Chapter 6
Lyra
The storm finally passed sometime before dawn, leaving the outdoors white and freezing. The fresh snow glittered under the pale sunlight as Lyra went out to the woodshed to refill the racks inside by the fireplace.
Normally she enjoyed the calm after a blizzard, but today it meant that she lost her excuse for not trying to find Mikael help.
Anyone who knew her story would accuse her of doing it intentionally to punish him, which she supposed was feasible but was also furthest from the truth.
Mikael was in no shape to remember her, especially considering he hadn’t so much as opened his eyes.
After she filled the wood and cleaned up the melted snow, Lyra listened to the hiss of the kettle die down as she stood with a mug untouched in her hands while the small television on the shelf muttered out news she had not meant to listen to but could no longer ignore.
The screen showed sweeping aerial shots of mountain ridges swallowed in white, then the severe face of an anchor speaking with sharpened urgency. Guards in dark uniforms stood in organized lines while banners snapped in the wind outside the castle.
King Mikael has been missing for days following his disappearance during a hunting expedition. The search efforts intensify with an organized search party making ready to leave the castle. Royal officials have declined to comment.
Lyra stared at the image that followed, a formal portrait of Mikael in black and silver with the eyes of authority that expected obedience simply because he existed. She remembered feeling that way when they unveiled the portrait, and it had fit based on the person she had known.
She looked across the room to where the same man lay unconscious beneath one of her patched blankets, hair damp from her sponge bath and his jaw shadowed because she didn’t dare shave him.
One of his hands curled loosely near the edge of the sofa.
He seemed very sweet and looked nothing like the royalty he had portrayed on the television.
Her heart flipflopped and she struggled to control it. Attraction was not what she needed.
“But which side of you will you be when you recover,” she muttered as she reached over to click the television silent.
She should report him. The thought had played on a loop the moment the broadcast began and had not left since.
She should call the authorities and tell them their missing king was alive and occupying her sitting room. She should step cleanly out of this disaster before it rooted itself any deeper into her life.
Instead, she ladled oatmeal into a bowl for Beckett’s breakfast.
Because reporting him meant officials, questions, and names dragged into light, not to mention the fact that someone had poisoned him.
She didn’t want to explain how she knew that and then get accused of being a witch for using simple botany knowledge.
She had no desire for any of that, not when Beckett’s future already trembled on decisions made by people who had never once needed to comfort a shaking child in the dark.
And she certainly didn’t want Beckett’s father finding out where they lived. The better plan was to let Mikael wake up, mend enough to stand, and remove himself from her cottage under his own power.
The best plan was that he left no trace that she had ever been involved. He at least owed her that much.
She crossed to the sofa and folded her arms. She looked down at him with the irritation one reserved for problems that had become too complicated to resent.
“You need to recover quickly,” she informed the unconscious king, “and then you are going to march yourself back to your castle without mentioning me to anyone.”
His breathing remained deep and even, though less ragged than yesterday.
She narrowed her eyes. “I’m serious.”
Still nothing.
Lyra sighed, then sat on the chair beside him, elbows on knees, studying the face she knew too well in ways she preferred not to examine.
“In case you can hear me,” she said after a moment, “my name is Lyra. Have I ever told you that, or will you even remember me?”
Part of her hoped he had no idea who she was but the other half hoped that he did so he could make amends for his past cruelty. She huffed out her cheeks. Did it even really matter?
She was standing there talking to an unconscious king who may or may not even be able to hear her while smelling faintly of medicinal herbs and poultices.
“And the little boy you keep hearing is Beckett, whom I hope will be my son one day,” she continued. “He likes honey on his bread, hates loud voices, and trusts almost no one, which frankly suggests better judgment than most adults.”
Mikael’s fingers twitched faintly against the blanket which caused her to freeze. Then… nothing.
“Wonderful, you can be dramatic in your sleep as well.”
Beckett appeared beside her, solemn and watchful. He had approached so silently that he made her jump.
“Is he still okay?”
“Yep, he’s still sleeping.”
Beckett climbed onto the stool beside her and leaned lightly into her arm with the absent trust of a child who had long ago learned to seek comfort when he could.
He looked at Mikael, then at the silent television.
“Did the phone ring again?”
Lyra’s chest tightened. “No,” she said gently. “You just heard the news.”
Beckett dropped his gaze to his hands. “Do I have to go back?”
The question was so quiet she nearly missed it. “Go back?”
He swallowed hard. “To my father.”
Something inside her went cold and furious all at once.
She turned to him and saw it happen in real time. The retreat she had worked months to undo with his shoulders folding inward, his chin lowering, and his fingers picking anxiously at the cuff of his sleeve. His voice was tiny as if trying to take up less space in the world.
“No,” she said at once. “Look at me, Beckett.”
He tried and failed. She lifted his chin gently with her fingers.
“You do not have to go anywhere today,” she said, each word steady and deliberate. “And whatever happens next, I will do everything I can to protect you.”
His mouth trembled. “But what if he comes?”
“Then he comes to me first.”
“What if they make you?”
“Then they will have to work very hard.”
A watery little laugh escaped him at that, more reflex than amusement, but it was enough.
Lyra pulled him into her lap and held him there while the fire settled lower. Her hand smoothed his hair again and again until his breathing evened and the rigid fear in his spine began to soften.
She told him stories while she held him. Nothing grand, only small true things like that spring always returned no matter how brutal winter felt. That being brave did not mean never being scared. And that some people were cruel because cruelty was all they knew, and that did not make them powerful.
Eventually Beckett lifted his head and pointed at Mikael. “Can the king help keep him away?”
Lyra blinked. “The what?”
He pointed more emphatically at Mikael’s sleeping form. “The king.”
She stared at him. “How do you know that is the king?”
Beckett gave her a look of profound four-year-old disbelief. “From the television, silly.”
Despite herself, Lyra laughed, a genuine sound that felt rusty from disuse. “Right, of course.”
Beckett leaned against her again, eyes still on Mikael. “Can he help?”
Lyra followed his gaze. Mikael’s brow furrowed faintly in his sleep as though troubled by dreams too heavy to shake.
“I don’t know,” she admitted. “But whether he can or not, we are not telling anyone he is here. Do you understand me?”
Beckett’s eyes widened slightly. “Because of my father?”
“Because of many things,” she said, choosing care over detail. “But yes, that would be among them.”
“If I promise, he won’t find me?”
The question broke her heart by how practical it was.
“It will help,” she said honestly.
He thought it over then held out his smallest finger. “I promise.”
Lyra hooked her pinkie finger with his. “I promise too.”
Beckett headed to the table to eat his oatmeal and she stood to stir the fire. As she passed the sofa and glanced down automatically, she saw it again, just beneath the skin at Mikael’s throat.
A shimmer. Then the unmistakable suggestion of scales, dark and iridescent for the span of a heartbeat before flesh smoothed over them again as though nothing had happened.
Lyra went very still. Dragons were real. Real enough to lie wounded in her home and breathe under her blankets.
She said nothing. Beckett saw only a sleeping man, but she adjusted the blanket higher over his chest, her fingers careful not to linger no matter how much they wanted to. Groping an unconscious man was not on her list of to-dos, not even one with scales.
She leaned down and whispered in Mikael’s ear. “Your secret is safe with me.”
Lyra had just returned to the kitchen to refill her coffee mug when a knock on the door came hard enough to rattle the frame.
Beckett gasped before he panicked. He flew from the stool so quickly it toppled backward and crashed against the floor. He stumbled toward Lyra with wild eyes and shallow breaths before he clutched her shirt with both hands.
“Don’t let him in,” he choked out. “Please don’t let him in.”