Chapter 36 #2
Still, in spite of his anger, as Draven considers that he hadn’t just been close enough to receive something from Lyra—that he danced with her, held her, whispered thoughts of how he would spend a morning with her—he feels all the more like an ignorant, unforgivable fool.
Gray glares at Draven, and he allows Nightenjoy to see everything within his eyes.
The regret. The hurt. The anger and unbearable guilt of his second failure.
Gray jerks his chin away from him, seeming to have read everything Draven bared to him with crystal clarity, his lips set in a thin line. He says nothing else.
Draven finds the strength to leash his temper, grinding his jaw against the simmering inside him. He glances down at the parchment, a crease forming between his brows as he slowly unrolls it. There is one sentence written in what looks to be blood at the center of the page. Four words.
Do not marry her.
Draven’s knees buckle as all that he is and could ever be threatens to topple while he stares at that one sentence.
Do not marry her.
He didn’t even get the chance to explain it to Lyra.
To make sure she knows he doesn’t love Arden.
That he would never do that to her; that she is the only being in this world who could ever give Draven’s heart form.
That he only accepted the terms of the engagement with Lyra’s best interests in mind.
As he stares at the blood crusted against the parchment, reading the smeared words over and over again, Draven is sure he is going to be sick.
“What does it say?” Marcella asks, her sharp voice like a spear to Draven’s unsteady senses.
He doesn’t answer. He just continues staring at the parchment.
It isn’t until he hears Rhea’s voice that he snaps into himself, if only a small fraction.
“Is everyone okay?” she asks, slowing from her sprint as she reaches them. Her eyes land on him, and she tilts her head. “Are you okay? You look like you’re going to be sick.”
“I’m going to be sick if I don’t figure out what’s on that gods-damn parchment.” Marcella lurches forward and rips the page from Draven’s hand. He nearly bares his teeth and snarls at her in response.
He has his training from House Dalmar—long since embedded into every fiber of his muscles—to thank for his show of restraint.
She reads the short sentence, dropping her hand limply at her side afterwards.
Marcella shakes her head, her lip peeling back as she glares at Draven.
“You fucking asshole. You coward. You worthless piece of shit. This” —she waves the parchment madly in the air— “is what Lyra focused on getting to you in her final moments?”
She lunges for him, and to Draven’s surprise, it is not Gray who stops her—he merely watches her explode with his arms folded across his chest. He doesn’t know the truth of Draven’s arrangement either, after all.
Draven had only told Kiran the whole of it.
Instead, it is Rhea gripping Marcella beneath the arms and lifting, locking her into an uncomfortable hold.
“Calm down,” Rhea demands.
“Let go of me,” Marcella hisses, tilting her chin in an awkward angle as she attempts to glance back at Rhea.
“Not until you calm down.”
“I will fight back,” Marcella grits out, her tone venom. “And I will hurt you.”
“I don’t doubt you’ll try, and I like you all the more for it.” Rhea tightens her hold, pressing Marcella’s body into an even more uncomfortable position. “But I do not bend and I do not break—you’re free to test it if you really want to.”
“What in all the realms of hell is going on?” Finlay approaches them, caked in grime and dried blood, his once immaculate suit ruined. His eyes snag on Rhea as he takes in the scene.
“Rhea here is defending her dear brother’s actions,” Marcella dryly explains.
“What actions?” she asks, seeming genuinely confused.
“He’s my brother, too,” Finlay grumbles, his eyes again hovering on Rhea a heartbeat too long.
Rhea shoots him an admonishing look, something simmering beneath the surface of her reproachful gaze.
Draven flexes his jaw. This is all too much right now. Way too fucking much.
“He stabbed my best friend in the heart,” Marcella growls, uncurling her fingers from her free palm as she wiggles against Rhea’s hold.
“He got himself engaged to some properly bred noblewoman, breaking Lyra’s heart, and when she was here, standing directly in front of him, all she cared about was giving him this.
” Marcella waves the parchment as much as she can given the restraint on her movements.
Rhea’s face scrunches, and she lets Marcella go, taking the worn page and reading it.
“She wrote it in her own gods-damn blood,” Marcella adds for emphasis, readjusting her dress.
Gray steps forward and leans over Rhea’s shoulder, peeking at the words and reading along with her.
Both their eyes lift from the page and onto Draven.
Finlay glances between them all, rolling his eyes and groaning.
He pries the parchment from Rhea’s hand, as if they were all sharing some delightful secret love letter together.
Draven is about to snap at the sight of it.
His magic presses against the back of his mind, the voices whispering to let them in. For a heartbeat, his vision flickers black. Draven grits his teeth, curling his fingers tightly into the palms of his hand.
Control.
He needs to find his control.
When Finlay drops the parchment, Draven now has four sets of eyes on him, questioning and all filled with their own types of reservations surrounding the announcement of Draven’s engagement.
He carves a hand down his face. “I can explain.”
“Perhaps it would be better if you let me.” Kiran strolls over to their group from the other side of the room with his mask still covering his face.
His clothes are largely…intact. Unsullied.
Especially when compared to the rest of the group.
He stops when he reaches Draven, resting a comforting hand on his shoulder.
Draven has never been so grateful for his brother as he is right now.
Feeling temporarily unable to speak and with a strange, clotting emotion filling his chest, Draven merely nods his confirmation for him to go on.
Kiran squares his shoulders to the group, and he explains everything in Draven’s stead. Everyone’s eyes round, lips parting as the truth of the situation enters the air between them. As they understand the gravity of Draven’s decision.
“Why would the Tani do such a thing?” Marcella asks, caught somewhere between anger and disbelief.
“And Bathara,” Rhea adds.
Finlay shifts on his feet—something he usually only does when bearing some form of guilt. Still, Draven doesn’t press it right now, chalking it up to whatever the hell is going on between him and Rhea after another hesitant glance in her direction.
“Because the Tani will seek to protect what they know of magic,” Gray says, gliding a hand through his messied hair. “Because, even if Lyra hadn’t done what she did at Bathara, they would have found a way to pin her with something else. Found another reason to see her locked in Toellor Prison.”
“Why?” Marcella demands.
He shakes his head. “Because her magic is virtually immeasurable. Because it is in the interest of the powerful to squash or control what they don’t know—what could ultimately rise in power against them.”
“And my father could ensure that didn’t happen,” Draven says, the words bitter on his tongue. “If I married Arden.”
Rhea scoffs with disgust, folding her arms over her chest. “That is just like Tynan,” she mutters. “The exact type of dilemma in choice he loves to create.”
“You could have told me,” Finlay murmurs. Draven sees real hurt in his eyes. “You told Kiran. I could have known, too. I might’ve been able to help.”
Draven shakes his head. “No,” he counters. “My father’s mind was set, and as much as it pains me to admit, he is the best choice when handling these sorts of matters. I would give my life away ten times over if it meant Lyra has a secure home to return to.”
“But what about her,” Gray murmurs sharply.
“She would be free,” Draven says, flexing his jaw.
“She would also be broken,” Gray counters. “What good is freedom if your heart is too broken to enjoy it?”
“And what good is a heart if your surroundings are too bleak to let it be warm?”
The air heats and sharpens around them as neither Gray nor Draven backs down.
Kiran clears his throat, lifting lazy fingers into the air. “May I?”
All eyes snap to him. Draven’s brows knit together as he studies his brother. “What is it?”
“I saw Lyra here tonight.”
The only person who seems shocked by that news is Rhea.
“She and I chatted,” Kiran adds.
Gray and Marcella look like they are about to unravel at their very seams from frustration.
“Is everyone an incompetent buffoon?” Marcella gapes with anger. “How is it that two all-powerful ‘Great House Heirs’ saw her, yet did nothing to ensure her safety? To ensure she could stay home?”
He shrugs. “Because I told her the truth of Draven’s situation, and she told me she couldn’t let that happen. That she refused to allow Draven’s future to be written by his father. I got the distinct impression she wholly meant it.”
There is something odd in Kiran’s tone that Draven can’t place. And unfortunately, his mind doesn’t even have the capacity to attempt to try. It is too focused on the information now brought to light.
“Lyra knows the truth?” he asks, his voice a low, breathless whisper.
Kiran nods. “She does. I told her everything the same as I told them.”
Draven isn’t sure if he wants to hug his brother or gut punch him for telling her.
Finlay glances down at the parchment still in his hand. He holds it out for Draven to take. “I think that might change the meaning of this note.”
Draven holds it in front of him, staring until the words go fuzzy.
Do not marry her.
Was that her way of telling him to be free? Had he interpreted the message all wrong? He had, hadn’t he…