Chapter 17
CHAPTER SEVENTEEN
LYRA
What ashes was I born from?
A great love.
The words follow me like a shadow as I wander back to my bedchamber, the world a blur around me as my mind spins.
If what Casimir said is true, if I am truly born from the ashes of a great love, then that would mean my mother truly loved my father.
No, actually—they were madly in love with each other.
A great love, as Casimir said. Which makes me wonder what happened to them. Why weren't they together in the end?
I think about the one time I asked my mother about my father.
Remember the pain and longing on her face, so palpable I swore to myself I would never ask again.
All these years, I had thought it was because perhaps her relationship with my father was a mistake.
Maybe he didn’t want me. Maybe he no longer wanted my mother, or he did, but my mother didn’t want him because of some tragic circumstance or trait.
I don’t know—when left to its own devices, the mind can conjure innumerable theories, each one more distressing than the last. Yet in my wonderings, I never considered they truly loved each other.
I guess I just decided that if they had, they would have been together.
My heart sinks as I now consider the other possibilities. What if he died? What if something terrible happened to him, and my mother was left to grieve? Had I ever met him, too young to remember his face? Most of all, who was he?
The thoughts fill me with an even deeper sense of curiosity—bordering on the edge of desperation—to know what the other line from the prophecy could mean.
One who is defined by a name both two and one.
Perhaps it is meant philosophically; I am defined by both my name Lyra, and my name in its entirety, Lyra Izacalli.
I mean, when I think about it, my name does mean lyre, and the story Draven told me of Sitara and Astralis—two figures who I can now reasonably assume played pivotal roles in the past Great War—is punctuated by a constellation in the shape of a lyre.
That couldn’t just be a coincidence…right?
I groan and scrub at my face, puffing out my cheeks right as I reach my door. Neilina is nowhere to be seen, so this must be one of those nights where Casimir told her her services weren’t needed.
I enter my room and immediately head straight for the bathing chambers.
In the center of the small room rests a lavish, clawed foot bathtub, and I shut my eyes, calling for water magic to see if it will answer.
It takes a hell of a lot longer than I like, but eventually, I feel that increasingly familiar sensation of another’s lakt? clicking into place with mine, and water streams from my palm as I fill up the porcelain-coated tub.
Once the level is adequate, I call on fire next, the accompanying answer arriving so quickly, I blink in shock as the glowing tendrils curl around my fingertips lovingly, as if they belong there.
I stare at them a moment, noticing the hypnotic lure of the flames.
Still. I chalk it up neatly to a fire-wielder being closer by than any water-wielder was.
Because when Casimir asks for my formal answer on what my core magic will be, I will choose flora magic.
The element that brought me happiness, a sense of security, and pleasure.
I certainly will not choose the element that haunted my nightmares for years upon years, plaguing me with a debilitating sense of guilt and an overwhelming feeling of terror.
No matter how strong my natural affinity is for it.
I will no longer pull at the bad like I did during the first test when my magic instinctively reached for the soporis plant.
I will pull at something good—something which has filled me with happiness.
And that something is flora magic. Not fire magic.
To prove that point, I uncurl my hand and again shut my eyes, calling out for my happiness.
When it answers, I open my eyes and catch the remnants of glittering silver light as lavender flourishes in my palm.
With a content smirk tugging at my lips, I toss it into the water, pride caressing me like a validating hug.
I strip the dirty clothes from my body and sink into the steaming water after, a groan of pure ecstasy escaping from my lips as I relish in scrubbing my skin clean with a bar of soap while cleansing my mind from the stain of today’s revelations.
The warm water is like a cradle against my skin.
When it chills, I reheat it—twice—knowing I just need to sit and decompress.
When I finally get out of the tub, my skin is deliciously pruned, and I am reminded of how sometimes a good bath can feel like a purification ritual.
Before wrapping myself in a towel, I shut my eyes and try to call out for wind magic. I give it a few minutes, and when it never answers, I decide there must be no wielders of its kind nearby. Or I just can’t wield wind magic at will yet. Who knows.
I stride out of the bathing chamber and glance around the room, my upper lip curling when I glance at the wardrobe sitting across from my bed. I don’t want to wear those clothes tonight; I want to wear my clothes. Clothes I am familiar with—that bring me comfort.
I remember something then, and I strut toward the small, rectangular trunk resting at the foot of my canopy bed. I fling it open, the object of my desires resting right at the top of a pile of miscellaneous items which don’t belong to me.
Yet this item—this dirty, ragged, stained article of clothing—does.
I gingerly pluck Gray’s tunic from the trunk and clutch it against my chest, the ruined fabric gripped tightly in my fist. Though faint, I catch a whiff of cedarwood and amber, and my bottom lip quivers as tears sting my eyes.
An unexpected wave of emotion crashes into me then, making me feel like I have whiplash from my sudden mood shift.
I wrap my arms around the tunic, bringing it to my chest, and hold it against me as if Gray were actually in it.
I miss you, Gray.
The thought is like sea salt in a healing wound.
I collapse into myself, scratchy fabric irritating my clean skin.
Then, I cry, hot tears streaming down my cheeks like broken promises.
In all my life since knowing him, I have never been away from Gray for this long, and I didn’t realize my chest has been slowly splitting apart this whole time without him near until the smell of him wrapping around me once more forced me to recognize the cracks.
What I wouldn’t give to see him—to be free of all this madness and just go home.
To fall back into Draven’s arms—to have him kiss me, hold me, tell me everything is going to be okay.
I squeeze Gray’s tunic tighter, the object a physical representation of everything I was stolen away from—everything I miss.
Spending time with Gray. Laughing and gossiping with Marcella.
Being held by Draven. I even miss Kiran.
Miss Bathara. Miss the life I was slowly beginning to watch unfold in front me while hope—for the first time in so long—started to bloom in my chest.
I press the tattered tunic deeper into my skin, as if I can somehow use it to mend my fractured soul.
Yet I push it so forcefully against my chest, something sharp pokes me, and I quickly jerk it back, my brows scrunching together.
Pulling the fabric in all sorts of directions, I inspect the seams and find nothing hiding within.
Confused, I plop it in my lap and wipe the tears from my eyes, resetting my emotions and expression.
I stare down at it, a feeling stirring in my chest.
Slowly, I glide my hand along every single stitch in the fabric, taking care not to miss a single spot.
I suck air between my teeth when my fingers land on something slender and solid.
Yet when I glance at the space they’re hovering over, I see nothing.
Feeling both frustrated and challenged, I wrap my fingers around the invisible object then yank.
“Holy shit,” I breathe, gaping at what I know to be Gray’s Ever-Know Quill now resting in my palm, his personally selected red and golden feather giving it away.
It is the magical quill which allows wielders to communicate with whomever they need to by imbuing their lakt? into the tip of it as it writes.
Based on what Casimir told me of how he came to have Gray’s tunic, Gray must have stitched it into the fabric somehow and cast an illusion over it before giving it to Casimir.
His words to me the night he told me he was leaving for Bathara play in my mind.
Since you possess no magic, the Ever-Know Quill isn’t an option.
Then I shall write you letters the magic-less way.
Only, I have magic now. And a powerful one at that. Which means….
I jerk up from the bed, my heart pounding to an erratic rhythm.
I scour the room, throwing open every drawer in sight until I stumble upon a loose piece of parchment.
It is old and crinkled and stained, tucked into the back of my vanity’s desk drawer, forgotten.
But the parchment is not what matters; the ability to use the quill is. And now that I can—
I can write to Gray.
The quill is magical, so it doesn’t need an inkwell for me to begin scribbling like a mad man. I drop the nib to the parchment, my pulse hammering against my throat. My tongue pops out and hooks up the corner of my mouth as I write.
Gray? Are you there? Please tell me I’m not wrong about this. Please tell me you left your Ever-Know Quill in your shirt for me to find.