CHAPTER 31
Sleep has become my enemy. Every time exhaustion finally drags me under, the memories return.
They never stay long enough to make sense of them, only long enough to leave me gasping when I wake.
My mother’s scream. Blinding light. The cottage shaking apart beneath power I couldn’t control.
My father’s hand reaching toward me before everything disappears into darkness.
I always wake before I remember what happened next.
I open my eyes to the familiar white walls surrounding me and let out a slow breath.
The glass hums softly, a sound I’ve heard often enough that it no longer startles me.
That realization should bother me more than it does.
I shouldn't be growing accustomed to captivity, yet that seems to be the direction my life keeps pulling me.
Honestly, why does everyone keep kidnapping me?
The rebels extinguish the lights more often now. At first, I assumed it was another way to punish me, but I’ve begun to suspect they’re watching instead, waiting to see what darkness does to me—how long it takes before I finally break. I’m starting to think that’s exactly what they want.
The answer, unfortunately, isn’t long.
I close my eyes and lean my head against the cool glass behind me. Somewhere beyond these walls, life continues without me. Training still happens in the courtyard. The Sacred Gardens are probably growing thanks to my touch. Thorin is…
I stop the thought before it can finish.
It’s becoming a dangerous habit, thinking about him.
I shouldn’t miss him. I certainly shouldn’t find myself wishing he would stride through these halls with that infuriating confidence of his and tell me everything will be fine—that I’ve always been protected.
It’s absurd, really. He spent weeks trying to break down every wall I’d built around myself after dragging me halfway across the continent against my will.
But for all his secrets, riddles and infuriating arrogance, his intentions never felt sinister.
I never truly feared Thorin. The Rebellion, though…
I fear them.
And unlike when I was with Thorin, I have no magic to protect myself.
The sound of approaching footsteps pulls me from my thoughts.
I sit up as a young woman rounds the corner carrying a wooden tray.
She’s close to my age, with dark hair braided over one shoulder, freckles scattered across her nose, and a thin scar cutting through one eyebrow.
She doesn’t carry herself like a soldier.
There’s no armor, no weapon at her hip. She looks... ordinary.
She sets the tray beside the cage before lowering herself to the floor across from me, crossing her legs as though we’ve done this before.
We stare at one another for several moments. Finally, she sighs.
“You look terrible.”
A laugh escapes me before I can stop it. My voice is rough from disuse.
“I was going to say the same thing about you, but it seemed rude.”
One corner of her mouth lifts. “Fair enough.”
Silence settles between us again, though it feels less hostile than before. She glances down the corridor, making certain we’re alone before lowering her voice.
“We didn't bring you here to hurt you.”
I raise an eyebrow. “Really? Because from where I’m sitting, you’ve all done an excellent job. Mind games really are an excellent form of torture.”
She accepts the sarcasm without reacting. “We brought you here because you’re important.”
“Ahhh, there it is,” I mutter. “The sentence I was hoping not to hear. I don’t want to be important to anyone.” I rake a hand through my mass of unruly curls, wincing when my fingers snag on a knot. “Life was significantly less complicated when I was just an ordinary healer.”
Her expression softens just enough to make me suspicious.
“You don’t know what’s happening, do you?”
“If I did, I probably wouldn’t be asking so many questions."
She nods slowly, as though that confirms something for her. “For what it’s worth...most of us don’t think you’re the enemy.”
My stomach knots, and anger flares. “Then why am I in a cage?”
“Because the Rebellion needs you. And…people are afraid.”
“Of me?”
She hesitates, her gaze dropping to the floor. “They’re afraid of what your existence means.”
That isn’t an answer. Or maybe it is. I study her face, looking for any sign she’s lying, but all I find is exhaustion.
“What exactly do you think I am?”
She shakes her head. “I honestly don't know. But they do, and we need you.”
At least she’s honest.
She pulls absently at a loose thread on her sleeve before speaking again. “I grew up hearing stories about children with magic disappearing. Everyone blamed the Shadow King. We all did.” Her eyes meet mine. “Now I'm not so sure.”
My thoughts immediately drift back to my conversation with Onyx. He’d all but told me the Shadow Guard never took magical children, yet he’d carefully avoided filling in the rest of the story.
Now…
Now I want to know what Onyx and Thorin were trying so hard to protect.
Mara lied to me outright. Onyx hinted at the truth but never gave it voice. Thorin guarded his secrets just as fiercely. Whatever happens to magical people who disappear, I’m beginning to think the truth is far more complicated than anyone ever let me believe.
The young woman begins telling me stories instead of answers.
A little girl whose touch could heal broken bones.
A boy who made flowers bloom wherever he walked.
Families who learned to hide what made them different because they feared what would happen if anyone found out.
They all blamed the Shadow King. Then she stops talking and stares at me.
“I’m not important to them. I’m just a helper. I feel like I should tell you more—but I don’t know if I can.”
“Then don’t.” I lean back against the glass with a tired sigh. “I’m not sure how many more stories or half-answers I can survive.”
She ignores me. “The Shadow King…”
Everything inside me stills. So much for pretending I don’t care. “What about him?”
“He hasn't stopped looking.”
I blink.
She watches my face carefully. “We thought he would bargain with us.”
A smirk tugs at my lips. “The king doesn’t strike me as the bargaining type.”
A faint smile flickers across her face. “No, no he doesn’t.”
She looks toward the corridor again before lowering her voice even further. “His rage is... palpable. He doesn’t know where we are, but we can feel his presence searching.”
Those words send a wave of relief crashing over me. For the first time since I was dragged into this place, someone has confirmed what I’ve been too afraid to believe. He didn't give up. He didn't think I was dead. He's searching for me. She doesn’t elaborate, and she doesn’t have to.
The image of Thorin standing in the Sacred Gardens flashes through my mind, his silver eyes fixed on me with such certainty, as though there had never been a world where I wasn’t meant to stand beside him.
I spent so much time questioning his motives that I never stopped to question his determination to protect me.
She slips away without another word, leaving the tray untouched between us. I stare after her long after she’s gone.
My mind slips back to those words he’d told me when he first brought me to Andell.
You. Are. Mine.
That thought steadies me.
Then my wrist erupts with pain. I cry out, clutching my arm as the mark beneath my skin blazes with unbearable heat. The sensation races up my arm and across my chest until I can barely breathe.
It isn’t my fear.
It isn’t my grief.
The emotion crashes into me like a tidal wave, ancient and overwhelming.
Rage. Not wild or reckless, but focused with terrifying precision.
Beneath it lies desperation so profound it steals the air from my lungs.
Thorin. For one heartbeat, I feel him. Not his thoughts.
Not his memories. I feel the force of his determination.
The connection vanishes almost as quickly as it came, leaving me trembling against the glass.
I press my forehead to the cool surface and close my eyes.
He knows.
Somehow…
He knows I’m alive.
A laugh escapes me before I can stop it. I curl into a ball on the floor, smiling like an absolute madwoman.
He’s coming for me.
* * *
I’ve been asleep maybe ten minutes when it starts again. Golden light flashes against the cottage walls. My father calls my name, panic thick in his voice. I squeeze my eyes shut as Mara’s voice cuts through the memory.
Tell him you did it, Lyra.
The words claw at me, as vivid now as they were the first time I remembered them.
Only… I frown. My thoughts snag on the memory.
That isn’t what happened. Mara never said those words.
At least... I don’t think she did. The certainty I've clung to for years begins to unravel, leaving me wondering how much of this memory belongs to me—and how much belongs to her.
My body jerks upright. I’m sprawled across the cold glass floor.
I scrub a hand over my face and let out a slow breath, knowing sleep won’t find me again tonight.
The door at the far end of the chamber opens with a soft groan.
A young man with thick black curls and rich ebony skin steps inside.
He stops a few paces from the cage, studying me in silence.
Why does everyone here insist on talking to me? More importantly... what in the goddess’s name do they want?
“Lyra?” he calls quietly, almost as if he’s afraid of waking the dead.
Not yet. Not now. I’m too tired to talk.
“You’ve been here three days,” he says gently. “You must be exhausted. Frozen nights. Roaring dreams.”
I lift my chin. “Yes. I’m exhausted from this place and everyone in it. However many of you there are.”
“Every night, back to the light. Back to the cottage.” His fingers trace a ragged line across the glass. “Walking through muddled memories is the only way to stay alive in here, isn’t it?”
He doesn’t wait for an answer. “It wasn’t your fault.”
That sentence would’ve infuriated me days ago. Now, I barely react.
He tells me my parents forgave me before they died. He says Mara was weak. Manipulated. How would he even know?
Finally, I rasp, “Get the fuck out unless you have something useful to say.”
His head tilts slightly. “I do,” he says softly. “Everything you’ve been told about the Shadow King is a lie.”
I don’t say anything, because I need to know where this is going and if he has information that will be useful.
“The villages teach that he hunts people born with magic. That he locks them away.”
He shakes his head. “I have magic. If those stories were true, I wouldn’t be sitting here. I wouldn’t be walking through your dreams every night.”
I search his face for any sign that he’s lying, but I don’t find one.
His words echo through my mind, and I wonder if I heard him correctly. “Then where are they?”
“Hidden.”
He lets the word settle before continuing. My heart races. Every answer uncovers another question.
“There’s an entire settlement of magical families living under the king's protection. Children. Healers. People who’ve spent years hidden from the rest of the continent while The Rebellion searched for them.”
I stare at him. “Why?”
He lets out a weary breath. “Because if everyone knew people with magic were safe, they’d start asking who’s really making them disappear.”
His gaze hardens. “The Rebellion needed a monster.”
My stomach twists with understanding as cold fury coils through my chest. “So they made one.”
“Exactly. I needed you to know before…” He trails off, his expression darkening.
“The wrath of a god is coming.”
His jaw tightens, and I see the barely leashed anger in his eyes.
“The Rebellion doesn’t fear magic, Lyra.
They covet it. They steal it. They kill anyone whose gift isn’t useful to them.
It’s easier to convince an entire kingdom that one man is a monster than to admit your own neighbor might belong to the organization responsible for the murder of thousands. ”
He looks at me with quiet sadness. “They hate the gods. Or at least…they hate the gods Solaris worships.”
My head spins with this new information. “There are other gods?”
A chill crawls down my spine as he continues, nodding. “Yes. What the Rebellion worships is something far older.”
Silence stretches between us before he speaks again. “They knew you would come… the prophesied Cursebreaker.”
My heart stutters, because somehow... I already know what he’s about to say.
“When you were born, there were eyes on you. The Rebellion had been searching for you for years. Your parents wanted to leave Solaris to hide you. To teach you how to properly train your magic without fear.” His jaw tightens.
The quiet patience he’s shown since walking into this room is gone, replaced by unmistakable fury.
“And they knew exactly how to get you from the palace because someone inside led them straight to you.”
“What?” I whisper. The word barely sounds like my own voice.
My mind buzzes beneath the weight of everything he’s told me.
The numbness I’ve been clinging to splinters, replaced by a slow, churning rage that settles deep in my chest. If I still had my magic, I would bring this entire place crashing down around us, wherever we are.
I took an oath as a healer to do no harm. But now… Now I understand why people choose revenge instead.
He gives a single nod and I squeeze my eyes shut.
No. Who would do this?
“I think I'm getting close to finding out who it is,” he says quietly, as though reading my thoughts. “I can't prove it yet, but I believe someone in the king's inner circle is working with The Rebellion.”
My head snaps up, and the glass walls of the cage suddenly feel too close. The air too thin.
“If my suspicions are correct,” he says carefully, “this person doesn’t fear your magic. Someone knew the king had been searching for you. They knew he was trying to protect you.”
His expression hardens. “They made sure The Rebellion reached you before you could discover who you really are.”
Silence settles between us. “Why?” I whisper.
“Because they don’t want this continent healed.” His voice drops, his intense gaze never leaving mine. “They want the darkness. They want the curse to remain exactly as it is.”
He hesitates, and something in his expression steals the air from my lungs. I brace myself for whatever comes next. He looks at me like he already regrets what he’s about to say.
“And Mara...” His voice is barely audible. “Mara led the Rebellion to your parents when they were preparing to flee.”
The world goes black.