Chapter Fifteen
LYRA’S POV
The next few days blur together, one grinding into the next before I’ve even caught my breath.
Between the daily errands around camp, dragon alarm bells, talking to anyone who has updates from the Citadel, flying with Lucien, fire training with Reya, and now teaching, there isn’t a single hour left untouched.
By the time the weekend rolls around, a familiar itch has started to build beneath my skin, probably stress. Definitely exhaustion. Either way I don’t even hear Ezzy and Neeve when they leave for bread baking.
“You know, I actually wish you’d resume blasting me with fire in the mornings,” I mutter to Ahria as she watches me fumble, rushing to get ready from the comfort of Talen’s flight jacket, her metallic green scales catching the bright strips of morning sunlight spilling through the tent flap.
Shit. I’m so late.
Wood creaks beneath me as I drop onto the bed and shove my boots on. I’m so strung out I'm hardly sleeping and for a second, I think about pulling the blanket back over my head. Stealing ten more minutes of rest.
But I don’t give myself the luxury.
Not when Ahria is watching. Not when I have a bond to earn. Not when every hour I lose is another hour Serrane stays breathing.
I have less than two months to become someone who can survive the Blood Moon—and I can’t afford to fall apart before I even get there.
Plus, who am I kidding? If I lie back down, I won’t get any rest. Not with the Letter-threader hidden beneath me. I haven’t opened it since Ezzy woke. I can’t. But that hasn’t stopped me from wondering if Talen has written.
“Ready?” I ask the pocket-sized dragon beside me. Ahria only responds with what I’m pretty sure is the dragon equivalent of a brow raise before launching into the air and slipping out through the tent flap. “I guess that’s a yes, then,” I mutter, hurrying after her.
The comforting smell of warm bread drifts through the air as I enter the Food Tent. Neeve and Ezzy are already hard at work, the clang of tins echoing through the space as they load another batch into the already lit oven.
Pausing at the entrance, I hesitate as Neeve shuts the oven door, her long braid swaying down her back with the motion.
When I finally told her the truth about where I grew up, about being an Outerlander, she was more supportive than I deserved.
More understanding, too. But the guilt still sits heavy in my chest.
“Hey, Lyra.” Catching sight of me, she waves me over before brushing sweat and flour from her forehead with the back of her wrist. “Sorry I didn’t wake you,” she adds, as I step up to the table across from her.
“I crashed with Darren last night. He got back late and was pretty rattled by an evac that went wrong.”
“What happened? Is everyone okay?” I ask, my nerves catching on the question as I drop my pack beside the table and turn to help Ezzy, who’s standing beside me loading more tins.
My first thought is Talen, quickly followed by the fear that Bren might be getting caught up in all of this too.
“Another Outerlander run-in followed by Serrane's black-eyed scouts.” Neeve’s jaw stiffens.
“The mum and son made it here, but they lost the dad. I don’t think they’ve eaten since they arrived, so I’m going to take these over to them now.
” She starts loading fresh rolls into a small basket, only to pause on the last one and glance back at the oven.
“Damn. There’s a final batch that needs to come out. ”
“Go,” I tell her. “Ezzy and I can finish up here. Isn’t that right, Ezzy?” Playfully, I nudge her with my elbow and wait for some kind of reaction, but she only nods and keeps her eyes fixed on the tins.
Across from me, Neeve catches the disappointment I don’t quite manage to hide and gives me the same be-patient smile she’s been giving me all week ever since Ezzy woke before picking up the basket.
“They only need another ten minutes.” She states as she starts for the exit. “I’ll meet up with you in the Briefing Tent for your next teaching session. That corset analogy for unknotting my Threads was so helpful and I’m so excited to learn more about Mirroring and Loomreading.”
The enthusiasm in her voice does nothing to settle the spike in my pulse at the word teaching. I’m honestly surprised anyone came back after the disaster of that first session, but Magda stays now, arms folded at the back of the tent, making sure no one so much as thinks about leaving.
“Yeah. Me too. Can’t wait.” I mumble.
At least I don’t have to feel guilty about that lie, because Neeve catches the sarcasm instantly, rolling her eyes at me with a friendly shake of her head before she leaves.
Ezzy and I spend the rest of the baking mostly in silence, working side by side while Ahria keeps herself busy nosing through the wooden crates I’ve hidden lunch sausages under.
I’m trying to give Ezzy the time and space Neeve says she needs, but the quiet stretches so long that every now and then, I try something small.
“Looks like a dragon,” I joke as she drops a lump of dough into one of the tins for tomorrow’s batch, one side sticking up higher than the other.
She doesn't laugh, only presses the ridge flat with the heel of her palm until it’s shaped like a normal loaf again, and with it goes the foolish little hope I’d let myself cling to—that maybe she could finally begin to forgive me.
My mouth opens to try again... but then closes.
Her silence is no more than I deserve for everything I did.
Distracted by trying to hold down all the grief, guilt, and memories that the thoughts bring with them—before Ahria can see any of it on my face—I don’t even realise the time until the bitter smell of burnt bread fills the air.
“Shit.” My hands move fast, grabbing a rag and yanking the solid oven door open, but the second I go to reach inside, everything in me stalls at the sight of the flames below. “Uh, Ezzy,” I call quickly. “Can you grab these?”
Without question, she hurries over and slides the tray out with a hard pull.
At first, I don't understand why she didn't do it earlier—she must have noticed the smell—but then my chest sinks. Since she woke last week, she won't even act unless someone tells her to. She only waits. Listens. Follows.
“Lyra—”
Magda’s voice slices through the moment, and I spin to face her, already knowing before she even opens her mouth why she’s here.
Fuck.
I’m late for teaching.
Over the following weeks, the familiar itch beneath my skin only continues to build as I try to keep control and stay patient.
Patient at night as I lie awake above the Letter-threader, waiting for sleep that hardly comes.
Patient training with Lucien and Reya. They both insist I'm making progress, but with Blood Moon only a month away, it doesn't feel nearly fast enough.
Patient with Ezzy, giving her the time and space Neeve keeps saying she needs.
And patient enough not to bloody hurl One-eyed Lee across the Briefing Tent every time he opens his goddamn mouth.
Unfortunately, my self-control slips after his latest Outerlander jab and with a quick flick of my Threads, I swipe his chair out from beneath him just as he sits down. He hits the floor hard, and I don't quite manage to hide my smirk.
Apparently, Magda notices both.
“There are many ways to prove yourself here, Lyra,” she informs me with a soothing smile after everyone else has left. “And most of them have nothing to do with winning a fight. More to do with knowing when not to start one.”
Embarrassment crawls up my neck, because she’s right.
Merrin might have put me in charge of the new recruits, but every time Lee gets under my skin and I rise to the bait, I only reinforce exactly what half of them already think—that I’m just a reckless Outerlander with a temper, not someone fit to lead.
And it’s stupid, because I know they want to learn this stuff. It’s not the lessons they have a problem with.
It's me.
Still, I don’t let myself dwell on it. I swallow the embarrassment and come back the next day anyway.
And the next and the next.
Because I’m determined to prove them wrong. I’m not about to break that easily.
Not with Ahria watching.
And not when Darren and Reya are waiting outside after each session—Darren to collect Neeve, Reya to collect me.
“Move,” Reya orders during training one afternoon, fire lashing toward me fast enough that heat blasts across my face.
“I am moving!” I shout back, throwing up my Air Threads to block the flames pressing in around me.
“No, you’re distracted.”
My jaw stiffens because she's right. I am distracted.
But surprisingly, it's not her fire throwing me off—I guess the sessions with Dave the Dick actually helped with my fear.
No, now it's the graphic images of Talen fucking her against a wall that keep flashing through my mind every time I look at her, making it damn near impossible to stay focused, let alone stay in control.
“You look like death,” Lucien notes as I step outside the Combat Tent , holding out a cheese roll toward me.
“Thanks,” I mutter, taking it and shovelling it into my mouth.
It’s half-eaten, barely tasted, and forced down just enough to sit heavy and wrong in my stomach—perfectly timed for me to haul myself onto JC a few minutes later and try not to throw the whole thing up.
When I eventually return to camp and wash off the vomit, there are always more recruits and family members arriving. Even with the evacuations slowing, space is filling up fast, and last night I swear I saw people sleeping in the Briefing Tent.
“There are six of us,” one of the new arrivals complains later that week, pointing into the tent I led his group to.
“I know,” I acknowledge, trying to keep my voice steady. “It’s only for now.”
“But this barely fits four!”
I open my mouth, torn between arguing back and apologising, but before I can choose, the dragon warning bell goes off, and we all race inside.
As the end of the month approaches and the first leaves start to yellow, something in the camp has shifted.