Chapter 32 Lyra
Lyra
Cold air clamps around my lungs the moment I cross the threshold from Umbraxis into the shadows of the Veilspire. The path ahead of me narrows, swallowed up by firs and pines, branches laden with snow that coats me when the wind stirs.
The unfamiliar horse snorts beneath me, breath steaming. I pat his neck, my fingers already numb even through my gloves. I didn’t take the precautions I should have before I left. The leather tack creaks. “I know. I’m sorry I stole you.”
Kaelen is going to be furious.
The horse snorts again, and I glance around.
“Quiet,” I mutter. I’m not sure who I’m talking to. But Elspeth had said they were ambushed close to the entrance. It’s entirely possible that a trap lies ahead.
And if that’s true, only my Lightbringer features might get me out of it.
As I pass beneath the trees, following Beckett’s instructions, I start to see signs of the encroaching Lightbringer incursion.
Kaelen doesn’t have the numbers to maintain a significant presence here, and my gut grows tight when I see footprints in the churned snow.
They’re too wide, too uniform. The kind of tracks left by disciplined boots and armored weight.
The snapped branches close to the path have been trimmed cleanly instead of hacked, cut back to widen the narrow track in places.
This is preparation.
My stomach knots.
I guide my stolen horse off the main path and into thinner brush, choosing a winding route that will slow me down but keep me out of anyone’s line of sight who might be on the path.
Snow clings to my boots when I dismount briefly to check the ground before I swing back into the saddle, forcing my breathing to stay controlled.
Darian is in here somewhere. And memories of the last time I was in here, the only time, threaten to choke me until I push them away and force myself to breathe.
I slow my horse until he’s only walking, ears flicking and uneasy. Scanning between trunks in the dim light, my eyes strain, and minutes stretch into a tense hour.
The terrain around me jumps from dense, packed forest to uncomfortably open patches of rocky incline and back again, the path that runs alongside narrowing into smaller trails that snake around boulders, pushed to one side for ease of passage.
I pass a cluster of low huts tucked into a dip in the land, and my stomach knots. Whoever was there is long gone. The small structures have been burnt out, the people displaced or worse. Thoughts of Tharn fill my head as I ride past with my eyes averted.
The smear of red against the snow stands out. Not old, darkened blood, but fresh. Bright as a newly-made wound.
My pulse kicks. Sliding off my horse, I leave him loosely tethered to a tree so he can get free if he needs to, covering him with a dark blanket I find in the saddlebags to dull his shape. He shifts, anxious, but stays in place.
Crouching, I touch the blood with a gloved fingertip, feeling it stick to the material. Nearby, a scuffed patch reveals where something heavy has been dragged, not yet covered by the snow. Several pairs of bootprints appear on either side, leading off the trail into the trees.
A lot of them. I count twelve in total.
Moving lower and faster now, I weave between trunks, stepping where snow is already disturbed so I don’t leave any obvious new prints. I keep my hands near my sides, my palms loose and ready.
Thank Aedryn for the antidote.
The forest ahead glows faintly, and I slow. It’s too controlled to be natural, and the light barely filters through the trees here. Luminth, thrown above to cast a light.
I pause behind a thick trunk and lean out, just enough to see.
A clearing opens up between the trees—small, sheltered by rock outcroppings that block some of the wind.
Four Lightbringers stand in a rough half-circle, their golden armor dulled by frost but still unmistakable.
My father’s three-line crest is stamped over their chests.
Between them, on his knees and hands bound, is Darian.
His head is bowed, dark hair falling into his eyes and breathing visible in short, controlled bursts of white air that fill the air. There’s blood at his temple, and his lip is split. But he’s alive.
He’s alive.
Relief hits me so hard that it almost knocks me out of hiding. Then I see the dark stains on the snow around him.
Bodies. I count seven Lightbringers, sprawled near the edge of the clearing. They almost look as if they’re sleeping, no injuries to be seen, until I look closer. The one closest to me has his face turned in my direction, and I recognize him as part of the unit I left Solvandyr with.
His mouth is contorted into something almost grotesque. As if he died screaming.
I nearly trip over the eighth body, hidden between the tree line as I creep closer. This one wears leather.
A Darkwielder shadowscout. Beckett’s partner. Her eyes are open, frozen, staring at nothing. The hole in her chest goes right through. Lowering, I brush my hand against her eyelids, nudging them down and wishing Beckett a painful death.
As I watch, one of the Lightbringers steps forward and grabs Darian’s chin, forcing his head up. Even from here, I can see the bruising along Darian’s jaw, the anger caged in his expression.
The Lightbringer speaks, but the words don’t carry to me. Another stands behind Darian, holding something small and dark between gloved fingers.
Quills.
They’ve dosed him. But not until after he killed seven of them in the fight. Pride surges in my chest. A third Lightbringer—female, lean, and horrifyingly familiar—paces near the edge of the circle with her blade drawn, her posture loose and predatory.
Iliria.
Even at this distance, my skin prickles. Her face is sharpened by the cold, eyes too bright, lips curved.
I remember her hissed words as she had driven the blade into my gut all too well. I remember lying in the snow, staked through the palms, unable to move and waiting for death to find me. The scar against my stomach burns as if it remembers too.
At the far side of the clearing, slightly apart from the others, stands the one person I would have preferred never to see again.
Cindral’s armor is brighter than theirs. Polished more carefully, his cloak perfectly clasped at the shoulder with the precision he learned from my father.
He rode away and left me here. He didn’t care if I lived or died, and all because I pricked at the pride he can’t fucking contain.
Because I said no.
I inhale slowly, taking in the scene again. Four Lightbringers. Darian quilled and bound, possibly injured. Iliria, armed and eager. And Cindral.
Tilting my head, I do what my father taught me, before his lessons turned into cruelty. I look for the angles.
The two unfamiliar Lightbringers have backed away from Darian, directed by Iliria. They stand positioned slightly farther out. Sentries. Their attention is on the forest, scanning for reinforcements.
Sliding around the clearing’s perimeter, I keep to the shadows and use the trunks as my cover, reaching the first sentry from behind.
He’s tall. His shoulders are hunched against the chill, spear held casually in one hand.
He’s speaking quietly to the other sentry, muttering something about Cindral’s plans for Darian that make the other male snort in amusement before they separate again, each taking a different direction for patrol.
I am… not amused.
Lifting my hands, I call my luminth, relieved when I feel no strain from Sera’s healing. But not into a blade. Blades flash. Blades are obvious. Instead, I sculpt my light into a thin filament, almost invisible against the snow’s pale glow. A cord of light, as tight as wire and just as effective.
Stepping forward, I loop it around his throat and yank.
His body jerks. His hands fly up instinctively, fingers scrabbling at the cord that slices into his skin. He tries to gasp, letting out nothing but a wet, shocked wheeze. The cord slices cleanly enough. His body collapses into the snow with a muffled thud, armor clinking.
The second sentry turns at the sound, eyes widening. But I don’t give him time to shout. Flinging my palm out, a narrow spear erupts to life that streaks through the air and punches through the gap beneath his helmet.
There’s no hesitation in my movements. Not this time.
A choked sound escapes him. Then he falls, knees folding first as he crumples to the ground.
Two down.
My heart hammers. No one in the central circle has noticed the sentries’ absence yet. Cindral’s attention is still on Darian, and Iliria is still prowling, her focus on the two of them.
Good.
I crouch behind a fallen log, forcing my breathing to steady, and glance toward Darian. His head is lifted now, jaw clenched. His eyes flick briefly toward the tree line where I wait, scanning.
His gaze catches mine through the trunks, widening before they close. His head drops, then rises again.
And slowly, he shakes his head. Don’t.
The silent plea lands in my chest like a stone. I’m here.
He doesn’t nod. He doesn’t move. But something in his gaze tightens, as if he’s holding on harder, even as his eyes sweep as if he’s searching for any other figures hidden in the trees.
Cindral steps closer to him, boots crunching against the snow.
He says something, and Darian’s lips curl into a bloodstained snarl.
Iliria laughs. A bright, delighted sound that makes my skin crawl.
Slipping out from behind the log, I circle to the opposite side so my approach comes from behind their small group. The clearing’s edge is littered with footprints and blood. Moving carefully, I step where the snow is ruined so my own prints vanish into the mess they’ve already made.
I’m close enough now to hear them talk. Cindral’s voice cuts over Iliria, smooth as oil and just as palatable. “He’s valuable,” he says tightly. “The only dreamwalker, and a Council member. Beckett confirmed it. And I’m in no mood to waste gifts, unlike some people.”