Chapter 50
Fifty
- MARCELLA -
I scale the side of the castle until I get to Lyra’s window and tap on it. She appears immediately, eyes wide as she opens it with haste and helps me in. My body shakes with how cold it’s gotten outside, and as she shuts the window, we turn to each other.
I nod at her. “I must say, you played a good part.”
Her eyes narrow. “I’ve been dying to speak with you the last two days. Why did you wait so long to deliver that message?”
A thousand reasons, Lyra, but we don’t have time to run through them. “Because I couldn’t risk being caught. Lady Bethany commanded that I can’t speak with you and Aelia ever again.”
Her head snaps back in disbelief. “Why would she care if we’re associated with one another?”
“I don’t know,” I admit. “But she also told me that Cyrus isn’t the most powerful person here—that she is.”
Lyra crosses her arms over her chest with a small laugh. “Sounds like something she would say.”
“I wouldn’t test the theory. I’m not quite sure what she’s capable of, and…” I toss a look at her bed. “I think you should sit down. There’s a lot I have to tell you.”
“Wait,” she throws out a hand between us, “there’s something you need to know too.” She digs a hand in her dress pocket and pulls free something small and shiny. “Look at it.”
I hesitantly step forward to take it from her, turning it over in my hand. A beautiful diamond and ruby earring with a splash of something dark against it.
As I look up at her, she whispers, “It was Willow’s.
And I found it out in the hallway, partially hidden by a curtain as we all walked to the dining room.
” She points at the splash of darkness against it.
“That’s blood, Marcella. I don’t think she just ran away.
I think something happened to her. Something awful.
And I think…” Her lips begin to tremble as if she’s too fearful to finish her thought.
I rest a hand on her shoulder and guide her back to the bed to sit. Though, my own fear rises like a shadow hovering over my mind. Perhaps I don’t tell her the truth about Cyrus. Only that we must leave at once. And I know the way out.
Lyra whispers, eyes wide and distant as they meet mine, “The visions have been getting stronger. I’ve been waking up in the middle of the night trying to get out of my room.
The forest with the fog? The one I’ve told you about?
That vision is our last trial. Before Willow disappeared, she said cryptic things to me.
About how soon there wouldn’t be any of us left.
I thought maybe the opium poppies had her hallucinating, but…
I saw more in the vision. No one survives that last trial.
” Her voice breaks out into a cry as she says, “Not even you, Marcella.”
“Shhh,” I pull her into a hug, holding her head to my chest as I rub her back with the other hand. “It’s going to be alright.”
She sobs against me, and I grip her harder as I tip my head back up to stare at the ceiling. Pulling in a breath, I let her go and crouch before her.
“Look at me,” I say calmly. When she lifts her teary blue eyes, I squeeze her knee.
“We’re going to get out of here. That trial isn’t going to happen, alright?
But I need you to calm down first. I need you to be strong.
Take a deep breath. In, out…good. Okay, keep doing that.
Now tell me the last light vision you saw. Let’s just focus on that right now.”
Her eyes flutter as she tries to look everywhere but my face. “There’s a place I know we must go to. Where we’ll be safe. It has two crosses and a river. With pine trees and Dragon’s Back Ridge beyond the treeline.”
“Okay, what else?” I murmur gently. “Is it on this side of the border? Or the Arterian side?”
She shakes her head. “I-I don’t know. But there are other things. Whispers inside of my head I can’t seem to quiet. Of blood, and flames…” She lifts her head and stares out the window. “Dragons…and fire and…”
She turns her attention back to me. But there’s a cloudiness spreading over her gaze, one that has me inch back away from her.
“Lyra…” I whisper as I stand. Her eyes follow me, and yet, she’s not all quite there. Those soft pink lips are parted, skin pale in the moonlight. “What do you see?”
Her voice is lighter than usual. Melodic. Fearless. “Fate.”
She rises from the bed, her gown falling from her curves with an ethereal, ghostly appeal. She saunters past me to the window. Pressing her hand against it, her body stills.
“Do we all escape?” I ask.
She turns her head to look at me over her shoulder. The moonlight cascades against her delicate features, causing a glow of white in her eyes. “Not all of us.”
I stand in the silence. Feeling her haunting white-clouded eyes on me. Not Lyra. Someone or something else entirely. Perhaps all along the most dangerous person isn’t Cyrus. Isn’t Devin. Isn’t me, or even Lady Bethany…
Perhaps it’s her.
She turns back to the window. Opening her mouth, she breathes onto it, the glass fogging immediately. She uses a fingertip to write something on it. I walk closer, eager to see what it is.
You cannot run from me.
“Lyra, what does that mean?” I ask, plummeting into a new state of panic.
She’s still. Standing firmly before the window, eyes set on the message. When she doesn’t answer, I grab her shoulder and shake it. Again and again until I walk in front of her, trying to snag her attention.
But whatever lurks within her is stuck. Her eyes remain lost in the distance.
“Lyra? Lyra listen to me. We all need to leave tonight. We cannot stay.” Another furious shake and her head lolls back and forth, but her eyes won’t leave whatever is in the distance. I follow her gaze, finding only the star-studded sky. “Lyra, please!”
But she won’t respond.
I begin to pat her chest and sigh in relief when I feel the vial I gave her of the dragonblood.
Pulling it from her dress, I drag her back away from the window and lean her against the bed before lifting her onto it.
Once she’s completely lying flat, I uncork the vial and pry open her lips.
Her eyes are still staring unblinkingly up at the ceiling.
I pour it into her mouth, praying she swallows. It sits in her mouth for a long while until, finally, she does. The white in her eyes slowly fades like dusk to dawn. Eventually, her blue irises are back. Then half hidden as her eyelids droop.
“Lyra can you hear me?” I ask, patting her cheek.
Her eyes shift to me. Blinking slowly, her confusion draws her face into a tight expression.
“Are you alright?” I whisper, pressing a hand to her forehead. She feels awfully cold and clammy.
She nods slowly, breaths coming out of parted lips.
“None of us can stay here,” I whisper, corking the empty vial and tossing it on the bed. “We need to leave. Tonight. Do you think you’d be able to walk on your own?”
She grabs my forearm and tries to lift off of her back. Her body quakes at the amount of effort it takes. When she gets her head off the pillow, she falls back with a sigh. “I can’t. I can’t move anything.”
“Alright, listen.” I tuck the blankets around her. “You’re going to pretend to sleep while you gain your strength back. I’ll go room to room to rouse the rest of the women. We’ll meet back here and escape together. Alright?”
She seizes my arm, eyes round. “Be careful.”
Squeezing her hand, I rise from the bed. After I shove a dresser in front of her door, I climb out the window. “Close your eyes. And don’t open them until I’m back.”