Chapter 31
Thirty-One
- MARCELLA -
After Lady Bethany dismisses us from our dragon study lesson, Lyra is pulled away by Aelia and several women to spend time out in the gardens.
I try to weave through the crowd bottlenecked in the hallway spilling outside to the castle grounds.
Once I’ve caught up to them strolling and laughing through one of the paths, I grab Lyra’s arm.
She and the other women turn to me.
“Can I…” I swallow as everyone’s eyes land on me expectantly. “Can I speak with you for a moment?”
Lyra dips her head and leaves with me. We walk further back into the gardens, away from the others.
Finally I whisper, “The next trial is less than two weeks away. You really want to be spending your free time wandering about in the gardens? You should be training.”
“Training?” She gives me a look. “Training what, exactly?”
I eye our surroundings before dipping my head low. “Your visions. You had another one during the lesson, didn’t you?” When her gaze drops to the ground I continue, “If that happens during a trial, it could mean your death.”
Her blue eyes flick back up to me. “But you’ll protect me.”
Straightening, I blow out a breath. “I’ll try, but there’s only so much I can do. What happens if you get pulled into a vision while we’re scaling the side of a mountain? Or…” I shrug. “Having to fight something? If you slip, I might not be able to save you.”
Her throat bobs, eyes widening. “Alright then, how can I train?”
“Try closing your eyes and working through your visions until you can master them. Focusing on your breath, slowing down until you can decipher them. Or slow them enough so you can block them out until it’s a more convenient time to seer.”
She blinks. “And you think I might be able to master them before the next trial?”
“Not necessarily, but training you physically is a bit of a moot point.”
She narrows her eyes at my brutal honesty. So I add, “And if you can focus your visions, perhaps you can see what the next trial entails. Maybe we can work ahead of it?”
“What if I can’t stop them once I start? You saw me in the lesson today. It’s not something as easy as lifting a weight. It's a blind charge that I can’t predict or stop. And not easy to hide, either.”
“Then we…” I puff out a breath, searching for an answer. “Train at night. Which means during the days in our free time, it’ll be best to rest and recharge.”
She turns her back to me, strolling to the nearest stone bench and taking a seat. Tossing a glance over my shoulder to ensure no one else has strolled down our path, I join her.
“Eventually…” She gulps. “Eventually whatever I saw, and my mother saw, will come true then?”
“Your mother was a Seer, too?”
She nods. “Yes. A Dark Seer, I think. Many things she couldn’t even put into words. They’d haunt her day and night…”
I squeeze her shoulder. Unable to comprehend the weight of seeing something awful and knowing it would eventually come. “Don’t worry yourself too much about it. Visions are often vague and open to interpretation. And sometimes there’s the off chance the Gods grant a change of fate by a bender.”
Her eyes soften when she looks up at me. “A bender?”
“Yes. Benders can twist reality, sometimes. If the need is dire enough.” I pat her shoulder and drop my hand off her. “Don’t worry yourself with it too much, Lyra. We have to focus on getting through one day at a time.”
She frowns, looking down at the cobblestones beneath our feet. “Does Devin know much about Seers?”
“I would assume so. Why?”
She flicks a piece of dust off her knee. “He mentioned something to me. Something about knowing I was ‘sick’.”
I stiffen. “What else did he say?”
“He told me not to trust you…” She swings her blue doe eyes up to me. “That you’re a snake.”
I snort, rolling my eyes and looking off into the trees. “Don’t bother with him. He doesn’t like me because had I not left when my brother went missing, he would have never had the position of General. I would have.”
“So if Cyrus already knows you…and Devin…Lady Bethany…” She shakes her head as she scans the tiles beneath her feet with fervor.
Working through each thought. Her eyes flick back up to me.
“You don’t want to marry Cyrus, and we made the oath based on the fact that you would protect me so I would win and pardon your brother.
But then, why are you here in the first place? ”
As I open my mouth to respond, her face falls. She whispers, “You made some other deal, haven’t you?”
I stand up. “I can’t talk about it.”
“And why not?” She rises, too. Then snaps her attention down to my hands and back up. “You made a blood oath with someone else too, didn’t you?”
Truthfully, I’m not sure if I have. I glance down at my gloved hands, fishing for a memory I can’t lure out. As far as I remember, the agreement was for me to find the traitor and end her before she kills Cyrus. All for the pardon of my brother. But that was merely done by word. By trust.
I glance back up at her slowly. “No. My agreement isn’t based on a blood oath, but by word.”
“Then surely you can tell me.” She challenges, lifting her chin.
Clenching my jaw, I meet her gaze. Working over part of my inner cheek between my teeth. Until finally, “I’m not here as a contestant for Cyrus’ hand. I’m here to spy on the others.”
She takes a half step back. Twisting her face away so she’s glancing at me sideways. “Here to spy for what exactly?”
“There’s a traitor amongst the women. Cyrus’ Dark Seer had a vision that someone would try to kill him.”
She gasps. Blinking, before she turns to look at the gardens beyond. “So you’re here to find out who and report it back—”
“No, not exactly,” I mutter.
When she sweeps her gaze to me, I hold it and say, “I’m to kill her.”