29. The Survivor | Lyra #2
She brushed out the length of her auburn hair with her talons and gave him her best fake smile.
“Of course. Who would have ever thought being confined to their room for long periods of time would bring anything other than pure bliss.”
Drystan didn’t meet her eyes. “I thought it would keep you safe. I didn’t realize?—”
“I don’t care to hear your thoughts on the matter,” Lyra snapped.
Drystan rolled his eyes and swam towards her door. “Then get ready. Fang and Angler will see you to the council chambers when you’re presentable.”
Lyra lay her head against her pillow.
“Get up,” he ordered. “You don’t want me tracking you down.”
Lyra waited until she heard her door shut before sliding out of bed and floating towards her vanity. She froze when she caught a glimpse of herself in the polished mirror.
Dark shadows smudged beneath her eyes, and her cheeks were gaunt. She looked like a ghost.
There was a commotion outside her door, and Lyra whirled just as Thalassa swept inside.
“Oh, good, you’re up!” Thalassa beamed at her.
Fang was reaching for Thalassa, the scar on his face twisting with his frown. “You can’t?—”
Thalassa slammed the door in his face.
Lyra stared, bewildered. “What is going on?”
Thalassa zoomed across Lyra’s room, coming to a quick stop in front of her. “I have excellent news!” She gripped Lyra’s hand in both of hers. “Cora came to stay in the palace and brought a book her mother had kept hidden. Well, her great-grandmother had kept hidden.”
Lyra scowled at the tightness with which Thalassa gripped her and slowly extracted her hand from her sister’s.
“I have to get ready,” she said, facing the mirror once more. “If Drystan has to come escort me, I’m sure he’ll bring the collar.”
Thalassa’s jaw dropped open before she snapped it shut and clutched Lyra by the shoulders.
“You’re not listening to me. I think Cora’s book can decode the one Nerida is trying to read to solve your bargain.”
Lyra froze, her hairbrush held aloft in front of her.
It was the first bit of good news she’d received in so long. Her eyes fluttered closed with her forced breath as she staunched her excitement.
It was too soon for any kind of excitement when it could all be ripped away at a moment’s notice.
“Have you read it?” Lyra asked.
She brushed her hair back in long strokes, unsnarling the tangles that her fitful sleep had brought.
Thalassa shook her head. “No?—”
Lyra’s shoulders dropped.
“Stop that.” Thalassa shook her head. “Nerida is reading it right now. She sent me to tell you!”
Lyra inhaled sharply through her nose as her eyes widened. “Did she say anything else?”
“She’s going to check it against something else she found, but she’ll have to go back to Naguni. She said to be patient—and don’t touch your magic in the meantime.”
Lyra huffed a laugh. “I can promise you, I won’t be touching it at all.”
There was a pounding on the door. “Princess Lyra, the council convenes!”
Thalassa threw a glare over her shoulder at the door, her golden hair bouncing in the low gathering she had pulled it up in.
“I’d better go,” she muttered, glancing back at Lyra. “Good luck.”
Thalassa was gone before Lyra could say thank you, not that her sister would have cared, anyway.
Lyra struggled to finish getting ready. Each of her movements was sluggish and clumsy.
She dropped several pins attempting to pull her hair back and then took an exhausting amount of time trying to decide on a kylix before giving up and selecting one at random. It was lilac.
Her eyes burned when she thought of how much Maelys would have liked the color.
She reached to grab another one, but the blue was the same shade as Daisy’s hair, and it had a lump forming in her throat.
Everywhere she looked, she was reminded of them.
With one final glance in the mirror, Lyra sighed.
She was as good as ready. It was difficult for her to pull her door open, and when she did, she was greeted by the brooding faces of Angler and Fang.
“Took you long enough,” Fang muttered.
Lyra didn’t reply.
“All that time and she still looks like that,” Angler added.
She didn’t say a word, just floated there, waiting for them to finish.
They weren’t wrong. She looked abysmal.
Fang shrugged and took up her left, while Angler followed on her right.
They swam through the halls of the palace at a tepid pace. Lyra found herself relieved. It was an effort to move her body at all.
They weren’t clever enough to hide the looks they shot at each other over her head, but they didn’t speak to her or about her again.
Lyra thought she spied Seraphina down a hall they had passed. At least she saw a shock of white hair before Angler blocked her view.
She realized she hadn’t thought of Sera since seeing her sister, Ondine, and she hadn’t seen Ondine or Lorelai in quite some time.
“Where are the servants?” Lyra wondered aloud.
Truthfully, she didn’t expect either of them to answer.
“The Tidal Master has decreed that no mermaid can be in service to the crown,” Fang said.
“Until Drystan has been crowned King,” Angler finished.
Lyra’s nostrils flared as she pursed her lips. “Why?”
Fang shrugged.
Angler, however, scrubbed a hand across his face before answering. “Because Aegir wants him to know his place.”
Fang glared at Angler, but this time he shrugged. “What?” she asked.
The power struggle between them was amusing, albeit fleetingly. They didn’t seem to waver in their support of Drystan, but they also didn’t think too highly of her if they were willing to air their grievances so freely.
“Have there been a lot of decrees lately?”
She threw the question out like bait on a line.
The council chamber door loomed closer.
Fang reached for the iron door handle. Angler shot a look down the hallway behind him and said, ever so quietly, under his breath. “Too many.”
They pulled the doors open in unison as Lyra sucked in a sharp breath.
Exhaustion still clung to her like a second skin, but something else lurked beneath her even facade. The fear was subtle, it adhered to her spine as thin as a spider’s silk.
Her spine, which she wrenched stiff as a pillar, before gliding through the threshold.
“Ah, there she is …” Drystan’s voice swept across the silent room.
It was darker in here than it had been before, or her sight was fading again. She could not be sure of either.
Lyra peered into the darkness to see that most of the council gathered closest to her were Adamaris and Rigel.
Adamaris was whispering something to Rigel. The princes of Zeal and Pavlopetri had yet to acknowledge her arrival, and there was something concerning about the stiff set of Adamaris’ shoulders that increased her anxiety.
However, when Rigel flicked his eyes to hers and graced her with a soft nod, she exhaled.
“I’m glad you weren’t too long,” Drystan said as Lyra swam towards him, passing Ishmael and Hadrian.
Ishmael floated with his arms clasped behind his back, a pensive look skewing his features as Lyra bobbed a greeting to him before turning to Hadrian.
He was the only one who smiled at her. A lock of inky-dark hair swept across his forehead, and he brushed it away, his smile growing. It was then that Lyra noticed a dimple in his left cheek.
It shocked her that she had never noticed it before. But he also hadn’t ever smiled at her before. She was grateful for that smile as she noticed who Drystan was positioned between.
Caspian and Lir.
Lir had been outspoken in his displeasure of her, and although not unkind, Caspian hadn’t been welcoming either.
There was a single member missing from the group. Lyra cast her eyes around the room, expecting him to become corporeal in a murky shadow.
“Where is Caius?” she asked, coming to a halt beside Drystan.
Drystan scowled at her, his face pinching as he looked her over.
“He’s bringing the survivor,” he said at last. “You could have taken more time to get ready.”
Lyra glared at him. “You threatened me.”
“I didn’t realize you would need time to appear more … polished.” He shrugged.
His tone wasn’t rude, but the words were. She shoved them aside and focused on the important bit of his answer—the survivor.
Her mind whirled at the ramifications of that statement. Drystan had said there had been an attack, but hadn’t explained who and where. With tension not even a blip in the current, she couldn’t wrap her head around what the urgency had been in meeting.
“Was there only one?” Lir asked.
The violence Lyra mused raged in his eyes was now unhindered across his face. His brow was cut so severely over his eyes that it made her want to retreat.