Chapter 21 #3
“I said I was sorry.” We dissolved again. The laughter felt almost obscene. It had no place beside execution and forbidden magic and everything else waiting outside that locked door.
But for a few minutes, I didn’t care. I hadn’t realized how desperately I’d needed to laugh.
Not until my stomach hurt and tears gathered in Vareena’s eyes and the terrible pressure I’d been carrying for weeks finally loosened enough for me to breathe around it.
Eventually we quieted.
She finished cleaning the cut and covered it with a thin strip of linen. Her fingers lingered near the edge. “Don’t let him do that again.”
“I don’t think that’s how sword fighting works.”
“Then cut him back.”
“I intend to.”
“You better.” She packed away the salve. I watched her. There were still things I wanted to say. Too many. The Codex waited somewhere beneath the Sanctum. Pages turning without hands. Words appearing where none had been before.
Starborn.
Your mother walked these halls. Every answer had only given me another question. And now there was a black rune curling beneath the silver one on my skin. They had to be connected. Everything was.
“Vareena?”
“Hmm?”
“There’s more.” Her hands stopped. I almost said it.
There’s a book. Three words. That was all it would take.
Then I’d tell her about the chamber. About the Codex.
About my mother’s name appearing where it shouldn’t.
About the impossible feeling that an ancient power had been waiting for me long before I’d known this world existed.
But fear closed around my throat. Not fear of Vareena.
That was the worst part. I trusted her. I simply didn’t know what telling her would make her part of.
Vareena waited. I looked down. “Never mind.” She was quiet. Shame crawled through me. “I’m sorry.”
“For what?”
“For doing it again.”
Understanding softened her face. She nudged my knee with hers. “You told me something.”
“Not everything.”
“I didn’t ask for everything.”
“But—”
“Lyra.” I looked at her. “You don’t owe me every ugly thing that’s ever happened to you just because we’re friends.”
The kindness in that hurt more than it should have. “I know.”
“Do you?”
“I’m working on it.”
“Terribly.” I rolled my eyes. She smiled. Then she let the joke go. “Tell me when you’re ready.”
“You won’t ask?”
“Oh, I’ll ask constantly.” I laughed.“But you can tell me when you’re ready.”
The knot in my chest eased. “I will.”
“Okay.” Vareena stood and stretched. “And until then, your terrifying forbidden secret is safe with me.”
“Could you maybe not call it that?”
“What would you prefer?”
“I don’t know.”
“Your murderous little darkness?”
“Worse.”
“Your scandalous second affinity?”
“Absolutely not.”
“Your—” I threw a pillow at her. She caught it against her chest. “So much violence. Nyxara really is rubbing off on you.”
“Give me that.”
“No.”
“Vareena.” She threw it back. I caught it badly enough that it nearly knocked over the cup beside my bed. Her laugh filled the room.
And just like that, we were ourselves again.
Or maybe we weren’t.
There was no going back to who we’d been before. Vareena knew now. Not everything. But enough. Enough that every time she looked at me, I searched her eyes for a change. Fear. Suspicion. Disgust.
There was none.
Only Vareena.
She reached for the ribbon she’d abandoned on her pillow earlier and tied back the strands of hair that had fallen around her face.“I’m starving.”
“You’re always starving. I’d say it probably has to do with the fact that you never actually eat. You just push your food around like you’re being personally tormented and pretend you’ve zoned out when anyone calls you on it.”
“Do you catalog everything that I do?”
“Not everything.”
I smiled.
She headed toward the door, then stopped with her hand on the bolt. When she looked back at me, the humor had faded. “If this happens again…” I waited. “Don’t run away from me.”
My chest tightened. “I wasn’t running from you.”
“I know.” Her fingers rested on the lock. “But next time, run toward me.”
For once, I didn’t have a joke. Neither did she.
I nodded. “Okay.”
Vareena held my gaze another second before sliding the bolt open. I followed her into the corridor, listening as she launched into a complaint about whatever the kitchens had managed to ruin for dinner.
The Codex remained tucked safely behind my teeth. There was still so much I hadn’t told her. But for the first time, that didn’t feel like another lie between us. I’d shown her the part of myself I was most afraid for anyone to see, and she’d looked at me exactly the same afterward.
Vareena glanced over her shoulder. “Are you coming, or are you planning to stand there brooding all night?”
“I don’t brood.”
“You absolutely brood.”
I caught up with her. “I think you’re confusing me with Kieran.”
“Oh, gods.” She groaned. “You really do like him.”
“I’m going back to the room.” Her laughter followed me down the corridor. I didn’t go back.
The Codex could wait. The rest could wait too.
For tonight, knowing I no longer had to carry every secret alone was enough.