Chapter 34
“Luna?”
Lunara sprang up, groaning as prickling pain danced along every nerve ending. “Stars and arses,” she hissed, her neck spasming. “Shite.”
“Forgive me.” Brand was kneeling before her, a goblet in one hand, his other clearing hair from her face. “You deserve a bed, but this is the best I can do for now.”
She’d only closed her eyes for a second…
The light in the great hall had shifted, long shadows across the marbled floor, and the tables had been cleared, leaving the scent of lemon soap in the air.
She didn’t have it in her to ask how long she’d been lost in the past and its mysteries. The only correct answer was not long enough, and anything else might free the scream lodged in her throat.
When she reached for the goblet and her stiff fingers refused to work, her next groan was closer to a sob.
“Shh, it’s alright. Let me help you.” Brand cradled the back of her head and brought the cup to her lips.
She nearly choked when the blood hit her tongue, the relief was so instant. It tasted of him, of rightness, and she hadn’t realized how desperately she’d been craving it. Downing every drop was easy. So, so easy.
Fool.
Lunara gasped the first unhindered breath she’d had since the cave. Then another.
Her body had learned to twist itself, convincing her it was fine when it wasn’t. She never realized just how shite she was feeling until all the pain evaporated and she was reminded that limbs were supposed to bend and move, that skin should shift and stretch, without it being a torture.
“Better?”
Blessed moons, even his voice sounded richer. “Yes,” she rasped. “Thank you. I was…”
“I know. I’m so sorry.” He pressed a kiss to her forehead. “A little longer, and then we can sleep for three bloody days if you want to.”
Sounded like bliss.
He led her towards the dais, where the others were waiting. Faldir and Caius stood either side of Lyriat, arms crossed and faces pinched.
The king surveyed Magnus and Thaddeus first, then pinned Brand with a look. “How bad?”
“Bad enough for what you’re thinking,” Brand answered.
Lyriat nodded and rounded his throne without another word, motioning for them to follow.
At the back wall, where a golden image of Solyrian was etched into the expanse, a doorway shimmered into being beneath his palm.
He led them through, into the pitch black and down the beginnings of steep, spiraling steps.
Lunara flinched when the door sealed behind, burying them in darkness for an eternal breath—until intermittent stones came to life, their light disappearing down and around the tight bend, highlighting the cobwebs and dust clinging to the crevices and corners.
No one spoke as they made their descent. The air grew heavier as they sank ever further into the earth, stale and stifling, and she longed for a breeze as a bead of nervous sweat trickled down her back.
At long last, they hit a landing, an ancient wooden door before them. Carvings nearly identical to the ones on Lyriat’s throne covered the surface, accentuated by the striated stones glowing softly around it.
“I have seldom brought others to this place,” Lyriat said, casting a sidelong glance at Brand, “but it seems we have need of it now. I’ll trust you to keep its existence to yourselves.”
Lunara’s soul left her body when he laid his hand on the door and the hewn images jumped to life, creeping up his arm and teasing a wayward hank of his copper hair. The power was immense. Ancient, like the cavern pool. Beckoning, even as it repulsed her.
A click sounded and the door cracked open. Lyriat gently extracted himself from the grasping branches and they melted back into place as if they’d never moved at all.
The power remained, though, thrumming just below the surface.
Shitting stars. No. No, no, no. Bad idea to go through there.
He pushed and revealed a square room with no decorations or embellishments—only a huge, circular stone table in the center with a ring of benches around it.
Lyriat plopped down onto one of them with a weary sigh and lifted his hand. A fireplace she hadn’t noticed on the back wall blazed to life at his command, the flames casting him in a foreboding silhouette.
They filed in, and Brand led her to the far side of the table next to Lyriat. Faldir took a seat to the king’s other side, Magnus and Thad beside him. Only Caius remained standing, his eyes wary.
“I feel like I’ve been led to my grave,” he mumbled with a shudder. “It isn’t natural down here.”
Lyriat nodded. “I was only a boy when my father first showed me this place. Right before he died, in fact, like he knew it was coming.” There was something strange in the way he said it—a false lightness and a rigid set to his shoulders.
“He swore any secrets whispered within would find themselves imprisoned, trapped in the stone for all time. The older I get, the more I realize he meant it quite literally. In all the years I’ve ruled Straelon, not a single word I’ve uttered in this room has escaped its confines. ”
He closed his eyes and crossed his arms. “Speak. Explain. Leave nothing out.”
So they did—her, Brand, and Magnus weaving the story in turns.
Glynmor, Fern, the burial. Thad blushed when they recounted his appearance, not even bothering to argue Magnus’s colorful version of it.
It wasn’t until the part they realized Faldir was missing, how it had affected Hedda and the choices they’d made, that the conversation turned.
“We thought you’d been taken,” she rasped in Faldir’s direction, “so we followed you down into the Thodelemaia Chasm. Heard your screams and tracked your blood—”
“The fuck?”
“You what?”
They spoke over one another, Faldir recoiling while Lyriat slapped his hands onto the tabletop, all of his white-hot intensity directed at her.
Wonderful. You’re doing great. By the way, the portal is right upstairs.
“I…” Lunara swallowed, shrinking back and ready to run for her bleeding life if his face got any redder. “I shielded us from the shadows, and we—”
“We had a deal, Lunara,” Lyriat seethed. “You were to protect them. Heal them. Not facilitate a jaunt into one of the bloody chasms.”
“I know, but—”
Brand gripped her thigh, cutting off the rest of her words. “Watch your tone,” he said, his voice low. “I was going down whether she facilitated it, or not. Your ire is misplaced.”
“All I’m hearing is that she incapacitated Hedda easily enough, but decided not to extend the courtesy to the rest of you!”
“It never would’ve crossed my mind to do so. It was bad enough taking Hedda’s freedom, and I only did it out of absolute necessity. ”
Lyriat’s laugh was not in the least amused. “So, in the midst of an as-yet-undiscovered political subterfuge, you not only didn’t try to stop them, but actually helped my family—Imperial Sons of Bordoroth—make their merry way into a Dread Chasm.”
“Lyriat…” Brand’s fingers tightened, and she dropped her hand to grip them. To find a modicum of calm in the touch.
“It wasn’t that simple. And technically, it was only Brand and I—”
“What?!” Caius that time, his canines flashing with the growled demand. “Only the two of you?”
“There wasn’t another choice.” Brand drew in a deep breath.
Lyriat looked between them, his disbelief evident. “Have you lost your Sisters-damned minds?”
“They must have.” Faldir’s fists clenched, a look of hurt in his eyes. “Brand would never be so daft as to go into danger without his twin shadows, otherwise.”
“How dare you?” Lunara breathed. “He was devastated—we were all devastated—over you.”
He looked away from her, a muscle ticking in his jaw and pulling on the twisted scar down his cheek.
“Losing one of you was bad enough,” Brand rasped. “I wouldn’t endanger anyone else, and I was the only one who could make a safe way down. Lunara insisted on shielding me, with good reason. She repelled the shadows. They’re volatile. Alive, even, like in Meliora’s—”
“What the fuck did you just say?” Caius’s voice was no less furious for its hushed tone.
Oh, shite.
“I told him some of it. I had to. If you’d been there…”
His glare was just shy of outright murder.
Brand explained about the shadows and ooze, the others listening with bated breath and slack jaws. “That’s when we found the army of fledgeling Forgotten. When… when Lunara…” Brand scrubbed a hand over his face. “It doesn’t matter. We ended up—”
“No, Brand.” Lyriat’s nostrils flared. “I said to leave nothing out, and I damned well meant it.”
“Some things are not necessary for you to hear. It affects nothing of substance in the end.”
Nothing except the trajectory of your entire life, but who’s keeping track anymore.
If Lyriat’s eyes burned any hotter, he’d be setting them on fire. “I don’t appreciate you being cagey about this.”
Brand jerked back. “I’m not being bloody cagey. I’m trying to be sensitive, and you’re being an arsehole.”
The two were ready to come to blows, aggressive power radiating off of them in waves.
Don’t even think about it, you—
“Please, Your Majesty.” Lunara swallowed, trying to ignore the fluttering pulse in her throat. “He’s only protecting me. Perhaps it would be in everyone’s best interest if—”
“Perhaps it would be in your best interest to keep quiet for now, Lunara.” Lyriat cocked his head to one side, considering her. “Or maybe he’s protecting you in the same way you protected him—which is to say, not at fucking all, and that’s just a convenient excuse.”
Magnus stood abruptly, a finger pointed at Lyriat. “Now wait a fucking second.”
“Maybe his silence on the matter benefits you because you’re hiding something. You’re good at that, aren’t you, Lunara?”
Her stomach soured and flipped over, threatening to dispel its contents.
“Say one more fucking word to her, Lyriat.” Brand’s voice was little more than a snarl. “I dare you.”