47. Yara
YARA
Warmth envelops me at the sight of Seren, blurred through my failing eyes.
Her wet, grey tunic is torn in places, and hangs haphazardly from her thin frame.
She’s even smaller than I remember, or perhaps her journey has been a heavier weight than I expected.
Dirt smudges her cheeks and her hair hangs limp.
She looks remarkably the same, except those eyes. Veiled be my sight—those are Nyx’s.
As if peering through frosted glass; the murky violet of her gaze shines bright against the black of her pupils, the veins on the sclera pulsing with a bruised light. I edge closer, desperate for a better view. My breath hitches.
The Lightborne’s thoughts churn nearby, a bitter tang as he learns his true purpose. I leave him to his unwinding and turn to speak with Seren.
My knobbly hands feel for the contours of her face; the cheekbones are sharper than they once were, the hollow of her eyes sinking deeper than before. I catalogue the damage as if it were weather, not a storm I helped summon.
“My girl,” I whisper, touching her forehead with my own. “I still can’t believe you found us.”
She pulls back. A flicker of cold uncertainty marks her features. She starts to speak, then stops, the silence between us like dense, unspun wool.
“It’s okay, child. Speak the words your heart can’t voice.”
“I—I don’t understand. Why haven’t you told me?” her voice quivers, a thin, breaking reed. “We’ve known each other for years.”
“My dear, sweet girl,” I say, cupping her cheek. Her skin feels of fading summer, the winter chill creeping in the closer to Nyx she becomes. “It was not your time to survive the truth.”
“What do you mean?” she breathes.
“Only through death, can we be reborn.” A muscle feathers in her jaw, ticking faster with every passing second the silence lingers.
“You mean…Sylas’ death?” Her voice climbs an octave, straining like a wire about to snap.
“Love is the sharpest knife the prophecy owns,” I remove my hand, tucking it into the stiff silence of my robe.
“So you mean—” she starts, her voice catching, the words unraveling with a pained urgency. “—his entire life was just…being a sacrificial lamb?”
I look toward the ceiling, absorbing the strength from the Divine Mother’s rune. “His story was written in an ink that fades to dust. The prophecy required a sacrifice that would be your undoing, just like it did with your making. But only when the time was right.”
My gaze returns to Seren. Her brows are deep, furrowed canyons of confusion, but her eyes are narrowed with a white-hot rage.
“You supplied me with the tonics to keep him alive—only to decide when he was allowed to die?”
“It is the bitter truth we must swallow, my child.” My hand reaches for her face once more, but she pulls away, her movement a piercing, discordant snap. “Sorrow is irrelevant when fate is precise.”
Her hands flail—a silent scream of frustration written in the air. “This—” she gestures to the cavern. “—this prophecy has led me back here for what? What must I do to get my freedom back?”
“You must step into the shrine and surrender. Willingness is the only offering the Mother cannot refuse.”
“That’s it? That’s all I have to do?”
“Yes. But first—” I turn toward the glassy surface of the pool. “I must summon the dais.”
The Lightborne grabs Seren by the arm, pulling her toward him. I take a step back, granting them the illusion of privacy. Even now, he thinks whatever is unfolding between them can interrupt prophecy. A futile gesture that my hearing doesn’t miss.
“Seren—” he murmurs. “—is this what you want?”
A sigh. “I’m tired of being who I am. I don’t want to be chosen anymore,” she whispers, her voice dripping in exhaustion. “I just want to be left.”
She turns, her footsteps crunching like bone over stones as her silhouette draws closer.
“Then let us finish what was started.”