Chapter 57 - Lyra
Lyra
“You are impossible.” The low, hissed noise registers at around the same time that the pain hits. “I’ve made my decision. She can’t stay here.”
I inhale sharply, but the heated words flying around my head pay no attention at all.
“Perhaps we should take this discussion elsewhere,” another voice interjects. “Eres hasn’t slept in days, and he said that Lyra could wake at any time—”
“I’m not leaving.” The first voice is familiar, and I breathe around the agony in my chest, attempting to place it. “Tell Duskbane to leave, since he refuses to see any form of reason.”
A long, deep breath follows. This third voice is lower. Deeper. Ragged, his anger barely veiled. “She doesn’t care about your finery—”
“You can’t possibly care for her the way we can in Solvandyr.” A snort. “You would have her scrabbling around in the dirt for scraps, Duskbane. She’ll have every luxury with me.”
The second voice echoes again, this one tighter. “As Kaelen said, she doesn’t care about any of that.”
“You don’t know her at all.” Furious words bellowed across me. “And I would pick up my sword and go to war with you again, Commander, before I ever allowed you to take Lyra back to that fucking place!”
The bed shakes beneath me.
The bed.
I turn my head very slightly, testing the softness beneath me.
My father. Reena—
Eres. Darian. Kaelen. His shield had failed, and they had been down on the field without protection.
And I had failed. My eyes slip open.
A face mirrors my movement, only a few breaths away. I stare into deep, midnight blue eyes, and my heartbeat settles into something resembling a normal rhythm. Eres looks close to sleep, deep lines engraved in his forehead and the circles beneath his eyes darker than Darian’s. He blinks, slowly.
Once. Twice.
When I blink back at him, his whole face seems to drop. His eyes close, and when they open again, they’re shining. “There you are,” he whispers, quiet beneath the shouting still going on above us. “I’ve been waiting.”
He’s here. Alive.
Waiting for me to come back.
I don’t think I can say anything. The back of my throat burns as my face collapses. He shifts until his lips touch my forehead. My cheeks. Anywhere and everywhere he can reach, his hand raising to cradle my face. “Don’t move. You’re still healing. You need—”
“I know. Rest.” Every word hurts.
He grins at me. There’s so much joy in it that I try to reach for him, to touch my finger against that smile, and I suck in a breath as my entire body protests. “I think… you might be right.”
The shouting has stopped.
Darian’s face appears beside Eres. My healer shifts out of the way, letting Darian get closer as his eyes travel slowly across my face. “Little Lightbringer. How are you feeling?”
“Hurts,” I rasp. My chest feels as though somebody has shoved a red-hot poker directly through the center.
Darian reaches for my face before changing his mind and picking up my hand instead. He wraps it in both of his, holding it up and kissing my wrist. He half-laughs, half-sobs. “I don’t want to hurt you any more than you are already.”
“Eres… healed me?” I remember the spear. How I had looked down to see it emerge from my chest, where my heart should have been. I shouldn’t be here.
I was in the middle of the Solvandyr army.
How am I here?
“I healed you.” The quiet voice comes from my other side. It takes a tortuously long time for me to work out how to turn my head, but I manage it. “With some assistance from the healer.”
“Reena.” Confused, I wet my lips. “How are you… here?”
She doesn’t smile. But her eyes are soft as she leans forward. Her hand tidies my braid, smoothing it down where it lays next to me against the pillow. “Plenty of time to talk about that, Lyra. When we’re home.”
Home.
At the question in my face, she tilts her head. “In Solvandyr. We can leave as soon as you’re safe to travel.”
My flinch is instinctive, and immediate.
Home. Solvandyr. The two terms feel so completely separated to me that my entire body rejects the notion, agony tearing through my body as I shrink back into the bed.
Her hand falls from my braid. “Lyra?”
I can’t—
Hands cup my face. “Breathe.”
I focus on his face. On drawing air in and out of my lungs. Kaelen looks just as tired as the others. More so, perhaps. But his eyes are soft. He waits until the harsh, noisy sounds of my panic settle.
He doesn’t say anything. His thumb strokes over my cheekbone, just once, before he stands. “We’ll give you some time with your sister.”
She stares at me as they leave. “Solvandyr is your home, Lyra.”
I swallow. “Can I have some water?”
She helps tip the cup, giving me a little without spilling it all over me. As my throat moistens, I face her. “I don’t want to go back.”
She flinches. “But things will be different now—”
“I love you.” Her eyes grow wide. I’m not sure I’ve ever said the words to her aloud. “But I can’t go back there, Reena. I… I want to stay here. If they’ll have me.”
She draws in a slow breath, then releases it. “Judging from the arguments I’ve had with Duskbane since we arrived, I think it’s safe to say they want you to stay. But… you’re sure?”
I nod, and even that hurts. “I want to help them rebuild Umbraxis. This is… this feels like home.”
Maybe not completely. But enough that I want to try to build one here, with them.
“I don’t understand,” she admits. Her hand lingers near mine on the bed, not touching. “But… if that’s what you want.”
“It is.” I swallow again. “Has it been very difficult?”
Her brow knots. “I like your healer well enough. The dreamwalker, too. But Kaelen Duskbane… I don’t understand how you didn’t kill him.”
The small bite of humor makes me smile. “It’s a long story.”
Her hands are hesitant, before they stroke over my hair again. “We have time.”
We talk for a long time. Eventually, she stands. “I’m certain they’re waiting outside, so I’ll ask them to come in.”
“Thank you,” I whisper. “I’m glad you’re here, Reena. How long can you stay?”
She lifts a shoulder. “There’s much to do in Solvandyr, now that… it will be difficult. I should leave once talks are concluded, now that you’re awake. If we can agree.”
Her eyes slide to me. “If you insist on staying, perhaps… Perhaps there could be a role there? As a go-between.”
I consider it. “Maybe.”
“Think about it.” She hesitates. “Lyra…about your mother.”
My face lifts so quickly I almost vomit from the stabbing sensation. “What about her?”
She lifts a shoulder. “I found documents, while you were gone. I was looking for something else. But… Her name was Ingrid. Ingrid Salvendor.”
Ingrid Salvendor. My eyes prick, and my sister crosses the room again. Her embrace is gentle, and swift.
“Thank you.” The words are muffled.
She sniffs, but her eyes look shiny as she turns away. “I’ll send you anything I can find.”
Kaelen slips in as she leaves. He hesitates in front of the door.
“Kaelen,” I whisper. My finger brushes the bed. “Come here.”
“You’re healing. Eres will hunt me down.” But he crosses the room, toeing off his boots, and carefully—so carefully—he lays down next to me and lets out a long breath.
We both stare at the ceiling.
“Hello, witch,” he whispers finally.
My lips lift. “Hello, wielder.”
Our fingers brush together, and he curls his hand over mine. “I rehearsed this so many times inside my head, and now I don’t know what to say.”
I turn my head toward his, painfully slow. “What do you mean?”
“Lyra. You… it’s done. Over, if Reena and I can come to an agreement. Hundreds of years of war between us, and it might finally be ending. Because of you, and what you did.” Kaelen takes a breath. “I don’t know how to say thank you. There aren’t words big enough for what I want to say.”
Oh. “And is that… all you want to say? Thank you?”
He looks around his bedroom. “Your sister pointed out—more than once, might I add—that we don’t have a lot of finery here. There’s far more in Solvandyr.”
“I don’t care about finery.” I stare at him.
“And the food selection is limited.”
“I don’t care about that, either.”
He turns to me. “We have to rebuild. Umbraxis… it was so much more than this, once. But it’s going to take years, Lyra.”
“I like to be busy,” I almost whisper. “Ask me to stay, wielder.”
His throat flexes. “Stay here with me, witch. Build a life here. With us.”
“And if I said no?”
The lines on his face deepen into a glare. “Then a new war would begin, because I’d chase you all the way into Solvandyr and bring you home.”
“You wouldn’t.” My eyes narrow, assessing his expression. “Would you?”
His finger strokes my palm. “First, I would tell you that I love you. That I’m going to try every day to make sure you never regret picking us.
I’d even crawl if you asked me to, witch.
If you said no, then I’d respect your choice.
But I’d still spend every day of the rest of my life waiting for you to come home. ”
My breathing stutters. “And you said you didn’t have words.”
Those words, I’m going to keep close. And take them out, every so often, just to remind myself of how I felt in this moment.
When I don’t say anything, he twists his head. His hair falls over his eyes, and he shoves it away impatiently. “Well?”
“You know you didn’t actually ask me a question—,”
“Witch,” he hisses. His lips land on mine before I can say anything else. “I said the three of you together would be trouble.”
He doesn’t sound particularly bothered by that fact. “Do you think you can handle a lifetime of trouble? Because I have my doubts.”
Kaelen kisses me again. “Watch me, witch.”