Chapter 34
CHAPTER THIRTY-FOUR
LYRA
The room falls into an anticipatory quiet.
The sort of quiet which makes a person want to hold the air in their lungs captive. The kind of quiet which has parts. That creates nervous glances and causes feet to shift and a room to stifle.
Tynan Dalmar steps forward on the center balcony overlooking the entirety of the ballroom.
Chins tilt up as masked eyes find him like flowers finding their sun.
He has their undivided attention—a feat which is rather impressive, when considering this is a room filled with people who all think they are the most important person in the Three Kingdoms.
“My esteemed ladies. My noble gentlemen. On behalf of King Erasmus, I welcome you to this year’s Winter Solstice ball.”
At the mention of the Erandorian King, I suddenly realize I haven’t seen him yet this evening. With a quick glance around the room, I confirm that observation—he isn’t here.
Which is considerably odd, seeing as it’s the Winter Solstice celebration, and one that is being held in his castle, no less.
“Please rest at ease knowing I do not stand before you as the King’s Supreme Commander nor his Master Strategist this evening. I am merely here as a representative for my proud House and as a proud father.”
At the words, Draven steps into view, standing directly next to his father’s hip. Women erupt in husky whispers at the sight of him, drawn out and filled with far too much lust for my liking. Though…I get it.
Even with his mask, he still manages to be breathtaking.
“Tonight, I offer a special treat to you all: an announcement, known only to myself and House Larking. Though one I am eager to share. A reason to celebrate this special evening with even more fervor.”
That terribly rude man, Lord Larking, steps into view, his daughter by his side, taking up residence near Tynan’s opposite hip.
I stare at them, my brain trying to unravel this puzzle before me.
What is going on?
Tynan reaches for Captain Larking’s hand, and then for Draven’s.
“Tonight I announce to you the official union of House Dalmar with House Larking, given form by both my eldest son—my Heir—and Lord Larking’s eldest daughter.
Two powerful Houses. Two tremendous wielders.
Two esteemed captains at our elite Bathara.
One perfect marriage.” He places Arden’s hand in Draven’s, then recedes, leaving only the two of them at the front of the balcony as Lord Larking steps back to join Tynan in the shadows.
Draven’s eyes are on me the whole time, his expression veiled by perfectly crafted indifference because it has to be. Because all eyes are on him, including his father’s.
Applause erupts through the room. The cello and violin zip to life, plucking nothing but merry tunes that facilitate more merriment.
Glasses are raised. Whistles are thrown around.
Flowers tumble from the ceiling like colored snowflakes—a celebratory feat which was most certainly planned in advance.
Everyone—at least at surface-level—is filled with joy and excitement for the union as they toast in celebration and cheer with a mixture of awe and pride. The room is happy.
I have never known such misery.
My body has a delayed reaction to the news.
At first, my heart refuses to accept it.
Instead, my brain attempts damage control, rationalizing and using logic to discern the true nature of what’s been said.
Yet, it keeps drawing blanks—keeps failing to find the rationale.
Because this news—Draven’s engagement—has just been publicly announced at one of Erandor Kingdom’s most prestigious events, in a room filled with its most wealthy, high-ranking citizens.
Though perhaps not legally, as far as society is concerned, there is nothing more binding than that.
Which forces me to believe it must be true.
Is it because he thought I’d never return? Did he give up on me, after all?
Was it all a lie?
Suddenly, I can’t breathe. I back up, up, up—away from the raucous room. Away from the jubilant smiles and cloying cheers. Right as I turn to run away to find fresh air that isn’t clotted with saccharine congratulations, I bump right into someone’s chest. They catch me, steadying me by my elbows.
“I know I’m handsome, but I fear you’ve thrown yourself into the wrong man’s arms.”
I look up to find myself having run into a man with slicked back ruby-red hair paired with a mask concealing mischievous sapphire eyes. He wears a beautiful smirk across his lips.
I throw my arms around him immediately. “Kiran,” I breathe.
It’s strange how much a heart can manage at once. How, like some clever machine, it can change gears between sadness and happiness without diminishing the presence of either.
He presses his hand against my back, embracing me tenderly. When I pull back from him, I swear I catch that smirk of his falter—see a glimmer of something sad in his eyes. Yet as soon as I think I see it, it has disappeared.
“It’s good to see you,” he says, the words earnest. Like an older brother would his younger sister, he playfully skips the pad of his thumb across my cheek. “And in one piece, no less.”
It’s such an absurd thing to say, I laugh. The sound is sad and echoes as though I am on the verge of tears, yet it is a laugh all the same.
Kiran notices, and he sighs. “Before things get…messier,” he says, his lips pursing as he looks noticeably on edge all of a sudden. “Please allow me to explain what you’ve just witnessed on behalf of my dear brother.”
I snort, the sound dry and angry and…fuck. I’m feeling so many things, I’m not even sure what I’m feeling. Well, with one exception: heartbreak. “I doubt explanations will make me feel any better.”
“I think this one might, actually. Or, if nothing else, it will help. I have no doubts about that much.” My face scrunches, and he brackets my shoulders gently. “It’s not what you think it is. Or at least, the reasons surrounding it are probably quite different than you imagine.”
“So what is it, then? Because it looks a hell of a lot like the man I offered my heart to is recently engaged to someone else—a fact of which he never told me.”
“Yes, because you have been so easy to find lately.” He says it with the perfect ratio of seriousness to playful sarcasm, rendering a balanced retort I can’t decide if I want to laugh at or be mad at. None the less…
Touché.
“Point taken,” I grumble. “But it doesn’t make it hurt any less.”
“I know,” he murmurs. “I know it doesn’t.” Kiran sucks in a loud sigh, dropping his hands from my shoulders. “I’ll do my best to keep all of this as succinct and organized as I can.”
He then proceeds to tell me everything.
About Bathara’s council’s decision to bring me in should they find me.
That the Tani wants to try me before their jury.
That I would undoubtedly be found guilty, then thrown into Toellor Prison until I am either needed or rotted.
He tells me about Tynan’s proposition. About his promise to prevent that future from unfolding should Draven marry Arden.
He explains until my eyes go wide with shock, then brim with curious tears.
I’m not even sure who the tears are for.
When he is finished, he studies me with a sympathetic gaze. “I know that’s a lot of information to take in.”
“So…he doesn’t want it? Doesn’t want a marriage with Arden?”
Kiran’s eyes soften. “Between you and me, Lyra—though I suspect it is obvious to anyone with eyes in their sockets—Draven wants nothing, and I do mean nothing, but a life with you.”
My heart shreds into thin ribbons, too broken and confused to be anything else.
“He’s giving his entire life away for me, then.
” I shake my head against the thought of it.
“He is sacrificing everything. For me. So that I won’t be forced into a prison for the power in my veins and the atrocities I committed that day.
” Guilt merges forcefully with all the other emotions clamoring in my chest. “I can’t let him do that, Kiran.
Marriage is—is a place to call home. Is a promise to love unconditionally.
It is a future. I can’t let all of that be written for him by his father. I just…can’t.”
Kiran himself looks slightly conflicted. “What would you propose to stop it?”
“I—I don’t know. Something—anything. I just need to be able to think for a moment.”
As if in some cruel divine timing, a resounding BOOM carries from the distant hall, the floor trembling at our feet along with the sound.
My eyes snap to Kiran. “What the hell was that?”
Something passes in his gaze—something I can’t quite place but distinctly know not to be right—and his shoulders fall as he again looks at me. “I wish you had more time to think, Lyra. Gods I wish you did.”
Before I can utter a single response to that, the wall adjacent from us explodes, shards of rubble crashing and flying across the ballroom.
Men and women alike are knocked unconscious, some questionably injured as huge slabs of rock arc through the sky before crushing limbs while smaller pellets pierce through skin.
The crowd shrieks with fright, dispersing like a band of discovered rats.
For a moment, flickers of larger toppling walls invade my mind.
My body twitches, then convulses involuntarily as flashes of Abdites, crimson-stained swords, bloodied lips, corrupted magics, and explosions of power temporarily paralyze me.
Yet, once the dust and debris clears from the air, it is not creatures that appear.
It is men with swords and spears and pikes. With magic in their palms—their wielder’s marks intact—and shields at their backs.
And they are angry.
“Leave not a soul behind!” a middle-aged man with a gruff beard and calloused body steps forward and declares. “Bring them their reckoning! Show them their justice! Bring forth the uprising!”
Cold dread lances down my spine.
That Abdite from Foreigner’s Valley all those months ago, Dridus. Her words sing in my mind to the tune of a child’s song.
Up the rising goes forward, she chanted manically that night. It was followed by her strange tune. Up the rising goes. One by one, until it unfolds. Forward we forge, just like the land before. Time rewind, magic that binds, brother by brother. My brother, oh brother.
She hadn’t been wrong. Dridus had been privy to information surrounding an uprising.
And they are here. Have begun their revolution.
The sea of insurgents echoes the leading man’s words like a war cry, fisting their weapons and magic into the air.
“Bring forth the uprising! Down with the noble lines!”