Chapter 20
LYRA
The ruined training ring lay exactly as I remembered it. Broken columns leaned beneath a ceiling split open to the sky. Pale morning light poured through the fracture, illuminating dust and old chalk markings across the floor.
“Kieran?” My voice echoed through the empty ring.
A shadow detached itself from the farthest column.
He stepped from it without sound. Black training leathers.
Dark hair falling carelessly across his brow.
A dagger held low in one hand, as though he’d been prepared to use it before realizing who had entered.
His green-gray eyes found mine. Relief hit me so hard my knees nearly gave out.
He saw it immediately. The dagger disappeared into the sheath at his back. “What happened?”
I opened my mouth. Nothing came out. I tried to straighten. Fire ripped through my hip. The breath left my lungs in a sharp gasp. Before I could catch myself, my knees gave out.
Kieran crossed the distance between us in three strides. His hand caught my elbow. The moment he touched me, the shadow rune flared. Black light burst beneath my leathers.
Kieran froze.
His gaze dropped to my waist. “What,” he said softly, “did you do?”
“I didn’t do anything.”
His fingers tightened around my arm. “Lyra.”
“Neseryn’s shadows touched mine. Or almost did. I don’t know.” The words rushed out between uneven breaths. “I felt this pull inside me, and then it started burning, and I thought it would stop, but it kept spreading.”
“Show me.” I stared at him. “Now.”
I pulled my arm from his grip. “You could ask without ordering me.”
“You came looking for me.” His gaze never left mine.
“You didn’t come here for sympathy.” The words landed harder than I wanted them to.
“You came because you think I know what’s happening.
” He stepped closer. Not enough to crowd me.
Enough that I couldn’t pretend there was much space left between us.
“So either leave…” A beat. “…or let me help.”
I hated that he was right.
Another wave of pain carved across my hip, stealing the air from my lungs.
I squeezed my eyes shut. When I opened them again, he hadn’t moved.
My fingers found the buckles at my waist. They shook.
I cursed beneath my breath and tried again.
The leather refused to cooperate. And the pain wasn’t helping.
It felt as though invisible lines were still writing themselves beneath my skin.
Kieran watched the failed attempt. “You’re shaking too much.”
“I’m aware.”
“You won’t get them undone like that.”
“I’ll manage.”
“You aren’t though.” The words were infuriatingly matter-of-fact. Another pulse erupted beneath the leather. I doubled over before I could stop myself. A strangled breath escaped me. By the time I forced myself upright again, sweat clung to the back of my neck.
The silence stretched between us.
Then— “May I?”
The question caught me off guard. I searched his face for amusement. For arrogance. For the detached indifference I’d come to expect whenever he looked at me. I found none. Only concentration. And something else I couldn’t quite name.
“If you make one comment,” I said quietly, “I’ll throw you through that wall.”
One corner of his mouth lifted. “I’d like to see you try.”
“I mean it.”
“So do I.” I gave a single, reluctant nod. He stepped closer. Close enough that I caught the faint scent of cedar smoke clinging to his leathers. His movements were careful. Deliberate.
The backs of his fingers brushed my side as he reached for the first buckle. The shadow rune answered immediately. His hand hovered for the briefest heartbeat before continuing.
One buckle. Then another. The leather loosened. Cool air met the burning skin at my waist. “Lower it,” he said quietly.
I swallowed. Then did.
The loosened leather slipped just enough to bare the curve of my left hip.
Kieran’s eyes followed the movement. And stopped.
Neither of us spoke. The shadow rune stretched across the curve of my hip exactly as I’d seen it in the preparation chamber.
Black at its heart. Silver shimmering along its edges whenever the morning light found it.
Smoke-dark filigree curled downward toward my pelvis, while delicate tendrils reached upward, stopping just short of the silver-blue starlight rune beneath my ribs.
The narrow strip of untouched skin between them seemed impossibly small.
As though one breath might erase it. Kieran didn’t move.
His gaze traced every line once. Then again.
Not lingering where my skin was bare. Lingering on the rune itself.
The pain pulsed again. I closed my eyes and when I opened them again, my gaze caught on the dark lines disappearing beneath leather at his wrists.
Another climbing the side of his neck before vanishing beneath the collar of his tunic.
They had always seemed as much a part of him as the shadows that followed him.
I’d never thought to wonder what they’d cost him. “Did they…” My voice faltered. His eyes lifted. “Did all of them hurt like this?”
“Not all of them.” His gaze returned to the markings at my hip. His fingers hovered a breath above the black lines, close enough that I could feel the warmth of his hand without him actually touching me. “When you have enough of them, you get used to it.”
That did not make me feel any better. I don’t even know if it was supposed to.
“But this…” His voice grew quieter. “This isn’t how a manifestation is supposed to happen.”
My heartbeat stumbled. “What do you mean?”
“You said it started after Neseryn.”
“Yes.”
“And you weren’t reaching for your shadows?”
“No.”
“I was standing in the courtyard arguing with her. She insulted me more than my ego would have liked but I kept them away. Until she walked away.”
“Did she see them?”
I don’t think his eyes had ever been so cold. “No.”
“I don’t think so anyways. She paused for a moment but then she kept walking. If she saw them she didn’t make it obvious.”
A muscle feathered in Kieran’s jaw. “If she saw,” he said, “you’d know.” He finally looked away from the rune. “Neseryn doesn’t waste time pretending she doesn’t see something.”
His eyes drifted back to the black lines curling over my hip. “If she’d recognized what happened…” A pause. “You wouldn’t have made it here.”
I folded my arms instinctively before remembering one side of my leathers still hung loose. “You two are that close, then?”
“No.” The answer came flat and immediate.
“So she’s not your girlfriend.”
One dark brow lifted. “We’ve had this conversation.”
“I remember your answer.”
“And?”
“It wasn’t particularly convincing.”A breath that might have been the beginning of a laugh escaped him. So brief I almost thought I’d imagined it.
“No,” he said again. “She isn’t my girlfriend.”
“But you know her.”
“I know what she’s capable of.” The certainty behind the words unsettled me. As though whatever opinion he’d formed of Neseryn had been earned over years instead of months.
“You say that like you’ve known her forever.”
His answer came too easily. “I’ve known her long enough.”
I opened my mouth to press him further. Then he crouched until his face was level with the rune winding across my hip. And suddenly whatever I had been about to say went clear out of my mind.
He didn’t reach for it. His hand remained suspended just above the black filigree, following the curling lines without making contact.
The shadows pooled at his boots. Mine answered. Thin wisps slipped from beneath my feet, weaving toward his before dissolving into the stone between us. Neither of us acknowledged it.
Kieran’s eyes narrowed. “It’s finished.”
I stopped tracking the movements of his fingers and settled on the black marks that stained my skin. “Thank god.”
“Did the pain stop?” His question was so quiet I almost missed it. I blinked. The fire that had been carving through my side for what felt like hours had dwindled to a deep, throbbing ache.
I took a careful breath. A low aching burn followed it. “Mostly. It still burns, but not as bad as before.”
“That’s good.” I realized then how close he still was. Close enough that if I shifted my weight forward even an inch, I’d collide with him. He didn’t seem to notice. Or perhaps he simply didn’t care. His attention remained fixed on the rune.
Satisfied it wasn’t about to change again, he finally stepped back. “You can fasten your leathers.”
I looked down, suddenly remembering they’d been hanging open this entire time. Heat rushed to my face. I busied myself with the buckles, grateful for an excuse not to look at him.
“They’re crooked.”
“I noticed.”
“You missed one.”
“I also noticed that.”
“You aren’t fixing it.”
I looked up. “I was hoping you’d stop talking.” I fastened the final buckle, then glanced down.
He’d been right.
One sat slightly crooked. I reached to adjust it. Before my fingers touched the leather, his hand caught the loose strap. “Hold still.” The words came automatically. Before I could protest, he’d already straightened the buckle with two practiced movements.
His knuckles brushed the side of my waist. Not skin. Leather. Even so, my breath caught.
He stepped back the instant he was finished. “There.”
I looked down. Everything sat exactly where it should. “…Thanks.”
Silence settled over the ruined ring again. “So…” I cleared my throat, grateful to have a practical problem in front of me. “How exactly am I supposed to hide this from the Sanctum?”
Kieran’s eyes lifted to mine. “The Sanctum knew when my light manifested in Edenlo,” I said. “Coren was there before I even understood what had happened.” My hand drifted instinctively toward the newly fastened buckle. “How have they not noticed this?”
“They have.” The words landed with alarming calm.
Every muscle in my body went rigid. “What?”
“They know someone manifested.”
The blood drained from my face.
“Kieran—”
“They don’t know who.”
I stared at him. “How could they not?”
“Because they weren’t looking for you.” He turned away, crossing the ring toward a rack of weapons tucked beneath one of the broken columns. “They felt a manifestation.”
His fingers closed around the hilt of a longsword scarred by years of use. He tested its balance once before drawing another. “They didn’t feel your manifestation.”
I frowned. “That doesn’t make any sense.”
“It does.” He tossed the second sword toward me. Steel flashed through the morning light.
I caught it by instinct, the familiar weight jolting my aching hip as I stumbled half a step before recovering. “The Sanctum can sense the birth of magic,” he said. “It always has.”
He rolled his wrist, the blade singing softly through the air. “But it isn’t omniscient.”
“What does that mean?”
“It means every manifestation carries a signature.”
“My light did.”
“Yes.”
“And my shadow didn’t?”
“It did.”
His green-gray eyes met mine. “They assumed it belonged to a Shadow candidate.”
My thoughts snagged. “There are hundreds.”
“Exactly.” Realization settled slowly. “They know someone manifested a Shadow rune.”
“They’re already trying to determine who.”
“And when they can’t?”
“They’ll start asking why.” The weight of the sword suddenly felt heavier. Questions about a missing Shadow manifestation. Questions about why a Light candidate kept disappearing during and after lessons. Questions about Kieran. Questions that ended with both of us dead.
“The problem isn’t the Sanctum,” he said.
“It’s whoever realizes no one stepped forward to claim the manifestation.”
A chill crawled beneath my skin. “You think someone will figure it out.”
“I know they will.”
“And then?”
His blade slid free in one smooth motion.
Shadow curled lazily around the steel before dissolving.
“Then we make sure,” he said, “that when they find you…” He settled into a stance so relaxed it was somehow more threatening than if he’d looked ready to strike.
“…you’re alive long enough to answer them. ”
I tightened my grip around my own sword. “So that’s the plan?”
“It’s the only one we have.”
“I just manifested a rune.”
“And?”
“I can barely stand.”
“You can stand.”
His gaze flicked to my feet. “Barely.”
“Good.”
I frowned. “Good?”
“If you can fight like this…” The faintest ghost of a smile crossed his mouth. “…you’ll survive when you’re actually injured.”
I stared at him. “That’s the least comforting thing anyone has ever said to me.”
“I wasn’t trying to comfort you.”
“I noticed.” A beat of silence settled between us.
Then every trace of humor vanished from his face. “Ready?”
“No.”
“Close enough.” He moved without warning. No count. No mercy as steel shrieked and my wrists buckled beneath the impact. Pain exploded through my hip, reopening the ache that had finally settled. I was too slow.
Kieran twisted as his blade slipped beneath mine and a sharp sting bloomed across my ribs. I hissed. Warm blood soaked into the edge of my tunic. He was already backing away. “Dead.”
I glared. “You cut me!”
“You hesitated.”
“I was in agony five minutes ago.”
“So will your enemies be.”
He settled back into his stance. “They’ll still kill you.”
My grip tightened. “I liked you better when you weren’t talking.”
“You’ve never liked me, Menace.”
“Fair.”
His mouth almost moved. Almost. “Again.”
My hip screamed in protest. My ribs still burned where his blade had kissed flesh. The new rune pulsed beneath my leathers. It hurt.
So did breathing.
So did moving.
I attacked anyway.