5. Lyra
Chapter 5
Lyr a
“Colton, I’m fine, really,” I insist as he fusses over me, spreading his healing magic across my skin to be sure.
With a casual wave of his hand, he dries me off instantly, for which I’m grateful. Falling into that lake was the last thing I needed, especially considering what lurks beneath its surface. The memory of the shadow fish that Soren once showed me flashes through my mind, its teeth making me shiver. Then I remember—Soren!
“Did Nyx take Soren to the infirmary?” I ask, turning to face Colton, whose lips flatten at the mention of his name.
“He went to find Drew,” he replies.
“Well, where is Soren? I need to make sure he’s alright. He’s the one you should be fussing over right now and using your healing magic on,” I exclaim, already heading toward the door to search for him. But before I reach it, the door swings open, and Drew walks in, clad in black leather pants and a dark-red bodice that matches the color of her long hair. She always looks so put together, even after a battle.
In contrast, I look down at my own appearance, my hair a tangled mess of clumpy waves. I shake my head—this isn’t important, yet how does she always manage to look so elegant?
“Drew,” I say, coming to a stop.
“We need to talk. Alone,” she states then glances at Colton, nodding toward the door for him to leave. I smile and wave him off, reassuring him as he reluctantly exits the room.
“I don’t need any prying ears hearing what I have to say. Follow me to my chambers,” Drew says as we step out into the hall, where unsurprisingly Colton and Nyx are both waiting. I have to pinch my lips together to keep from laughing at their not-so-subtle eavesdropping. I follow Drew to the staircase, casting a disapproving glance back at them.
Nyx is still coated in black blood from the battle, shirtless, his broad chest catching my eye for a moment before I look over at Colton, who’s even larger. Gods, what am I going to do with these men in my life? I think to myself as I turn down the staircase, noticing that neither of them makes a move to follow us.
Once alone in Drew’s room, she gestures for me to take a seat. I walk past her bed, eyeing the horrific creatures carved into the bedposts and wondering who carved them and how many other monsters exist like the Monstrauths and Sarrols.
“Is Soren alright?” I ask as I settle into one of the chairs, crossing my feet.
“He will be okay. We lost a few tonight, but none who you’ve met. They were all from the town,” she replies, sinking gracefully into the chair beside me.
“I’m sorry for your loss,” I tell her, looking into my lap, unsure of what else to say. So much has happened since we last spoke, and though it wasn’t long ago, it feels like a whirlwind, my mind still racing to catch up. “The Luminary Council—”
Drew cuts me off. “The council members were idiots. They attacked you, they didn’t listen to reason, and I’m done trying to appease a council that’s been hanging on by a thread for years. You need to fill me in on what happened in Zomea. What did Euric say? And before you begin, I already know he’s dead. Nyx mentioned that,” she states, unfazed as usual, calm and collected.
I do my best to recount everything that transpired after I fled the council meeting for Zomea. I explain about the heart and Euric’s plan to ascend to godhood, the gates, the other continents that exist, and the other hearts, including one already destroyed by Euric. Drew’s red eyes stay locked on me, giving a quiet “hmm,” every now and then to prompt me to continue, but none of this information seems to shock her. I’m left wondering how much Drew actually knows, considering all of this was quite a revelation to me.
Breathless by the time I finish recounting the events, Drew finally speaks up. “Do you know what’s beyond the gate?” she asks.
“No, and I’m not sure I want to find out. Maybe my midnight mind will take me there like my father said, or maybe it won’t, but I get the strong feeling that maybe I should leave it alone for now. Find a way to close the bridge and pretend Zomea doesn’t exist and get on with my life,” I tell her a bit more frantically than I’d like.
“Pretending something doesn’t exist doesn’t make it go away. Have you made a decision about which one of these men you’re going to commit to?” Drew says, shifting the conversation in a direction I hadn’t expected. After all I had told her, she brings it back to my tangled love life.
“No, I haven’t,” I reply, taken aback by her question. “But if there’s any truth to this prophecy, and if Nyx is indeed my light, then…I’m not sure.”
My thoughts drift to Colton, to how my heart aches for him even while my mind tells me that my destiny might be inexorably linked with Nyx .
“The reason I ask is because if you healed this magical heart and things in Zomea seem stable, the only other thing I can think of that is causing this destruction in Eguina is you,” Drew says matter-of-factly. I swallow hard, not wanting to hear this. Anxiety grips me, and I start chewing on the inside of my cheek, feeling sick to my stomach as I ponder what to say, what to do.
“I don’t mean for this to be harsh, but Colton and Nyx are fools, fools in love, and they are not going to give it to you straight. And I think that’s what you need right now,” she continues, and I nod, agreeing but bracing myself for what she’s going to say next. “Those creatures tonight didn’t come out of the bridge. They were already here. I fear they may be drawn to you, to your dark magic. I can’t help but wonder if these prophecies that say you will destroy everything if Callum’s son’s light doesn’t save you don’t mean what we originally thought. I don’t think you physically will go mad and destroy the realms with your dark powers.”
Drew crosses her legs and collects her thoughts.
“But I do fear that with so much darkness in the realms, we have started a shift, which is causing these evil creatures to multiply and emerge from the depths they once hid in. I think they may be drawn to your darkness, and in turn we may be overrun by all this madness. The shift we are on the brink of might be too far gone if we don’t act soon.”
“What are you saying?” I ask, wiping the sweat off my palms on my nightgown.
“I’m saying pick a brother, and soon. Pick the right brother and commit to him. Make your final vow in a bonding ceremony, and if there’s any truth to this prophecy, then this one simple act could end the destruction in Eguina. At the very least, it will give us an answer,” Drew insists.
I shake my head, my eyebrows knitting in confusion. “Brothers? What are you talking about?” I ask, bewildered.
Drew curses under her breath. “Of course, neither of them has said anything to you yet. King Onyx and Colton are half-brothers. They share the same father—Callum,” she says.
“I’m sorry, what?” I exclaim, struggling to process this new information.
“Yes, I’m afraid I’ve known for some time, but it wasn’t my place to tell you. Onyx didn’t know, and after you left the council meeting, Colton made it public knowledge to everyone. I assumed one of them would have told you by now,” she explains further, and I’m still struggling to catch up.
“Colton knew and never told me,” I murmur more to myself than to her.
“Colton had his reasons for not telling you, and Nyx presumably chose not to tell you out of his own selfish reasons, wanting you to choose him because you thought he was the only right choice,” she continues.
I uncross my feet, feeling the need to stand, to pace. This revelation throws everything I thought I knew into disarray. The weight of the decision before me feels even heavier now, tangled with betrayal and hidden truths. How could I make such a choice under these circumstances? The very foundation of my relationships with both Colton and Nyx has been shaken, and now with Eguina teetering on the brink of collapse, the pressure to make the right choice is too much.
“And if I choose neither of them?” I say, my anger bubbling over. They both knew how much I’ve struggled to make the right decision, and yet they kept this from me.
“Choose neither, and we will find out if your darkness really will destroy us all,” Drew responds coolly.
I turn back to face her. “Aren’t you worried?” I ask, my tone edged with annoyance at her nonchalant attitude .
“I don’t want more of my people to die, if that’s what you’re asking, but I also don’t know the right answer here. Only you can make this decision. I have a feeling many more things will come to light before you do,” she replies, calm yet enigmatic.
I let out a breath of frustration, temporarily pushing the deception by those boys to the back of my mind. “What would you do if you were me?” I ask, meeting her steady gaze.
“I would choose the one I love and damn the realms, if that’s what the outcome is,” she states frankly, a response I hadn’t anticipated.
“Choose the one I love even if I don’t know who the light is?” I press, seeking clarity.
“I don’t think you will truly know who the light is until you make a choice, so you might as well choose the one you love, assuming you don’t love them both,” she says, a smirk curling her lips for the first time since we started talking, one fang gleaming slightly.
“And if I do love them both?” I let the words slip, regretting them almost instantly.
“That is more complicated. Trust yourself, and don’t get me wrong. You do have some time. I don’t think the realms will be overrun tomorrow, if that’s what you’re afraid of,” she answers, her tone light.
“Reassuring,” I say, the sarcasm thinly veiled.
“If it helps, you can use my echosphere. Remember, it only shows possible futures, and the future is forever evolving,” she offers, and I curse myself for not considering it sooner.
“Yes, I’d like to use it again,” I tell her, though a knot forms in my stomach at the memory of the last time I accidentally came across it and it showed me a version of myself I was afraid to face then.
“Very well, it has been a long night. If you’d like to get cleaned up and think about all this for a bit, you can. I trust you’ll find the echosphere when you’re ready, if that’s what you choose,” Drew says, and I can’t help but notice the cryptic undertone in her voice, but I simply nod. I assume it’s back in the same place it was last time I touched it.
“Don’t you have any other questions?” I ask her, still feeling frustrated by the entire conversation.
“What questions would you like me to ask?” she responds, and I inhale long and slow.
“For starters, why didn’t you seem fazed by the news of these other continents and the heart of all magic for Eguina being in Zomea?”
“I’m the one who told you I believed all the magic was held in Zomea,” she replies, not defensively.
“I know, I… I didn’t think you meant it so literally,” I say, and she gives a slight shrug.“What about the other continents? Why don’t you want to find out more?”
“Lyra, did you know I was once in love, a great many years ago?” she starts, and again I have no idea where she’s going with this.
“No, I didn’t. I always assumed you and Soren had something going on,” I admit.
“Yes, Soren,” she says, her gaze drifting across the room as if looking out a window that doesn’t exist, as if she can see beyond the hive and recall a memory from the past. “Soren is young and human. I may care for him, yes, but love is something else entirely.”
“I thought all Lamia only mated with humans. There are no male Lamia,” I say, voicing the common knowledge of our realms.
“That is true, but what if I told you I came from another time, another continent long ago where I wasn’t called a Lamia at all.” She still gazes into the distance .
“I’d say, have you been drinking tonight?” I joke, incredulous.
She flashes a fang again with a smirk. “You see, I’m not surprised to hear about these other portals to places in Zomea, because I come from one of those very places. A place where men and women alike could feed off blood to survive and have extraordinary strength, could live together forever. We were called vampires, and I used to go by Cilla,” she explains, and suddenly a lot of things make sense.
Drew is thousands of years old, no one knowing exactly how old, and she oddly knows things about, well, everything, and very little is known about Lamia. “Vampires...Cilla,” I repeat, absorbing it all.
“Yes, my full name is Drewcilla. Once I had to leave that life behind, I dropped the end and started anew here as Drew,” she says, revealing a past shrouded in mystery and a life far more complex than I had ever imagined.
“Why did you come here? And is that how my father knew of these other places? Does anyone else know? I thought you had never been to Zomea before?” I fire off a barrage of questions, my curiosity peaking as I try to absorb her revelations.
“So many questions, but my story is a tale for another time. What’s important right now is you and the future of this continent,” Drew says, her voice calm yet commanding. “I tell you this because I want you to know that you will know the right choice to make when it’s time. When you love someone, not only who but that you are truly in love, you’ll know.”
She stands and moves closer to me. I fight the instinct to step back as she extends her hand and places it gently on my chest. “You will know in here,” she says, her touch firm yet reassuring. “Use the echosphere, take your time, do what you need to do to come to terms with your decision. But in here…” She taps my chest lightly. “…the decision has alre ady been made.”
She moves her hand to the side of my head. “It’s everything up here that’s getting in the way. Now go get cleaned up. You have a long road ahead of you and some choices I don’t envy. We’ll speak again, in time,” she concludes, offering me a smile and a dismissive wave.
I want to continue the conversation, to delve deeper into her past and extract more answers, but I realize the moment for questions has passed. I take my leave without another word