Chapter 62 #2
Draven feels the slipping sensation. Feels himself losing to the voices again. In his mind’s eye, he sees flickers of all those Abdites, their burned bodies now the faces of ghosts who will always haunt his dreams. He does not want to allow himself to commit such another atrocity.
Yet he continues to slip.
Farther and farther away he fades.
He is…
Draven sees a lilac angel through the sides of his eyes. It snaps him back into himself, an immediate blanket thrown over those hissing voices, muffling them to a near unintelligible whisper. Lyra sprints toward them, skidding to a halt only a few paces away from Draven.
He is just barely able to see from the odd angle of his body the way Lyra assesses the scene. Just barely able to catch the way a resolve settles over her, as though she just made some pivotal decision.
Her shoulders relax, and she presses two fingers together with both hands, drawing her arms back in the motion one would use when wielding a bowstring.
A sizzling bow materializes, forged entirely from glimmering flames, an arrow notched within the glowing string. She draws her elbow back with perfect form.
Then she sends a flaming arrow straight for Kiran. And then a second. And a third.
It forces Kiran to drop his magic and deflect the arrows as they race toward him. With a rolling wave of fire, he deflects them into the burning buildings to his right.
For a moment after, there is nothing but still silence and the haunting radiance of a city on fire.
Both Kiran and Draven observe Lyra with no small amount of shock. Draven is sure his brother felt it just as he had—that was no ordinary magical attack.
Her bow and arrow…that fire?
It carries the prowess of something which feels primordial. Beyond the power one mortal should contain.
Draven seizes on the temporary shock, refocusing on his brother, knowing there’s no time for him to ask Lyra more about what he’s just witnessed. “Tell me who he has, Kiran. Tell me who you’re fighting to protect.”
Kiran bites down on his lip, staring at his open palms as tiny bursts of magic flicker from them. He shakes his head, dropping his hands down to his sides. “He has my family. My father. My mother. My sister. He’s managed to capture them all, and he’s been holding them hostage ever since.”
The blood leeches from Draven’s face. “How?”
For a heartbeat, Kiran looks unsteady on his feet. “I don’t know. But I guess how he did it doesn’t really matter, does it? It doesn’t change anything. He still has them at his mercy.”
“Why didn’t you come to me? I would have helped you.”
Kiran blows out a humorless laugh. “While tracking down the love of your life and rescuing her from her own captor? While navigating your own situation with Arden and Rhea and your father? While dealing with Bathara’s council down your throat or your aggregate ready to riot against you?”
The last part strikes Draven.
How does Kiran know that?
“Adding that atop everything else was too much, even for you,” Kiran says.
When Draven opens his mouth to protest, Kiran quickly adds, “Besides, it wouldn’t have mattered anyway.
He said he’d slit their throats if I told you.
If he caught so much as a whisper of you getting involved. ” A heavy pause. “He meant it, Draven.”
Lyra approaches on quiet feet, stopping at Draven’s side. She looks at him with answers already in her eyes, anticipating the questions inevitably bound to fill Draven’s own gaze. She dips her chin once, the gesture steeled with firm certainty.
It is done, then.
His eyes soften in the way they only ever will for her as he studies Lyra, one last question passing between them.
It is his final offering he can give her to reconsider.
To back out and change course for a different direction than the one they’ve set sail for.
This is the last time he’ll be able to ask her Are you sure? before it is too late not to be.
She holds his eyes with the unwavering strength, pulling out two small vials and handing one over for Draven to take.
He glides his fingers over her jaw with his empty hand, the barest twitch of a smile tugging at his mouth.
That’s my girl.
Draven turns back to face his brother. “What do you have to do to see them freed?”
Kiran’s lips thin even further. “My final task is to bring you in alive.”
“And what about Lyra?”
“Her as well, but only if she was with you. If she wasn’t, he said he had another assigned to bring her to the drop spot.”
Draven’s stomach boils.
Who? Who would his vile father send for her?
There is no time to question it. Draven knows the reality of their circumstances.
Tynan played his hand perfectly, putting their backs to a stone wall at a dead end alleyway.
They were cornered. If Draven refuses his brother, he will then be the reason for the slaughtering of Kiran’s family.
Yet if Draven complies, going with his brother and bringing Lyra along with him, Draven must gamble on the plans his father has in store for them while maintaining the only option he can at some illusion of Lyra’s safety.
His father knows what Draven’s logic will be. That she is better off with him, and they are better off with Kiran being the one to take them hostage. His father also knows Draven is well aware he won’t stop until he gets what he wants. That, so long as Tynan’s eyes are set on her, Lyra is not safe.
It is a lose-lose, and Draven must choose the way in which he tastes defeat.
Which is why all he can do is pray his final gamble pays off, in whatever twisted sense it can.
He glances at Lyra, who again nods at him. “Do it, Draven,” she says.
Draven nods in return, eyes falling forward. In perfect unison with Lyra, he uncorks the vial still wedged in his palm and tips his head back, downing the contents in one swallow. Then, holding Kiran’s sullen stare, he tosses the glass aside and slowly goes down on one knee, then his other.
Kiran’s eyes widen at the sight of it. “Draven,” he breathes. “No…not that. Do not…don’t go to your knees.”
“Too late,” Draven murmurs, clasping his hands behind his head. Lyra does the same beside him, keeping her hip to his, her vial also discarded beside her. “We are yours to take.”
Kiran watches him with so many warring emotions on his face. “Brother…”
Before Kiran can say anything else, a group of cloaked figures emerges from the shadows. Under the strange glow of unnaturally large flames, they look like wraiths.
Two hooded figures break off and slap manzat manacles on both their wrists.
Draven feels the manzat disrupt his lakt? instantly, immediately faced with the debilitating effects of being blocked from his magic.
One glance at Lyra is all it takes for him to know she feels the same, her eyes widening as her shoulders hunch inward.
One of the cloaked soldiers waltzes right up to him, pulling his attention. They stop only once arm’s length away, where they then pull back their hood, revealing black hair woven back into a single, intricate braid.
You’re going to regret everything you’ve said today.
Draven’s expression hardens at the sight of a wielder from his aggregate standing before him.
A member who attempted to pick a fight with Rhea.
Who demanded the sort of attention he will never give another woman who isn’t Lyra ever again.
“Kamina.” He says her name like an accusation.
“So it is true, then; Bathara is compromised.”
“I told you the time would come where you would regret everything you said to me that day. Regret abandoning us.”
Draven holds her spiteful gaze. “I regret nothing.”
With a curl in her lip, she unsheathes the sword at her hip and slams the hilt of it against Draven’s temple.
The world is blanketed by shadows.