Chapter Twenty #2
Pulling at the rough woollen blanket, I hug it tighter around me.
All I need is five minutes to pull myself together. Five minutes to shove all of this back down so I can get through the rest of the day without falling apart. Without Ahria seeing.
But once I’m finally alone, it doesn’t take long for the tears to start coming, anger, guilt, longing, everything hitting all in one crushing heartbeat.
Shaking, I inhale, trying to pull in the cool autumn air to calm myself, but my ribs cinch instead, locking around me until each breath stalls in my chest.
“Fuck.” I scream the word at myself as I press my hands against my eyes, trying to shove the pain back, but it’s no use. It keeps rising, hot and vicious, filling every hollow place inside me.
What am I even doing here?
The thought hits so hard I almost laugh.
As if I’m some kind of leader, as if I’m the person anyone should be looking to for orders, for answers, for hope.
Hell, I couldn’t save Finn. I couldn’t save Rowan. I couldn’t even stop Ezzy from being dragged into this nightmare, and now I’m supposed to stand in front of a dragon who was never meant to be mine and ask her to choose me?
Why would she?
Why would anything good choose me after everything I’ve ruined?
Wool itches against my hands as my fingers dig into the blanket until my knuckles ache, but it doesn’t stop the truth from clawing its way up my throat.
I don’t know what I’m doing. I don’t know how to lead these people. I don’t know how to take down Serrane. I don’t even know how to look Talen in the eye without wanting him and hating him, and hating myself for both.
The next sound that leaves my mouth is ugly—half gasp, half sob, and loud enough to drown out everything else so completely that, combined with the rain pounding harder overhead now, I don’t even hear the tent flap lift.
“Lyra!” Ezzy's voice is soft but shocked. “Lyra, what's wrong?”
Rushing over, the bed creaks as she drops down and places a cold rain-soaked arm around me. I shift away, swiping uselessly at the tears on my face even though my skin already feels hot and swollen enough that there’s no point trying to hide that I’ve been crying.
“It’s fine. I’m fine.” My voice comes out hoarse.
“You don’t look fine. You look... terrible.” She soothes, sliding closer.
“Yeah well, it’s no more than I deserve,” I mutter, sniffing and swallowing against the next sob trying to force its way up.
“Deserve? You don't deserve any of this.” She brushes a curl away from my face, wiping at my tears.
I turn to face her and for one stupid second, I want to believe her. But the guilt inside me is too savage, too raw to hold down anymore.
“I deserve all of it.” My throat closes violently around the words.
“The guilt, the pain, the fact that you won't talk to me.” My gaze drops to the place beneath her shirt where Talen’s stab wound lies and my stomach wrenches so hard I can taste the bile rising on my tongue.
“It’s my fault. Finn’s gone. Brian's dead. Rowan’s dead.
And you—I dragged you into this bloody camp.
Away from your family. Your sister. Your whole life. ”
Beside me, Ezzy stiffens. Dropping my gaze from hers, I shake my head, regretting even opening my mouth, and despite the rain now hammering overhead, the tent suddenly feels too quiet as my words linger between us.
“You think I’m not talking to you because I blame you?
” Ezzy finally mutters as she lets out a slow breath.
“Stars, Lyra. I’m not talking because I don’t even know where to start, how badly I messed everything up.
You warned me. Rowan warned me. The one person who’s been there my whole life, helping me through everything, and I still didn’t listen.
” This time it’s her tears that break free, her voice cracking apart.
“I didn’t listen to him and now he’s gone, and I’m stuck here and I can’t go home and I need to get my family out, before Serrane—”
The rest of her sentence comes out a tangled mess, words running into each other so badly I can barely make sense of them before she drops her head into her hands, folding over herself, shoulders trembling.
“Oh god, Ezzy.”
“I'm so sorry Lyra.” She whimpers as the vibrations from a distant roar of thunder rolls over us. “I’m sorry I didn't listen, to try and understand. The Citadel is all I’ve ever known. Even now I still can’t believe Serrane is doing this, that there must be another explanation.”
Her shoulders shake roughly beneath my hand as I rub slow circles across her back, trying to calm her, while my own chest slowly starts to cave in around me.
Because all this time, I thought she couldn’t even look at me, thought every silence, every avoided glance, every second of distance between us was punishment, confirmation, proof that she blamed me as much as I blamed myself.
But she doesn’t.
Canvas whips overhead as the wind and rain outside intensifies, but for the first time since I arrived, the storm inside me wavers.
“Look at that.” Ezzy sighs, tipping her head toward the Southern Peaks towering in front of us, now blanketed in snow after five straight days of storm.
Frost crunches underfoot as we stroll over to the Food Tent for bread baking.
I’m so focused on watching Ahria’s tiny green body effortlessly glide through the air, each movement tugging the rope of longing around my heart that little bit tighter, that I didn’t even realise the clouds had gone until Ezzy spoke.
Following her gaze, I glance up as the first traces of morning light catch across the peaks, dusting them in a soft pink glow.
They’ve only been hidden for five days, buried behind storm clouds since I got back from the cage, since Ezzy and I talked, but somehow it seems longer than that and my eyes widen slightly at the sight of them again.
They used to look so unforgiving, all sharp jagged cliffs and bleak bare stone, but now the snow smooths over every harsh edge, blanketing them in a softness that almost makes them appear welcoming.
Despite the cold, a warmth settles over me, but it lasts all of three seconds before my thoughts drift back to the Letter-threader.
I've already checked it twice this morning, stumbling around half blind in the dark like some desperate idiot, but still nothing. I haven’t heard from Talen since the cage and the silence is killing me.
“Hey Ezzy,” Neeve calls over her shoulder as we step into the Food Tent, the warm comforting smell of yeast and smoke thick in the air. “Can you double the batch today? Yesterday we ran out way too fast.”
Ezzy's head bobs and she gets straight to work. Grunting, she drags out a large sack of flour and dumps it onto the table.
I can see why this is so good for her. When she’s not in the kitchen she still seems so empty, helpless, lost even.
It’s painful watching her drift through the days with no real goals or direction, barely able to make decisions for herself, but in here it’s like catching glimpses of the old Ezzy again.
A smile spreads across my face as I watch her hurry about.
“Do you know if you're going to enter yet?” she asks Neeve as she measures out the flour into a large metal bowl. “Blood Moon’s in less than two weeks right?”
Neeve sweeps her long braid aside and starts kneading leftover dough, her movements weaker than normal. “I’ve decided to wait.”
My head snaps up at her. “Really? You sure? What about the dreams?”
“Yeah. I’m sure.” Sighing, she pushes back into the mix. “Darren’s right, it’s too risky. You don’t need to have dreams to enter Blood Moon, and my dreams about a red dragon could mean anything.” She lifts a shoulder, trying to brush it off but I catch the way her eyes glass over.
“But everyone says the dreams are the sign that there is already one waiting for you.” Ezzy leans over the table, grabbing the yeast. “Talen had them, Lyra had them, and both their dragons are here. Everyone else who enters the Ceremony just has to cross their fingers and hope one shows up. But your dreams are proof.” She gestures toward Ahria, who’s currently doing her best to tear through the heavy crate I shoved over a tray of raw chickens.
Watching her jaws splinter through the wood—way too fast and way too easy—a strange steadiness rolls over me. I should be panicking, terrified the bond won’t take and that Ahria and the other dragons will burn me alive the second the ceremony fails.
But I’m not.
Not because I’m cocky enough to believe the bond is guaranteed, but because over the last eight weeks my Threads have rooted themselves so deeply into hers that the longing has become almost unbearable, growing stronger with every day Blood Moon creeps closer.
And if I don’t bond with her…
I don’t think I want to live without her anyway.
Neeve doesn’t respond, so I change the subject, and we spend the rest of the morning discussing the scattered updates we’ve heard from Lucien and Darren and what we think the new curfew the Citadel has rolled out over the Innerlands means.
Then once the oven is lit, Neeve and I head out, leaving Ezzy focused on peeling what must be over two hundred potatoes.
“Fuck my back is killing me.” Groaning, I rub a hand over my hips as we head over to help Magda and the others with the camp expansion. It’s taking ages to find enough materials to extend the Briefing Tent so we can all fit inside, and my body is punishing me from hauling driftwood around all day.
Looking up, I catch a blur of green flashing past as Ahria speeds ahead with half a raw chicken clutched in her jaws, followed seconds later by a flash of brown as another dragon launches after her in pursuit.