64. Feminine Rage
Lyra squeezed her hands together and twisted her fingers until her knuckles whitened. She had killed that wulver. She had brushed against her magic and now its euphoria surged through her.
It was the same pleasure Wilder had brought her in the carriage. She was relieved no one had realized what she had done.
As Maelys retrieved her blade and stomped across the clearing, she smiled at Lyra.
“Looks like you learned something after all.”
Lyra cracked a smile in return and shrugged, trying to hide the trembling of her hands.
“You never displayed that level of skill in training,” Maelys said, stopping beside her.
Lyra’s stomach clenched. If Maelys figured out she was capable of using her magic, then she would be forced to use it time and time again.
“I never had someone in front of me that I wanted to kill,” Lyra replied.
Maelys chuckled. “I should have you aim for Wilder at the next training.”
Ridge appeared beside Maelys. “I don’t think that would work anymore.”
His voice wasn’t louder than a whisper, but it still felt as if he had shouted it.
“That’s not true,” Lyra argued.
She tasted the lie as soon as she spoke it.
Ridge crossed his massive arms over his chest and leveled Lyra with a look.
“Don’t play dumb with us. Even I can sense what’s brewing between you two.”
Lyra slid her eyes over to Wilder, who was directing Dust and Oak on where to set up their tents.
His black hair gleamed as if it were kissed by the night sky.
He was beautiful, she had always thought that, but seeing him stand so rigidly in front of Igneous highlighted the pain he had hidden below his curated surface.
“I have no idea what you’re talking about.” Her eyes never left Wilder, and as if he sensed her stare, he turned and looked at her.
“Sure ya don’t,” Maelys whispered in her ear as she passed with a still chuckling Ridge.
“Lyra! We’re setting you up right here,” Otto called, waving a pillow above his head to get her attention.
A canopy tent had been pitched beside the carriage in front of a thicket of brush that Oak was collecting for a fire.
“Is that safe?” Lyra asked.
She stood in front of her tent with her hands on her hips. They hadn’t started a fire once on their journey from Terra to the Wilds. Now it seemed counterintuitive.
“They already know where we are,” Oak replied with a shrug. “Might as well be warm.”
Otto pressed the pillow into Lyra’s stomach, and she wrapped her arms around it.
“You did well. Found that fire in your veins after all,” Otto murmured.
Lyra squeezed the pillow to her chest and tucked her chin into it. She hadn’t known where it had come from, that rage. Maybe it had to do with being used as a pawn again. Maybe it was because she thought they had all been in danger.
But maybe more than any of that, it had to do with protecting him.
“You’ll do wonderful things … now that you finally found your voice, too.”
Lyra’s eyes flashed, but she huffed and pushed through the flapping fabric that made up her tent door. Leaving a bewildered Otto staring after her.
The tent was small. No bigger than the cot that took up most of the floor space. Her trunk had been unloaded from the carriage and was placed beside a stack of quilts.
Lyra closed her eyes and tilted her head back. Sighing through her nose, she thought back to her room at the castle. She missed Daisy, she missed the bathing chamber, and she missed her big, fluffy bed.
The thread of gold around her heart was muted, dulled in a way that told her she was empty right now. She had used all of her power in one go to kill that wulver. But she wasn’t afraid. She knew it would come back.
When she blinked her eyes open again, she noted the netting that made up the tent roof. The night sky was ablaze with millions of twinkling lights. Lyra curled up onto her cot, kicking off her boots, and she lay back looking up at the blanket of stars in the sky.
Constellations that told stories over a millennium. Heroes and villains, ordinary people making decisions that would cast them into the oblivion of legends.
She hadn’t felt the guilt she had the last time she used her power. Although she was a child then, she could still vividly remember the anguish she had felt when she had learned the fate of that boy.
But now—she felt still.
Her eyes slipped closed, and she thought of her decisions. Where would these choices lead her …