Chapter 28 #3
“Some were cut out. Some were scraped until the parchment tore. Others were recopied without the passages at all. That isn’t one person destroying one text. It happened repeatedly.”
She caught the implication immediately. “When?”
“Over centuries.”
“So either several people wanted the same information gone—”
“Or someone kept making sure it stayed gone.”
The realization cost her concentration. I hooked my blade beneath hers and sent the sword skidding across the wet stones. Lyra stared after it, then at me.
“That was rude.”
“You stopped fighting.”
“You just told me someone has been erasing a prophecy that apparently has my life wrapped around it.”
“It doesn’t have your name.”
“You know what I mean.”
“I do.”
She retrieved the sword but didn’t immediately raise it. “What does the prophecy say happens to the Starborn?”
There it was. The question beneath every other question. I stepped back.
Lyra lowered her blade completely. “What happens to her?”
I had read enough endings. In one, the Starborn restored what had been broken.
In another, she broke it beyond repair. There were copies where the final lines had been torn away and others where ink had been scraped from parchment until holes remained.
Some versions ended in salvation. Others in ruin.
There were phrases that survived more often than I liked and others that appeared exactly once and had still been enough to make my father kill a man for possessing them. “The endings disagree.”
“That wasn’t my question.”
“It’s the answer.”
“What’s the worst one?”
Of course that was what she wanted. “Lyra.”
“Tell me.”
“No.”
Her sword dropped to her side. “Why?”
“Because you’ll hear one version and decide it’s the truth.”
“And you get to decide I can’t?”
“I get to decide what comes out of my own mouth.”
She looked away. The victory felt considerably less satisfying than it should have.
“Lyra.”
“No. You’re right.” She crossed toward the rack and put the sword back. “I came here because I thought you would tell me.”
“I have.”
“You tell me enough to keep me standing here.”
I went still. She turned. There it was. The truth.
She had no idea how precisely she had found it.
I gave her enough to keep her asking me instead of someone else.
Enough to make my warnings sound like protection rather than control.
Enough truth that the lies by omission could hide between them without looking like lies at all.
“You knew what the Codex was,” she continued. “You’ve spent years researching Starborn. You recognized that woman yesterday. You know records have been destroyed. Every time I get close to the part that actually matters, suddenly you have reasons.”
I had no defense that wouldn’t make it worse because every word was true. She reached for her satchel. “You shouldn’t be walking around alone.”
Lyra turned so slowly that I knew immediately I had chosen the worst possible sentence. “You cannot possibly think that was the correct thing to say right now.”
“No.”
“At least we agree for once.”
“Lyra.”
“What?”
I crossed the ring. “I’ll help you.”
She stopped. “With what?”
“Finding the missing pieces.”
Her eyes narrowed. “You just spent the last hour refusing to tell me half of what you know.”
“I refused to give you speculation.”
“You refused more than that.”
Yes. I had.
“And you’ll do it again.”
I could have lied. “I might.”
Her eyebrows rose.
“But if there are answers inside the Sanctum, I’ll help you find them.”
“Why?”
Because she was going to look anyway. Because Damon and the Council had already started asking questions.
Because Halos had deliberately removed the Shadow wielder from her projection group and nearly broken the Crucible trying to force whatever he suspected out of her.
Because if someone had spent centuries cutting pieces of this history away, I wanted to know what they had been afraid of before Lyra became another piece someone decided needed removing.
And because helping her search gave me a chance to see what she found before she did.
That last part stayed where it belonged.
Inside my head. “You’re going to do it with or without me. ”
“Yes.”
“At least you’re honest.”
“Occasionally.”
She studied me. “Where?”
“The archives.”
Interest replaced some of the anger immediately.
“Restricted?”
“No.”
Her face fell. I nearly laughed.
“There are collections beneath the Sanctum that most candidates never bother with. We start there.”
“That sounds suspiciously legal.”
“It is.”
“That’s disappointing.”
“It’s an archive.”
“You know what I mean.”
“Unfortunately.”
She adjusted the satchel. “And when the answers aren’t there?”
“Then we look somewhere else.”
“The Restricted Archives.”
“Your fixation on committing a major Sanctum offense is concerning.”
“You know that’s where this ends.”
I did. I resented that she did too. “Not tonight.”
Her eyes narrowed. “You’re actually helping me.”
“I’m preventing you from getting caught alone.”
“That’s still helping.”
“It’s supervision.”
“You make friendship sound miserable.”
“We aren’t friends.”
Her mouth curved. “Right.”
“What?”
“Nothing.”
“That was clearly not nothing.”
“You stitched me half naked in my bedroom last night and now you’re volunteering to search archives with me, but sure. We aren’t friends.”
My shadows shifted at my feet. Lyra noticed. Her smile deepened.
“Those are becoming very inconvenient for you.”
“You have no idea.”
The words came out before I decided whether I should say them. Her smile faded. She stepped closer.
“You still do that.”
“What?”