Chapter 10
CHAPTER TEN
The stars were a blinding sea.
They were everywhere, filling the negative space with glittering dust that sparkled as far as the eye could manage.
Draven and Suzumi sat ensconced between thin, sheer drapery that was held up by thin poles.
A row of bedrolls was placed underneath them, and red and blue lanterns were strategically placed around them.
The space was cozy and warm and inviting.
As Draven stared up at the night-sky, Suzumi beside him, he found himself grappling with the realization that he wasn’t sure if he ever wanted to leave Príth.
The past few days without the politics of Talderine and the scoldings of his father were unlike anything Draven had ever been privileged enough to experience before.
Not to mention Draven was finally seeing glimmers of his mother again. She was smiling. Really smiling. And that meant more to Draven than any title, magical lesson, or amount of coin ever could.
Before he knew it, he found himself concocting plans in his mind about how to get Finlay and Kiran out of Talderine next.
How to make them understand they must join him here in Príth; that there is life outside of the Erandor courts.
Finlay would take some convincing, naturally.
He’d be the one to put forth the most resistance.
But if Draven could just get his brothers here, to allow them to experience this written-off city and lay on this rooftop beneath such a breathtaking sky, he was sure Fin would come around.
How could he not?
Suzumi poked Draven in the arm. “You look like you’re thinking way too much right now.”
Surprised at her spot on deduction, Draven blew out a laugh and shook his head. “I’m just thinking about how much I like it here. That’s all.”
Suzumi hummed, eyeing him a moment longer as if debating whether or not to verbalize she suspected there was more to it than just that.
To her credit, she simply returned her eyes to the sky, drawing her knees into her chest. “My mother created this space for us,” she said instead.
“Of course, the fabrics and bedrolls have been replaced through the years for upkeep, but it’s still nearly the exact same as when she designed it years ago. ”
Draven considered his responding question, making sure he truly wanted to ask it.
He decided he did. He wanted to know Suzumi—her thoughts and feelings, what drove her to smile and forced her to cry.
Draven couldn’t quite explain it—he had never felt such a feeling before, after all—but as he sat next to this girl with hair like caramel and lightened chestnut eyes to compliment, he felt drawn to her.
As if almost magnetically, like he was just some helpless soul who was injected with feelings too large for his developing body.
“Do you miss your mother?”
“Everyday,” she replied, her voice soft yet without the expected notes of grief. “There are so many moments, so many things that happen I wish I could tell her about.”
Draven nodded, attempting to understand. “I can’t imagine what my life would be like if I lost my mother. I think I’d lose myself entirely.”
Suzumi glanced at him. “Why’s that?”
Draven arched a brow at her in return. “Why would I be sad if my mother passed on to the afterlife?”
“No,” she scoffed, pushing his arm. “Why do you think you’d lose sight of yourself?”
“Because…” Draven paused, his face scrunching as he wandered down those roads of layered thought.
“I have a lot of my father in me, and he…well, let’s just say he’s no Atlas Brooksley.
There are times where…” He again had to pause so he could consider his choice of words, unable to directly tell her about the dark magic coursing through his veins, passed down to him from his father.
“Where I feel the parts I inherited from him more deeply than all the other things. Sometimes, it scares me. Like how Erandor has all those stories of monsters lurking beneath the beds, waiting to capture you in the shadows if you misbehave—it feels sort of like that. Only, I’m the monster, and I terrify myself. ”
He could feel Suzumi’s eyes on him, yet he couldn’t bring himself to meet her gaze. “But?” she pressed.
Draven sighed, the action lifting his shoulders and dropping them like a sinking anchor. “But then I try to see myself through my mother’s eyes. The man she tells me I am bound to become. She says I have a good heart—a heart that’s different from that of my father’s.”
“Do you believe her?”
He shrugged, still unable to look at her. “Sometimes I do. But there are also times where I don’t. Still, no matter which it is, my mother is always there, reeling me back from wherever I’ve wandered. She’s just…good. Wholly and completely, and I think that inspires me in a way.”
Draven finally found the courage to turn his chin and look at Suzumi. She was watching him with patient eyes, a soft smile waiting for him. “I really like your mother. She is warm and soft and kind. When I’m around her, I feel like I’m sitting next to a lit hearth with a cup of tea in my hand.”
Draven chuckled. “You’ll have to tell her that. I think she’d really like that description.” A pause, and he found a sudden lump forming in his throat as his smile flickered at the sudden consideration he was mulling over. “Can I…tell you something?”
Suzumi’s brows twitched, catching the sharp shift in Draven’s tone. “Of course. Anything.”
“You have to swear you won’t tell a single soul. What I’m about to tell you can never leave this roof.”
Suzumi titled her head, visibly weighing something over in her mind. Finally, after a moment long enough to send Draven’s heart pounding, she released a tiny sigh. “Because you’re the Dalmar Heir.”
The blood leeched from Draven’s face, and his mouth floundered like a fish as he grasped for words.
His brain immediately went on the defensive, and he began considering everything in a new light, just as his father had taught him to do.
If she knew, was she just using him? Did Atlas know, too?
Was he planning on using Draven’s mother for leverage—to gain coin, advancement, or perhaps even favor?
Was every act of kindness, all the soft words between them—was it all a lie?
As if seeing all the soaring thoughts in Draven’s eyes, Suzumi gently reached out her hand and placed it over Draven’s. “Relax,” she said in a soothing, almost motherly voice. “We’re not going to tell anyone.”
We. So her family knew, too.
Draven tried to still his racing heart. “How did you figure it out?”
She scoffed an incredulous laugh. “You’re joking, right?”
“There are plenty of Dravens in Erandor,” he pointed out. “It’s not an entirely uncommon name.”
Suzumi lifted her brow. “Plenty of boys named Draven who can erect a shadow panther from pure darkness,” she deadpanned.
At Draven’s wince, she added, “Though, to be clear, we figured it out before then. Draven and Lealla, both names attached to House Dalmar. You arrived from Talderine, confirmed by your very own selves. And when your shirt sleeve tugs up sometimes, we’ve all caught glimmers of the black markings lining your arm. ”
Draven gritted his teeth—he thought he had been so careful.
She held him in her pointed gaze, filled with a hint of amusement. “It wasn’t hard to put the pieces together and discover the true nature of your identities. We may be impoverished, but we aren’t ignorant.”
“So, I suppose you think us pathetic, then,” he grumbled, feeling the walls he must maintain in Talderine slowly erect. “Or perhaps you think you can use us—get something out of us.”
She squeezed his hand tightly. “No,” she answered.
Suzumi paused, her voice quieting. “We saw the bruises,” she murmured.
“Well, Rhea didn’t. Or if she did, she’s too young to understand.
But I did, and I know my father did as well.
We…” she trailed off, her eyes falling to the ground.
“We’re pretty sure we know what they mean. ”
Draven’s defensive nature soon melted into embarrassment. Humiliation. Mortification, even. He grew silent, despite the noise growing loud in his head.
“Hey,” Suzumi said, again squeezing Draven’s hand. “I tell you what—you tell me your secret, and I’ll tell you one of my own in return.”
Draven considered, battling against the waves of clashing emotions inside of him.
Ultimately, he decided he did still want to share the hidden truth that had weighed upon him for the past four years.
He had never been able to tell anyone before—not even his brothers.
He didn’t want to miss this opportunity.
Not when it felt so right to finally say the words aloud.
“Alright,” he agreed. “But you have to swear the unbreakable oath to me that you will never tell anyone this secret nor about both my mother and me.”
“Fair enough.” She turned her chin over her shoulder, and Draven felt his heart kick like a drum in his chest the moment their eyes met at such close proximity. “Shall I go first? Or would you like to?”
“I will,” he said. “But first you must swear the oath aloud.”
He stretched his hand out to her, and she clasped it, her eyes never letting go of his.
“With my hand in your hand, an oath to you I give: to uphold your secrets and never share, for as long as I shall live. If I do, may magic strike me dead. May my heart stop beating, and may my tongue turn to lead.”
Using his magic, Draven bound tendrils of inky darkness up their forearms as she spoke.
They intensified and illuminated with a subtle glow, a peculiar element to his magic he had yet to fully understand and refine.
Once he pulled them away from their skin, he glimpsed the small marking denoting the oath on the underside of her wrist. Two black lines weaving over the other, intersecting continuously at multiple points.