Chapter 14 #3
“Please,” the man—Sterling, as his father called him—said.
“You are a busy man; I expect no such celebrations. Though, they are greatly appreciated.” He dipped his chin in tune to the sentence.
“Now,” he said. “What does the Master Strategist make of what’s happened here? Is the man behind me dead?”
“No,” his father answered, clasping his hands behind his back.
Relief washed through Draven, and that twisting knot in his chest loosened—if only a little.
“But he will be soon if he isn’t taken to a healer.”
Sterling nodded. “I’ll send for one immediately.” A pause. “And as for the events causing his injuries?”
Tynan rolled his shoulders back and smiled at him with interest. “I’d much rather hear what you’ve deduced from the situation.
After all, it is rumored you have the wit and foresight to be a Master Strategist yourself.
Seeing as tonight is a celebration in my honor, would you be so kind as to indulge me? ”
Now it was Sterling’s turn to let the smallest glimmer of annoyance slip through his cracks.
Still, Draven had to admit he was impressed.
He had never seen someone interact with his father so well.
It was hard to put his finger on, exactly, but his father was less balanced with Sterling. Less domineering.
Definitely more careful.
“I see my ward has marks on her face and your son has traces of black in his veins.” Sterling paused, glancing behind him.
“It is known that the nature of the Dalmar line’s dark magic is…
peculiar. So, it is hard for me to assess exactly what element of his magic gave the guard his injuries, but my deduction would be that the guard was harassing my ward, and your son intervened to protect her. ”
Draven’s father grinned, the smile rigid.
“You are as cleverly perceptive as they say.” He turned his attention onto the girl, who, at this point, had practically sank back into the man as though he was an impenetrable shield.
“So this is your new ward, is it? Rumors surrounding her addition to your honorable Nightenjoy family have caused a bit of a…” He paused—for dramatic effect, no doubt—and pretended to think about his word choice.
“Stir in the Erandor courts. Perhaps you’ve heard news of this? ”
Something flickered in Sterling’s gaze—passing through nearly faster than a blink.
Still, if Draven caught it, he was sure his father had, too.
“Please,” he said with a shake of his head.
“I’m too busy assisting King Alastair with Rivarian politics to occupy myself with matters of Erandor and its court.
Besides,” he mused, maintaining a light tone, “you know courtiers and their gossip. They crave it like a drunkard craves his drink.” A long, purposeful pause.
“Like a traveling merchant craves his next big buyer.”
His father narrowed his eyes on Sterling. “Indeed,” he agreed through a hollow laugh.
Draven glanced between the two men. Something was definitely unfolding beneath this conversation. Words behind the words, unspoken and testing. Though why that was or what topic they were skirting around, he didn’t have a clue.
His father cleared his throat. “Anyhow, there is the matter of discretion to address.”
Sterling cocked his head. “And that is?”
“The girl,” his father answered, voice clipped in a show meant to convey he would not be treading around this matter.
“I’m afraid this scuffle does not bode well for House Dalmar.
Among a small list of other things, I already confirmed with the girl myself that she recognizes it was my son’s dark magic that harmed the guard, making her a liability to me.
” He hardened his features and tone. “I do not like liabilities.”
“Hey,” the girl argued. “That’s not what I said at all. All you asked was—”
Seeming to sense the warning in his tone, Sterling hushed her, giving her shoulder a squeeze. “It’s alright, Lyra,” he said, his voice unthinkably soft toward her. “Let me handle this.”
She nodded up at him, turning her narrowed eyes to Draven’s father next, wrinkling her nose at him.
“What would you have me do?” Sterling asked, maintaining the even tone he’d used for the duration of the conversation. “What’s done has already been done.”
“True,” he agreed. “However, there are remedies to the predicament nonetheless.”
“Such as?”
“Your wife,” Tynan mused through a smile. “She is a Gardner, is she not?”
Realization dawned on Sterling’s face. “She is,” he answered, the response thick on his tongue.
Draven suspected he had now already pieced together whatever new trajectory this conversation was heading toward.
“Then she can create and administer the memory elixir, can she not? No need to make it overly potent or anything. Just strong enough to make the girl forget the past hour.”
Sterling was silent for a long moment, most presumably calculating everything in his head.
Draven’s father was not a patient man.
“As a king’s most trusted advisor, I am sure you of all people understand the lengths someone in a position of power will go to in order to maintain necessary order. To minimize the risk of chaos if said order is at all threatened.”
“And how does one girl’s memory of the past hour threaten such a system?”
“It starts with one and leads to many. My son is an easy target. There is no guarantee if word got out of what he’s done here that it would be received well.
He could be loved by the people one moment, then condemned by them the next.
The real risk of the people is not their opinions themselves, but how fickle and ever-changing their opinions are.
And who’s to say they won’t turn their attention onto any of the other Great House or noble heirs next?
It could be the catalyst to upheave an entire system.
” A tight-lipped smile. “Though again, I know I needn’t explain any of this to you. ”
Draven watched as Sterling’s chest slowly expanded outwards before falling to the tune of his exhale. His facade was cracking, and his disdain was beginning to show. “Very well,” he conceded. “I will see it done.”
Draven’s father clasped his hands. “Will you swear it with your blood, Sealer?”
Gone were the pleasantries between the two of them.
Draven could see now—clear as Glass Water Bay—that Sterling and his father were on opposite sides of…
something. The tension in the air was simmering, and as they regarded the other in a loud moment of silence, Draven realized this was not their first interaction. Nor would it probably be their last.
“I will.”
“Good,” his father replied through a grin that showed teeth. He stepped forward, unsheathing a ruby-lined dagger from his side. Then, he pricked his finger, looking at Sterling after. “May I?”
He nodded, and his father wasted no time in pricking his finger next. They joined their blood together, and Sterling sighed. “I swear to personally oversee the administration of a memory elixir that will erase the past hour from my ward’s mind.”
“And do you swear that both you and your wife will not breathe a word of this matter to another?”
A low growl rattled in the back of Sterling’s throat. Still, for reasons Draven couldn’t quite deduce, he agreed. “I swear it.”
A flare of light flashed as magic bound the words between them.
“Thank you for your admirable cooperation in this matter,” his father said with a falsely diplomatic vibrato.
The girl looked up at her guardian. “Sterling?” she asked, fear clinging to his name despite her visible attempt to keep it away.
Again, he squeezed her shoulder and addressed her using a feather-light tone.
“It’ll be alright,” he soothed, kneeling down beside her.
“For as long as I can, I will not let harm befall you. Not again.” There was a ripple in his voice at that last part.
He swiped his thumb over the angry mark staining her cheek red. “Please, Lyra, I need you to trust me.”
Though her lip began to quiver, she nodded her head, letting no other emotions slip free.
Sterling returned to his feet, squaring his shoulders to Draven’s father once more. “If that is all, I’ll be taking the girl now.”
Tynan inclined his head. “By all means.”
Maintaining a light grip on her, Sterling escorted the girl forward, ushering her from the corridor.
“Oh, actually—a final thing before you go,” his father called out to him.
The layered tone he used sent the hair on Draven’s arms rising—it was not a tone he ever wanted to hear from his father.
Sterling turned, not batting an eye. “Yes?”
“I hear someone in Rivara is prying into cross-border matters that don’t concern them. Keep an eye out for anyone suspicious, would you?”
If that meant anything to Sterling, his face gave nothing away. “Of course,” he said.
Then, without another word, without another glance, he led his ward around the corner and away from Draven and his father.
But not before the girl turned to look over her shoulder a final time, gazing at Draven with a small amount of trepidation lining her eyes. He wished he could help her—do something to stop this.
But he couldn’t. His father would never allow it.
It’s only an hour of her life, Draven thought to ease his guilt. Besides, it was probably a mercy to forget what the guard did. To forget Draven. Nothing good ever came of being around him.
You are not a monster.
She was wrong; he most certainly was. If nothing else, being complicit and standing idly by as his father stole memories from her—like such a thing was within his right to take—confirmed it. Even if the memories were terrible, they were still hers to keep.
Still, no one had ever looked him in the eyes after seeing his magic and told him he was not a monster. No one outside of his mother. And it was odd—the way something a stranger did could possibly mean so much to him.
Draven watched the girl disappear as she rounded the corner with Sterling. As she went, a tendril of sadness rose up his throat. He would probably never see her again or know what allowed her to stare into the face of darkness without so much as blinking.
No, he was certain he would never be afforded the privilege of getting to know the lilac-haired girl named Lyra in this lifetime.