Chapter 49
CHAPTER FORTY-NINE
DRAVEN
Draven stares down at the faded black lines still peeking from his veins, running like poisoned rivers beneath the skin of his forearms. He curls his fingers into his palms, using his nails to bite into his flesh.
Eventually, once his eyes sting from staring for so long, he tugs his sleeve back into position and drops his hand down to his side, reverting his attention onto the splintered wooden door before him.
His heart pounds against the skin of his neck, shame already a sour taste on his tongue. Still, he cannot bear the distance any longer, so he musters up the nerve to knock, ready to face his rightful trial.
“Come in.”
Draven opens the door and finds Lyra sitting beneath an open window, moonlight bathing her in graceful beauty.
Her hair is half pulled back, her clothes loose and ill-fitting to her body.
An issue they all have at the moment, having found their makeshift attire hanging on lines as they passed through backwater towns.
Draven would have felt bad for taking another’s clothing, but Gray always made sure their traveling group left behind at least three times what the items were worth for the owners to find. So at least the scales are balanced.
Lyra studies him with a withdrawn gaze, chewing at her cheek. Her eyes drop to the ground just before she turns her chin away from him, back to the window. “I’m sorry, but I’m not ready to talk yet.”
Draven would be lying if he said his heart doesn’t deflate at the greeting. It’s what she’s said to him the other times he’s attempted to talk to her about what he’d done in the Arid Wastelands.
He remembers most of what happened—breaking the ward, being fed his deepest nightmares, attacking the Abdites, fearing their threat to Lyra—though some parts feel more like a distant dream than an actual lived experience.
Especially the parts where he remembers voices in his head, a part of him yet not.
Voices which he, even now, still hears whispering to him. A voice of one but many.
We own you now.
They’ve been with him, petting his mind, from the moment his eyes fluttered open.
They were already halfway returned to the docks at the northwestern corner of the Wastelands—where their original ship and crew were waiting to take them back to Halfin—when he woke up.
He was disoriented at first. Nearly manic.
But Lyra caressed his face and soothed him, making sure he knew he was alright—that he was safe.
It was the first and last time she has looked him in the eyes since getting her back. The only affection she has shown him since returning.
Draven approaches her, the floorboard creaking beneath his booted feet.
The building they’ve holed up in is abandoned and barely clinging to life, with its cracked walls, creaky wood, and cobwebbed corners.
But it has three stories and is tucked perfectly in the outer perimeter of Anatheima, leaving the loud, off-putting noises and cosmetic issues to be the least of his concerns. The very least.
He stops short of reaching Lyra, making sure to respect her space by not getting too close.
“I will wait for as long as I must until you’re ready to speak with me again, but” —Draven flexes his jaw— “I just need to make sure the day will come. That you won’t forever look at me the way you are right now.
” He knows he sounds pathetic; he has ears, and they can hear the cracks in his voice.
He doesn’t care.
Tell me I’m not a monster.
“Please,” he murmurs, his hands so desperate to reach for her. “At least give me that.”
Lyra does not answer him right away, instead continuing to stare at the moon. Draven sees the rise and fall of her shoulders as she sucks air into her chest, holding onto it like Draven clings to his hope.
Eventually, she turns her chin over her shoulder once more, glancing in his direction. In that moment, Draven knows he’s a ghost to her. Her eyes look straight through him. “I think it’s best if we just get some sleep. Alone.”
Draven wants to push. Wants to apologize for the harm he knows he’s caused. He nearly vomited when she told him the truth of those Abdites in the Wastelands. How they were purely innocent people. Collateral to a long-ago war. To power.
Yet he knows he doesn’t have the right to do such things.
Forgiveness is hers to give, and if she chooses to never offer it to him, such is her right.
He will bear both the weight and shame of that, because the stain of blood is on his hands.
He has to live with what he’s done, despite his motives for doing it.
So no, he does not press his case. Does not try to barter or beg for her to listen.
He instead does exactly as she asks, turning and going back to the creaky door.
His hand hovers on the doorknob, and he allows himself to glance back at her.
She holds her bottom lip between her teeth, eyes fixed with purpose on the twinkling night sky just outside the window.
With a new layer of weighted guilt now lining his gut, Draven tugs on the doorknob and exits the room. The moment the latch clicks behind him, someone kicks off the wall, emerging from the shadows.
Rhea.
“She’ll come around.”
“You don’t even know her. You two have barely spoken a word to each other since meeting.”
“But I know you. And I know if she doesn’t recognize that what you thought you were doing was for her and her alone, she’s a fool.”
Draven bites down, flexing his jaw. “Don’t say that about her, Rhea.”
She closes the distance between them, resting a comforting hand on his arm. “I mean it. You’re not a murderer, Draven, and I hate seeing her treat you like one.”
He feels the hollowness in his gaze as he turns his chin to meet her eyes. “But I am, aren’t I? How many lives have I taken? How many fathers have I robbed from their families?” His hands ball tightly at his sides. “She is right to look at me the way she does.”
“You kill out of necessity,” Rhea presses. “Only with purpose. You kill to protect the people you love.”
“That’s what everyone thinks about their own actions.” Draven sidesteps Rhea. “If you’ll excuse me, I need some time to myself.”