Chapter 35
LYRA
“I’ve enjoyed our time here,” Nerys said as she and Mev and I finished our daily training.
We’d taken to doing so together near the rocky outcropping of the northernmost shores near the palace.
While the queen showed us how she’d managed some of the maneuvers she’d utilized against Queen Lirael in their battle for the throne, Mev and I marveled her with advanced air magic that the princess had become more than proficient with.
Mastery over the breeze using naught but breath was no easy skill for someone who not long ago had little notion her abilities even existed.
Mev, as she had these past days, looked defeated. We both knew what the queen was prepared to say.
“Marek and Issa will be back in the next two days,” Mev added.
The iridescent wings of a flock of glintwing finches whizzing past held our attention for a moment.
I remembered another time, long ago, Terran had been in Aethralis when a similar flock flew past our congregation of delegates.
He’d glared at them so fiercely, for reasons unknown, I nearly laughed.
Perhaps he had seen me smile, because I’d been the next victim of his menacing stare.
One that could turn easily, I knew now, into a grin.
“And when they do—” Nerys began.
“You will be returning,” Mev finished.
They’d left for an unknown destination for an unknown reason—not atypical for the pair—but would be back soon… to escort Rowan and Nerys home.
“As I can do it easily, back here, the moment I am needed.”
Of course she had to return, as Terran had, to rule her clan.
Why did even the briefest thoughts of him feel more painful than any cut in battle ever had?
Once, a Gyorian tossed a boulder at my head—a border skirmish I’d been tasked with quelling—that an easily summoned gust of wind rerouted.
When it hit behind me, however, it shattered into a million stones, one of which left a scar on my shoulder blade where it had projected at me too quickly to maneuver away from.
I often said a blade slice was preferable to that stone, but I would take it any day over this kind of pain.
“She’s done it again.”
I’d been staring at the ground.
Nerys and Mev knew, though both wouldn’t dare speak of it when I’d refused to do so before. With all that was happening around us… the clean-up and aftermath of the breach, the failed Gate attempt… me falling in love with a Gyorian was of little consequence.
“Two days. This simply means,” I said, deflecting, “we must redouble our efforts.”
Mev’s shoulders sank. “We’ve talked to every sage. Scoured the Luminara. The last time I dug this deeply, researching a topic so thoroughly…”
Mev stopped. And looked down at her ring.
She did this often, but something about the way she stared at it was different.
“When I was looking for something I didn’t even know existed.” She lifted her chin. “Elydor.”
Nerys and I exchanged a glance, neither understanding the princess’s meaning.
“We’re looking for an answer without knowing the question.”
Nerys cleared her throat as a large wave crashed against the shore. Just as its droplets were about to wet us, she flipped her hand, gathered them into one and sent it back into the sea.
“Isn’t the question,” I asked the obvious, “how do we reopen the Gate?”
“Yes, but… when I was a curator, I learned that artifacts rarely spoke their truths alone. A ring in a case was just a trinket… until set beside the crown it belonged to, or the tomb it was pulled from. Meaning lives in context. What if we’ve been treating the relics as singular, when their answer is only revealed together? ”
“The artifacts were all needed to open it in the first place,” Nerys mused.
“And to close it,” I added.
But this was not new information.
“There’s something here.” Mev jumped across the rocks as if she’d grown up doing it.
We followed her back to the palace.
“Do you remember,” Mev asked me, “when I asked you why some relics resonated while others lay dormant here? You told me that Elydor required balance for its magic to thrive. And that it also depended on the hand that wields them.”
Though I didn’t yet understand her line of thinking, another memory came back to me. It wasn’t a pleasant one, but the conversation with the historian Elvric. He had mentioned, offhand, that relics remember wounds.
Why did that feel important?
“Elydor requires balance,” I said aloud, so the others could hear my thinking. “The hand that wields them can alter their power. Elydorian artifacts remember wounds.”
“Their answer is only revealed together,” Nerys added, echoing Mev’s earlier thought.
She stopped, so we did too. “You speak of relics and wounds, of balance and memory. But Elydor has always demanded more than relics. It demands those willing to bear the weight of its memory. That is why even immortals fade when their time has passed. Perhaps the Gate waits not for power, but for the one it deems ready to carry that memory forward.”
“You think Mev, maybe?” I asked Nerys.
Mev, who was intently examining the rock she stood on, was oblivious.
I understood the question and had had the thought many times. Clearly, the princess had no notion of what we meant. She’d not like it. Not until she could be reunited with her mother first. There was no reason to speak the thought aloud until we were certain.
Could Mev be the preordained next ruler of Aetheria? Maybe she, and not Galfrid, should have attempted to reopen the Gate? Even that didn’t feel right. It missed something… something we were close to piecing together.
“I think we are close,” I said, silently telling Nerys not to speak her thoughts aloud. Not yet. We’d had one new king in as many days, and I knew from being, even briefly, with Terran, how heavily it weighed on him. Mev wasn’t ready, even if that was to be her future here.
She was certainly powerful enough. Though not more powerful than her father.
“Let’s go talk to Eirion some more. Maybe tell him what we’re thinking.” I turned to Nerys. “If that’s alright with you? I don’t want your last two days here to be taken up with this every waking moment.”
“I do,” Nerys said, her tone not leaving any room for discussion. “There is naught more important. For you, but also for my partner and his people, too.”
It was easy to forget that she was partnered with a full human. Unlike Mev, not a demi-immortal, but one just like Issa, even if he was more intuitive.
And I had no doubt he was. From all I knew of Rowan, he was more in tune with his abilities than any other human.
“Two days then,” Mev said, rejoining us. Resolute. “We will figure this out and try again before you leave. And if it doesn’t work, we’ll keep looking for the answer.”
“And when you find it, I will return with the Pearl. We cannot fail if we do not give up, aye?”
“Aye,” Mev and I said in unison.
With luck, I sounded more confident than I felt. Having been at Galfrid’s side for many years as he attempted to reopen the Gate, I knew first-hand this was no easy task we attempted. But what else could we do before Nerys left but try?
At least it kept my mind, or nearly kept my mind, from wandering back to him.