Chapter Twenty-Four The Boy Who Waited
She told Cassian everything the next morning, watching his face grow steadily more troubled as she recounted Maren's warning.
"A war," he said quietly, once she had finished. "Opposite sides."
"Does it mean anything to you?" Lyra asked. "Do you remember anything like that, from any of your lives?"
Cassian was quiet for a long moment, his eyes distant, searching through centuries of memory.
"There is one life," he finally said slowly.
"One I have never told you about, because I remember so little of it clearly — only fragments.
A kingdom split by war. Armies on both sides.
And somewhere in the middle of it, a terrible fear that I had lost you not to death, but to the other side entirely. "
"You think it's the same memory Maren saw," Lyra said.
"I think it's possible," Cassian admitted. "Though whether it's a memory of the past, or a warning of what's still ahead of us — I honestly don't know."
There was a soft knock at the door, and a young boy — no older than twelve, with messy brown hair and wide, nervous eyes — slipped into the room, clutching a folded piece of paper.
"Are you Lyra Solis?" the boy asked, glancing between her and Cassian uncertainly.
"I am," Lyra said gently. "Who are you?"
"My name's Toby," the boy said. "A woman gave me this to bring to you.
She said it was urgent. She said to tell you — " he paused, clearly reciting something he'd been told to memorize, " — 'the Kingdom sent this before the door closed for good.
' Does that make sense to you? It didn't make much sense to me. "
Cassian took the folded paper carefully, and Lyra watched his face as he unfolded it — a single page, covered in Maren's careful, ancient handwriting.
"What does it say?" Lyra asked.
Cassian read it slowly, his expression shifting from confusion to something like dawning horror.
"It's a name," he said quietly. "A name from the war Maren warned us about. Someone who led one side of the conflict. Someone we're going to meet, apparently, sooner than either of us would like."
"Who?" Lyra pressed.
Cassian looked up at her, and in his eyes, Lyra saw a grief so old and so deep it made her chest ache just to witness it.
"My own brother," he said quietly. "A man I have not let myself remember in centuries, because remembering him means remembering exactly how that war ended. And exactly what it cost us both."
Toby, still standing awkwardly by the door, cleared his throat. "Should I, um, wait for a reply? The lady said something about that too."
Cassian folded the letter carefully and looked at Lyra, something resolute settling over his troubled expression.
"No reply," he said quietly. "But thank you, Toby. You've done more than you know, just by bringing this here."
As the boy slipped back out, Lyra reached for Cassian's hand.
"Tell me about your brother," she said softly. "Whatever it costs you to say it. I want to know, before this war finds us the way Maren warned it would."