Chapter 33 #2
Eiryx coughed into his fist.
Neseryn turned on him. “You were involved.”
“I was in bed.”
“Whose?”
He smiled. “Wouldn’t you like to know.”
“No.”
“Then we’re both satisfied.” I almost admired his commitment to being irritating.
Neseryn’s attention returned to me. “The western foundation shifted last night.”
My hand stopped halfway to my mouth.
“Don’t bother,” she said. “I felt it from the Rings.”
Eiryx and I exchanged a glance.
Neseryn caught that too. “I am so over that damn look.”
“What look?”
“The one you two do when you’ve decided everyone else in the room is too stupid to be included.”
Eiryx looked suspiciously close to smiling. I set down the cup. “Nothing happened.”
Her gaze went deliberately to the cut beside my temple, traveled to the scrape along my forearm, then returned to my face. “What did you open?” I said nothing. “Kieran.”
“I didn’t open anything.” Technically true. Lyra had. With my hand attached to hers. Unfortunately, that brought back the feeling of her fingers threading through mine, the light spreading beneath our palms, and everything that happened afterward.
Neseryn narrowed her eyes. “What?”
“Nothing.”
“You’re staring.”
“I’m trying to decide why you look like that.”
“Like what?” Her attention moved over my face again. Behind her, Eiryx suddenly became fascinated by the view from my window. Traitor.
Neseryn noticed. “What am I missing?”
“Nothing.”
“Apparently a great deal,” Eiryx muttered. I turned on him. He lifted his hands.
Neseryn looked between us. “Who was with you?” Neither of us answered. She gave a humorless laugh. “Oh, you’ve got to be fucking kidding me.”
“Don’t.”
“Alerain?” Eiryx returned his attention to the courtyard. Neseryn stared at me. “You took her into the foundations?” The contempt she put into the word was convincing enough that even I might have believed it if I hadn’t known her most of my life.
“She came willingly.”
“That’s your defense?”
“I don’t need one.”
“You dragged an untrained Light wielder into a sealed section of the Sanctum in the middle of the night.”
“I didn’t drag anyone.”
“No, of course not. I’m sure she ignored every warning you gave her and followed you anyway.”
I said nothing. That was answer enough. Neseryn made an irritated sound. Eiryx glanced at her.
She caught him. “What is your problem?”
“Nothing.”
“Then stop looking at me.”
She turned back to me. “What did she find?”
“Nothing that concerns you.”
She took one slow step toward me. “Something beneath the western foundation wakes up for the first time in years, and somehow that doesn’t concern me?”
“You don’t know that we caused it.”
“I know you disappeared. Alerain disappeared. Half the old wards beneath Umbra screamed loudly enough for anyone sensitive to Shadow to feel them.” That was more than I wanted her knowing.
“What exactly did you feel?”
“Now you’re interested.”
“Neseryn.”
“Enough to know you have no business interrogating me after spending the night crawling through sealed foundations with the little Light princess.”
“Don’t call her that.” The room went quiet. Eiryx turned from the window.
Neseryn stared at me long enough for me to regret reacting at all. “Oh.” Her mouth curved unpleasantly. “That’s interesting.”
Her gaze passed over the cut at my temple, then lingered on my mouth. “You have lost your damn mind.” Pretty sure that happened sometime around Lyra crossing the Veil. “You know what she represents.”
“To you?” The question escaped before I could stop it.
The amusement vanished from her completely. “Don’t.” One word. Enough warning behind it that I let the question die.
Eiryx, unfortunately, had gone very still. I knew him well enough to see the threads beginning to connect in his head, and I had no intention of allowing him to pull on them.
“Go.” His eyes shifted to me. “Now.”
For once, he didn’t argue. He passed between us on his way to the door. “I’m beginning to understand why neither of you has normal relationships.”
“Out.” The door shut behind him.
Neseryn waited until his footsteps had faded before turning on me. “What the hell are you doing, Kieran?”
“I could ask you the same thing.”
“This isn’t about me.”
“No?”
“Kieran.” I knew that tone. I had known it since we were children. “You know exactly why this cannot happen.”
There were too many ways to answer that, and most of them would lead somewhere neither of us could afford to go. “Nothing is happening.”
Neseryn looked pointedly at my mouth. “Right.”
“It was one kiss.” Even saying it aloud sounded absurd.
“One kiss,” she repeated.
“Yes.”
“And you’re done?” I didn’t answer. She paced toward the balcony doors before turning back. “This is exactly the kind of shit he warned you about.”
My body went rigid. “Do not bring him into this.”
“He’s already in it. You think being here instead of there means you escaped him?”
“I said don’t.”
“And I said you know better.” That was the difference between arguing with Neseryn and anyone else.
She knew where the bodies were buried because she had helped me bury some of them.
We had twenty-one years of shared halls and locked doors behind us, stolen salve after punishments and nights spent pretending we hadn’t heard what was happening in the next room because intervening would only earn both of us the same treatment.
She had been there before I could remember a life without her, the closest thing to a sister I had ever possessed.
When Neseryn wanted to hurt me, she rarely missed. “You’re getting careless,” she said.
“So are you.”
She answered too quickly. “I don’t know what you’re talking about.”
“Yes, you do.”
“Enlighten me.” I watched her for a moment.
“You watch her.”
“So does half the Sanctum.”
“You antagonize her every chance you get.”
“She makes it easy.”
“You were watching her before she ever gave you a reason.” There. A pause most people wouldn’t have noticed.
Then Neseryn shrugged. “She walked into the Sanctum from the Hollowlands. I didn’t need another reason.” Cruel enough to be believable. Anyone else would have accepted it.
I knew better.
Knowing Neseryn was lying didn’t mean I knew why. “What did you feel last night?”
Her face hardened again. “Enough to know you should stay out of those foundations.” She headed for the door.
“Neseryn.” Her hand closed around the latch.
I could have stopped her and asked what had been bothering me for weeks.
Why Lyra? Why had Neseryn begun circling her almost from the moment she arrived?
I already knew enough of the answer to understand why forcing the rest out of her would be dangerous.
“Stay away from the foundations.” Was all she said.
“Planning to stop me?”
“No.” She looked back, and there was the Neseryn everyone else knew again. “But if you get yourself killed chasing her through tunnels, I’ll make sure everyone knows exactly how stupid you looked doing it.”
“Touching.”
“Go screw yourself.” The door slammed. I waited. Three seconds. Four.
It opened again.
Neseryn stuck her head inside. “And Kieran?”
“What?”
“If you’re going to lie about kissing someone, do it when your mouth doesn’t look like that.”
She slammed the door again.
I stared after her.
Then, against my better judgment, I crossed to the mirror.
The cut at my temple looked worse than it felt.
My hair was still damp, and I’d managed to pull my shirt on badly enough that the collar sat crooked.
My mouth looked—I rubbed my thumb across my lower lip.
Which was an immediate mistake. Lyra had bitten it.
Barely. Just enough that I’d felt her teeth before she pulled away and looked at me as though she couldn’t decide whether kissing me had been the worst decision of her life.
Then she’d kissed me again.
I dropped my hand.
Pathetic.
I had survived my father, years in Umbrael, Sanctum training, and things beneath the Veil that had teeth where nothing should have teeth.
Lyra Alerain kissed me twice and apparently I could no longer function before breakfast.
I grabbed my coat.
By the time I reached the lower grounds, the Sanctum had fully woken.
Candidates crossed between the Rings and central halls carrying the remains of breakfast. Someone from Pyra was being shouted at for scorching a practice post. Two Aurora instructors hurried toward the eastern galleries carrying enough parchment to ruin someone’s morning.
I should have gone directly to the western archives. Neseryn had felt the wards from the Rings. I needed to know whether anyone else had, and whether the disturbance had traveled beyond Umbra. If someone had detected the silver—Pale hair caught the morning light across the courtyard.
My useful thoughts ended there.
Lyra stood beside the fountain. She’d changed since last night.
Dark trousers disappeared into her boots, and she wore a cream Sanctum shirt beneath a fitted training vest. Her hair had been pulled back with very little success.
Several pale strands had already escaped around her face.
She looked tired. She hadn’t seen me yet.
I allowed myself several seconds of looking before starting across the courtyard.
Then I noticed the man standing with her.
Damon.
I stopped. Aurora white and gold suited him because he’d been raised for it.
Council dinners. Political introductions.
Rooms full of people smiling while quietly deciding who might be useful.
He stood facing Lyra with one hand tucked casually into his pocket.
Whatever she said drew a laugh from him.
I stayed where I was.
Lyra could speak to whoever she wanted. We had kissed twice. That gave me precisely no claim over her and certainly no right to interfere because another man had managed to make her smile before I had eaten breakfast. Damon touched her elbow. Shadow slid over my boot. I looked down at it.