Chapter Fifty-Seven
“ B y who ?” Nuri asks again, growing more impatient.
Yet instead of Draven, Finlay, or Kiran answering—who rise in unison, their hands moving with quiet precision, checking the weapons strapped to their bodies, preparing for battle—I do.
“Abdites,” I rasp.
Gray, Marcella, and Nuri snap their heads toward me.
“How the fuck did Abdites get past Bathara’s wards?” Marcella’s words are edged with a quiet rage.
“That is the million-dollar question, isn’t it?” Finlay replies, dry as the Arid Wastelands.
Marcella clicks her tongue at him before rising, unsheathing her daggers in a fluid motion. “Well, whatever the reason,” she mutters, voice tight, “they won’t be walking out of here with their lives.”
“No,” Kiran agrees while rolling back his sleeves, revealing his wielder’s mark that looks like scarred flames.
The white, coiling tendrils start glowing red, like a river bed coming alive as a molten stream flows through them.
He flexes his fingers, rolling his neck with a slow, deliberate ease. “No, they will not.”
Finlay straightens, nodding once at Draven. “We’re ready when you are.”
But Draven doesn’t move. Instead, he looks back at me. “Just a moment.”
Finlay starts to protest, but Kiran’s hand lands firm on his shoulder, and the small, almost imperceptible shake of Kiran’s head has him snapping his mouth shut, his lips thinning with impatience.
Draven strides toward me, taking my hand as if it’s the most precious relic.
He lifts it to his lips, pressing a kiss to my palm, and his eyes are scrunched in a way that makes him appear as if he’s wrestling with something.
“I hate to ask this of you, Lyra. Please know that. If there were any other way, I wouldn’t. But…”
“You want me to stay inside your walls,” I finish for him, surmising the rest.
His expression looks pained, but still he nods.
“I can ensure your safety if you stay within them.” His fingers tighten around mine.
Then another kiss, softer than the first. “We know what the Abdites are after— who they want. And I couldn’t live with myself if I let anything happen to you.
” His gaze drops to the ground, and the ghosts I now recognize—the ones lingering in his eyes far too often—rise to the surface.
Everything inside me screams to fight. Every bone, every muscle, every furious, burning piece of me demands vengeance.
But what good am I against the Abdites?
I’ve trained, yes. I’ve bled. I’ve learned so much since leaving Rivara. But what is a handful of weeks compared to those who have spent years feeding on forbidden magic? Even wielders as strong as Kiran and Draven struggle against the Abdites—I witnessed that firsthand in Foreigner’s Valley.
I am not ready. Not yet.
Someday, I know I will be. Someday, I will stand—I will fight alongside someone as strong and formidable as Draven as an equal.
But that day is not today.
And what good is dying for the sake of pride?
I squeeze Draven’s hand. “Alright,” I murmur. “I understand.”
Draven’s eyes shudder with relief, and he throws his arms around me, tugging me into his chest, pressing a kiss to the side of my head. He holds me in the same way I imagine the night sky holds its stars.
When we pull apart, I’m surprised to find Marcella stepping next to me. “I’m going to stay with her. ”
I whip my eyes to her, my brows rising to my hairline. “You don’t want to fight?”
She clicks her tongue, like I’ve just asked the most ignorant question in the world. “Of course I do. But…” Her expression softens. “I wish to remain by your side more.”
Something in my chest tightens as emotion blooms. But it’s not in the sharp, suffocating way I used to expect, nor the fragile, unsteady thing I’ve recently nurtured.
This is different. Softer, almost—freer.
And for the first time in so, so long, it feels like there is space for it to truly grow into something more. Which, despite the situation—the raging chaos and disturbingly uncertain future—I imagine the progress makes my mother smile.
Which then makes the swell in my chest evolve, morphing into a feeling of pride.
For the brave actions of my mother. For the resilience I’ve found in myself.
For the fact that I confronted my darkest fears—looked them in the face and unveiled their shadows—and even in the deepest depths of them, I survived.
Draven’s words in the greenhouse suddenly glow as if under a new, gilded sun.
Feeling what’s hurt you is not letting them win, but refusing yourself the opportunity to heal because of them is.
That persistent, tumultuous sea within me finally calms into a smooth tide. Because finally— finally —I truly feel like I’ve won.
That I did not let them win.
Because I’ve started to heal— despite their cruelty. They wanted me to shatter and bend, yet instead I mended and stood.
And it feels damn good.
I part my lips to speak, feeling awakened, but before I can, a sharp, splintering crack shatters the air—like glass splintering beneath a forceful blow. The walls around us groan as magic pounds against them.
“They’ve located Lyra.” Gray ties his hair back with steady hands, the motion slow and measured. He unsheathes the sword at his back after, the steel flashing. He slides his stony gaze to Draven, assuming a demeanor that makes him almost unrecognizable to me. “Can your walls hold?”
Draven grits his teeth, and a muscle flexes in his jaw. “They can. But since they’re attacking the walls, I’m unable to keep them intact while creating an opening to let some of us out.” He exhales sharply, seeming conflicted.
Nuri tilts her head. “Can those outside handle the threat on their own?”
Finlay scoffs. “We don’t even know how many Abdites we’re facing. Bathara has powerful wielders, yes, but the three strongest are standing right here, when they are needed out there.” He jerks his chin for emphasis.
“Four,” Draven corrects, softly. “The four strongest.” And despite everything, Draven winks at me, a small curve tugging at his mouth.
Finlay sighs, dragging his eyes skyward. “Forgive me for not counting the one who’s barely learned to stand.”
“Careful,” Draven warns, his quiet voice lethal.
Kiran steps between them, shooting them both a silencing look. “The only option is to drop the barrier. All of it.” Kiran holds Draven’s gaze sternly.
A muscle again twitches in Draven’s jaw, and he curses under his breath. When he returns his gaze to me, all I can hear are my mother’s words.
I will not cower. I will not yield. I will not falter.
Despite the traces of fear coiling around my spine, I square my shoulders and lift my chin. “Drop it.”
But Draven doesn’t move—not right away.
He only watches me. And I watch him back, caught in the strange, weightless pull of something we still haven’t truly named. Something worth bleeding for. Something I would claw my way through fire to protect.
And I think he sees the promise resting in my eyes.
That the kings and their gods, the Abdites, his father, the classist world that shaped us—hell, even fate itself—
They can all be damned .
Because I choose him.
And the way he looks at me right now tells me everything I need—
He chooses me, too.
Draven clutches his sword by the hilt and offers me a final glance. One filled with a promise, an apology, a silent request…
There are so many words overflowing in that one, simple look. Perhaps even three words that terrify me more than any Abdite ever will.
But before I can consider that further—
Draven drops the barrier.
We couldn’t have been inside those walls for more than a few minutes after Bathara’s alarms sounded and the battle began. And yet…
Bodies are littered like bleeding flowers throughout the colosseum, and half of the Arena’s walls have been toppled, crumbling to ash, entirely destroyed.
My breath catches in my throat, as if it is too scared to force itself out. I scan the scene with hurried eyes, trying to calm my racing heart.
So many.
There are so many Abdites.
And one is charging right at me, its burgundy cloak covering its face.
“I have found you!” the female Abdite shrieks with delight. “Master will reward me. Master will choose me. Come! Come!” She twists her palm, and an invisible force tugs at me, yanking me toward her.
But before my heels scrape more than an inch into the dirt, the female Abdite is confined by a case of slithering vines and roots that wrap around her. Marcella, with a cold fury dancing in her eyes, squeezes her hand into a fist, and the roots tighten, pushing the hood from the Abdite's face.
I tilt my head and blink.
She looks…normal.
Until her face turns blue, and her eyes bulge in her skull as Marcella quite literally squeezes the life from her.
Gray, appearing as if out of nowhere, glides his steel blade through the Abdite’s neck, sending her head toppling to the ground.
After, Marcella opens her fist, and the roots recoil, slithering back into the soil, releasing their hold.
The lifeless body drops like an unwanted anchor, hitting the ground with a dull thud .
Gray, already somehow covered in dirt and black blood, dips his chin at me, then slides his gaze to Marcella, where it lingers for a moment. But then the moment passes, and Gray disappears into the background, charging into the disarray.
Marcella and I glance at each other, blowing air through our puffed cheeks.
“Come on.” She tugs me forward, her gaze sweeping the dust-filled chaos, searching for a place we can lay low and offer aid from the shadows.
But then, portals blink into existence, one after the other.
Marcella jerks to a halt, her head snapping toward the swirling colors—black and silver twisting like ink spilled over the sky. Her eyes sharpen then dim with sudden worry.
“Griff,” she murmurs. “He—he isn’t a fighter.”