feeling like he is perhaps starting to bond with the man Lyra has chosen to give her heart to.
Though he must contain the feeling—his work here still isn’t finished.
Not yet. Especially when considering he may never get another opportunity to speak so openly with Draven again.
“So who was that girl from earlier, then? You two seemed…familiar. I saw the way you pulled her into you. That wasn’t nothing.
” Gray is careful not to let his words get bitey, despite the current of anger seeping through him as the mere thought of Draven doing something like that to Lyra bites at him once more.
The corner of Draven’s lip kicks up in a near smile, as if he was expecting that question. “Who is Lyra to you?”
Gray frowns. “What does that have to do with anything?”
“It has everything to do with it.”
He sighs, glancing around the greenhouse, barely any light remaining as the final flickers of sunlight bow to the prowess of night.
“Lyra is my heart given flesh,” he answers simply.
“And if something were to happen to her…” Gray trails off, his jaw clenching as the shadows inside him stir.
“Well, let’s just say there are parts of myself that she would forever take with her. ”
Draven’s answer arrives softer than he is expecting. “Rhea means exactly the same to me.”
Gray studies him, hesitant. “I didn’t think I needed to specify this, but I am speaking platonically.”
“As am I.”
Gray narrows his eyes on Draven; Draven raises his brows in challenge right back.
“Okay,” Gray drawls, trying to put the pieces together. “Care to elaborate on that?”
“Not particularly. You’re lucky I’ve even told you as much as I have already.”
Gray stretches his hands behind him and shifts his weight back, tilting his chin up and heaving a quiet groan.
“You know,” he grumbles. “Lyra has never been one to be very forthcoming, either. If this is what you two’s conversations look like, I’m not sure how long your relationship is going to last.”
For the first time, Draven cracks an actual smile. And honestly? The sight of it makes Gray feel a tad uneasy. Yet he can’t help but notice there is something melancholy about his smile; though Gray knows it isn’t his place to comment on that.
“Why are you smiling?” he semi-jokes instead. “It’s…unnerving.”
Draven drops his eyes to the ground, shaking his head as his mouth remains punctuated by soft curves. “I liked hearing you say Lyra and I were in a relationship.” He takes another swig of wine.
Gray regards him for a while. “So to be clear,” he presses, not wanting to have to revisit this conversation ever again. “You and that girl, Rhea, have no romantic feelings, no romantic connections, and what I saw in that classroom was nothing more than a platonic display of dedication?”
Draven’s lips twitch. “Does it deepen your appreciation for how accepting I am of your and Lyra’s relationship?”
“Please. That’s not even close to the same thing.”
“Isn’t it?” Draven counters, his tone lighthearted. Another odd sight. He laughs under his breath, cocking his head at Gray. “You know, in Foreigner’s Valley, I thought the two of you were lovers.”
Gray huffs an amused laugh at the admission, rubbing at the back of his neck. “We tried fooling around once after having too much wine,” he confesses. “But it felt wrong, was severely awkward, and we both vowed never again.”
“So I was told,” Draven deadpans, his lips flattening into a tight line, as if the mere mention of someone else touching Lyra has ruined his entire mood.
Gray fights against the growing laugh in his throat, shifting his weight forward and peaking his fingers in front of his lips before directing them toward Draven. “And so you and Rhea have a similar dynamic? Does Lyra know about her?”
“Rhea is my little sister for all intents and purposes, and she and I have never crossed those boundaries. She is far too much like my own blood to even entertain the thought.” He shoots Gray a very sharp, very passive look.
Actually, scratch the passive part. “And no,” he continues.
“Lyra doesn’t know about her. I almost told her after she explained your relationship to me, but…
” He trails off, and Gray glimpses ghosts awakening, dancing cruelly in the lines of his eyes.
“For reasons I’m not going to discuss, all I managed to tell her was that I understood the two of you’s relationship completely. ”
Gray isn’t sure what to say to him; he doesn’t know the Dalmar Heir well enough to offer him anything of worth.
Not while shadows he could probably never understand haunt his downturned gaze.
Plus, Gray’s father made certain he understood no words were better than hollow ones.
So, he offers Draven what he can—a comfortable silence.
And it seems like those few seconds of offered quiet is all the Dalmar Heir needs. He shakes the ghosts away, reorienting his attention back onto Gray. “Speaking of romantic affiliations, what’s going on with you and the flora-wielder?”