It reminds me of the little girl in Solvandyr. And her father. I swallow, but I keep them flowing until dozens fill the air, Rosen and her friends trying to catch them.
Jace climbs onto a cushion near the hearth, eyeing the glassreavers. I let one flutter down, landing on his knee, and he gently runs his finger over the curve of its wing, his face fascinated.
Darian nudges me gently. “Sit,” he murmurs.
I sink down onto the cushion beside him, my knees drawn in. Jace leans closer, staring at my eyes. “They’re pretty,” he declares, his eyes sliding to Darian. “Can I touch her hair?”
Darian settles on the floor across from us. “As long as it’s not skin, remember? And only if Lyra agrees.”
Jace frowns, as if concentrating. At my nod, he reaches out and touches the end of my braid, his fingers threading through it with childish curiosity. “It’s soft.”
I go very still, unsure what to do with a small hand rootling around in my hair.
Darian sits on the floor across from us, his posture relaxed. The children gravitate toward him. One almost climbs onto his back like he’s a horse. Another leans against his shoulder.
And some of them come to me. I sit stiffly at first, unsure where to put my hands and how to speak as little hands play with my hair. At one point, Rosen climbs into my lap without warning, her small body warm and heavy and her dark hair scented with the warm bread that Neela passes around. She leans her head against my chest like it’s the most natural thing in the world.
“You look like you’ve never held a child before,” Neela says bluntly when she passes. She clicks her tongue. “She won’t bite you.”
Swallowing, I glance at Darian where he kneels beside Jace, helping him build a tower of pebbles. Jace’s tongue sticks out in concentration.
Looking down, I carefully run my hand over Rosen’s hair. My heart tightens, squeezes, and the back of my eyes grow hot.
“What will happen to them?” I ask Darian when we slip out, the children corralled by Neela when they started falling asleep around us. “When the Lightbringers come?”
My stomach is churning. He stops in the hall and leans against the wall. “There’s a tunnel that leads from here to outside the walls, on the Gloam side. Neela will evacuate them out into the Barren Lands. The room next to that one holds supplies, ready and packed. Their parents will go with them, and a few others.”
I lean beside him. “Kaelen told me there’s nothing in the Barren Lands. He said you’d scouted it.”
“We did.” His voice is heavy. “But it’s still a chance they won’t get here.”
I study my hands. I can still feel Rosen’s weight against my chest, the small huffs of her breath. “Darian—”
“It’s theonlychance we can give them, Lyra.” He breathes in, deep and low and pained. “The rest of us, anyone who’s left behind, will hold Vaelion off for as long as we can to give them a chance. That’s all we care about.”
It’s an impossible chance of survival. And none at all for those who remain to fight. “What if they can’t find anywhere?”
Those lands are barren, and empty, and those children are sosmall.
“That’s why they haven’t left yet.” His hand rubs at his chest. “Not until they have to. But a small chance is still better than no chance at all.”
I swallow. “Jace?”
“No relation.” He half-smiles at my surprise. “As far as I know. Perhaps there’s a connection somewhere, but it must be far back enough for us to find no record of it. I’ve tried to teach him as much as I can. Neela has more information, notes I’ve made to share with him as he grows older.”
“His parents?” When Darian only shakes his head, my heart grows heavier still. “How do you bear it?”
This… thispain.
“This is not the end.” My cheeks are wet when he tips my face up. Darian studies me, his eyes dark and his mouth pressed together. When he tugs me forward, I go willingly, hiding my face in his chest. His words brush my ear as his arms close around me. “We will fight, and fall, and Erevan will take us. But they will survive, Lyra. We have to believe that. Jace and Rosen, and the others will carry on in a small corner of the world, and we’ll survive in the stories they tell and the memories they share. And that’s enough.”
Because it has to be.
Sniffing, I swipe my hands under my eyes and look up at him. “I'm glad you didn’t die last night.”
He lets out a choked laugh. My hand brushes against the dark stubble on his face. Edging toward a beard, as if he hasn’t bothered shaving it with a blade. “I mean it, Darian. You would have been missed.”
He tilts his head. “Would you have missed me, Lyra Vaelion?”
