Chapter 12
Lyra
Dag stepped between them so quickly that the movement startled even the guards stationed farther down the corridor. His broad frame cut off Lyra’s view of Mikael while one heavy hand remained on the king’s shoulder as though physically steering him away was well within his right.
“You should return to your bed,” Dag said firmly. Beneath the command, Lyra caught something sharper lurking in his tone. “The physician already said you are not strong enough for this.”
Mikael did not answer immediately.
He shifted his weight and his gaze locked on Lyra over Dag’s shoulder with an intensity that made her chest tighten painfully. There was recognition there, fractured and incomplete but unmistakably real. For one terrifying moment, hope surged through her before caution smothered it again.
He remembered something, not enough, but something.
“Mikael,” she called before Dag could force him farther down the corridor. His name escaped her lips almost on their own because she could not bear watching him disappear again without trying. “Please.”
She needed him in order to be able to search for Beckett.
Dag turned sharply toward her and irritation flashed openly across his face now. “You do not address the king so casually.”
Lyra ignored him entirely. “Mikael, listen to me.”
The king blinked slowly, almost as though pulling himself free from a dream. Beside him, Dr. Martin stepped closer with visible concern etched across his weathered features.
“You need rest,” the physician reminded him carefully. “The vaccine has begun working, but the poison is still affecting your mind and body more than you realize.”
Vaccine. Poison.
The words collided violently with memories Lyra had been trying not to revisit since the night she found him half-dead in the snow. Before she could stop herself, words burst from her mouth.
“Blysemberry root.”
Every head in the corridor turned toward her instantly.
Martin stared. “What?”
Lyra swallowed hard beneath the sudden weight of their attention. She forced herself not to shrink beneath it the way she once would have years ago when Dag and the others had cornered her in school corridors with mocking smiles and cruel amusement burning in their eyes.
“The root,” she said more steadily. “Ground into tea or broth. It slows blood poisons and neutralizes some toxins if it’s administered quickly enough.”
Martin moved toward the bars. “How do you know that?”
“My grandmother taught me,” Lyra answered. “It grows near the northern frost marshes. The leaves detect poison and the root slows the toxicity. I gave it to him while he was unconscious once I figured out there was more going on than just frostbite.”
The physician’s expression sharpened with immediate fascination. “That explains it.” He glanced quickly toward Mikael. “The root must have slowed the toxin long enough for you to get the antidote.”
Dag looked deeply displeased by this entire conversation. “Whether or not she accidentally managed to keep him alive does not change the fact that she is awaiting judgment.”
“Judgment for what?” Mikael demanded.
“We don’t know who poisoned you, and she is the most logical suspect.”
“She’s the one who found me, isn’t she? And kept me alive before you arrived.”
“Yes,” Lyra almost shouted.
“It remains to be determined, Mik. We don’t know yet.”
“She literally just told you how she saved me. Why would she do that if she had been the one that poisoned me?”
“Because we have her locked up. She’ll say anything.”
“I sincerely doubt that. She may know more about the poison than anyone currently inside this castle,” Martin countered. “Myself included. I would like to question her further.”
For several seconds silence settled heavily through the corridor before Mikael finally spoke, his voice roughened by weakness but carrying enough authority to stop every argument instantly.
“Bring her to my chambers.”
Dag frowned. “Mikael…”
“That was not a suggestion.”
The guard’s jaw tightened visibly, though after a long moment he stepped back with clear reluctance while two guards moved forward to unlock the cell.
Lyra’s heart pounded painfully as she stepped into the corridor. She instinctively reached for Beckett before the terrible emptiness hit her all over again.
He was still missing.
She wanted to beg Mikael to help her find him, but she knew she needed to wait until Dag wasn’t around. There was something in the man that she didn’t trust at all and while he hadn’t arrested her himself, she instinctively knew that he was behind her current predicament.
The realization hollowed her from the inside out as the guards escorted her behind Mikael and Martin. By the time they reached the chambers, fear had wrapped itself so tightly around her ribs she could barely breathe properly.
The room itself felt overwhelmingly warm after the dungeon. Snow drifted softly beyond the tall windows, but nothing mattered because the moment the doors shut behind them, every pair of eyes in the room settled onto her again.
Mikael lowered himself carefully into a chair while Martin immediately resumed fussing over him with obvious irritation.
“You should still be in bed.”
“I’m sitting,” Mikael replied dryly. “I’m fine.”
“Barely.”
Mikael turned his attention to Lyra and the weight of that stare unsettled her far more than Dag’s hostility ever could because there was still something searching in his expression.
“I know you, and yet…” he said slowly. “Tell me your name.”
Lyra hesitated only briefly. “My name is Lyra.”
The instant the words left her mouth, Dag barked out a sharp evil laugh from near the door.
“Well,” he muttered, “that explains everything.”
Mikael frowned. “You know her?”
“Oh, we all knew Lyra.” Dag pointed at her. “You lied to me. I knew I recognized you but you denied it.”
The old humiliation hit hard enough to make her stomach twist because Dag’s tone had not changed at all since their school years.
It still carried that same cruelty hidden beneath false amusement, the same deliberate sharpness meant to reduce her to something small and laughable in front of everyone else.
“Quiet little Lyra from the slum district,” Dag continued as he leaned against the wall. “Always trailing around with second-hand books and dirty clothes because her family couldn’t afford anything.”
Martin shot him an unimpressed glance. “Are you still twelve?”
Dag ignored him. “She used to cry if someone looked at her too harshly.”
Lyra felt the words strike old bruises buried deep beneath years of survival and hard-earned control, but unlike the girl Dag remembered, she no longer folded beneath mockery just because someone expected her to.
“You must be proud to be a walking example of how some people never grow up,” she replied evenly.
Dag’s expression darkened instantly. “Careful.”
“No, you don’t get to use that word with me anymore.” Lyra lifted her chin despite the fear that clawed through her chest, or maybe it was pent-up fury. “I spent enough years being careful around you.”
Something flickered across Mikael’s face then.
It wasn’t a full memory, but something more like recognition.
She saw it in the way his jaw tightened, as though fragments of old scenes had begun surfacing through the poison’s lingering haze.
Dread curled through her because Mikael had stood beside Dag during those years more often than not.
Not always speaking or laughing, but never stopping it either.
She wondered suddenly how much he remembered of the boy he used to be and whether he felt even the smallest shame for it now. His gaze remained fixed on her with strange intensity, and for a moment the room seemed to narrow around them until Martin cleared his throat.
“The blysemberry root,” the physician prompted, clearly trying to redirect the conversation before Dag said something worse. “How much did you administer?”
Lyra answered automatically and quickly explained the dosage and preparation she had been taught, but Beckett’s face flashed through her mind so vividly that panic surged fresh and brutal through her chest.
She stepped forward. “Please, Mikael” she said, her voice breaking despite her effort to steady it. “I need your help. Please help me find him.”
Mikael looked up sharply. “The boy. The one who was with you while I was unconscious. I remember his voice.”
Relief hit her hard because she saw it immediately in his expression. He remembered Beckett. Only partially perhaps, only in scattered pieces, but there had been recognition there the instant she spoke.
“Yes,” Lyra whispered desperately. “He ran when the guards came for me and I have no idea where he is. He’s alone somewhere out there in the snow.” Her throat tightened painfully. “He’ll be terrified.”
“You left a child on his own?” he demanded of Dag. “In this weather?”
“I wasn’t there, Mik. I have no idea.”
“And you didn’t listen to her when you locked her up? My God, what were you thinking? We don’t treat anyone like that, especially young children.”
Dag shrugged. “By the time I knew, it was hours later. I’m sure someone found him.”
Lyra watched the exchange with tears threatening despite her determination not to cry in front of Dag ever again. “Please. We need to go find him.”
Mikael’s gaze held hers for several long seconds before he turned toward the guards near the door.
“Take a team. Search the village,” he ordered quietly. “Every street, every stable, every outbuilding. Bring the boy back unharmed.”
Dag opened his mouth as though preparing to object, but one look from Mikael silenced him instantly.
“I have to go. He’ll be terrified. You don’t understand.”
With a deep sigh, Mikael nodded his consent. For the first time since her arrest, Lyra felt the smallest flicker of hope return.