Kaelen looks at me, and the darkness in his eyes is almost too much. Too much to look at, too much to understand. “Our storage rooms, down below. Eres found them.”
Gently, carefully, he places the armor down on the bed.
It glints at me, the sunlight hitting it and curving a ray of gold across the room.
Golden armor.Lightbringerarmor. Standard military issue. Kaelen brushes his hand over the breastplate, carved with the three lines of my father’s insignia. When I start shaking my head, Eres’s words halt me into silence.
“You can get through.” Lips on my neck. “You can live, Lyra. This gives you a chance to slip inside their lines. To hide.”
“I’m not doing that.” My voice cracks, breaks. “I won’t.”
“I…,” Kaelen hesitates. And his smile has my eyes burning. “I am grateful I met you, witch.”
His hands reach for me. He pulls me from the bed, wrapping his arms around me and burying his face in my neck. “And I have never been more grateful that you are who you are than I am in this moment. Because you canlive, Lyra. Promise us.”
It wouldn’t work. Everyone is accounted for in Lightbringer society. Everyone has a role. And I don’t know their world well enough to be able to blend in.
My hands brush Kaelen’s hair. “Tell me I have a choice.”
“Always.” He steps away, returning with a pair of dark, familiar leathers that he places beside the armor. “But choose the armor, Lyra. If you need to run… it'll be here.”
The burning in my eyes makes its way down my cheeks. Swiping the wetness away, I look over my shoulder. My voice is hoarse. “If you think I would use this to flee and leave you behind, then you’re wrong.”
Darian meets my eyes. His eyes look less bruised today. Peaceful. “As I said. There is always hope.”
Kaelen
“Neela will take good care of them.” Darian’s eyes are bright. “This is not the end, Kae.”
They’ve gone. Neela and the families in her care had emptied the nursery already when we arrived. The beds stacked against the wall, toys neatly packed away and the door leading to the tunnels invisible to our eyes. It had taken Darian several minutes to find it, his fingers running across the stones as we had waited without pushing him, silent witnesses to the grief he’s already locked away.
They have gone, and so there's still hope. It’s enough. And I pray to a god that never listens, just one more time.
Let them find safety.
A home, somewhere new. We’ve given everything we can into a single, narrow chance. But the thought of that empty room still threatens to send me to my knees.
Because it means this is truly the end.
All we can do is give them as much time as we can.
The noise reaches us first. The swelling, chaotic mass of a large group, shouting and talking in a thrum that sweeps over us as we turn to enter the corridor that leads to the great hall.
“Wait.” All three pause. Turn to look at me.
“Just… one minute.” One more, with them.
I trace their faces with my gaze, committing as much as I can to memory.
Eres has forgone his healers’ robes, keeping only his belt of supplies around his waist, and the sight of the familiar worn leather against the darkness of his armor, battling for space with the sword he rarely wears, hits me with a fresh, new stab of pain. Soft eyes of dark blue crease in understanding, and he steps forward. His lips press to mine. “Together.”
My eyes move to Darian, and I falter. But he only steps forward, pressing his forehead to mine. “A lifetime would never have been enough.”
I still hold regret. I will die with it, and there is nothing I can do to change it. But he falls back to stand beside Eres, and I take a step toward Lyra. My hands cup her face.
She’s contained her hair in a tight, crowned braid wrapped around her head and pinned in place. And as I rake my eyes over her, taking in the sleek, dark uniform, I don’t know whether to shake her or kiss her.
Her hands cover mine. “I made my choice. No regrets, wielder.”
