Chapter Forty-Four #2
“Good,” he says. I attempt to draw in slower, steadier breaths, and Draven gently guides me to lean back against him, wordlessly encouraging me to rest my full weight on him.
Then, he holds me just a little tighter.
“Now, your muscles are really locked up. Do you think you can begin relaxing them? Try flexing them, then letting them go slack.” I try, but the action is met with weight pressing down on my chest, and my breathing shudders.
“I’m right here with you,” Draven soothes, gliding his fingers reassuringly down my arm. “I’ve got you. Keep going if you can.”
Through the sullen sounds of gasps for air and lingering hiccups, I begin loosening my muscles, releasing them from their captivity. A small relief hits my body.
“There you go,” Draven encourages gently. “That’s my girl. Now, can you tell me five plants that are in this greenhouse?”
I swivel my head against Draven’s chest—my breathing still shaky, straggling tears still pouring from their ducts—and my raw eyes scan the room.
As I attempt to identify the plants within the window panes, the world sharpens from a blurry blob of hazy gray into a clear image sprinkled with color.
My voice trembles when I speak. “There is…peppermint. Lavender.” Another fractured inhale, but one my chest starts to feel like it can handle.
“Collytails. Silver leaves.” As I search for the final plant to name, a debilitating wave of fatigue hits me.
Suddenly, the battle is no longer to locate air, but to remain awake.
My voice grows thick with exhaustion. “And…and…”
Draven leaves one arm securely wrapped around my torso and traces soothing lines down my arm with the other, his calming touch nothing short of reverent. “It’s okay to sleep,” he murmurs, as if sensing my weariness. “I won’t go anywhere. I promise. ”
I want to respond, but my body feels plundered—emptied by thieves who took everything and left nothing—and I cannot part my lips nor lift my tongue. It all feels too heavy. I feel too heavy—too drained.
But right as my eyelids are about to give in to the weight forcing them down, I glimpse the final plant I want to name.
“Bonaria,” I whisper.
Then, as my eyes fall shut—no longer capable of withstanding the weight of consciousness—I do not fight it, drifting into sleep not better, but perhaps with a new capacity to become just a bit lighter.
When I wake up—a faint burn lingering in my eyes, the raw evidence from too many tears, too many spilled emotions—I find Draven’s arms still wrapped around me and the moon high in the sky, silver bleeding through the windows.
I blink, but don’t dare move. Based on the steady rhythm of his chest and the looseness in his arms, I think Draven is asleep. One hand remains on my waist, the other slack against my arm, as if, even in sleep, he refuses to let me go.
My fingertips twitch with the urge to clutch onto his forearm—to intertwine my skin with his skin.
And though I feel perhaps as empty as I ever have, it doesn’t feel like an endless void anymore.
An abyss of nothingness. Instead, it feels like an emptiness that can perhaps be filled, piece by piece, one small feeling at a time.
So, I don’t deny myself the urge. I don’t ignore it. I allow my fingers to trace Draven’s skin with a tenderness, with a type of touch I have not let myself use before.
He stirs, and his grip on my waist tightens, his fingers pressing deeper into the fabrics of my shirt.
So he’s awake, after all.
My fingers continue tracing mindless drawings across his skin. “Draven?”
“Hm?” he hums, the sound rough-edged and low, tangled with drowsiness .
“Can I ask you something?”
He does not answer right away. “Alright.”
“Where did you learn to do that? To help someone through a panic attack.”
Another pause, this one longer than the last. “My mother suffered from them frequently. She never wanted my father to know, or any of his watchful shadows, so she would come into my chambers.” He stops, as if momentarily drifting back into the memory.
“Eventually, she told someone else about them, and he sought out a local healer, asking how he could help her through them. I only did the things he taught me to do to help my mother.”
I stop grazing his skin and instead press my palm against it, my fingers curling gently around his arm. “Will you tell me about her, your mother?”
He lifts the hand that was slack against my arm and gently glides a knuckle down my cheek. “Will you tell me about yours?”
Though the initial reaction to flinch is still there—something built over years doesn’t simply disappear after one cathartic cry—it doesn’t bring the same fearful ache it did before. Instead, I attempt to see the pain differently—as a good thing. As a reminder of my love for her.
It hurts because it matters. Because she mattered.
And the world deserves to remember such a beautiful light. I deserve to remember, too.
I glide my thumb over Draven’s arm. “I will.”
He inhales a deep breath, and the rise and fall of his chest pushes against my back. I relish in the warmth of the touch.
“My mother,” he begins, his voice tender and full of devotion, “was the strongest, bravest, and kindest woman I have ever known. She was quiet, but fierce in her opinions, and incredibly sharp-witted. In fact, I think it was her wit that drew my father to her in the first place.” He huffs a tiny laugh.
“In Talderine…hell, in all of Erandor, really, men are still given more respect over women, and I remember watching my mother and wondering how in god’s veins that could be possible. ”
Draven stops, wrapping his arm around me and holding me closer to his chest—as if he needs to be anchored to say this next part.
“And she loved me. Gods , she loved me so much when she had every reason not to. She was every good thing in this world. And despite what forgettable flaws she may have had, she was perfect. Absolutely perfect.”
Though I can’t imagine why she would ever have a reason to not love Draven, I place my hand over his as it rests against my torso, a quiet reassurance that I’m here. He flexes his fingers, reaching for mine—and slowly, like estranged stars finally aligning, our fingers intertwine.
He leans down, pressing his cheek against the side of my head. “What was your mother like?”
A rush of memories sweeps my lips into a wistful smile.
“My mother was strong-headed, loud, and an absolute force of nature. She was raucous, full of life, and had a laugh that could draw the attention of every eye in the room.” An echo of her unmistakable laugh plays in my head like a faint song played on a favorite instrument.
“She loved the art of gardning almost as much as she loved me, and she demanded respect. Her tongue was also sharp as a blade, and she had zero quarrels with wielding it like one.”
“Sounds like someone else I know,” Draven comments, his breath a warm hug to my cheek.
I smile.
It’s nice…remembering who she was.
“She also had the biggest heart of anyone I’ve ever met,” I continue.
“She cared for anyone and everyone. A beggar on the street, a struggling mother, a pompous noble—it didn’t matter.
She treated them all equally. Offered every person dignity and respect.
She always said there was life in their bodies, and that was enough for her. ”
“That also sounds like someone I know.” His words are gentle, and I can hear the smile leaking through them.
My lips twitch fondly.
“And your father?” Draven asks. “Was he ever around?”
I blow out a breath, puffing out my cheeks.
“No,” I answer truthfully. “And my mother never told me anything about him, either. I asked once when I was young, but…” I shake my head, the memory squeezing my he art.
“The immediate pain—longing, almost—on her face was so palpable, I swore to myself I would never ask again.”
“That must have been hard on you.”
I consider his words. “It wasn’t, actually. She never made me question it because I never felt like I was missing anything. My mother always provided me with everything I possibly needed.”
“She must have been a remarkable woman.”
My voice drops into a low whisper. “She was.” I pause, chewing on my lip in thought. “Draven?”
“Yes?”
“Why didn’t you tell me about your father? About being a Dalmar?” My fingers stop, only for a moment, as the gravity of that revelation rattles through me once more.
And my heart braces for destruction—preparing itself to be told it has something to do with my background as a night attendant, or that he didn’t think I needed to know something like that because he and I are nothing more than casual acquaintances. Because he is highborn, and I am lowborn.
I hear him draw in a deep breath. “You really want to know?”
“I do,” I murmur.
He does not answer right away, seeming to think the question over. Until finally, he glides his knuckles gently down my cheek, to my neck, down to the base of my shoulder, where they still. “The real reason,” he starts, his voice reserved, “is because I grew to love the way you looked at me.”
My heart freezes.
“Your eyes are so expressive, Lyra, and I don’t think you’re the slightest bit aware of it.
But gods I am so thankful for that, because it allowed me to see into every bit of you—to know what’s going on in that beautiful head of yours.
” His thumb strokes soothing circles along my shoulder.
“And I felt like someone was seeing me for the first time. Not Draven, the Dalmar Heir. Not the son of the greatest strategist, or bearer of the most feared magic in Solaya. No, you just saw…me. And the way you looked at me told me that I—just Draven—wa s enough.”
He drops his voice into a low, raspy whisper. “I’ve never gotten to experience that before. To feel worthy of my skin without it being attached to my titles. I…” He sighs, dropping his voice even lower. “I just wanted to hold onto that for as long as I could.”
The breath is stolen from my chest. “You are so much more than enough,” I murmur. “Titles or not.”
I hear traces of a weak smile in his voice. “I know…your gaze makes me believe it.” His fingers rove higher, tracing my jaw with the most reverent touch. “Someone once told me if I ever find a person who looks at me the way you do, I should never let them go.”
Fear swells in my chest as I absorb his words. Yet I make a decision after hearing them, turning myself around in Draven’s lap so that we’re now face-to-face.
The tenderness waiting for me in his eyes is enough to gut me.
“And?” I whisper.
He tucks stray hair behind my ear, sweeping his thumb along my chin after. “And I think, even if I wanted to, I couldn’t let you go if I tried. Not anymore.”
The confession is like a shock to my heart, nudging it to beat again.
A momentary pause falls between us, our eyes not breaking from each other’s. And as that pause screams louder than words ever could, I reach for something different, something whole.
Slowly, with such careful movements, I lean forward, bringing my lips toward an inevitable shattering—a possible mending. I teeter on the precipice of a great beginning, reminding myself that a beginning’s end is far sadder than an end’s beginning.
Yet I stop right as my lips are about to graze his—my heart screaming incoherent words as my mind cowers with fear in a corner. “I’m scared something like this will end in flames,” I admit in a near-silent whisper, not elaborating on why.
Something sad passes through Draven’s gentle eyes, and he takes my face in both his hands, locking his gaze to mine. “Then I will burn, Lyra, so long as it's by your flame.”
It’s the final confirmation I need, knowing he’ll catch me if I stumble .
The moment I press my lips to his, the world is suddenly painted with color, and I realize everything I’ve been feeling is a dull sensation compared to what my body is actually capable of. His lips are soft and welcoming, and the kiss feels like waking up from a long slumber.
We move in such delicate harmony, finding our perfect rhythm as effortlessly as old dance partners.
Draven’s hand roves to my neck, and he grips the back of it with a tender touch.
My breath catches, overwhelmed by the emotion swelling in my chest from the contact. I pull away, needing to steady myself.
“What is it?” Draven asks, his voice gentle. “Are you okay?”
I release a trembling sigh. “Over these past few years, because of my role with the king, I…” I stop, swallowing against the knot in my throat. “I just never knew a kiss could feel like this, that’s all.”
Draven inspects me with an expression I finally realize he reserves only for me. Then he kisses me with the sort of emotion poets write about. The sort of kiss that has prompted gods to string stars together in a constellation.
He kisses me, and I kiss him back, bright golden lights shooting off behind my closed eyelids.
Time does not exist here. Not in this pocket of our own reality carved exclusively for us—for this moment. So, I’m not sure exactly when he stops—pulling back and gazing at me in a way that would have made my mother proud.
“That’s enough for now,” he murmurs. “You should finish resting. I’m sure your body is still exhausted after all it went through.”
Now that he mentions it…
“Will you stay with me?”
The ghost of a smile appears on his lips, and his thumb grazes across my cheek before he presses a featherlight kiss to my temple. “In this life, and the next.”
I nestle back into Draven’s lap, feeling like I’ve just had so many roots pruned from my heart. He wraps his arms around me, and I nuzzle into him, doing my best to let the emotion singing in my chest hum its natural tune. To absorb the feelings at face value instead of shutting them out .
And right as sleep tiptoes through the door, sweeping me away, I voice the final words lingering in my mind to Draven.
“Thank you—for helping me feel again.”
He holds me like I am the most precious thing in existence, resting his cheek on the top of my head. “Thank you for reminding me there are still people worth feeling for.”