Chapter 49 Lyra
Lyra
The first thing I see is the gold.
It flows through the narrow entrance of the Veilspire pass like blood.
Bright, relentless, spilling down across the open space in front of us.
Snow clings to the jagged peaks of the mountain range behind.
For a single heartbeat, there is only cold, and light, and the distant, rhythmic flash of armor catching the bright sun above our heads.
My breath makes small clouds of white as I keep my breathing steady.
Beside me, Darian shifts. Kaelen stands beside him, his jaw a solid line and his eyes like flint as he stares out toward the Lightbringer army that marches on Umbraxis.
Eres slips his hand into mine, squeezing it.
Even his mouth is turned down, tight at the corners.
He wears the same leather fighting uniform as the rest of us, though it looks wrong on him in a way that makes my chest ache.
He should be in his worn, soft shirts, his belt wrapped around his waist. The sight of it there, pressed against dark leather, is still a comfort as I turn back to the advancing army.
There is no escaping this.
Then the sound reaches us. Not a single noise, but the cacophony of many, braided together into something that turns my stomach.
The heavy, solid beat of boots against the packed ground.
The clink and scrape of metal plates shifting.
The low roar of voices carry on the breeze toward us, like an oncoming storm.
A horn ripples across the sky, low, and loud, and everywhere at once.
“How many?” Eres says quietly.
On his other side, Eldritch clears his throat. His eyes scan the numbers, but they keep coming. “Two. Maybe three thousand.”
Against one hundred and sixty-eight. My breathing speeds up as Darian’s hand brushes my cheek. “It won’t be as fast as you think. We’re not powerless.”
But neither are they.
We watch in silence as the endless streams split. Between them, a mounted cluster rides forward, the breath of the horses steaming in the cold air. And in the center, framed by banners that glitter with the Solvandyr crest—three vertical lines, stark and clean and unmistakable—I see him.
My father sits atop his horse like he was born fused to it. Even at this distance, I recognize the set of his shoulders, the way he angles his head to the person riding beside him.
My eyes sweep the line, straining, but I recognize few others. Cindral is dead, and Iliria with him. The thought brings a sense of sick satisfaction to my stomach. At least he won’t be here to see this.
I can’t see Reena.
My pulse beats behind my ribs, something between grief and fury.
“Overcompensating,” Darian mutters. “Definitely overcompensating.”
Kaelen snorts, but says nothing. Compared to my father, he barely stands out. He wears nothing to mark him as anything other than a Darkwielder male. The wind tugs at his dark hair, and he turns, catching my eye. “It’s not too late.”
My feet stay where they are. “I’ve made my choice.”
And I have no regrets. Only a growing anger at my father’s desperate, endless need to demonstrate his power.
One hundred and eighty-six Darkwielders stand in a line, spread across the ground in a shallow arc facing the flood of gold.
Just us.
I look down the row, picking out individual faces. Sera. Valcor stands on one side, and Elspeth on the other. Nythen, a few heads down from them. His shadows writhe around his body, stretching out far beyond anybody else’s in the line, and I have to look away.
There are no units here. Those who fight stand beside their family, their friends. Further down, I see Weslyn, his face stark and pale as he grips a sword in shaking hands.
The wind changes. It carries the metallic scent of the army closer.
I look again at my father. There was a time that I would have given anything to be the one at his side. To wear golden, gleaming armor and his crest over my heart, believing that the people I now stand beside were nothing more than an evil that could be eradicated like rot.
Now, he would kill me on sight for daring to stand here with them.
Kaelen murmurs to Darian, and I look over as they exchange places. Kaelen’s hand brushes the back of mine, a question and an anchor all at once. When I glance at him, his eyes flick to my face before moving away, scanning the field with dark-lidded eyes. Planning.
My enemy. All three of them, these men who found me and built me into someone more than a nameless, faceless Lightbringer.
Our line shifts. I hear the faint whisper of steel as weapons are pulled out, pointed and ready by those who don’t have the erevas to use for fighting. The icy air sweeps into my lungs when I breathe in, and for once I embrace it. “Stay close?”
“Until the end.” Eres’s hand finds mine again. This time, he doesn’t let go. Darian and Kaelen repeat the words like a prayer, and I do the same.
Until the end.
I want to turn. I want to press my forehead to each of theirs. I want to kiss Darian like I might never taste him again, to cup Eres’s face in my hands and memorize the softness there, to let Kaelen drag me into his arms and let me hide my face from what’s to come.
Instead, I breathe.
Until the end.
Across the field, the Lightbringers slow. Their front ranks spread into formation with flawless, practiced precision. The gold becomes less like a river, and more like a net being cast. Banners rise up, the three-line crest repeating itself until it feels as though my vision is branded with it.
A horn sounds, the echo spreading across the ranks as they fall still. Our line does the same.
Waiting.
My father lifts his arm.
The gesture is small from this distance, but I know it. I know every fraction of it, every angle. It’s the same he used when I was a child. He would point out targets across the training grounds, his voice calm as he taught me how to kill.
His arm falls.
And the Lightbringers surge.