Chapter 25 Kaelen
Kaelen
Ifeel it before I see it as Eres and I race down the steps.
Darian’s erevas hums in the air, cold and oppressive, the kind that presses against the skull rather than the skin.
Dreamwalker power always feels like I’m standing too close to a cliff edge on a pitch-black night, never quite sure where the edge is.
Valcor is pressed against the wall. His hands claw at nothing, his eyes wide and unfocused as his breath comes in wet, panicked gasps.
Nythen stands a few paces away, rigid as a statue and his jaw locked.
His pupils have blown so wide that there’s almost no color left in his gaze at all.
Both of them look like drowning men in invisible water.
And on the floor—
Lyra.
Curled on her side like she’s trying to disappear into the stone.
One arm over her head, knees drawn tight.
Her hair is spread across the filthy floor, pale and bright and so wrong in this place that my chest tightens painfully as Darian leans over her, his body covering hers as if he’s guarding her.
For a fraction of a second, the world narrows to a single, unbearable point.
“Lyra,” Eres breathes, already dropping to his knees beside her. His healer’s focus snaps into place like armor, the anger in his eyes buried beneath the need to fix. “Lyra, can you hear me?”
Darian crouches on her other side, one hand hovering near her shoulder, the other clenched tight as he keeps his grip on their minds. His eyes are too bright, his jaw locked hard enough I can see the muscle jumping. As if he’s lost to his own nightmares, not just forcing them on him.
“I’ve got them,” he says hoarsely, not looking away from Lyra. “They won’t move. They can’t see.”
“Good,” I snarl, and my voice echoes off the stone.
I kneel opposite Eres, my erevas spilling forward instinctively and wrapping the space around Lyra in something darker and safer.
I don’t touch her yet. She looks so fucking small. I’m afraid that if I do, and if she breaks, something in me will break wide open too.
Eres checks her pulse, her pupils, the line of her jaw.
“She’s conscious,” he murmurs. “Shock. Cold. No obvious physical injuries.”
Shock. The word lands like a blade between my ribs.
Lyra doesn’t fight when Eres gently shifts her arm. She doesn’t flinch when his fingers brush her wrist. She just lies there, eyes open but distant and her breathing shallow. There’s no fire left in her eyes, I realize. As if it’s been extinguished, water tossed over a flame.
Something cold coils in my gut as I turn to them. “What did they do to her?”
Valcor lets out a strangled sound that might be my name. Nythen doesn’t react at all.
“Enough,” Darian says flatly. “Enough that they’re going to remember the consequences.”
Good.
I glance at Valcor first, assessing. He’s shaking, sweat slick on his brow despite the cold. He looks older like this. Smaller.
“Release Valcor,” I say to Darian.
Darian stiffens. “Kaelen—”
“Release him,” I repeat. “Now.”
Darian hesitates, then exhales sharply and pulls his hand back. Valcor collapses to his knees with a choked sob, hands clutching at his head as if trying to hold it together. His eyes refocus slowly, horrified clarity bleeding back in. He looks at Lyra on the floor. Then at me.
“I tried to stop it,” he blurts hoarsely. “I tried.”
“The council ruled that she was not to be interrogated,” I snap, my fury boiling over. “Because information gained through torture is not to be trusted.”
A sob catches in his throat. “I wanted to find something to help Sera. To help all of us.”
“And did you?” Eres says tightly without turning around. “Was it worth it, Valcor? Are you proud of this, when you have a daughter the same age?”
His face crumples. “Nothing. She didn’t know anything, and I tried to stop it.”
Darian nods when I look at him. “Only because he was scared.”
My gaze slides to Nythen. He’s still standing, still locked inside Darian’s nightmare, chest barely rising. He looks untouched by fear at all, and that angers me more than Valcor’s collapse.
“Bring Lyra,” I say coldly. “Nythen remains here until I decide what to do with him.”
When Eres holds up a quill, I nod. He jabs it into Nythen’s neck, and the male only twitches. Gripping Valcor by the neck, I throw him out of the cell. “Get out.”
His footsteps echo away as I bend down. “I’ll carry her. Eres, lock the door.”
When he doesn’t move, I turn my head. “Darian. You’re coming with us.”
He follows as if he’s in a trance. I hear a choked grunt from the cell as he tears his erevas free from Nythen, ripping the nightmares away and leaving him in there.
"Kaelen," Nythen says hoarsely. His hand hits the bars. "Let me out, boy."
He got what he wanted. I ignore him.
Lyra stirs faintly, her head tipping toward my chest. Her eyes flicker up to my face, unfocused. “Wielder.”
“Witch.” I tighten my hold without thinking. “I’ve got you. You’re safe.”
Eres and Darian flank us silently as we walk toward the castle.
Regret gnaws as we climb up the stairs. She should never have been down there.
I should never have allowed her to remain vulnerable to Nythen.
I trusted he would listen to the council’s ruling.
I only put guards on her to watch for any unexpected issues.
This happened under my watch.
By the time we reach my rooms, Lyra is awake but quiet, her body stiff with cold as I set her down gently on the bed and move to the fireplace.
Dropping to one knee, I coax the flames until the wood catches and heat blooms out.
She feels the cold. And her skin was like ice.
My lips press together as I build the fire higher than necessary.
When I turn back, Eres has already draped a blanket over Lyra’s shoulders. He checks her hands, her face, murmuring reassurances that she doesn’t respond to.
Darian… I point at the bed. “Sit, before you fall.”
Lyra sits beside him quietly. She draws her knees up, staring into the flames. She doesn’t look at me, and something in my chest tightens painfully.
I crouch in front of her, careful not to crowd her. “Witch,” I say softly.
Her gaze flickers toward me. It doesn’t feel like an insult anymore.
“You’re staying here tonight,” I tell her. “With us. If… if you’re alright with that. Or if you want your own room.”
She doesn’t argue, and somehow that scares me more than if she had.
“Nobody will touch you again,” I say, my throat dry. “I don’t care who they are. That should not have happened, and it’s my failure.”
I failed her, just like I’m failing everyone else. Her fingers curl tighter in the blanket.
“I’m sorry,” I add, and the words scrape like broken glass in my throat.
When Lyra finally lifts her head, her eyes are tired. Distant. But I catch a glimmer of burning coals, her witch-fire dimmed but not extinguished. “I didn’t tell them. About my father.”
I nod. “I know.”
Truthfully, I wouldn’t have cared if she had. Not when I know exactly how Nythen’s interrogations work. But knowing doesn’t ease the fear that clawed through me when I saw her on that floor.
I stay crouched in front of the fire while Eres fusses, Darian sits silently on her other side, and Lyra stares into the flames.
Just in case she breaks. If she needs anything. And Darian too, though he avoids my gaze.
And that's where we stay, for the rest of the night.