Chapter 22
Chapter
Twenty-Two
A yc creeps around the first slumbering fae and avoids the light of the embers still burning in their fire. The night itself seems to hold its breath—silent save for the soft sounds of breathing, the crush of tall grass beneath the marching guard’s feet, and Ayc’s own heartbeat in his ears. Then, a soft oomph sounds in the darkness. The guard circling the camp has disappeared from sight. Lora strikes as silently and as deadly as a spirit.
Ayc freezes, but none of the fae stir in response to the thud. He moves on toward the central tent, forcing each step to be light, soundless, a warrior’s footsteps, the way Peregrin taught him. He doesn’t approach the fae sleeping at the entrance of the tent, but instead, he angles toward the back.
Quiet, shuddering sounds come from within the tent. Sobs. A fist clenches around Ayc’s heart. He knows a thing or two about being a boy feeling totally alone and trapped. At least, this one, he can save.
He kneels and works out a tent peg that fastens the canvas to the ground. It loosens the cloth just enough for him to crawl beneath. Ayc is still invisible, but the movement of the cloth is not. Ohen shoots upright, his eyes wide. Ayc allows himself to reappear, and Ohen reels back. A scream begins low in his throat, and Ayc slams a hand over the boy’s mouth.
This close, Ayc can see the tear tracks that streak down Ohen’s face.
“It’s all right, Ohen,” Ayc whispers. “I’m here to get you out. I was sent by the organization. I’m going to remove my hand, but you can’t scream, all right?”
Ohen nods.
Ayc drops his hand and unties Ohen’s wrists. Ayc points to the loose canvas. “Crawl underneath. I have a friend waiting out in the darkness. We just have to get you back to the woods, and you’ll be safe.”
When they are both outside the tent, Ayc doesn’t return to being invisible. There isn’t a point if Ohen cannot also be invisible. Ayc clasps Ohen’s upper arm, and they move slowly, soundlessly, back through the camp. Ayc holds his breath the entire way, but no one moves. When they are several yards past the edge of the camp, Ayc shoves Ohen forward.
“Run to the trees,” he hisses. “Go.”
Ohen sprints forward, and Ayc follows right on his heels. He watches over his shoulder, expecting to see someone pursuing them. But no one comes. They rush into the tree-line, and Ayc finally breathes again when he sees Lora step from behind a trunk.
Lora assesses Ohen quickly, as though marking any wounds. And then she turns to Ayc. “You did it,” she breathes, something close to wonder in her voice .
“You sound surprised. I’m almost offended,” Ayc says, but he’s grinning too wide for it to be convincing.
Ohen blinks at her, with eyes still so wide they glow like a blanched moon. “You’re… you’re Loraphne, the Sovereign’s daughter.”
Lora almost seems to flinch, but the motion is small and Ayc might have imagined it. “We have to go,” she says, spinning around to lead them deeper into the forest.
“Where?” Ohen asks.
“Somewhere you’ll be safe.”
The wind chimes that hang from the eaves of the Totus Omni homes whisper in the stillness of the night. Ayc hears them long before he, Lora, and Ohen reach the outskirts of Avia, the Totus Omni village. Some of the homes wrap around the bases of the mighty trees, while others climb into the branches. They are all still and peaceful. Only a few candles remain lit in the windows, glowing like stars high above Ayc’s head. No matter how many times Ayc sees the Totus Omni villages, he never ceases to be amazed by them: their simplicity or their beauty.
As they enter the village, a voice calls to them from above, “Who goes there at this unholy hour?”
Ayc’s feet plant on the trail and his hand jumps to the hilt of his sword, but Lora doesn’t even tense. “Don’t worry. I know him.”
Still, Ohen shies a little closer to Lora.
Lora tilts her head up, looking toward a platform built into the branches of a towering tree. “Hello, Veni.”
A lantern turns on, illuminating a handsome, fair- skinned fae, dressed in a knee-length tunic. Strands of turquoise hair fall into his eyes as he leans over the railing. “Lora? What are you doing down there?”
“I could tell you,” Lora says, “but?—”
“Then you’d have to depart me of my tongue. Aye, aye, I know.” He squints down at them, and a slow smile curls up his face. “And who is that handsome thing with you?”
Ayc returns the grin and waves up at him. “I’m A?—"
“He’s nobody,” Lora interrupts.
“Nobody?” Veni says, a dimple flashing in his cheeks. “What a peculiar name. Hi, Nobody!”
Ayc laughs. It’s a terrible joke, one he might have made himself. He winks in return, a gesture that makes Veni’s smile grow wider.
Lora’s mouth twists into a scowl. “I don’t have time for your flirting, Veni. We’re in a hurry.”
Veni twirls his hand dismissively. “Oh, very well. Go ahead then. Should I expect anyone to follow you?”
“I don’t think so,” Lora says. “But if you happen to see a few Lux Aester wandering around in the dark…”
“You know me.” Veni kicks gently at a crossbow leaning against the trunk of the tree beside her. “I tend to shoot first and never ask any questions. I loath questions.”
Lora bids Veni goodbye and leads them through the silent village. She glides between houses and beneath great arching roots with an ease that says she has traced this path hundreds of times before. She finally pauses at a home with a half-moon shaped porch. Wind chimes hum from the overhang. Vines trail around the posts and over the roof. A swing hangs beside the porch, attached to the lowest branch of the tree that is still a dozen feet overhead. Potted plants crowd every inch of the porch and the space before it. Some Ayc recognizes as common plants, while other blooms turn as the three of them pass, as though tracking their movement. One nips at Ayc’s fingers, and he tucks his hands into his pockets.
Lora knocks on the door. A lamp on the porch flicks to life. The glass fills with tiny lights that whirl and spin, like fireflies are caught within. The light glistens off Lora’s dark hair.
The door jerks open. Hellevi’s ample frame fills the doorway, and the resemblance to her granddaughter once again strikes Ayc as uncanny. Lora has never resembled Yris’s pale, wraith-like shape, but Lora is a reflection of her grandmother’s warm brown skin and wide, soft curves, and tight, black curls. Even Hellevi’s scowl speaks of Lora, as the elder woman straightens her purple robe and looks them up and down.
“Aren’t you supposed to be off winning the Trials?”
“Something important came up.” Lora nods her head toward Ohen, who stands behind them with his head tucked.
Hellevi takes the boy in, her face softening. “What’s their name?”
“His name is Ohen,” Lora replies.
Hellevi steps to the side. “You best be getting in here.” She pins Ayc with a glare. “But you better have brought some of your biscuits with you, or I’ll make you sleep on the porch.” She says it sternly, but one side of her mouth tips upward to reveal she’s joking. Ayc realizes that subtle expression is another thing Lora inherited from her grandmother.
Ayc leans an arm on the doorway and grins down at her. “Oh, Hellevi, you know you love me. ”
“You mistake my undying love for your lemon drizzled biscuits as my limited affection for you.”
“Limited affection is still affection.”
“Only for the desperate.” Hellevi snorts and moves into the house.
Lora casts a frown between them as she steps inside. Ohen sticks close to Lora’s heels, and Ayc shuts the door behind all of them.
The home forms around the trunk of the tree, like the numbers on a clock. An arched hearth carved with vines is formed into the wood directly at the center. Before it, two armchairs sit on a colorful, woven rug. On the right lies a tight kitchen with a small, round table and a dozen oddly angled cabinets. On the left, a staircase winds up the trunk to another level. Ayc glazes over all of it, and then looks again to mark the more important details of the home: the basket of yarn by the fireplace; the soft, knitted blankets draped over the chairs; the floating shelves lined with books; the sketches hanging from the tree of two children throughout their lifespan. One, a boy with a beaming smile, and the other, Lora. Sometimes, in the sketches of Lora, the first boy is clearly grown and holding her in his arms. Her father, Ayc guesses.
“Are you hungry, Ohen?” Hellevi asks.
Still looking at the floor, Ohen shakes his head.
“Tired?”
Ohen nods.
“Come with me.” She beckons him toward the stairs, but Ohen hesitates.
“What happens now?” he whispers. “What’s to stop them for coming for me again? ”
“Me, of course,” Hellevi says, a silver gleam passing over her eyes.
Just like Lora, Ayc thinks.
“No one is going to come for you here,” Lora assures him, her voice soft, gentle. “So long as you stay here, or with someone within the organization, you’re safe.”
He folds his arms over his chest and runs his hands up and down his biceps, like he’s cold. Ayc wishes he possessed the right words, the right actions, to make Ohen feel less alone, less afraid. But anything Ayc can think of feels too small. So, he simply remains, lingering next to the closed door, like he’s disappeared into shadow once more.
“Does this mean I’ll never be able to see my parents again?” Ohen asks. He drops his head back down, his jagged hairline falling before his face. “I mean… that’s a foolish question, isn’t it?”
“You’re not trapped here, Ohen,” Lora says. “Your life was a prison before, and I don’t mean for your future to be one. But no, there’s no going back, not unless you mean to return to the cage they put you in.”
Ohen slumps into the nearby chair and buries his face in his hands. Hellevi takes a step forward, but Lora is already there, slipping into the chair across from him. She leans in and speaks so softly, Ayc has to move closer to hear.
“Sometimes, the ones who are supposed to love us aren’t capable of seeing us and loving us for who we truly are. And eventually, we have to make the painful choice either to be our true selves or to be the person they can accept. You cannot be both. And, Ohen, a love that doesn’t see you— really see you—isn’t love at all.”
The light of the fire plays in Lora’s dark eyes, like starlight on a seemingly never-ending night. Ayc feels as though he’s twelve-years-old again, seeing Lora for the first time, being struck with awe, because he never knew such beauty existed. He tries to pry the emotion from his chest, but it will not budge.
I hate— he tries, but he can't. He can't even think it.
Ohen finally lifts his head and sweeps the back of his hands over his cheeks.
Ayc clears his throat to be rid of whatever emotion has accumulated there. The sound draws Lora’s attention to him. The look on her face is not a guarded mask of stone. It’s the opposite. It is an entire book written in a language he doesn’t know. Infinite and timeless, the way certain stories are. He can’t begin to interpret what it means. And he cannot breathe, with her looking at him like that. She’s shaking the very foundations of him, laying siege on the walls he’s used to separate them, and he can’t bear it. If they fall, he’ll be left in ruin.
“Yes,” Hellevi agrees, and Ayc yanks his attention away from Lora so his lungs can expand with air. “And if they choose not to see you, well, that’s their fucking loss.”
Ayc laughs, pleasantly startled, and Ohen joins him nervously. Lora’s lips tug upward.
“And you shouldn’t steal my speeches, sweet pea,” Hellevi says to Lora. “Not without signed and written permission.”
“Sorry, Grandma.” Lora leans back in the chair. “It’s good advice.”
Ayc forces himself not to think too hard about the implications of those words. If he does, he’ll picture Lora sitting in these exact chairs as a child. Then he’ll have to think about whose expectations she found herself imprisoned in and whether or not she chose to free herself .
“You ready now, boy?” Hellevi asks.
A soft smile tugs on Ohen’s lips at the word ‘boy’. He stands. “Thank you.” He looks between Lora and Ayc. “Both of you. For everything.”
He disappears up the steps with Hellevi, and Ayc and Lora are alone—in this home of hers. This must be where she disappeared to each summer, and where she returned from, looking so miserable. She relaxes into the chair, the tension in her shoulders fading. She looks far more comfortable here than she’s ever looked at Wyntra, under the shadow her mother casts. Perhaps it didn’t make her unhappy to be here. Perhaps it simply made her unhappy to leave.
Ayc’s mind is a chaotic mess, spinning around the events of the last full day. The Drakr’s visit, Lora’s uncertainty, the organization, the gryphon ride, the rescue, her body so close to his, her fingers around his throat, her shuddering breath on his lips. It all spins faster and faster through his head, a blur of images and sensation, until it almost hurts. The pain is building around his spine, and he needs a distraction.
He looks to the kitchen and starts toward it. Baking is always a good idea. “Do you think your grandmother would mind if I used her kitchen?”
Lora frowns at him from around the chair’s tall back. “Not if it means that you’re making her lemon drizzle biscuits.”
He finds the right ingredients in the cabinets, all carefully labeled in crystal blue jars, including lemon extract. It’s not fresh zest like he prefers, but such things can be difficult to come by this far north. Not everyone has Yris's financial means and insistence for fresh ingredients. He eases into a familiar pattern: tending the fire in the oven, then measuring and mixing, stirring and dividing. Meanwhile, he knows Lora watches him. Her gaze teases down his back like a stinging caress of fingernails. He focuses on his baking, until everything else fades. He barely hears the stairs creak as Hellevi descends to join them.
She pauses beside Lora and rests a hand on her shoulder. Still stirring, Ayc watches them over his shoulder.
“How are you really, sweet pea?” Hellevi’s gaze fixes on the chronicler on Lora’s wrist and the single lit stone there.
Lora yanks down her sleeve to cover it. “I’m well.”
“Are you, though?”
Lora’s scowl makes it clear she isn’t in the mood to answer. Ayc faces them and leans his back against the counter, still whisking the dough.
“Do you call her sweet pea because of the flower?” Ayc asks.
“No,” Hellevi replies, “it’s because of the time she laughed so hard peas came out her nose.”
“Grandma,” Lora protests through her teeth.
“It was at your own joke, too. The one about a witch having twins. What was the punchline, again?”
Ayc’s hand misses a beat before he starts to stir again. The look on Lora’s face is downright murderous, and he likes it too much to stop himself from creeping a few steps closer to see it better. “Yes, Lora,” he urges, “ what was the punchline?”
She stands and directs that murderous glare fully on him. She responds in a flat tone, “You can’t tell which is witch.”
A chuckle rumbles deep in this throat. It’s unbelievable, the thought of Lora sitting in this house and telling jokes. His jokes. The ones she never laughed at, at least, not where he could see her. But maybe she did eventually laugh, and the idea makes him smile wide enough his cheeks ache.
Lora gives him the look he knows too well, the one that tells him he’s one misstep away from seeing his own heart pulsing in her hand. He turns around to hide the glee on his face and begins to evenly lay out the biscuit mixture onto the pan.
“Your father laughed so hard he sprayed peas from his nose, too,” Hellevi adds.
“Does your father also live in this village?” Ayc asks.
Silence.
That’s all that follows that question. A silence that stretches out so long and so heavy that Ayc’s skin pricks with discomfort. When he peeks over his shoulder, he finds shadows shifting over both their faces.
“Forgive me,” Ayc says. “I’ve clearly brought up something painful, and I’m not making near enough biscuits to repay you for it.”
Hellevi flicks her hand. “Best get on that, then.”
She gives him a twisted smile and a wink, to tell him no permanent harm is done. But Lora looks back to the wall, and the sketches of her father there, her face behind a veil of hair. He can sense it now. Loss clings to this house like a ghost. Ayc turns back to his baking, before he does something entirely reckless. Like close the distance between them, pull Lora into his arms and hold her.
While the biscuits bake, Ayc prepares the lemon glaze topping. Lora helps Hellevi carry blankets and pillows from upstairs and makes up two pallets on the floor before the fire. Hellevi hums as she works, the same tunes Ayc has heard coming from Lora’s booth. Lora strips off her armor and pulls her gray sweater from her bag. She selects a book from her grandmother’s shelves and stretches out on one pallet, her back to the kitchen. By the time the biscuits are cooked and drizzled with the lemon glaze, Ayc is uncertain if she’s still awake. Her breaths rise and fall easily.
Fuck, he shouldn’t be so aware of her breathing.
“Thank you for the biscuits,” Hellevi says, coming to Ayc’s side with a crystal-blue plate in her hands. “You didn’t need to.”
“It relaxes me,” Ayc says, wiping down the countertop. “It’s been a day.”
“That it has.” Hellevi layers a few of the fresh biscuits onto the plate. “Leave the mess until morning and get some rest. Days always seem less long after some good sleep. This village looks after itself, and the guards here are some of the best. No one will bother you. I’ll handle it if they do.”
Ayc chuckles. “I’m certain you will.”
She carries the plate up the stairs, turning out lights as she goes. She leaves only the one in the kitchen and the low embers of the fire. Ayc doesn’t leave the mess. Despite the ache in his muscles and the pull at his eyelids, he doesn’t yet trust his mind to surrender to sleep. Only after he’s washed, dried, and put away the dishes does he slip onto the pallet of buttery knits. The blankets smell like the home, like thyme and basil and maybe a hint of Lora’s shampoo, the sweet and sharp smell of anise.
He's surprised to find that Lora is not asleep. Her book is still open, upside down on the ground before her to mark her place. He considers, briefly, asking her if this is another one of her dirty books, but the joke dies on his tongue as he takes her in. She stares instead at her forearm where the quests are written. She traces the fingertips of her other hand across one of the lines.
“Undo an unforgivable wrong,” Ayc reads. “I thought for sure it would be completed from helping Ohen.”
Lora's sigh sounds tired. No, exhausted . “But how many more people are still in need of help? The wrong is far from undone. I still have much to do to make it right.”
Ayc shifts to his side. Only a foot of the woven carpet separates them. He could so easily reach out, so he tucks an arm beneath his head and folds the other within the blankets, so that he’s sure his hands will obey. “Will you try to change it? If you become Sovereign?”
“Yes,” she says without hesitation. “I’m not sure how, but I will. I won’t be my mother, Ayc. Not after everything she’s done, especially to my fath—” Lora stops, her fingers curling into fists.
“What did Yris do to your father?” Ayc presses gently, knowing he’s touching a tender bruise. He doesn’t expect her to answer, especially after her eyes shutter closed.
The silence lengthens between them. A log snaps in the fireplace.
“My mother had him exiled,” she says at last. Coolly. Like she can pretend she doesn't feel the impact. “He was a part of the Aluina rebellion.” She pauses and opens her eyes to search Ayc’s face as though looking for recognition. She must find it because she goes on. “He was exiled seven years ago.”
Ayc remembers it again: the day seven years ago, when Wren’s mother was executed. But this time, he remembers it differently. Lora banished him from the courtyard that day. Did she do so to spare him from the sight of what was about to happen? And when he returned from the shore, she wore tears on her cheeks. He tried to ask, to approach her, because the sight of her hurting was fundamentally wrong and he needed to fix it, but she snarled at him to go away. He didn’t know what caused those tears then, but now he understands all too well.
“Yris did that to someone she bore a child with?” Ayc asks, even though he knows what an unintelligent question it is. Yris’s cruelty knows no bounds or affections.
“She never intended to have children. I was an accident. She told me she thought of ending the pregnancy, but she thought, if I was strong enough willed to be conceived despite all her precautions, perhaps I would amount to something.”
Disgust burns deep in Ayc’s throat. “Fuck, Lora. That’s awful. She never should have said that to you.”
Lora lifts her hands in a shrug-like gesture, like those words didn’t hurt. Like they aren’t half as cruel as other things Yris has said to her. Which is probably true.
“Have you seen your father since he was exiled?” Ayc asks.
Something glistens in her eyes, but she blinks, and it’s gone. “No. It was forbidden. As part of his punishment.”
“I’m really sorr?—”
“Don’t!” Her voice explodes from a whisper to a snarl. “Don’t fucking apologize.”
Ayc’s eyes widen.
“I don’t need or want sympathy, especially not from you .” She tempers her volume, but the heat in her words doesn’t ease. “Fuck, why are you always so nice? ”
Ayc bites back on his frustration, so he doesn’t yell, too. “I don’t know what you mean.”
“I was there at Creed Castle. I murdered that man, Evander, right in front of you. You’re supposed to hate me, but no matter how cruel I’ve been to you, it’s never mattered. All you’ve ever done is tell jokes or make me desserts or give me a pretty smile or just be so fucking kind.”
Ayc closes his eyes to block out the fury on her face. But she’s there, behind his eyelids, too. He sees her how she looked ten years ago, in Creed Castle, the silver of tears gleaming in her eyes.
“We were twelve, Lora,” he says softly.
“So?”
“So, you were a child . You never should have been there that day.”
He opens his eyes again to find her mouth parted. Her breath shudders as it passes her lips. He’s too far away to feel it, and yet he does, vibrating like a shiver on his skin.
“I’m just saying,” she says, a sharp force in her voice that doesn’t quite match the width in her eyes, “that this would be a lot easier if you weren’t so nice all the damn time.”
“ What would be easier?”
She scoffs and makes a vague gesture between them. “This.”
“And what exactly is this ?”
Lora snaps her mouth shut. Words that she doesn't say and that he cannot fathom play over her expression. Her gaze traces over every line of his face: the slope of his nose, the stubble on his jaw, the curve of his lips. There, they linger.
And linger .
And no. Fuck. She absolutely cannot keep looking at him like this. He's going to lose his fucking mind.
Hope is such a dangerous, painful thing. But for a moment, the space between them doesn’t feel like a chasm. The distance feels manageable, like they could reach across it. Like she is close enough to touch. To kiss.
Her body tilts forward, coming closer.