21. Scout | Lyra #2
A scout, Lyra realized, judging by the way he kept gawking around the room and at his tail. He was no older than she was, but the skin on his shoulders, nose, and forehead was reddened, as if burned by his time on land.
It aged him, giving him a rugged appearance, as did the blond stubble on his cheeks.
She frowned. Beards were an uncommon sight in Atlantis.
Drystan turned back to look at her, and she realized she still lingered by the door. He jerked his chin towards the others, and Lyra floated into the room.
“Now that we’re all here, you may begin,” Drystan ordered the scout.
The scout paled under the attention of the room, but nodded. His hands began moving quickly as he recanted his tale.
“So we’re working with Maelor—the new alpha.
And we gave him the order to murder the Prince of the Wilds, but he wasn’t where you said he’d be.
He had escaped. So they battle in the Valewood—that’s the name of the forest in their realm.
And h-he nearly killed him too, but the pale one—I forget his name—took the killing blow. ”
The information was pouring out of him so quickly that Lyra struggled to process it. But the names tugged at her chest.
Wilder had battled the wulvers again. It made her queasy to think about him facing his nightmares without her.
And the pale one?
Otto flashed in her mind like a beam of moonlight. He had taken the killing blow?
She wanted to vomit.
Did he survive? Was he alright?
Otto’s death would have rattled the stars.
Wilder, Maelys, and Ridge would not be the same without him.
Lyra would not be the same without him.
“Maelor ended up retreating, but not before prying some vital information out of the prince. And sire—it’s not. Well, it’s unfathomable.” He shook his head, his eyes still glowing brightly from his story.
Drystan glared at the scout. “You were under orders to confirm Maelor had assassinated the prince. And nothing more.”
Lyra struggled not to gawk at him. He was trying to stifle the information the scout had come here to tell.
“But sire, this is important?—”
Drystan opened his mouth to cut him off, but Lir beat him to it.
“I will hear what information the scout has brought us.”
Lyra’s lips thinned.
Of course, he would.
The scout took a deep breath and brushed his hands down his tail as if the feel of his scales would center him.
“We heard Prince Wilder say that Lyra had entered into a bargain—with the High King.”
There it was.
The final nail in her coffin.
Lyra expected an explosion from the council members, or at the very least, outrage.
Instead, she felt the weight of their stares, and nothing more. On the inside, she wanted to shrink into herself, but on the outside, she held her head high.
The scout continued. “She agreed to break the Tidal Tithe.”
Drystan raised a hand, and the scout cut off immediately.
“Are you accusing my betrothed of allying with our natural-born enemies?”
The scout reeled back. “I’m not accusing her of anything, Your Majesty. I’m only telling you what we heard in that forest.”
Lyra felt as if the room had imploded. She couldn’t focus on anything outside of the thundering of her heart in her chest.
Darkness tinged her vision around the edges, and she struggled to remain upright. It was several moments before she realized the others had begun speaking.
Clenching a fist, she felt the stabbing of her talons into the meat of her palm. It pulled her from the whirlpool of her mind.
“I told you your involvement with the wulvers was a bad idea,” Caius accused, shaking his head. The loose tresses waved above his shoulders and moved across his neck, but he made no move to brush them away.
“We needed their alliance to retrieve Lyra,” Drystan explained.
Caius waved in Lyra’s direction. “No. You retrieved her yourself. Don’t lie to us.”
The scout’s head volleyed back and forth throughout their disagreement, as did the others.
Lyra tried to focus on Hadrian. She had an unreasonable hope that if there was an ally to have in this room, it would be him.
But he refused to meet her gaze.
Caspian rubbed at his jaw as he processed the information thus far; his white hair was a wreath around his head and shoulders.
Ishmael was so still Lyra had thought he had been encased in ice. But then he steepled his fingers.
Adamaris had a frown creasing his brows, but his face was not twisted with anger.
No, he appeared pensive.
There was a weight pressing into her flesh, and she looked around for the cause. It was coming from Rigel. His expression was unreadable, but with what appeared to be a forced slowness, he returned his attention to the scout, who cleared his throat.
Drystan shrugged off his brother’s counter and glared at the scout.
“Proceed.”
“We tracked Maelor, thinking he would circle back to finish off the Prince, as were your orders. But he headed to Badenvaria. We weren’t able to follow any farther?—”
Lir swam closer. “Why not?”
The scout appeared to shrink under Lir’s full attention. His hand trembled briefly before he rubbed the back of his neck. “There’s something wrong with the humans there.”
It was the first time Lyra had wanted to speak since entering the council chamber. She found herself leaning forward.
Drystan threw out a hand to stop her from coming closer.
“Explain,” he ordered the scout.
He shook his head, the color leaching from the redness across his nose and forehead. “It feels like … magic. Dark magic.”
Lyra swallowed forcibly and held her breath.
Wilder had warned her that no creature set foot in Badenvaria for fear of death. But the scouts on land appeared no differently than humans.
Then again, so did the mermaids on land for the tithe.
How do the humans know who to take in offering?
Caius scoffed. “The humans don’t have magic.”
The scout threw pleading eyes around the room. “I’m not lying, Your Highness. There is something wrong with the land there. We can’t set foot past their defenses.”
“These aren’t the right questions,” Caspian said, his voice thick with annoyance. “Why would the High King want to break the Tidal Tithe? It doesn’t involve him or his court.”
Drystan glanced sidelong at Lyra and his eyes dimmed.
She felt as if all the light in the room focused on her, a specimen for examining.
“If I tell you the answer, do you swear to listen before condemning me?” Lyra’s voice came out much stronger than she felt in that moment.
Adamaris face lit with surprise before a chuckle erupted from him. “She is much more like her sisters than I originally assumed.” He nodded, looking around the room for agreement. “We will withhold our judgment.”
“Speak for yourself,” Lir spat.
“Imagine that,” Rigel said. “The Prince of Olous still fails to see the value of someone who has lived with our enemies, just because she is a female.”
Red crept up Lir’s neck until his entire face was crimson.
Drystan swam to the center of the room and came to a halt beside the scout.
“Silence.”
The room quieted as he turned to look at her. She was all alone on this side of the room. Floating in front of them, she was defenseless.
But that wasn’t the truth. She had her voice. Her power.
A small voice whispered in the back of her mind not to use it, not yet.
She took a deep breath and squared her shoulders. “The Tithe does impact the elves. But it will impact us all before too long,” she swallowed. “The Tithe is a bargain with the humans.”
Lyra tried to read their expressions as her words landed their blow, but her gaze locked with Drystan’s and she couldn’t look away.
He searched her face for a tell, anything that would hint she was lying.
She heard Lir splutter, but still she couldn’t look away. She expected more.
More fury, more outrage, more chaos. There was only partial silence.
Finally, Drystan unlocked her from his attention as he shook his head.
“This is another lie the elves twisted your mind with,” he said. “There would be an account of such a bargain between our realms, and there is nothing of the sort.”
Caspian cleared his throat. “There is actually nothing written about the origin of the Tidal Tithe, Your Majesty.”
Lyra blinked. That wasn’t a defense of her claims, but it also wasn’t a defense of Drystan’s either.
“How do you know?” Hadrian asked, his brow pinched together.
“Lyra’s disappearance,” Caspian winced. “Prompted an information-seeking mission in my territory.”
“Why?” Caius asked, the skin around his eyes tightening as they narrowed.
Caspian clasped his hands behind his back. “Lyra wasn’t the only mermaid not to return from the Tithe. A mermaid from my court, Adella, did not return. Her parents were adamant that something terrible must have happened; as friends of Marmoris, I felt it was my duty to figure out why.”
Drystan nodded. “And what did you discover?” There was a sense of urgency in his question.
“It was as we suspected. There are always only twelve that return. No more, no less—except this last time. But we know why now.”
Caius tilted his head to the side. “Are you saying that there’s always one that doesn’t return every single tithe?”
“From the sparsely recorded information I was able to recover, yes. Twelve only. We always lose one.”
Lir scoffed. “That doesn’t prove anything. We should be grateful for the ones that do return. They received no training. It’s a miracle any of them survive the horrors on land at all.”
Lyra felt warmth blooming in her chest. “Exactly,” she hissed.
“We are paraded on land with no weapons, no armor, nothing to defend ourselves with and are expected to kill? We receive no formal training besides limited reminders on how to get back to the sea and the time limit that hangs over our heads like proverbial swords.”
The words came out so fast she gasped for breath before proceeding. “There should be far fewer survivors. And the fact remains that the majority of us do make it every single time—it’s statistically impossible. But those are big words for you, I gather. Shall I draw you a picture?”
Drystan pinched the bridge of his nose, while Lir’s eyes nearly bulged from his skull.