Chapter 13
CHAPTER THIRTEEN
LYRA
Sweat drips down my neck, and I hunch over my knees, gasping for breath.
Neilina rests a hand on her popped hip, frowning at me. “Your combat skills truly are terrible.”
I look up just long enough to shoot her a sharp glare. “I already told you,” I pant. “I came into my magic late, and I haven’t received a lot of training because of it.”
Her frown deepens. “I thought you were being modest. You possess a strong ability to sense my attacks and maintain your center of balance while countering them. You do not let your eyes lie to you—something that normally implies someone has at least…some level of competence. You are toned. Quick to decide.” Her brows pucker with thought.
“You possess every signal that would imply you are skilled in the art of combat, yet you aren’t in the slightest.” She scratches at her temple. “It is very confusing.”
I stand upright and swipe the sweat from my forehead with the back of my hand. “Yeah, well, I had to be trained in a hurry, and I had a damn good mentor who ensured I was given the correct foundation to build on.”
My heart aches as flashes of Draven and me training together between sun-coated hills race through me. I miss him. Not even just as the man who makes my heart pound and causes butterflies to stir in my stomach. I miss training with him. Miss his instruction. His company.
Training with Casimir and Neilina over this past week has made me realize how good of a mentor Draven truly was.
How skilled and competent his every instruction had been.
Honestly, somehow, it’s made my attraction for him grow all the more—something I didn’t think possible considering my chest always feels like it’s at max capacity when I think about him.
“Hm,” Neilina hums, walking to the edge of their fighting ring to reach for her waterskin. “Your mentor must truly be something special then.”
“He is.”
I feel Neilina’s lingering stare on my skin like a physical touch.
I imagine she’s probably curious at the sudden tenderness I let seep into my voice—a feature she has not seen from me often.
Yet I just lift my chin and sweep the hair from my face, pressing my hands into my lower back as I stretch out my muscles before turning around to face her.
Whatever thoughts she may or may not have about my display of softness, she doesn’t comment. Instead, she finishes drinking her water and sets her waterskin back down on the fluffy grass. “You are meeting with Master to enter the Veil tonight, yes?”
“I am.”
She nods. “Master has instructed me to stay behind and wait for you in your bedchamber. He says you will most likely need my assistance once you’ve finished with your work tonight, but that you are to meet with him alone.”
A slight wrinkle forms in my brow. “Alright,” I say. “That’s fine.”
Neilina watches me a moment longer, her gray eyes a beautiful contrast against her stark white hair. “I just wanted to let you know so you weren’t waiting for me to escort you tonight.”
“Thank you.”
She waves me off. “You are to meet with Master in the Astral Chamber come sunset. Don’t be late.” She begins to stride off in the other direction, but I call out to her, halting her movements.
“Uhm, where is the Astral Chamber, exactly?”
Neilina glances at me over her shoulder, smirking. “I was told to let you figure that out for yourself. Master says it will encourage you to explore our lands and speak with our people.”
I open my mouth to protest, despite knowing full well it is a good plan to make me branch out, but before I can utter a word, Neilina is already five paces in the other direction.
As if sensing my gaze, she throws a lazy hand over her shoulder. “Good luck.”
I bite down on my scowl, secretly thinking I wish I was half as cool as her when I was seventeen. Perhaps I would have found my way out of King Alastair’s iron grip faster. Would have faced my demons sooner.
A sigh blows past my lips, and I shove more strands of loosened hair from my face.
What I should really be doing right now is going to the bathing chambers and scrubbing all the sweat and dirt from my body.
But some defiant part of me doesn’t want to.
If Casimir is going to make me explore his lands, meet his people, and enter the Veil for him after, then I will do it on my terms, my way, rendering control over the situation however I can.
So with a disheveled braid, grass-stained clothes, and dirt-coated skin, I do as Casimir asks and finally explore wherever the hell it is I am.
The mark of true maturity is being able to admit when one is wrong—whether from being stubborn-headed, prideful, or whatever other congestive emotion rises to the surface and takes control of sensibility.
My maturity must have grown tenfold, because as I stroll along an arched stone bridge hovering above aquamarine water flowing between dusty-colored mosaic walkways, I am forced to admit to myself I have been extremely wrong for not exploring this place sooner.
God’s veins, it is beautiful.
More trees than I can count tower overhead, creating a canopy of bright green foliage as leaves of different sizes cast dancing shadows across the running stream of water, glistening like a sheet of crystal.
Rough vines twist around thick trunks of bark, and patches of moss and ivory cling to nearly every surface imaginable.
Along the open spaces, where the stretch of tree limbs fail to consume open air, circular stone buildings overflowing with soft, luminescent light hum.
The pillars are carved from iridescent moonstone, and the domed glass roofs house numerous stringed lanterns cascading along the exposed panes.
From a few open doorways, music escapes; the sound of a fiddle’s strings a heartbeat through the mosaic streets.
The smell of mint leaves, no doubt growing within the lush foliage, sweeps along the breeze.
It mingles with the woody notes from the trees, fusing with moss and lily to make the scent tiptoeing through the air intoxicating.
I even catch a glimpse of a tavern through one of the open doors.
There’s a large barrel beside the threshold, and a wooden sign hangs over the entrance, though I can’t make out the words.
A woman with long silver hair and a loose white dress frolics through the small crowd inside, her fiddle resting against her shoulder while her bow masterfully manipulates the strings in her other hand. She looks ethereal. Happy, even.
I want to follow those signs of life. I want to feel the melodies etch into my skin and leak into my bones.
To feel something good in my chest instead of the hollow aching sensation I’ve felt since being here.
Yet flashes of the Abdites murdering innocent wielders at Bathara pelt me.
Memories of what they did to Meiji haunt me.
The image of Casimir plunging his blade through Griff’s chest destroys me.
I hear their lunatic rantings. Remember the way Lexamon stroked me in Foreigner’s Valley.
And even though I recognize—for reasons I still don’t understand—the Abdites are different in this unknown place, I still can’t bring myself to attempt to have any sort of relationship with them, despite Casimir’s many requests for me to do so. I just…. can’t.
So, I turn and walk away, putting the soul-stirring sounds of joyful strings and echoes of laughter to my back.
As I wander deeper into the grounds, following the path of oblong stones, the trees give way to exposed buildings resembling old bathhouses, the pillars supporting the open structures carved from varying hues of marble.
At every center, a large rectangular pool rests, rich in its lightness and clear as glass.
Beyond those structures, a breathtaking garden sprawls for what has to be miles.
On and on the green expands, bursting with a riot of colors so vibrant, it nearly steals the air from my lungs.
It is a garden oasis to rival that of any other—including the one I woke up in when I first arrived here.
As beautiful and legendary as I imagine the Hanging Gardens to be.
At the thought of the Hanging Gardens, a smile tugs at my lips.
“Hi, mom,” I murmur to the wind, conjuring an image in my mind of her standing in the middle of the trickling stream, an assortment of herbs and flowers collected into her dirt-smudged hands.
I picture her dress hiked up, precariously pinned in place by its muddied hem.
Imagine wisps of her hair blowing in her face as her mauve eyes crinkle with joy.
My heart squeezes and aches from the longing and grief the conjured image pours into me.
But I do not turn away from it. I instead relish the feeling, accepting that the flashes of pain are reminders of all the harbored love between us.
You’d be proud of me, Draven. I’m finally doing it—feeling the grief and honoring the pain.
I am so lost in the emotion of it all, I don’t notice the person sneaking up behind me. Not until a rough, calloused hand claps me on the shoulder and whirls me around to face them.
Silver, bloodshot eyes stare at me, black veins branching along the woman’s temples like streaks of jagged lightning.
Her cascading hair perfectly matches the shade of her irises, and as I blink at her, I find myself unable to place her age but recognize her as the woman I had just seen playing the fiddle.
She is marked with an upside down eye centered on her forehead, and her gaze skips with a manic glint—forcing me to realize that for the first time since arriving here, I am face-to-face with the version of an Abdite I know most intimately.
A version that is deranged and dangerous and entirely unpredictable.