Chapter 57 #2
“So that’s what I was for phases. Small. Quiet.” She lifts her hand, gently pinching the lark’s beak between her fingers, trying to press the crimps free. “The first time I truly screamed with every bit of my being was”—she glances at me, then quickly drops her gaze again—“twenty-three phases ago.”
She presents the words like a confession. Like they’ve been sitting on her chest for too long.
“I screamed for him.” She gestures to the stone upon her brow. “Well, mainly.”
My frown deepens. “You screamed for the God of Aether?”
“Caelis,” she corrects with a regal sternness. “That’s his name. Caelis.”
I nod. Repeat the name back to her. Wonder if this place might’ve splintered her mind. Did Arkyn also have hers torn through? It can send some folk irreparably mad if not done delicately. Perhaps she fought harder than I did? Or didn’t sit still enough?
“And did he come, Kyzari? Did Caelis come?”
“For a little while, yes …”
It feels like I’m being handed some sort of riddle that’s hard to make heads or tails of, my bruised brain thumping so hard I’m not sure it’s safe to try.
“Why did you scream?”
Again, she tries to press the crimps from its beak. “Because Pah needed favor with Bothaim, and I was the bounty.”
Oh, no.
Kyzari, no …
“I was quiet, just like Pah instructed. Until after.”
My guts squirm.
“The Grand Chancellor was not,” she continues, her face hard, merciless—such a contrast to the Kyzari I thought I knew. “Not the first time. Nor the second. The third.”
“You—”
“Yes.” She meets my eyes, her own frosted over. She’s never looked more like her mah than she does right now. “I did my duty as the great Tyroth Vaegor’s daughter.”
My blood boils. Almost melts me from within as I realize I’ve been seeing her much like a youngling for these many phases because of the way she presents herself. But that’s just a mask she’s been using to protect herself from the terrors her pah bestowed upon her.
The fuck.
I thought Tyroth protected Kyzari. Adored her to the point of smothering her. I was wrong. Blind.
I should’ve known better.
“That’s—” I clear the rabid rasp from my throat. “That’s why you offered yourself to the Creators this phase.”
“He’d grown sick of me anyway. Started asking for other things.
Guess I wasn’t very good at it.” She shrugs, the half smile pulling at her cracked lips telling me that might’ve been purposeful.
“I offered myself to the Creators as a way of severing Pah’s power over me. And because—” Her breath catches.
“What?”
That smile softens. “My heart already belongs to one.”
Creators. She’s spent far too much time on her own …
Rather than dwell on that, I reach through the bars, not missing the way she moves the lark out of my reach. As if she thinks I’m about to take it from her.
I grip her hand and squeeze tight, knowing there are no words I can say to undo her damage. No stitch strong enough to forever stop those wounds from splitting. But in the silence that sits between us, I vow to help her find peace. Help her find a happy place for her mind to rest.
Somehow.
“You think he’s going to let us go?”
No, Kyzari. He’s going to use us to hurt someone we both love.
I don’t say the words. What she needs right now is hope, and that—
I can give her that.
“I have something you need to see,” I whisper, pulling my arms from her cell. I reach down, lift the hem of my shirt, and begin unwrapping the strip of material bound around my waist, my throat growing thick.
Heart heavy.
It wasn’t easy keeping the diary concealed from the one who tore through my mind. I may be good at mental voiding, but with such limited strength, I could only protect a handful of things. It almost killed me more than once, but it would’ve been a good death.
Honorable.
Because this diary, the words in it … they’re personal. Not for anyone but Raeve, Kaan, and my sweet, broken niece who so desperately needs to know just how much she’s loved.
It was worth it for this.
For her.
“The runes on my temples are to keep me from sleeping,” I murmur, unwrapping another blood-matted layer. “Intended to break me down, shatter my defenses until the Mindweft’s able to excavate the rest of my secrets. Once he does, he’ll discover I have this. Arkyn will take it.”
I peel the last of the bind away and tip the diary into my hand, studying the cover. Feeling the weight of the secrets held within.
“I could never live with myself if I didn’t first give you the chance to read these words.”
I thread it between the bars.
Kyzari frowns, settles the lark in her lap, and takes the weight of the book. She turns it over in her hands before running her delicate fingers over the painting on the front. “This looks like Uncle’s málmr.”
“Yes.”
I choke on the word.
“It’s beautiful,” she whispers, tracing the shape of the Moonplume’s wing before glancing up at me. “Does it belong to him?”
“No. It was—” I pause to pull a steadying breath before pushing a smile into my cheeks. “It’s your mah’s diary.”
Kyzari stills. Like she just swept into the sky, bundled up, and solidified.
“I, ah, I ventured into Arithia to hunt it down.” I look at my hands, crushing the bloody bind into a ball.
“I’ve only read the last few entries, but I think—” Words catch in my throat.
I clear it, looking into her glistening blue eyes—so much like her mah’s.
“I think you should start from the beginning.”
“Will it hurt?”
Her voice is cracked through. Raw.
“Yes.”
More than you could ever imagine.
Her features bunch, head tipping to the side as a sheen of tears fill her eyes, making them look like icy pools. “I don’t know if I can hurt any more …”
“I know, sweetheart.” I reach between the bars, cupping her cheek. “But once you come to the end, I have something to tell you.” I glance at all that uneaten food on the ground, squeeze my lids shut. Open them as I tighten my grip. “Something for you to live for.”
A line forms between her brows.
She swallows, gaze dropping to the diary. A long moment slips by before finally, gently, she lifts the cover and begins to read.
I sit beside her, holding her hand when she reaches parts that make her shake. Hug her close when she reads about the poisoning that took so many of her family members before she ever had a chance to meet them, my guilt gnashing.
I wipe tears from her cheeks when she gets to where Slátra chased Elluin across the plains; wipe more as she reads of the blossoming love between Kaan and her mah.
Squeeze her tight when she reads about the pregnancy born of love.
Of happiness.
And when she reaches the end, falling against the bars as her tears become too swift and heavy for me to wipe away, I smooth her hair, hold her close, and tell her that she must survive.
She must.
Because by some unknown magic, her mah lives. And though her mah has no memory of her past, she’s fierce, bold, and mighty to behold … just like her daughter.