Chapter 11
Eleven
Find the Pieces
Iwasn’t sure what woke me. One moment I was tangled in dreams of chains and knives, the next I was blinking into the dark.
The glow of the dying embers of the hearth was the only light as I looked around.
Soft snores and the rustle of blankets were the only noise breaking the eerie silence.
Something moved through the darkness. I whipped my head around, but nothing was there.
A gentle ache blossomed behind my ribs, syncing to the now frantic beat of my heart.
I pressed a hand to my sternum, feeling the faint raised edge of the silver birthmark.
The ache deepened, sharp and insistent, until it was no longer just a feeling, but an instinct.
Come, a voice whispered from the darkness.
Cold air slid over my damp skin, raising gooseflesh. My breath bloomed in front of me as the air grew colder by the second. Around me, the others slept, but I knew something was wrong.
I froze.
Hollow eyes watched me from the corner of the room. Awareness crawled over my skin like cold, damp fingers. Her long hair billowed around her like pale water as she drifted closer. I could see through her body as though she was stitched from moonlight and mist.
It was the woman from the woods.
My heart beat tripped. I knew that cold, voiceless pull. I had felt it all my life. I hadn’t seen a ghost since my bloodlettings started. Until coming here.
I opened my mouth to sing, knowing that my voice would send her away. But the woman with the floating hair lifted a ghostly finger to her lips, shushing me silently. My voice froze in my throat as I watched her with curiosity.
She pointed towards the far wall, where I knew the woods behind the barracks laid. The same woods that had pulled me near every time I had run past. She floated towards the door, waiting for me to follow.
My heart fluttered violently against my ribcage as I swung my legs over the edge of the bunk.
A voice broke the hush as my feet touched the cold stone.
“Lyra?”
Dreya was sitting up on her cot, watching me with sleep-filled eyes, hair unbound in a wild tangle of black curls. “What are you doing?”
Before I could answer, Riven pushed himself up onto his elbows in the bunk across from mine, his hair falling in front of his eyes. “Why in the Seven Hells are you two talking at this ungodly hour?”
I swallowed, mouth ashen. “I…I have to go.”
Dreya frowned. “We are on lockdown.”
I gestured to the drifting woman before sighing heavily. Anyone who I had tried to explain this to in the past labelled me mad, had me punished and bled for being evil.
“I just need to check something, I won’t be long.”
Dreya sighed heavily then tore her blankets off, muttering as she pulled her boots on.
“Right, well, we’d better be careful. I don’t want to know what happens if we’re caught.”
For a heartbeat, just one, I swore Riven’s eyes fixed on the ghost as he flexed his jaw.
But then he blinked, and his mouth curved into that careless smirk. “I love a midnight stroll.”
I didn’t argue, not wanting to waste time. I pulled on my boots, laces fumbling in my numb fingers. We each pulled on our uniformed cloaks and creaked the door open.
Once we were out in the corridor, I watched with wonder as the translucent woman floated down the spiralling staircase. I trailed after her, Riven and Dreya following silently.
The ghost led us to the main foyer of the barracks, but instead of leading us to the front doors, where I knew guards were stationed, it took us down a hallway I hadn’t walked before.
Other corridors branched off in every direction, but the ghost glided steadily ahead, never hesitating.
The orange flames of the oil lanterns guttered with each step we took, shadows dancing across the walls in shapes that looked almost human.
“Where are we going?” Dreya whispered.
“I don’t know yet,” I answered honestly. The ghost walked through the iron door at the end of the hallway, and I hesitated, before turning back to Riven and Dreya. Anytime I had followed ghosts, trouble had followed.
At twelve years old, before the bloodlettings began, it was this same ghost that had led me into the Dead Sea. Two guards had followed me into the waves to drag me out. Their blood boiled them alive while I watched. That was the last day my father ever allowed me outside the castle walls.
“I will meet you back in our room,” I insisted.
Dreya shook her head. “No, I’m going to make sure you stay out of trouble.”
I looked at Riven, determination shining through the bruises. He crossed his arms and raised his eyebrows at me. “Make me.”
I sighed, turning and opening the door into the frigid night air.
With no stars able to shine through the thick, oppressive clouds, the nights were dark. If I squinted, I could barely make out the thick copse of trees behind the barracks. The pulling sensation inside my chest peaked, a painful ache that I rubbed absently as I stepped into the thick white snow.
“Wait,” Riven murmured from behind me, disappearing back through the door.
The sound of metal straining broke the silence of the night, and I gritted my teeth, worried someone would hear.
Riven returned a moment later holding one of the lanterns that had lined the hallway, passing it to me with a proud grin.
I turned back to the frozen night and held up the lantern in front of me.
The noncorporeal woman rushed towards me, stopping inches from my face.
I gasped, stumbling backwards. I tripped and landed with a wet thud into the snow.
“Are you okay?” Dreya’s concerned face appeared in front of me, unknowingly going straight through the woman.
Riven gripped my arm and pulled me out of the cold snow that had begun to seep through my clothes. “You look like you’ve seen a ghost,” he muttered, a playful glint in his eyes.
“I’m fine,” I insisted. “I just tripped.”
The ghost turned, moving towards the tree line. I sucked in a breath as I started to follow.
“I don’t think that’s a good idea. The gate stands in those trees,” Dreya said. “There will be extra guards because of the lockdown.”
“Then let’s not get caught,” Riven suggested, keeping pace next to me as we wound through dead trees.
The clearing was small yet seemed like a hollow gouged into the earth. As if some colossal beast had torn a crater in the forest and never returned to fill it.
Snowcapped pines ringed the perimeter, their branches motionless despite the sleet filled wind.
Flurries of ice clung to our uniforms as we trudged through the thick snow.
My thighs burnt with the effort to pull my boots free of the thick layer.
The ghost floated above the ditch, watching me expectantly.
“Are you ready to go back now?” Dreya asked.
“I just need to see something,” I muttered.
If I told her why I was here, she would think I was crazy.
The aching in my chest had almost become unbearable with every step deeper into the trees.
Mist crawled across the ground, pale as old bone, making it hard to see the bottom of the ditch as I leant over it.
Find the pieces. Find yourself.
The whisper brushed my ear, cold breath trailing over my neck.
The hair on my arms stood on end, but I took a step, unable to stop myself. Riven’s hand clamped around my wrist.
His fingers were warm, but his voice was low and tense. “Lyra, wait.”
I turned, searching his face. In the hollow beneath his lashes, something dark flickered. Recognition. Or dread.
“I just need to see what’s down there,” I whispered, throat raw. Dreya’s eyes darted nervously between us. “Something feels off. We should go back,” she breathed.
“There is nothing but trees out here,” I responded, gesturing around me.
She wrapped her arms around her body and eyed me suspiciously.
At first, I had assumed she followed me out of loyalty.
Now, I wondered if she was only here to confirm whatever superstition had taken root in her mind.
Riven’s gaze caught on something past my shoulder.
For a heartbeat, his pupils dilated, before he swallowed and looked away.
I stepped forward and slid down the icy bank, vanishing into the mist. I landed hard, the impact knocking the air from my lungs.
The lantern lay next to me. I righted it, eyes adjusting to my surroundings.
“Lyra?” Dreya called, her voice panicked. I couldn’t see her face above me through the unnatural mist.
“I’m okay!” I called back.
Something caught my eye in the tangle of roots in the snow, as if the tree itself had wrapped around the weapon. An axe. I couldn’t tear my eyes away from it, the ache in my chest now pulsing. I needed that axe.
Silver and black metal twined together, etched in runes that seemed to squirm when I tried to read them. Power coiled off the weapon in invisible currents, prickling against my skin.
Dreya skidded down next to me, muttering a curse under her breath and flicking snow off her uniform.
“It feels even worse down here,” Dreya grumbled as she stood beside me, looking down at the axe.
She bent down, her hand wrapping around its hilt. She tugged. The roots seemed to tighten around it. She grunted, tugging harder. Riven jumped down next to us, landing on his feet with a grace I longed to one day possess.
“It is like it’s fused into the roots.” She stood, panting from her attempts.
I stepped towards the axe. Riven seemed to take a step at the same time, stumbling into me.
His thumb grazed my palm, and a sharp sting bloomed.
I gasped and yanked my hand back, fresh blood welling along a thin slice of skin.
“Ouch, how did you—”
Riven’s mouth parted, but he didn’t apologize. He only watched me, grey eyes unreadable.
“Whoops,” he murmured, his tone too smooth. “You’re bleeding.”
I clamped my other hand around the cut, trying to stop the steady flow of blood as I bent in front of the weapon.
How could his nails cut into my skin so deeply?
The axe seemed to pulse in answer to my proximity. Drawn as if on a tether, I reached for it. The moment my bleeding hand closed around the shaft, the world lurched.
Voices erupted, ancient and layered. A thousand overlapping murmurs poured into me like floodwater. The sigils flared white-hot, and warmth spilled through my veins, licking across my skin. My vision darkened.
A man held me in his arms in a field, thousands of dead bodies spread across the ground, fires burning in the distance. My face against his chest. I couldn’t see his face, but dread oozed through me. He held me with a tenderness that didn’t match the dagger in his hand.
“I am so sorry,” his deep voice rumbled against me. Pain erupted in my chest. White hot agony. My hands shot to the source, wrapping around the dagger that he had plunged into my heart.
My eyes shot open, the dark trees looming above me and the ghost watched me from between them.
My hearing slowly came back into focus. Someone was shouting my name.
She levelled those unsettling familiar eyes on me, a smile stretching unnaturally against taut lips before she plummeted towards me.
I tried to move. My hands slipped against the snow.
The noncorporeal woman dove into my chest. A strange coldness spread across my limbs, turning into a vibrating warmth that pulsed through my veins. As if the thing inside me grew.
When I looked down, the axe was no longer cradled by tangled roots. It thrummed in my palm, alive and free. The ache in my chest dissipated almost instantly. I inhaled, gasping for breath as though I had drowned all over again.
“Lyra?” Riven hovered above me, his warm hand resting against my cheek. “Shh, you’re alright.”
“There is someone coming.” Dreya crouched in the snow next to us, looking up into the mist and muttering under her breath.
“The scream came from over here!” a male yelled from somewhere above us. Had I screamed? Their steps grew closer.
Dreya looked between us with wide eyes. And then she disappeared. One moment Dreya was sitting there, the next, she was gone.
“Holy shit,” she whispered from thin air. She flickered back into existence, a wide grin on her face.
She clasped a hand on each of our shoulders; a light tingling sensation spread over me. I looked down and saw nothing but snow.
“Well, that’s pretty fucking cool,” Riven said.
“Shut up, I don’t think it hides our voices, idiot,” Dreya scolded in a whisper.
“Do you see anything?” a voice said from above us.
“No, nothing here. Clear out to the next section.” The voice that responded was Orin’s.
I held my breath, heart pounding in my ears. How many times could I disappoint him before he had to kill me?
The sound of their steps faded, and Dreya let go of us, her Sanctum disappearing. “Oh,” she said, pressing a hand to her abdomen before emptying her stomach into the snow.
I gripped the axe in my hands, breathing through the strange feeling of magic swimming through my veins. Something had happened to me. Something had changed. I just didn’t understand what.