“You would have heard the guards approaching. With thedirection of the wind that day, you would have smelled them before they ever even saw you,” she told me, a hint of accusation in her voice.
She was unexpectedly perceptive, quickly becoming more of a threat than I had anticipated. A simmering anger rose within me, both at her boldness and at myself for allowing her to draw me into this web of conversation.Bavadrin indeed.
Glancing at her delicate throat, I imagined how easily I could end her life with a single stroke. But the treaty held me back, invisible chains binding me to this cell. Soon, those chains would break.
A growl rumbled in my chest, something that she seemed unfazed by.
“What is your name?” she asked, her voice steady despite the tension between us.
Another grumble was my response, a warning.
She looked nearly disappointed that I didn’t give it. “Very well. Have a good night, Lysian,” she said, turning to leave as suddenly as she had arrived.
The anger slowly receded as I watched her go.
How sheltered she must have been to possess such certainty in her safety. Had she no knowledge of the dangers in the world she lived in? If she had then there would have been more caution and fear within her when I drew near. I doubted she would last in the ruins of her world. Despite her sharp mind, I was convinced that she would get herself killed. I nearly felt sorry for her.
2
ARIANA
Icouldn’t sleep all night.
Visions of the Lysian sitting in our dungeon floated around my mind like a dark hovering cloud, never to be blown away. No matter what I did, I could not get him out of my head. Every time my eyes would close, he came to me.
His body being behind bars was not a comfort. I was extraordinarily aware of his lethal presence during our brief encounter. The Lysian are told to be predators, and he wascontentbeing caged. The only inkling of discomfort that he ever showed was when I practically told him that I believed he allowed himself to be captured.
His lean muscles flexed with every precise step he made, and his keen dark eyes tracked every movement while I stood before him. His ears heard sounds I only could dream of and when he walked it was completely silent. And his teeth . . . a shiver ran through me. His dark hair was unkempt due to fingers running through it as if in frustration, but he did not appear to want to be released. He was a creature that belonged to thefree night, yet he sat in a prison I was not sure could even hold him if he wanted out. The Lysian made absolutely no sense.
I scoured my mind all night for ideas of what his presence meant. If he was captured on purpose, then to what end? Did he simply have a death wish? Certainly, there were more comfortable or exciting ways to go. Death at the hands of the Bavadrin leader would not be a pleasant one.
None of it made any sense. Hemade no sense.
A day ago, the Lysian was found flirting with the border of our lands, a border which he overstepped. This act allowed us to do with him as we pleased. Unless he was bringing a message from his King or the Bavadrin leader invited him to cross into our territory. The Lysian had not spoken of delivering a message. He also certainly was not invited. This left him with nothing to hide behind, no protections from the ancient treaty. It was perplexing. The worst part of the situation was that ourbrilliantBavadrin leader was going to act before even attempting to understand what exactly was going on.
The night dragged on as my mind overflowed with thoughts of the intruder. At sunrise, the perplexity bled into the day. I sat on my bed in silence, attempting to put together a puzzle with missing pieces.
Since getting up, I changed into my clothing and washed some of the sleepless night from my face. All of my actions were done so with little thought, for the questions burning within consumed me, leaving little room for anything else. I existed in a haze of uncertainty.
“Ariana.” A woman’s scratchy voice pulled me from my thoughts. “Your father requests your presence in the great room.”
Edda stood in the doorway. Her dark eyes appraised me while she itched her elbow absentmindedly. Her extraordinarily long gray hair wrapped around her head. Wrinkles covered her face for as long as I had known her, though they never grew deeper ormultiply in number. They were simply permanent fixtures of what made her who she was.
I frowned at her use of the wordfather. She knew I no longer acknowledged him as such, yet it was no use arguing with her. Edda always did as she pleased. Arguing with her never ended in my favor, anyway.
Her silver brows furrowed. She nearly looked worried.
“What’s wrong?” I asked, rising and going to her.
Edda stood a full head shorter than me. Though small in size, her bite was certainly worse than her bark. For a long time, I imagined that her appearance was just an illusion so that others unwittingly underestimated her, only to be sorely mistaken.
Edda was probably one of the most powerful Bavadrins to ever have existed. Her gifts spanned beyond the mystics, for she was blessed within the soul of her being. While the rest of the world was tormented by their choices, she was not. Every decision she made was done so with absolute certainty. Edda had not hesitated in all the years I had known her. She never questioned a single decision she made. It was a skill that I could not learn, at least not fully. I still very much questioned my choices.
As a Seer, Edda could foretell things to come. However, the future was never clear-cut; it always harbored twists and turns. Following its trails could lead someone to wander dangerously close to a cliff’s edge, possibly falling over, never to return. Edda’s tellings needed to be taken with caution. I no longer asked her what she saw, for it was often difficult to make sense of. Instead, I waited for everything to be filtered through her, trusting her to give me what she thought necessary.
“There is a fog around everything here. The future has lost its clarity,” she grumbled.
“The future hasneverbeen clear,” I said to her, nearly rolling my eyes.
