Chapter 33 #2
I see night-dark hair tousled with waves longer than I last remember, slicked back yet disorderly, as if he was just running.
I see a strong jaw accentuating the sharp lines of a perfectly sculpted face.
Bright, mismatched eyes, filled with the most beautiful shades of blue and green known to this world.
I inhale the scent of sandalwood and citrus, wrapping around me in the most familiar embrace.
He may wear an elegant panther mask, hiding the upper portion of his face, but I would know the details of him anywhere.
“Draven,” I breathe.
He strides to me and throws his arms around me, slamming me against his chest as he swallows me whole.
My fingers clutch at his shirt, and I press my forehead into his torso, avoiding my mask.
He holds me so tightly as he rests his chin atop my head.
“You’ve really come back.” Draven’s voice trembles.
“Is this a dream? Am I dreaming right now?”
I shake my head, tears welling in my eyes, gripping at his shirt and pressing myself into his chest as much as I possibly can, wishing I could somehow meld myself with him to feel close enough. “I’m here,” I whisper. “I’m real.”
“You’re real,” he breathes, his arms winding tighter around me, his hands settling on the curve of my waist. “You’re here.”
He holds me with desperation as the next song begins, colorful fabrics twirling around us like an unfurling rainbow in a crystal sky.
People move as if looped in their own timeline.
But time stills for Draven and me. They move forward, dancing and spinning and laughing, but we remain frozen—motionless and fragile as a held breath.
My chest follows the rhythm of his, and I melt into him—into his warmth, my mind attempting to process that this is real, and Draven is finally holding me in his arms again.
I hadn’t fully realized my body has been in a ceaseless state of restlessness until it finally calms, not feeling as though it needs to be brave and strong and guarded.
I breathe—really breathe for the first time.
The air is sweetened by the scent of him. It wraps around my lungs and spreads through the veins of all that I am like a promise of something better. At once, my muscles slacken, my taut nerves finally sleep, and there is silence in my head.
A beautiful silence. Something still and tranquil. And I realize…
The feeling is peace.
Utter, blissful peace.
He pulls back, just enough to catch my eyes. “How is this possible? How did you escape? And what are you doing here, at Sagamon of all places?”
I want to give him all the answers he deserves, yet through my peripheral, I am forced to take note of all the eyes we are attracting with our intense display of affection, standing frozen in a sea of dancing people.
As the song fades, reaching its end, I hear the whispers as hands cover mouths and people lean in, no doubt attempting to decipher my identity and determine what we’re doing—why our conversation looks so fervent.
I pull back from him even further, my body screaming—begging—for me to stay wedged in his arms. Yet it is put second to a more pressing voice. A voice that reminds me of what Casimir is capable of. What he might do if he realizes Draven is here and has found me.
I recede a step, my heart breaking just as soon as it started to mend. “We can’t…I’m not…” My voice is a raspy mess. “Not here,” I try instead. “Too many eyes and ears.”
Draven—seeming to understand quicker than I expected him to—lifts a hand and sweeps a thumb along an exposed part of my cheek. “Then just dance with me, Lyra.”
“What?” I laugh, almost manically. “After everything, with all there is to say, you just want to… dance?”
Even through his mask I can see the tenderness in his eyes as he gazes at me.
He splays his fingers across my cheek, cupping my face.
“Yes,” he murmurs so gently, my knees nearly buckle.
“For one moment, for one song, I just want to exist in a world where I am at a ball with a beautiful girl I adore, and she and I dance together while the stars dance alongside us.”
“Draven…” I whisper.
The corner of his mouth sweeps up into a soft curve, and he extends his hand to me, bowing at the waist. “May I have this dance?”
With emotion swelling painfully in my chest, I place my hand in his.
The touch is like breaking from beneath the water’s surface, inhaling oxygen into deprived lungs that have been drowning and starved. It is firecrackers and starlight. A rainstorm on a withering garden bed.
“You may.”
He presses his lips gently to the back of my hand, pulling me into his frame right as the instrumentalists begin playing their next song.
And then we dance.
We dance to the vibrato of the brooding cello as it hums into the soles of our feet.
We glide across the marble floor as the legato notes carry the melody guiding our muscles, weightless and everlasting as the wind.
Draven presses his palm against the small of my back, splaying his fingers across it before curling them into my dress, bringing me flush against his chest. We hold each other’s eyes as we move, lost beneath the weight of all there is to say, paralyzed by the immensity of this moment and the gravity of lost time.
Draven spins me, guiding me back to him after. “You look so beautiful,” he murmurs. “Somehow, even more beautiful than the last time I saw you. How is that possible?”
“You can’t even see me,” I point out through a small laugh. “I have a mask on.”
He smiles. “Do you? I hadn’t noticed.”
I wrinkle my nose with mocking disapproval, which results in Draven’s hand flexing against my back. “I think it’s your hair,” he says. “I like it short. It suits you.”
I lift gentle fingers to sweep an escaped strand of his own hair from his forehead. “And your hair is longer now.”
The light dims in his eyes. “I haven’t had much motivation to maintain personal upkeep lately.”
My hand grazes the side of his face tenderly before it falls to rest at his neck, where my fingers twine themselves into those longer strands. “And yet you still manage to draw every eye in the room.”
“Second to another.”
I bite down on my answering smile, my body a complete mess of feelings—though ones I am capable of navigating, thanks to the help of the man standing before me.
He lifts one hand to cradle the back of my neck. Something shifts in his expression, sharpening, and the air thickens between us. “Lyra, I am so sorry I failed you. That I wasn’t able to find you. In every sense of the way, I am sorry.”
There is so much raw pain in his voice, it stabs me like a blade.
“Don’t,” I murmur. “You have nothing to be sorry for, Draven. Nothing.”
He grunts, the sound sad and distant, pulling his eyes from me. “I will not fail you again. Not when it comes to your safety.”
I cup his cheek, guiding his gaze back. “You’ve never failed me as it stands.”
Something inscrutable passes through his eyes. A sort of melancholy I’m not quite sure how to place. “What happened that forced you to stop writing to me?” he asks, seeming to change course.
“Casimir found my—well, Gray’s—Ever-Know Quill. He destroyed it so I couldn’t write to you any longer.”
“I’m going to kill him.”
For the first time since knowing Draven, a small echo of doubt flickers through me at his abilities to win such a fight.
It would be a battle for the ages—Draven against Casimir.
I’d fear for both men’s ability to survive, yet I now know Casimir can’t die, putting Draven at a terrible, insurmountable disadvantage.
Which again makes me think of what Casimir might do if he discovers Draven and me together.
“I don’t want to talk about him.” At the question I can already see forming on Draven’s lips, I quickly add, “Or the place where he was keeping me. It’s still as I said in my letters—I truly don’t know where I was.
” I lower my voice, swiping my fingers across the back of Draven’s neck.
“I just want to live in this moment with you.”
Though foolish it is, which I don’t say.
He nods, continuing to guide me across the dancefloor, the sweeping tune guiding our movements clearly being extended for show purposes as four violinists step out to the dancefloor and spread out, resting their mahogany instruments on their shoulders as they move about and continue playing.
As they do, glittering, golden light rises from their strings, fluttering up and up until it spreads out in a vast array, mirroring starlight—a trick coordinated with light-wielders, no doubt.
The light twinkles against the nearly reflective floor, giving the illusion that everyone on the ballroom floor is encased in stars.
Applause erupts from all the bystanders.
Draven and I merely hold each other’s eyes, seeing nothing more beautiful than the sight standing directly in front of the other.
I know I need to tell him Casimir is here.
I know I need to explain the circumstances surrounding how the hell it’s possible that I am here, dancing with him right now.
But the second I open that conversation, the second this blissful bubble will burst, and both he and I will be forced to remove ourselves from this fantasy dream and face the sharpness of reality.
He will switch into his assessing captain mode, and I will be forced to work through and explain the many things I have seen and experienced and learned over the months I’ve been away.
I will have to make the difficult decision of how to best run away—to escape. To determine if I can even escape.
I will not risk innocent lives. Not again. And I certainly will not risk Draven’s.
But those are all thoughts and decisions I don’t want to deal with until after this song. Because right now, it is just as Draven wished for—a smitten girl and an adoring boy, dancing passionately beneath starlight.