5 Little Lira
Little Lira
Torchlight gleamed through the bedroom window when she awoke.
For a moment, she didn’t know what had stirred her.
The uneven stone walls flickered with long shadows, like claws stretching in the dark.
When she was younger, she’d imagined they were demons, waiting to pounce the moment her foot left the bed.
She shook off the thought. Maybe she would take a walk under the stars. It was a habit of her father’s when he was restless and couldn’t sleep, and she’d picked it up not long after he had passed.
She sat up stiffly, pulled on her boots and padded to the kitchen.
A loaf of bread sat on the counter. It was stale, but she tore off a chunk anyway, chewing mindlessly.
A cat yowled.
A rattle.
The doorknob twisted back and forth.
The door flung open, and Jon stumbled in. His hood was up, casting most of his face in shadow.
The smell hit her instantly. An acrid, putrid thing, like meat that had turned bad. She gagged and turned her face.
“Salts, what is that?” she said, covering her nose.
He didn’t answer. He just stood there, swaying slightly. His shoulders twitched beneath his coat.
“How much did you drink?” She watched him more closely now. “You look awful.”
Another low noise came from him, like a groan pressed through clenched teeth. His head tilted, and she saw the glint of something metallic under his cloak.
“Jon?” she said warily, taking a step towards him.
He was in front of her in an instant, his blade flashing in the low firelight.
She barely twisted in time, his knife grazing her arm as she crashed into the wall behind her. Pain bloomed, hot and sharp.
“What are you doing?” she shouted.
He came at her again, his movements jerky.
All wrong.
His arm pinned her shoulder to the wall while the knife sought her throat. She shoved his wrist back with both hands, straining, her injured arm slick with blood. The smell coming off him made her stomach heave. She drove a knee into his groin, but he didn’t even flinch.
A dry, cracked voice spoke. “Little Lira,” it crooned, and an icy chill ran through her. “Little Lira, little Li—”
Vaelira twisted and slammed her palm into his chest.
He stumbled backwards and crashed to the floor.
She staggered away, breathing hard, blood dripping from her elbow to the floor in slow, steady taps.
His hood slipped back, revealing ashen skin tinged a faint grey. Dark veins stood rigid against pale flesh, but it was his neck that made her limbs lock.
A brutal gash cut from ear to ear. Blood had long dried across his shirt, a black crust clinging to the stiff fabric.
She stood frozen, starting at the impossible image before her. Nothing made sense. She was still dreaming, she had to be.
His head lolled as he tried to rise, his spine arching at an unnatural angle. A wide grin spread across his face as his watery eyes fixed on hers.
Her breath caught in her throat. “Jon,” she whispered, but she already knew. Whatever stood in front of her was not her brother.
Agony swelled, violent and overwhelming. She wanted to let it consume her, but she shoved it down, crushed it beneath a rising fury that burned hotter than her grief.
Someone had taken Jon from her.
Stolen the only person left who still felt like home.
They would pay for it.
Her palms seared, heat building beneath her skin. A throbbing hum filled her ears, drowning out the creature’s wet, rattling breaths. She clung to the rage, letting it rise and block out everything else.
Light answered her. It flared, blinding and hot. The thing inside Jon’s body hissed and reeled back, hands lifting to shield its eyes.
She didn’t hesitate.
She ran.
The stone from the cavern sat on her bedroom dresser, gleaming white like a fragment of moon. The pouch that had held it was nothing but scorched threads and ash, but the stone pulsed like it was alive, and somehow, she knew what to do.
She grabbed it and power screamed through her, into her hands, her lungs, her bones. She gasped, eyes going wide as the world blurred white and the humming became a roar inside her skull.
She spun, lifted her arm, and flung her hand towards the thing in the other room.
A violent pulse slammed through her body and her legs gave out. She crumpled to the floor as the light closed in, drowning out her vision and swallowing everything.
The last thing she saw was the cottage door swinging open, and beyond it, only darkness.
She woke to shouting. Someone gripped her shoulders, shaking hard. Her head throbbed with each jolt. Her muscles felt like molten iron, burning her from the inside. Yet she trembled, shivers racking her body as if she were standing atop a mountain.
She gasped and blinked against the blur of candlelight.
“Vaelira?” Captain Wren’s voice, tight with panic.
He crouched over her, glancing up as voices barked orders across the room. More than one.
“She’s awake!” he called into the other room.
Footsteps rushed in. A warm hand slid behind her back, easing her upright.
She winced, dizzy, the taste of something metallic on her tongue. She turned, expecting Commander Lysander. Instead, Eli knelt beside her, his dark eyes unwavering.
“Give her a moment,” he said to Wren. After a pause, Wren nodded and stepped out. Eli closed the door behind him. “Tell me everything,” he said.
Vaelira tried to sit up straight, but her arms gave way beneath her.
She tipped and Eli caught her, slipping a hand around her and hauling her up with ease.
He sat her on the edge of the bed, then remained kneeling in front of her.
Even like this, he seemed to tower over her, so close that he consumed her vision.
“What happened?” he said, his hand going to his chest. He rubbed it gently then dropped his hand quickly, as if he hadn’t realised he was doing it.
“I couldn’t sleep,” she began slowly. “I was going to take a walk, but then Jon came home and…” she trailed off, trying to piece together the horrifying images that raced through her mind.
Jon stumbling into the house drunk. He’d said something.
Little Lira.
She sucked in a breath barely noticing as it pulled the stitches at her side. “That wasn’t Jon.” The air rushed from her lungs and her ribs broke apart, the last cracked pieces of her shattering entirely. She couldn’t breathe.
“What wasn’t Jon?” Eli said carefully. He gestured to her arm. “Did he do this to you?”
She gulped down another lungful of air, lifting her arm and cringing as sharp pain lanced into her wrist. Deep crimson coated her forearm, the blood already starting to dry.
“Vaelira?”
He said her name so softly, so gently, yet it struck her like a knife in her already broken heart.
“It was Jon,” she tried again, “but it wasn’t. Something was inside him. When he got home, he—he was already gone.” Her voice broke on the last word, but no tears came. She stared at the dip in Eli’s throat, watching as he swallowed hard.
She wanted to sleep. To sleep and wake to find this all a terrible nightmare, like those she used to have as a child, filled with shadows and monsters trying to pull her from the sheets and into their awaiting jaws.
She would wake and it would be daybreak. Jon would be asleep by the fire, snoring like an ox, his hair a rumpled mess of thick brown locks, dark circles ringing his eyes.
No black veins.
No blood.
Anhaven was in chaos.
Vaelira sat at the kitchen table listening to the thud of boots and voices demanding answers.
Someone had bandaged her arm. A mug of water sat untouched.
The stench of rot still clogged her nose.
She stared at the floorboards, at where her blood had soaked into the grooves, a stain left to forever remind her of what had happened here. Of what she had lost.
Everything.
There were too many people inside. Too many voices.
“...said he came crashing out of the house…”
“...killed two between here and Polk’s… a few more dead on the south side of town…”
“...sunrise is too far off…”
“...Commander’s setting up search parties…”
Her head snapped up. She stood, and a blanket she hadn’t noticed slipped from her shoulders. “I’m going,” she said.
The room fell silent.
Eli stepped forward. Two guards flanked him. She didn’t know their names. She didn’t care.
“You are in shock,” he said.
“I’m not staying here.” If she stayed still, she’d break. It had happened before, but she was not the same frightened girl she once was, and she hadn’t been for a long time.
She crossed the room, aiming for the door, and slammed into a wall of muscle. Eli’s hand was on her shoulder.
“You’re not in the right state of mind.”
She shoved him hard. He barely moved.
“What do you know of it?” she bit out. She shoved again, side stepping him before he could stop her.
She had to do something. Anything. She couldn’t sit here and let them hunt it alone. Not when it wore her brother’s face. She reached for the door.
“Wait.” Eli held out her sword. His gaze was steady. “I’m coming with you.”
“What do you care?”
“What sort of man would I be if I let you go out there alone?” he cocked his head at her.
“I don’t care what sort of man you are. Come if you want, it makes no difference to me.” She snatched her sword from him and strapped it on.
When she reached for the door this time, Eli was close behind, pulling it open for her.
Thunder roiled threateningly overhead, flashes of lightning illuminating the ominous clouds. The chaos inside the cottage was a stark contrast to the quiet in the town. Guards moved through the streets like shadows, eyes scanning the dark, boots hurried but quiet on the stone.
Vaelira adjusted the sword strapped at her hip, the weight a comfort. She breathed in the cool night air, allowing that weight to steady her.
You will not break. Not until this is done.
“I thought demons didn’t think like us,” she said, breaking the unbearable silence.
“They don’t,” Eli said, a step behind her.
“Why isn’t it trying to kill everyone?”
Their boots pounded the dirt path, drumming out a steady beat.
“Maybe it’s hiding.”
“From what? They only fear sunlight.” She swallowed hard. “Whatever’s inside Jon, it’s not an ordinary demon. Back at the cottage, it spoke. It—” She drew a shaky breath. “It called me little Lira.”
Eli tensed.
“My mother used to call me that. When I was small.” Her hands clenched, her nails biting into her palms. Jon was the only one who could have remembered.
A hand touched hers and anger built in her like a stoked forge, her body wanting to lash out with the force of it.
“Here,” Eli said quietly. “It’s moonstone, you know.”
The white stone from the cavern sat in Eli’s hand. That forge in her chest burned hotter at the thought of him taking it from the cottage. If she hadn’t insisted on going to look for Jon, would he have kept it for himself, leaving her to wonder at its whereabouts?
She reached for it, and the moment it touched her skin, the tightness in her chest eased. Her pulse slowed, the nausea faded, and the fury settled to hot coals. Still scorching, but controlled.
“You think it has access to his memories?” he continued, watching her closely.
She blinked, returning to the moment. “Maybe. Before it took him.”
Eli stopped walking. “Okay then. If you were your brother, where would you hide?”
The storm had moved east, the night sky clearing above them. They stood at the orchard gate, moonlight filtering through bare branches, cold and indifferent.
“When I was little,” she said, voice distant, “I used to climb the tree behind the storage shed and sneak in through one of the top windows. I’d cram myself between the crates and eat the apples.”
“Jon would come looking?”
She nodded. “Always.”
Eli scanned the trees. “It could be a trap.”
“That changes nothing.”
He looked at the moonstone clutched in her hand, then back to her face. He scanned her features, from her eyes, down her nose, to her mouth, as if searching for something. “We stick together. But if I tell you to run—”
She stepped through the gate, not letting him finish. There would be no running tonight.
Mist crept over the grass and around their ankles. She gripped her dagger tighter, every breath feeling like it might be her last.
At the far end of the orchard, the shed sagged under its own weight. The door hung crooked, hinges half torn. Eli raised a finger, but Vaelira crept closer. He caught her wrist and she glared at him, but the look in his eyes pulled her to a stop, and she let her arm go slack.
He stepped in first and she followed close on his heels, circling the opposite wall, careful not to knock into any of the shelves. They met again at the door, both shaking their heads.
Vaelira let out a tight breath.
There was a noise outside and she turned.
A cold arm snaked around her throat and yanked her into the dark.
“Little Lira,” it crooned lovingly, breathing the cruel words into her ear.
Panic surged and she tried to break free, kicking the ground and scratching at the arm that held her, but the grip on her throat only tightened.
Then what little air she had left was knocked from her as Eli crashed into them, the force sending them all to the ground.
Vaelira broke free, gasping and scrambling upright.
Jon stood between two spindly trees, knife in hand, head tilted as he watched her. His eyes were blank, his smile wide. While she heaved down lungsful of air, he barely moved. She tried not to look, but her gaze was drawn to the blood that ringed his throat. A collar.
She should reach for her sword. She should do something. But she couldn’t. He was her brother.
“What do you want?” Eli demanded, raising his sword and stepping between them.
Jon grinned wider, lifting a hand. A single finger pointed at Vaelira.
Her knees nearly buckled.
“Why him?” she whispered, the words barely audible. There was no answer, only that awful smile.
Eli shifted, and Vaelira moved to block him. He hesitated, not taking his eyes from Jon, his sword still raised.
“He’s my brother,” she pleaded, as if those words alone would change what stood before her. As if the declaration would draw pity from the First Three, and they’d send him back to her.
“He is no longer your kin,” Elijah said, his chest heaving.
Jon chuckled, the sound broken. Nothing like the laugh she had grown up with. Had grown to know like the thrum of her own racing heart.
Then he moved.
Too fast.
A blur of limbs and flashing steel.
Eli stepped forward with one clean, brutal stroke. The blade sliced through flesh and bone.
There was a dull thump.
A body crumpled to the ground.
Eli caught her before she lurched forward. He turned her, shielding her with his body, but she’d already seen. Could never unsee.
Jon’s face had gone slack. Eyes open. Lifeless. His neck a stump, black blood slowly oozing into the grass.
She didn’t scream. Didn’t speak. She just stopped.
Stopped breathing.
Stopped thinking.
And then—
Nothing.