Chapter 36 Lyra
Lyra
Acluster. Six of them, maybe eight, ranging from toddlers to perhaps eight years old.
One girl holds a stick, pretending it’s a sword and hopping around dramatically. A boy aged about five sits cross-legged, concentrating fiercely as he stacks pebbles into a tower.
My brain stalls.
I haven’t seen a single Darkwielder child since arriving here. Not in the training yards, nor in the halls. And after Valcor’s outburst at dinner, and Sera’s injuries…
“I didn’t think there were any children here.” My eyes prickle, and I don’t understand why.
But they are here. Carefully hidden and guarded beneath the protection of Umbraxis, hidden like a beating heart beneath the castle walls.
A woman stands near the hearth, stirring a pot and fending away the little hands that reach for her. Her hair grays at the temples, her face lined with years but her hands strong and capable. Dark, almost black eyes narrow instantly, assessing me.
Darian steps in, his posture wary but respectful. “Neela.”
“Darian.” Her tone is dry, but it’s not unkind. Her gaze flicks to my hair before traveling on to my eyes. “So, this is her.”
I swallow. “Lyra.”
Neela snorts softly. “I know who you are, well enough.” She sets the spoon down and wipes her hands on her apron. “I also know why you haven’t been brought down here until now.”
I glance at Darian, but he’s watching the children. There’s a peace in his face I haven’t seen since I’ve been here.
A little girl spots him and squeals. “Darian!”
She launches herself at him, arms flinging around his waist. Darian bends automatically, hands gentle as he lifts her.
“Rosen,” he murmurs, voice warm. “You’ve grown.”
She beams, then looks past him at me. Her eyes widen. “Who’s that?”
Before Darian can answer, three more children have gathered, staring at me with open curiosity. One whispers. “It’s a witch.”
A pause. And then all of them scatter, screaming wildly with what I’m not sure is terror or delight. Rosen pushes against Darian until he lets her down so she can join in.
I stand stiffly, heat rising up my neck. A small hand tugs on mine, and I look down at Rosen's face.
“You have to chase us,” she whispers loudly. “And make noises.”
My eyes flicker to Darian. He looks as if he’s trying not to laugh. Neela watches us like a hawk.
“We don’t have time for gawking,” she says sharply, but there’s no real bite in her tone. “If you’re bringing her, Darian, you’re responsible.”
My stomach twists. “Darian… why—”
I don’t understand. I glance around again, at the children, at the carefully controlled warmth and bright surroundings. “Why are they here?”
Darian’s expression tightens, the softness folding back into something guarded. He gestures subtly toward the still-screaming group. “Because there aren’t many left.”
My breath catches. “Left?”
Neela answers instead, her voice blunt. “The witches learned a long time ago that killing a Darkwielder isn’t easy. But cutting them is.”
Her eyes flick to me. “They do it to women most often. You understand why.”
My mouth goes dry.
Neela continues. “Over time, there were fewer births. Fewer survivors. Fewer parents. War doesn’t make for raising babies. Now we have less than a dozen children in the entire castle. These are all we have left.”
The words hit like a blow. Less than a dozen. The future of Umbraxis, reduced to a handful of small bodies playing on stone floors.
“And you hide them,” I whisper.
Darian nods. “The parents who are still alive spend the most time here. We rotate sentries. Everybody volunteers.” His eyes flick to the toys that line the shelves. “Vaelion would target them if he knew.”
Neela’s mouth tightens. “They’d make a spectacle of it,” she says. “To break what’s left of us.”
My stomach churns. A small boy with dark curls wanders closer to Darian, watching him silently. He’s not racing around like the others.
Darian’s face shifts again. It brightens, something deeply protective breaking through.
The boy reaches out and tugs on his sleeve. “You came back,” he says. His voice is small. Almost as small as him.
“I did.” But the words are quiet.
The boy’s gaze slides to me. “Is she… safe?”
My throat tightens. Safe. As if I’m a thing that might explode. Darian crouches so he’s level with the boy’s face. “Yes,” he says firmly. “She’s safe. But you shouldn’t touch her. Not until you have more control over when you read.”
Oh.
The boy studies me with solemn, too-old, amethyst eyes, the dark shadows beneath them almost a mirror of what I see in Darian’s face. Then he nods once, as if making a decision. “I don’t have good control yet.”
“Lyra,” Darian says softly. “This is Jace.”
I stare at Darian, and his gaze meets mine with a weight that makes my skin prickle.
“I thought you were the last,” I whisper.
The last dreamwalker.
Except he’s not, because Jace is here, with deep purple eyes and a heaviness in his face that mirrors Darian almost exactly.
“So did I.” His throat bobs. “But dreamwalkers receive their erevas early.”
Jace points at my hair. “It’s bright,” he declares. “Like a candle.”
I have rarely been around children. In Solvandyr, I saw them at ceremonies from my window, tidy and distant and polished like jewels. “Thank you.”
Darian looks as if he’s hiding a smile at my awkwardness.
Rosen runs up to me, holding a cloth doll. Several others edge in behind her, as if she’s the ringleader. “Can you make light with your hands?” she asks bluntly. “Like the witches do?”
I hesitate. “Yes.”
Her eyes widen. “Can I see it?”
Opening my palm, I let the glassreavers flicker to life once more. Excitement breaks out as they flow from my palm, filling the room with glowing, fluttering wings, and Rosen’s eyes widen.
It reminds me of the little girl in Solvandyr. And her father. I swallow, but I keep them flowing until dozens fill the air, Rosen and her friends trying to catch them.
Jace climbs onto a cushion near the hearth, eyeing the glassreavers. I let one flutter down, landing on his knee, and he gently runs his finger over the curve of its wing, his face fascinated.
Darian nudges me gently. “Sit,” he murmurs.
I sink down onto the cushion beside him, my knees drawn in. Jace leans closer, staring at my eyes. “They’re pretty,” he declares, his eyes sliding to Darian. “Can I touch her hair?”
Darian settles on the floor across from us. “As long as it’s not skin, remember? And only if Lyra agrees.”
Jace frowns, as if concentrating. At my nod, he reaches out and touches the end of my braid, his fingers threading through it with childish curiosity. “It’s soft.”
I go very still, unsure what to do with a small hand rootling around in my hair.
Darian sits on the floor across from us, his posture relaxed. The children gravitate toward him. One almost climbs onto his back like he’s a horse. Another leans against his shoulder.
And some of them come to me. I sit stiffly at first, unsure where to put my hands and how to speak as little hands play with my hair.
At one point, Rosen climbs into my lap without warning, her small body warm and heavy and her dark hair scented with the warm bread that Neela passes around.
She leans her head against my chest like it’s the most natural thing in the world.
“You look like you’ve never held a child before,” Neela says bluntly when she passes. She clicks her tongue. “She won’t bite you.”
Swallowing, I glance at Darian where he kneels beside Jace, helping him build a tower of pebbles. Jace’s tongue sticks out in concentration.
Looking down, I carefully run my hand over Rosen’s hair. My heart tightens, squeezes, and the back of my eyes grow hot.
“What will happen to them?” I ask Darian when we slip out, the children corralled by Neela when they started falling asleep around us. “When the Lightbringers come?”
My stomach is churning. He stops in the hall and leans against the wall.
“There’s a tunnel that leads from here to outside the walls, on the Gloam side.
Neela will evacuate them out into the Barren Lands.
The room next to that one holds supplies, ready and packed.
Their parents will go with them, and a few others. ”
I lean beside him. “Kaelen told me there’s nothing in the Barren Lands. He said you’d scouted it.”
“We did.” His voice is heavy. “But it’s still a chance they won’t get here.”
I study my hands. I can still feel Rosen’s weight against my chest, the small huffs of her breath. “Darian—”
“It’s the only chance we can give them, Lyra.” He breathes in, deep and low and pained. “The rest of us, anyone who’s left behind, will hold Vaelion off for as long as we can to give them a chance. That’s all we care about.”
It’s an impossible chance of survival. And none at all for those who remain to fight. “What if they can’t find anywhere?”
Those lands are barren, and empty, and those children are so small.
“That’s why they haven’t left yet.” His hand rubs at his chest. “Not until they have to. But a small chance is still better than no chance at all.”
I swallow. “Jace?”
“No relation.” He half-smiles at my surprise. “As far as I know. Perhaps there’s a connection somewhere, but it must be far back enough for us to find no record of it. I’ve tried to teach him as much as I can. Neela has more information, notes I’ve made to share with him as he grows older.”
“His parents?” When Darian only shakes his head, my heart grows heavier still. “How do you bear it?”
This… this pain.
“This is not the end.” My cheeks are wet when he tips my face up.
Darian studies me, his eyes dark and his mouth pressed together.
When he tugs me forward, I go willingly, hiding my face in his chest. His words brush my ear as his arms close around me.
“We will fight, and fall, and Erevan will take us. But they will survive, Lyra. We have to believe that. Jace and Rosen, and the others will carry on in a small corner of the world, and we’ll survive in the stories they tell and the memories they share. And that’s enough.”
Because it has to be.
Sniffing, I swipe my hands under my eyes and look up at him. “I'm glad you didn’t die last night.”
He lets out a choked laugh. My hand brushes against the dark stubble on his face. Edging toward a beard, as if he hasn’t bothered shaving it with a blade. “I mean it, Darian. You would have been missed.”
He tilts his head. “Would you have missed me, Lyra Vaelion?”
He sounds amused, but his eyes are endlessly deep as he searches my face.
“Yes,” I breathe. “Very much.”
Leaning up, I brush my lips over his. Once, twice. Darian inhales beneath the brief touch, before his mouth firms against mine and his hands raise up to my face.
“Lyra.” He whispers my name as we both pull free, his thumbs stroking my cheeks. “I wish we had met sooner.”
“Better than not meeting at all.” I step back, my cheeks heating. “And I’m glad that I know you now.”
The words don’t feel like enough for what I’m beginning to feel when I think of him. Of them. All three of them.
Darian slips his hand back into mine as we make our way back up, to the main castle.
And he doesn’t let go.