Chapter 17 #2
I wait and wait and wait. But no answer comes.
I pace about the room, suddenly realizing I am still wrapped in a towel instead of clothes.
Just to be sure, I steal a glance at the parchment to see if a reply has come before changing, and when I glimpse one hasn’t, I make for the wardrobe and throw on a loose-fitting night gown.
After, I hurry back to the bed, where I’ve rested the parchment and quill, and defeat sinks deep into my chest when I see I still haven’t received a reply.
I swish my lips side-to-side, glancing around the room.
While I wait, I guess I could do some of the exercises Neilina has instructed me to do, toning both my body and precision with magic.
I wander to an area where there is enough open space for me to complete the movements, yet I find myself only making it through one or two reps before I stop to again peek at the parchment.
Nothing.
A low growl rattles in my throat, but I am determined to distract myself while I wait.
I play with my magic, calling on different elements—the easier magic-types to wield, according to Casimir—and attempt to make shapes from them.
Then I braid and unravel my hair. Twice.
I straighten up the bathing chamber—not that there was really anything for me to actually tidy—and I even attempt to write my own song, thinking if Casimir did it, how hard could it really be?
I glide around the room, my night gown billowing behind me, and sing my forming lyrics aloud. “A girl who was forged in the brightest of fires, her eyes now silver and weaved. For a time, she wandered lost in her life, a victim to her grief.”
I lift my brows in surprise, pride pulling on my lips. Honestly, not bad—even if I’m stealing the melody from Casimir’s song.
I keep going. “A man, a man, she let into her heart. His… His…” I pinch my chin between my fingers, halting near the bed as I think. Okay, maybe this is harder than I thought.
A flash of curling ink catches my eye, and I practically trip over myself as I scurry toward it. I grip the parchment between my shaking fingers, relief, shock, hope, and many more emotions clamoring through me as I scan the sheet.
Lyra? By the gods, is that really you? I need to be sure.
An odd noise which sounds part sob, part laugh breaks from my throat. I blink back tears entirely different from the ones I just shed a moment ago and scribble my reply.
Ask me anything. Something only I would know.
A brief pause, and then—
Who was the name of my first kiss, and what happened?
I laugh, tears spilling over my eyes.
Her name was Margaret Dupret, and she started sneezing while you two were kissing, resulting in her biting down on your bottom lip so forcefully, she punctured a small hole through it.
More laughter pours from my lips as I remember Azalea and Sterling standing over a young Gray with furrowed brows to observe his wound, his bloodied lip filling his mouth while utter disappointment filled his eyes.
Though it sounds tragic, after the healers mended the hole in his skin, he explained Margaret informed him she already was having some allergic reaction to his scent or something, and when they were kissing, his hair tickled her nose and set off her sneezing.
He tied his hair back for a week straight after that, and I laughed about it every single day.
God’s veins, it’s really you. You’re alive—well enough to write.
Tell me where you are, Lyra. Are you safe?
Has Casimir Vivaldri been decent to you?
Are you fed and clothed? Gods, Lyra, I… I am so sorry we couldn’t do more to stop him.
Sorry we haven’t been able to do more to save you. To find you sooner.
I stare at the parchment, disbelief swelling in my chest as the realization that I’m actually writing with Gray right now sends a tremor through me.
Flashes of the illusion Casimir cruelly conjured flicker in my mind’s eye, and I see Gray’s head tumbling from his body.
See his body cold and bloodied and ruined.
My throat closes, and my heart stutters for a beat.
Even after Casimir told me the truth, there has always been a small voice whispering in the back of my head, attempting to convince me it was all just a lie to make me more docile.
Though I never gave into it, refusing to listen to those hissing voices.
I don’t know where I am. All I know is, wherever it’s located, it is far from our home.
Things feel… different here. Magic moves more freely, and the sun shines in strange ways—piercing and red-tinted.
The place itself is a sprawling oasis, and it is filled with flora I have never seen in Solaya.
Yet I think I am as safe as one could hope to be as a captive.
I am fed. I am clothed. Most importantly, I am okay.
It’s strange, really—being treated better here than I ever was in Rivara Kingdom.
I know this will sound strange, but I’ve been learning a lot about my magic—how to refine and wield it like a true master would. I have so much to tell you, Gray… You wouldn’t believe all the things I’ve seen and learned.
I pause my writing, breathing against the heaviness piling in my stomach as I consider all my conversations with Casimir.
Consider telling him about my time in the Veil—simply about my Veilreading gift in general, a talent I have yet to discuss with him or anyone else outside of Casimir.
Yet for the sake of time—so scared this connection to home will somehow end—I choose not to discuss those things.
But I don’t want to focus on that yet; I want to hear about you.
How are you? How are things at Bathara? What aggregate did you choose?
Did you and Marcella join the same one? How is she doing?
Is she coping okay after losing Griff? Is Kiran?
Draven? Are you taking care of her—being there for her at whatever distance she needs?
You know I’d lecture you if you weren’t.
By the Mother, I have so many questions for you, Gray. So much I’d like to know. One of those many things being how the hell you managed to pull off hiding an Ever-Know Quill in your shirt?
I finish that final sentence and blow out a sigh, as if the rotting weight I’ve been carrying since being here is purging itself from my body right alongside the magical ink spitting onto the page.
Writing with Gray makes all the wrongs of the world feel right again.
Like I’m no longer sinking beneath the ocean’s surface, grasping at a fading light I can’t ever seem to reach, screaming and hollering as water floods my lungs.
No—it’s like I have finally risen to the surface, a revitalizing, crisp bout of oxygen swirling beneath my ribcage instead.
A sizzling, red-golden light appears as I watch Gray’s reply curve onto the parchment.
During the battle, it became clear the direction everything was heading.
To make a long story short, my quill was stuffed into my boot, and while Casimir was distracted, Marcella weaved small vines around the quill, sewing it into the underside of my shirt.
I cast an illusion over it after that, using the barest minimum of magic I could so the quill and my magic would remain undetected.
Though I did weave the very essence of my lakt? itself into it, praying to the gods the illusion would hold.
Truthfully, even as I write this I am shaking my head with disbelief that it actually worked. But by the gods am I glad it did.
Gray’s letter then goes on to tell me about Draven.
He tells me Draven fought for me until the very end.
That he only stopped because his father attempted to force him to stand down against the fight.
He says Draven wasn’t going to do it, but then Captain Fjolla knocked him unconscious, allowing Casimir to take me.
Supposedly, that’s when Gray draped his shirt over my body, begging Casimir to let me keep it.
My heart both flutters and pounds as I continue reading.
You know I will never lie to you, Lyra. So I will just tell you Draven blames himself for your capture, and he searches for you tirelessly.
I heard from Kiran that his father forces him to show face at the academy, not allowing him to neglect his duties as the Captain of Elefet.
I suspect that is the only reason why he is still here.
Marcella is alright. She grieves, but I am with her. (And yes, I’m well aware of the lecture I’d receive if I weren’t; not that I need that as a reason. I care for her, and so I want to be there for her anyhow.) We both chose Castaria as our aggregate.
Now it’s your turn to provide some answers. What happened to make you erupt with magic like that? What did you see, or hear, or feel? And before you think otherwise, you know you can tell me anything, and I will never judge you.
I love you, Lyra. I’m sorry I didn’t say that to you more.
Gods, there is actually so much I’m sorry for.
I’m sorry for not noticing how deep the pain you held quietly inside you ran sooner.
I’m sorry I didn’t push you harder to tell me about your nightmares; perhaps if I had, I could have helped you more.
I’m sorry for what happened to your mother—that I never knew.
I’m sorry for everything you suffered and that I was blissfully ignorant to it all.
But perhaps most of all, I’m sorry I was never there for you in the ways you needed me to be—that I was too blind to realize you were drowning and needed a hand to help pull you free.
P.S: I am also sorry for my long reply, I just…. since the day you were taken, so much has sat heavy on my chest, and I didn’t know if I would ever get to say these words to you. So, please forgive my eruption of words.
P.P.S: I love you.
P.P.P.S: Kiran is still Kiran, in all his glorious smirks and humor.
Tears stream steadily from my eyes as I read and re-read the parchment. For the life of me, I can’t distinguish if the tears are falling from joy or in sadness or from relief. It’s as if all my emotions have mixed together like muddied paint, no longer shining with their own individuality.
I write Gray back, describing to him the illusion Casimir weaved over me.
How broken and desolate I felt on the inside at thinking he was gone.
I describe to him the way the sadness gave way to nothing but pure rage.
The rage I felt for the transgressions haunting my past. The rage at Gray being stolen from this world too early.
The rage at Casimir. At the Abdites. Then I tell him about the words I heard swirling in the air—the way they changed into coherent instructions the moment I gave into the rage.
Erhè akta maht.
Hate. Take. Harm.
Even the memory of it sends a shudder down my spine, and I swear I feel a prickle along the seams of my wielder’s mark at the mere thought of them.
I tell him about my thoughts of Draven. How they brought me back to reality, anchoring me in something different than rage. I was lost in a sea of swirling darkness, and Draven was the light. Was the voice calling me back. Demanding I let go.
I don’t withhold a single detail from Gray. If there is anyone who will understand—anyone who I can share every ugly thought with, show every disturbing scar without fear of judgement—it is him.
Yet shock ignites my skin and threads along the roots of my bones when he informs me what I thought was only a figment of my imagination—was something I had merely conjured in my desperation—had actually happened.
Those were no mere thoughts; they were actions.
Draven had actually wrapped himself around me and begged for me to let go.
Those words I heard? The words I clung to like the stars cling to the night sky?
They were real. Uttered by Draven himself in an attempt to bring me back to him.
It’s that you live, Lyra. You must live. And if you don’t, then I’m coming with you, because I don’t want to be in a world where I can’t wake up and find you.
I had nearly incinerated him—torn him apart ligament by ligament with the ferocity of my magic. Yet somehow, he still never let me go. The more I erupted, the tighter he held onto me.
No matter what I did, he didn’t let go.
My next reply to Gray comes without any real thought.
Is he near? Can I… Can I talk to him?
For whatever reason, a sudden frenzy of nerves overtakes my body. Luckily, Gray’s response is quick.
Give me just a few minutes.
A few minutes turns into a lot of minutes, and I am nothing short of an anxious vessel filled with butterflies fluttering about my stomach and chest. I pace the room, attempting to force my attention back to the song I was creating earlier.
Yet the task is futile while thoughts of finally getting to communicate with Draven send my stomach freefalling.
What will I say? What will he say? Have his feelings changed—does he even still want me like I want him? Everything happened so fast between us after all, like stars slamming together, as if finding what they had unknowingly been searching for.
Does he think I’m a monster after what I did at Bathara?
I shake the thoughts away, blowing out a quivering breath while wringing out my clammy hands. A tiny movement catches my attention from the corner of my eye, and I pivot on my heel, practically diving onto the mattress to grip the parchment.
Draven’s handwriting appears at the center of the page, only one word written.
Lyra.