Chapter Fifty-Six
A voice hums while hair the shade of ash falls into my eyes.
She sings a song while gliding gentle fingers along my skin. Her voice is so beautiful—so haunting. I want to capture it in a jar so that it will last forever.
Another pair of small hands caresses my face. One I recognize—that I long to hold me each and every day I breathe.
My mother joins in on the girl’s song.
Two voices become one, and I wish I could make out what they are singing. But the words are inaudible, and I am drifting away—falling away from their beauty.
But not before a loom begins spinning glimmering threads around me, wrapping me in a warm light that sends a rush of heat through me.
Their voices crescendo, and then they disappear altogether.
I am gasping for air, my hands still clawing at my throat.
Coppery flames fall into my eyes. “It’s okay. It’s okay. Breathe. Breathe .” Marcella grips my wrists and pins them down. She looks up from me and off to the side, seeming worried. “Nuri!”
I hear hurried footsteps before I see Nuri kneeling down next to me. “I’m here.” Her hands hover over me, and warm golden light seeps into me. It feels nice.
A wall of glittering darkness rises and swirls in a circle, cocooning me in. When I glance around, my head slumping to the slide, I realize I’m not alone, but instead surrounded by all the captains, Josiah standing in the center. All except Draven.
A small panic spikes my heartrate, but then I hear his familiar voice sounding from behind me, quenching the ember before it can spark into a flame. “I’ve got you,” he murmurs, sounding calm yet deeply pained. I only realize my head is in his lap when he moves my hair to the side.
A familiar set of hands reaches for mine and cups it between their fingers. My head swivels to the other side of me, and my eyes prick with tears, somehow feeling better yet worse the moment I see Gray.
How much had he seen? Will he think less of me, knowing what I’ve done?
Will they all think less of me?
Kneeling next to Marcella, Gray clutches my hand, his eyes red-rimmed and wary. I open my mouth, but he silences me.
“Don’t speak,” he instructs, his voice weak. “Let Nuri repair your throat first.”
It’s as if mentioning my throat gives it permission to scream at me, its skin anguished and ravaged. A searing pain burns my windpipe, feeling like a white-hot blade is pressed against it. As if on reflex, I bring my hand to my throat, and my fingertips graze across scattered gash marks.
Marcella immediately reaches for my free hand and pins it back down. “Don’t move, okay? Just…let Nuri work.”
Finlay steps forward. “What have you been hiding from us, Draven? Why was an Abdite in her Feargate?” His voice is low and accusatory. “You’ve known something about her all along, haven’t you? It’s why you wanted to train her.”
Josiah steps forward and rests a quieting hand on Finlay’s shoulder. “There will be time for questions later. For now, we have an arena full of people who just saw an Abdite attempt to recruit this girl.”
Recruit?!
“Which means,” Josiah continues, his voice remaining admirably soft. “The girl has something they want. Which in turn means Lyra has something those men out there will want as well.”
I glance up, tilting my neck just a hair to glimpse Draven. His eyes are downturned and tender, still only looking at me.
Josiah sighs. “I am going out there to buy us some time. Nuha and Arden, please join me. Kiran and Finlay, remain with Draven. Do not come out until she is fully healed.”
A small opening splits the wall of darkness, and Josiah, Nuha, and Arden step through. As soon as they pass, the black slams back together before even a stray beam of light can pass through, leaving just the seven of us.
“Draven, you better start talking,” Finlay demands.
Draven says nothing. Instead, he continues stroking my hair, watching me with quiet eyes.
I glance at Gray and Marcella, who exchange looks, probably thinking the same thing I am.
I squeeze Gray’s hand to get his attention.
When he looks down at me—his eyes still glassy from either spilled or unspilled tears—I give him a brisk nod, attempting to bring the words I can’t speak to my stare.
Tell them.
I trust Kiran in a similar way I trust Draven, and though Finlay has been nothing short of a pompous ass to whom I disagree with entirely regarding his methods to achieve his objectives, he attempts to keep the Three Kingdoms safe—wishes to protect them with everything he has.
Plus, they are Draven’s brothers. I can’t ask him to keep this from them. I’m not sure why I feel that way, I just…do.
Gray watches me closely, making sure he reads the words in my eyes correctly.
Once he’s sure he has, he heaves a drawn out sigh and rakes a hand through his hair.
Then, as Nuri mends my destroyed throat, Gray tells them everything, beginning to end.
The throne room. The Abdites in the valley.
What happened during the tests. Casimir Vivaldri’s journal, and the prophecy within it. The truth of what I really am—
A Binder, as Casimir said.
Hearing it spoken aloud still sounds so odd.
When he finishes, Kiran is stunned into a momentary silence, and Finlay looks oddly…hurt.
Kiran pinches his chin between his fingers, his face scrunching with thought.
“It’s strange to think this journal you speak of exists.
According to historical records, both Prince Casimir and King Isaphus died in a fire that consumed their wing of the castle.
And yet, somehow, a personal artifact—something as fragile as a journal—survived. Rather interesting, don’t you think?”
Gray’s expression sharpens with realization. “You’re right,” he murmurs. “I hadn’t even considered that yet.”
Finlay, not deigning to discuss Kiran’s point, flexes his jaw and slides his turquoise eyes to Kiran. “Why didn’t you tell me about the valley,” he whispers in a harsh voice.
Kiran glances at him sidelong. “We were instructed not to,” he answers simply. “And that hardly seems like an important question at the moment.”
Finlay ignores the last part. “Instructed by whom ?”
But before he can answer, my skin howls with agony, feeling like it’s been electrocuted and erupting with a heated pain so thick, I’m convinced I’m being flayed alive.
I scream and grunt, the sound coming out choked and raspy.
“Lyra,” Draven’s voice remains calm, but not calm enough to mask the panic hiding behind the words. “Tell me what hurts.”
But I can’t speak—can’t think .
My skin is living fire, and it burns .
Of all those around me, I’m surprised when it’s Finlay who speaks first. “It’s her mark,” he mutters. “It’s awakening.” He pauses, and I catch the confused tilt of his head. “But it’s…wrong. Premature and…tainted, almost?”
All eyes swing back to me.
“You need to remove her shirt,” Nuri says to no one in particular, her face looking strained. “I need to see what’s happening.”
“I’ll do it,” Gray says through a pained sigh.
“Like hell you will,” Draven bites, his words like death swept on a wind .
But Gray is in no mood to entertain death, seemingly willing to blow it back in the direction from which it came. “Lyra has been in my life far longer than she has yours. I will do it.”
Draven opens his mouth, but Marcella shoots them both a silencing look. “Both of you will shut the hell up and quit this ignorant bickering while I do it.”
Nobody challenges her.
Her fingers tug gingerly at my shirt and undergarment, stripping my chest bare for yet another time in front of an unwelcome audience.
“Can you turn her to her side?” Nuri asks with an authority that isn’t overpowering, but seems practiced.
Marcella flicks her gaze to Draven—as if out of courtesy.
Whatever gesture he gives has her looking at Gray next and nodding.
Draven stabilizes my neck, making sure not to harm the blistered skin, and they turn me on my side—hissing at what they see, the sound a fused harmony of shock, awe, and fear.
I try to speak, to demand what the hell is on my back, but my voice comes out like a rasp of smoke and dust, and I am met with a symphony of shushing noises.
Yet I am ready to protest, prepared to make whatever grunting noises necessary—until I glimpse the thread-like markings twining down my entire right arm, and my voice dies in my throat.
Nestled between the coiling threads are flower buds. Small, delicate, and sleeping—as if the curled petals remain shut, waiting for something.
Gently, I’m lowered onto my back, and I grit my teeth against the jolt of pain.
Until it all just…stops.
Like a fire finally burning through its last ember, whatever was scorching my skin vanishes. And somehow, I know what’s left behind in the ashes is permanent.
Nuri exhales, pulling her hands back. She rocks onto her heels, breath unsteady, sweat beading along her brow. “There,” she says, sounding fatigued. “Her throat is mended.”
I sit up—covering my exposed chest with my forearm—and immediately turn to glimpse my back. But of course—because even with my so-called magic, not even I can defy human anatomy—I can’t see anything but a small arc near the top of my shoulder blade.
“What is on me?” I ask, my voice rough like sandpaper.
Draven is the one who answers. “Your wielder’s mark.”
But the tone of his voice…
“What’s wrong with it?” My question comes out far weaker than I wish it did, barely rising above a whisper.
But before Draven can respond, sirens howl through Bathara, their oscillating screams swelling—cresting—tearing through the sky in relentless, ear-splitting waves.
“What the hell is that?” Marcella demands, voice taut with unease.
“Bathara’s alarms,” Finlay answers, his features drawn tight, his voice lined with a quiet, simmering rage.
“What do they mean?” Gray asks. “Why are they going off?”
Draven doesn’t answer right away. Instead, he stills. The kind of stillness preceding a predator’s attack. The quiet before a storm breaks. And when he finally speaks, his voice is razor-edged, stripped of any warmth.
“It means Bathara’s wards have been breached.”
The words strike me like a physical blow to the gut.
“Breached?” Nuri echoes, her brows drawing tight. “How? By who?”
My stomach hollows as ice fills my veins, circulating to my heart, stilling its beats.
A gift before I go, Master’s Precious.
I’ll see you again very soon.
Realization bludgeons me like a club upside the head.
The gift was awakening my wielder’s mark—something I didn’t even know was possible. And the words were a warning. Or perhaps, a taunt.
The Abdites are coming—are here .
And they’re here for me.
Before I can voice the realization, the ground beneath us convulses, and a thunderous boom splits the earth—sending tremors through stone and bone alike. The walls groan. Distant shouts pierce the air, and our eyes dart frantically, searching for the source of the commotion .
But while housed within these black walls, we remain blind to whatever is happening beyond them.
Kiran’s gaze snaps upward, his body going rigid—as if he senses something none of us can. And when his eyes find us again, there’s no hesitation.
Only certainty.
“We’re under attack.”