25. Cake and Rain | Lyra
It was night when Lyra finally managed to open her eyes.
Nerida had fallen asleep on a makeshift hammock beside her large shell bed. Her sister appeared serene in her sleep, but tiny lines creased her forehead as if she were thinking even in her sleep.
A faint glow seeped from the tentacles, casting her room in an ambient light, but shadows danced along the walls.
It was pitch-black outside the small window.
“Nerida,” Lyra’s voice croaked. Her throat was raw as if she had swollen sea urchin spines.
Nerida blinked a single eye open before gasping and sitting up quickly.
“You’re awake,” she breathed, the lines on her face dissolving almost instantly. “How do you feel?”
She clasped Lyra’s hand and leaned towards her. It was strange, the comfort Lyra felt just by a single hand.
“Strange,” Lyra’s reply was still raspy. “How long was I out?”
“It’s been a few days. What feels strange?”
Nerida scrutinized Lyra’s face, and her lips thinned.
Lyra rubbed her eyes and brushed the hair out of her face.
Each movement felt like a monumental task. Her limbs not entirely her own yet.
“Everything feels heavy, even my tongue,” Lyra replied.
The words came out so very slow. She also struggled to recount the last couple of days. Had she dreamt it all? Or was any of it real?
“Have you been here the whole time?”
Nerida shrugged. “I took turns with the others.”
Others?
Lyra searched her memory for any hint of who else had been here, but she couldn’t recall a thing. Her mind was a trench of utter blackness.
She didn’t know how far down it stretched.
“Who?” Lyra asked, prying her tongue from the roof of her mouth.
“Thalassa, Cora, Marmoris,” Nerida ticked off her fingers. “And when they were called away, one of the ladies—” Nerida snapped her fingers as if trying to remember her name. “It starts with an M.”
Lyra felt the beginnings of a smile. “Marina.”
Nerida grinned in return. “That’s the one. Lovely thing.”
Lyra’s nod was automatic.
“Do you remember anything?”
The smile fell away from Nerida’s face, and a frown tugged her lips down.
Lyra stilled, her eyes sliding closed as she worked backward. “I was at a council meeting.”
Nerida hummed in agreement. “You were.”
There were flashes of fear. It tightened the spaces between her ribs. Then the memories began pouring in.
A lump bloomed in her throat, and it was difficult to speak around it. Lyra tried to swallow it down.
“I was running out of options.” She shook her head as if she could shake the images out and away from her. “I didn’t have a choice. I needed them to believe me.” Her voice came out wrong, all high-pitched and desperate.
Nerida squeezed her hand, offering comfort. “About your bargain?”
Lyra’s eyes stung as they widened. “You know?”
“I know everything, baby sister.”
Something tickled at the back of Lyra’s mind, a memory that was fluttering towards the surface of the abyss.
“You’re the story keeper,” Lyra breathed.
A twinkle entered Nerida’s eyes, and a knowing smile stretched her lips wide. “You were listening.”
Lyra huffed a breath as she rolled her eyes. “It’s not like I had a choice.”
Days passed in a monotony of long moments of silence followed by brief moments of Nerida’s presence. Her sister could only manage to stop by for short visits under the guise of concern for Lyra’s health.
Drystan had visited once.
But he hadn’t spoken to her, hadn’t even crossed the threshold.
Fang had held open the door, just long enough for Drystan to get a glimpse of her curled up by her window before he shut it, and she was alone again.
Nerida brought pieces of information with her that she had collected from Ishmael with each visit. Apparently, the councilors were still reeling from their free will being taken away.
Lir wanted her executed, but the others were split. Some were trying to find a way to use her magic for their gain, while others were trying to get around her command.
But none were trying to find a way to help her complete her bargain—except Drystan.
Each meeting, he pressed and prodded for any information they could gather that would help her.
And each time they turned up empty-handed.
Lyra felt her frustration grow.
If she had only known more about how to wield her magic, then she could have chosen better words. Words that would have made them believe and help quickly.
But the magic always slipped between her fingers too fast, and no matter how much she tried to stretch it, she couldn’t. It was like trying to keep water from spilling between your fingers.
“I think you’ve recovered enough. We could work on your magic today.”
Nerida was perched on the stool beside Lyra’s window. Her hair was loosely pulled up into a low bun instead of the tight, high bun she usually wore.
She drummed her fingers against her tail as she watched Lyra’s face for a reaction.
Lyra felt the blood drain from her face.
“Try to graze it, but don’t pluck it,” Nerida clarified with a smirk.
Lyra reclined against the massive shell of her bed. “I nearly died last time.”
It wasn’t a refusal, but her fear was apparent.
Nerida swiveled on the stool to fully face her sister. She crossed her arms over her chest.
“I don’t want you to wield it, just tell me the shape of it—the feel.” She could sense Lyra’s hesitation. “You must complete the bargain.”
“I know,” Lyra groaned.
“Time is running out,” Nerida snapped, her frustration also cresting. “With so much out of your control, I figured this small bit of it would at least draw your interest.”
Lyra scowled at her sister. The goading was apparent, but it worked.
It worked just like Wilder’s prodding of her had.
The only comfort she found of late was thinking of him, of her friends.
Screwing her eyes shut, she thought of his face as she reached for her magic. She moved with careful slowness as if she were approaching a cornered animal.
Bile churned in her stomach, and she tried to ease it with slow breaths.
That’s it. Gently.
The mysterious voice in her mind crooned.
It sounded primordial—infinite—almost.
Lyra felt the thread beneath her fingertips. It warmed beneath her touch, and she could feel the heat radiating from her chest. Her face relaxed, and her hands rose at her sides.
“Good … now release it,” Nerida said.
A pang slit across her side, right between her ribs. It had her recoiling from the thread of her magic and blinking her eyes open.
“Very good, Lyra,” Nerida crooned. “It’s like building a muscle.”
Lyra inhaled deeply and twisted to the side, trying to stretch the twinge out. “I’m fatigued, but I haven’t moved,” she complained.
Nerida tapped the side of her head. “It’s still hard work.”
Lyra nodded and stretched her arms out in front of her. She pushed and pulled her hands against themselves.
The numbness was there again, but not as strong as it had been when she had actually wielded it.
“There’s something else we need to speak about,” Nerida began with a grimace.
Lyra didn’t like the sound of that, or the look on Nerida’s face.
“There’s been … pressure from Aegir about your wedding.”
Annoyance shot through Lyra’s veins and loosened her tongue, but Nerida held up a hand, stopping her from replying.
“Look, I know how you feel, but marrying Drystan will protect you.”
“Protect me?” Lyra snapped. “He’s a monster!”
Nerida stayed calm as she clasped her hands in her lap.
“I know you’re smart enough to realize Aegir has made an enemy out of you. If he finds out about the bargain, he won’t ask questions—he’ll kill you.”
Lyra didn’t have a reply to that.
Aegir had made his dislike of her more than obvious. And until Drystan was officially crowned, there was nothing he could do.
“He’s put off telling you, but they’ve set your wedding date.”
Red was everywhere.
Her sight was tinged with it, her blood pulsed with it, and her mind conjured up images of her spilling Drystan’s blood throughout this very room.
“When?” Lyra hissed through clenched teeth.
Nerida exhaled. “It sounded like he had no choice.”
“He’s a male—of course he had a choice!” Lyra snapped.
Nerida looked down at her hands. “He set the day as far away as he could.”
“How chivalrous of him to give me more time to dread the end of my life.”
Nerida chewed on her bottom lip, but stayed quiet as Lyra processed what had just been dropped in her lap.
Lyra really was running out of time now.
She had to break this bargain before her freedom was ripped away from her. Her throat burned as bile rose.
She couldn’t do it. She could not marry him.
“When?” Lyra asked again.
Nerida met her gaze, her eyes softening. “Summer equinox. At the Andia Temple. It should be restored by then.”
That gave her a little less than a month if she was correct in her assumption. The water had begun to warm over the last couple of days, hinting at summer’s arrival.
But the last half of Nerida’s sentence finally clicked.
“Restored?”
Nerida nodded. “There was another earthquake shortly after your incident. It destroyed part of a mural, and they’ve been working to repair it. Adamaris left today to check on their progress.”
“Do we know when he is due to return?”
“No, and Ishmael said it was under strange circumstances that Adamaris had left at all. Something about an acolyte,” she shrugged.
“Who knows,” Lyra replied, pressing her fingertips to her temples. “Drystan probably bribed them to speed up the process so he can finally claim the throne.”
“That would explain Aegir’s vicious mood,” Nerida said.
Lyra looked up quickly, dropping her hands to her sides. “Vicious?”
Nerida rolled her eyes and leaned back in the chair. “There’s been more mermaids taken under the guise of wrongdoing. The ceremony was longer than usual while you were unconscious.”
Of course he had. Aegir was certainly the kind of male to flex his control when his emotions were out of his grip.
“How bad?” Lyra asked, dreading the answer.
“Only a few are expected to survive.”
Rage like a tsunami rose up in Lyra, the golden thread of her magic flaring bright.
Her eyes screwed shut, and her hands shook. She pressed her talons into her palm, squeezing them tighter to staunch her wrath.
“We must do something,” she breathed, trying her hardest to release the swell of fury.
“We are, sister. The more control you have over your magic, the better. Besides, if you can’t master this, you’ll die to the bargain, leaving us to weather the end of the world alone.”
There was a slight edge to Nerida’s humor that reminded Lyra of Maelys. She felt an ache in the hollow of her chest, thinking about her friend.
Maelys, too, would have been here day in and day out helping Lyra with her magic, probably with a tray of food as well.
“Have you ever heard of cake?” Lyra asked.
Nerida’s brows pinched in the center as she tapped a finger to her chin. “Is that something you learned on land?”
Lyra grinned and leaned towards her sister. “It’s food. The best food the land has to offer. It’s …” her mouth watered, trying to figure out how best to explain the cake she had inhaled every chance she got. “Sweet and decadent.”
Nerida’s eyes bulged. “Like sea fruit?”
“Better,” Lyra breathed. “It’s light and fluffy. It practically melts in your mouth.”
“I would very much like to try that,” Nerida said with a nod.
“Everyone should. There are so many things like that on land.” Lyra closed her eyes and remembered the food, the sounds, the feel of fresh air on her skin. “When it rains?—”
Nerida cocked her head to the side.
“It’s a weather phenomenon on land.”
“Oh, that’s right,” Nerida hummed.
“When it rains, the water is so delicate it’s like hundreds of gentle kisses.”
Nerida giggled. “You must miss it.”
Lyra rubbed a hand down the scales of her tail, feeling the rough and smooth texture of each one.
“I do. I had friends there, too. True friends who cared.”
Nerida reached across the empty space between them and placed a hand atop Lyra’s. “You have sisters here. Sisters who care.”
A slow smile tugged at the corner of Lyra’s lips before she nodded and gripped her sister’s hand back.
She remembered the words Nerida had spoken before, that Lyra meant something to her, to all of them.
That Lyra was worth their lives.
It eased the jagged edge of sorrow that had ripped her chest wide open.
“I need to break the bargain so that you might one day eat cake.”
Nerida grinned, showing an exquisite row of sharp teeth.
“I’ve been reading up more on bargains, and I think I might have actually come across a helpful text, but it’s been difficult to decode. It’s in an ancient dialect.”
“I’m sure if anyone could figure it out, it’s you,” Lyra said.
A breath worked its way out of Nerida’s chest as she cast her gaze around Lyra’s room.
“Let us hope it doesn’t come too late.”