Chapter 34
TERRAN
“I would stay the night if I could…”
Lyra had just opened her bedchamber door when I blurted that out. For someone taught never to apologize, the words sounded foreign to my own ears. It was an apology. One I gave freely since it was true.
“I didn’t expect you so soon.”
After we’d left the meeting, Kael and I walked, alone, through the palace and into the decimated courtyard. I’d told Lyra I would come to her as soon as I was able. Eventually, he’d encouraged me to come here, knowing we had very little time.
“I’d have come sooner.”
The door had barely closed behind me before Lyra was in my arms. Through her devices, or my own, I knew not. It was the first time I’d held her since the Glade. Seeing her in danger…
I kissed her, wanting more but knowing there was no time. My rule was a tenuous one. Dissent could easily give way to revolt, even though those in the courtyard accepted me. Lyra gave herself so willingly, and freely, our tongues tangling and arms pulling the other inward, but not close enough.
Do not, Terran.
I vowed, my hand on the handle of her door, not to do the thing I most wanted above all, with one exception… making Lyra mine completely. In ceremony. By blood. A partner for all time.
Making love to her will do little to relieve the ever-present ache when we’re apart.
I had too many memories with her already.
“When I saw you,” I said, reluctantly breaking the kiss, “across that courtyard.”
“I was never in real danger,” she said. A blatant lie, and Lyra knew it well. “But you…” She tipped her chin up to me. “I am sorry, Terran.”
Sorry my father was dead? Sorry I killed him? I wasn’t sure which, but it hardly mattered.
“As am I.”
She reached her hand to my cheek. “It was the bravest thing I’ve ever seen.”
I’d have laughed if Lyra didn’t appear so serious. My Aetherian Shadow Diplomat had likely seen, and participated, in many brave acts in her days.
“I’m not certain,” I began, the admission eating at me, “I could have done it without Kael by my side.”
“The precision? I’ve never seen anything like it.” The corners of her lips raised. “From a Gyorian.”
With that, the tension in the air around it, one rife with unspoken goodbyes, broke.
“I thought we were no longer focusing on our differences.”
“You are right. I forget myself.”
“A rare admission of a misstep.” My own lips mimicked hers. “Coming from an Aetherian. Forgetting yourself is coming easier to you these days, is it not?”
Her eyes, wide with a mixture of mirth and sadness, suddenly hooded, if but slightly. I should not have made the quip. Thinking about how she opened to me, allowed me to see her desires, was not helpful.
“Courtesy of a certain Gyorian king, aye.”
I stood back as if burned, too many memories flooding my mind at once.
“If I stay…” Saying the words aloud would be akin to making them true.
“I understand,” she said. “A king with duties to his clan.”
“My father’s hatred of the humans broke Elydor’s balance, I realize now, more than any blade. So aye, I’ve much to repair if it is to be restored. And you have your own duties as well.”
I wanted to ease the strain from her shoulders. Make her worries disappear.
“Why did it not open?”
The question had been asked many times. I had no answer.
“A Gyorian scholar—”
She grinned. But held back the comment.
“Once wrote that Galfrid was able to open the Gate because he bore not just the relics, but the will of Elydor’s people united. Without harmony, the Gate remains deaf.”
“Ours hint at the same,” Lyra said, likely not noticing she’d begun to pace the chamber. “Which does not explain how Balthor was able to close it, without the will of… any.”
Ignoring the tightening of my chest at the mention of my father, I speculated. “Opening it, allowing humans to enter our world, and closing it… two very different things.”
“True,” she said. “Perhaps the relics wait for a voice that has not yet spoken.”
“Meaning?”
Her shoulders sagged. “I do not know. But coming to you with claims of an Unbalance were not unwarranted.” Her expression became un-Lyra like. Sheepish. “If not entirely my mission.”
“No?” I teased, pulling her back to me, against my better judgment. “Was your mission to find yourself in my bed, Lady Lyra?”
“Aye, precisely that. How have you guessed?”
I said aloud what we both knew already. “Because you’ve been attracted to me… nearly as long as I’ve been attracted to you.”
“Debatable.”
“Liar.”
I kissed her. It was to be the last kiss… for now. Forever? I did not know. Tenderly, her lips moved across mine. It was goodbye.
“Be safe,” I said, when the kiss ended, too soon.
“I am not the one attempting to lead a clan of angry Gyorians.”
“We are not all angry.”
Her brows shot up, skeptical.
“Not all of the time.”
One last kiss.
And then, before seeds of dissension and revolt could be sown back home, I pulled back. Rested my hand on her cheek, my thumb memorizing every curve and warmth of her skin, as if that single touch might hold me together when everything else threatened to break.
* * *
In that space between sleep and wake, I could almost feel her.
Tossing aside the memory of more than a fortnight ago when I last saw Lyra, I rose and began my day. Not as the son of King Balthor, but as the ruler of Gyoria. A role I never expected, but one I was determined would negate, if not erase, some of my father’s worst offenses.
Of which there were many, I’d learned.
Kael and I had long known he trafficked in shadows and secrets, but the full breadth of his treacheries still staggered us.
“Good day, your majesty,” Dren said as I stepped into the solar. The look I gave him only made him smile more broadly.
He relished my new role. Excelled in his own. And without Kael, I could not imagine having stepped into it without him. But he could be damned annoying.
“Just practicing,” he quipped.
“We are alone,” I reminded him.
A feat not easily accomplished. It had taken days to clear my mornings in such a way.
“Not for long. I’ve asked the envoy from Thalassaria to break our fast with us.”
When a knock at the door was followed by Dren’s hushed conversation, I thought nothing of it, until he returned to the table and informed me of a visitor.
When Dell walked in, my chest constricted at the sight of him.
No longer blending in with our clan, muted browns and greens were replaced with the colors of Aetheria, his pale-blue tunic delicately ornate. The sight was oddly startling.
It brought me immediately back to her.
He approached, and began to bow, but I stopped him.
“There are no formalities in this chamber,” I said. “Come and break your fast with me.”
He sat down, looking different than usual, though I could not explain the reason.
With a smirk, Dell reached for a crust of bread.
“Can you inform the envoy,” I asked Dren, “I am unable this morn but will meet them instead at the midday meal? Have something special, distinctly Thalassari, prepared?”
“Of course,” Dren said, leaving us, clearly still pleased with his jest.
“If I could bring him back, I would.”
It needed to be said. Addressed.
Dell startled, which is when I remembered he wasn’t privy to my thoughts. Immediately on seeing him, I was brought back to Seryn’s death.
I had been so far down the wrong path, it was a wonder I’d not fallen into the same abyss as the father I’d so admired.
“Seryn,” I clarified, realizing he thought I had been speaking of my father.
Though I would not say it aloud, my immediate horror at what Kael and I had done had been replaced with another: the realization that I would do it again.
“As would I,” he said somberly. “Though we both knew the risks.”
Dell sat up straighter. Looked me in the eyes.
“I was a spy for Aetheria, embedded here for many years. By rights, you could send me to the same fate as my fallen comrade.”
“And yet.” I snagged a piece of warm bread. “You have returned and sit before me. Knowing the risks of doing so.”
“Knowing you,” he said, not hesitating, “you would not have killed Seryn.”
If not ordered to do so.
The silent words hung between us. Bold for him to come here. To make that claim. But it was also true.
“Nay,” I agreed, “I would not.”
“I chanced coming back for that reason. And also to offer my services.”
I finished chewing, watching him carefully as Dell took a sip of centuria from his clay cup.
“Your services?”
“I have become accustomed to living here. When the speech you gave the day you returned as king was recounted in Aethralis, I decided to come. If you truly do wish to usher in a new era of Gyorian and Aetherian relations—”
The decision was an easy one.
“I would welcome you onto my Council.”
Dell froze. “Your…”
“Council. Two spots remain. I can think of no better bridge between our clans than you.” I drummed my fingers against the table.
“Although you proved quite competent at it, your spying days must come to an end. You will be expected to swear your allegiance to our clan as a resident and member of the Gyorian Council.”
“There would be no reason to undermine one whose goal is to work with Aetherians. We have the same vision for our lands and people.”
I waited.
“And aye, I would gladly swear allegiance to one who has ended a centuries-long feud.”
I laughed, unable to keep the bitterness from my tone. “Ended? Every day, we root out my father’s loyalists who attempt to undermine my rule.”
Dell leaned forward. “Another reason I am here,” he said, voice lowering.
“Your father’s reach did not end with his death.
Some still answer to the memory of him, as you know.
One group, in particular, meet under the guise of trade in the southern quarter, using the same signs I once did myself, only clumsier. ”
I studied him carefully. “And you know this because…”
“Because I was trained to be unseen,” he said with a smile. “And because I once often sat in the same shadows they now occupy. You should know, their eyes linger on the Stone and on you. If left unchecked, that rot spreads.”
“The Stone?”
“There have long been rumors, among these warriors, that it was used to close the Aetherian Gate.”
Ones which needed to remain only that: rumors.
“It seems I will be visiting the southern quarter.”
Dell’s eyes widened. “Yourself? You will not send others?”
“This is my clan,” I said, resolute, as Dren returned. “Change of plans,” I told him. “I will meet with the Thalassari envoy now.”
Dell laughed at Dren’s expression.
My clan. My problem. One that would get taken care of immediately.
If only the same could be said of the one problem I could not resolve through pure strength… of the Aetherian woman who had claimed my heart.