Chapter 28 #4
“Say the truth for half a second and then look like you regret letting me hear it.”
A damp strand of pale hair had stuck against her cheek.
I reached for it before thinking better of it.
My fingers brushed her skin as I moved it aside.
Lyra went still. So did I. Her eyes lifted to mine.
My thumb rested against the edge of her jaw.
Her hand rose slowly and hovered near my wrist before her fingers settled there.
My shadows slipped across the wet stone. A thin strand curled around her boot.
She glanced down. “They’re doing it again.”
“They like you.”
Her eyes returned to mine. “Do they?”
“Yes.”
“And you?”
I looked at her mouth. She saw. She didn’t look away.
Only a few inches separated us. My thumb traced the line of her jaw, and she leaned into my hand so slightly I might have convinced myself I imagined it if her fingers hadn’t tightened around my wrist. I moved closer.
Then I saw the bruise beneath her eye. The split at the corner of her mouth.
Yesterday still written across her skin.
That should have been enough to stop me.
It wasn’t the only reason. Kissing Lyra would turn a problem I could still call tactical into a truth neither of us could pretend away.
Halos was watching her. Neseryn was watching me.
Damon had arrived from the Light Council.
My father existed somewhere beyond the Sanctum with enough blood on his hands to drown every good intention I had ever managed.
And Lyra was already beginning to trust me. I was already lying to her.
I stopped.
Her eyes opened fully. I stepped back. Her hand fell from my wrist. “Right.”
The single word landed harder than it should have.
“Lyra—”
“No.” She moved around me. I let her. At the arch, she stopped and turned back. “I’m done waiting.”
I said nothing.
“I’m done waiting for the Codex to decide when it wants to speak.
I’m done waiting for Halos to tell everyone what happened to me.
I’m done letting councils and old stories decide what I am before I understand it myself.
” Her eyes held mine. “And I’m done waiting for you to decide what I’m allowed to know.
” She adjusted the satchel higher against her shoulder.
“I’m going to find out, Kieran. With you or without you. ”
I believed her. I had spent most of my life learning which doors stayed locked because someone powerful wanted them that way. Lyra had been east of the Veil for a matter of weeks and seemed to regard a locked door as a personal insult. “When?”
She frowned. “When what?”
“The archives.”
For a moment, she only stared at me. “You’re serious.”
“Unfortunately.”
“You’re actually going to help me.”
“I just said I would.”
“Yes, but half of what you say is designed to avoid answering me.”
“You’re hardly innocent.”
“Mine are usually useful.”
I looked at her. She smiled. There it was again. That fucking smile. “Tomorrow night. After last bell.”
“Why not tonight?”
“Because you’re limping.”
Her smile disappeared. “No.”
“No?”
“You don’t get to use my leg as an excuse after making me train on it for the last half hour.”
“You came here carrying a sword.”
“I did not.”
“You accepted one.”
“You handed it to me.”
“And you immediately tried to hit me with it.”
“That sounds like a you problem.”
I stared at her. She folded her arms. “Tonight.”
“Tomorrow.”
“Kieran.”
“Lyra.”
Her eyes narrowed. I waited. I had sat through Council meetings across from my father without moving so much as a finger while men twice my age sweated through their collars. Lyra lasted perhaps four seconds. “Fine.”
“Good.”
“Restricted?”
“No.”
The offense on her face nearly broke me.
“Restricted eventually.”
Her whole face changed. Gods help me. “That sounded dangerously close to a promise.”
“It wasn’t.”
“I’m choosing to hear one anyway.”
“Of course you are.”
She backed beneath the arch. “Tomorrow. After last bell.”
“Try resting before then.”
“I’ll consider it.”
“That means no.”
“It means I’ll consider it.”
“Menace.”
“Nyxara.”
She turned into the passage, then stopped. Her gaze traveled to the sword in my hand, then to the ruined training post behind me. Back to me.
“What?”
“Nothing.”
“Lyra.”
She resumed walking. “I was just thinking your stance looked perfectly fine when I got here.”
I went still. Her laugh followed her down the corridor.
“See you tomorrow, Kieran.”
Then she was gone. My shadows remained stretched toward the arch after her footsteps disappeared. I looked down at them. “Traitors.” They did not move. I dragged them back and crossed toward the training post, but the sword stayed at my side.
Tomorrow night I would take Lyra into the archives and help her search for a history someone had spent centuries cutting apart.
She thought I was finally helping her reach the truth.
Part of me genuinely was. That was what made it worse.
Because the problem wasn’t that I didn’t know where to begin.
The problem was knowing exactly which truths I needed to keep her from finding.