She clears her throat. “Perhaps we should discuss arrangements. Have you had any thoughts?”
No.After hundreds of years of war before a ceasefire, after I saw my mother and Eldritch and so many others laid out in the hall, after silently begging Lyra to wake up over and over again, I feel as if I can’t fucking think at all. “Perhaps you should start.”
“I’ve had some thoughts, as it happens.” She straightens, and I feel a foreboding sense of panic. “Let us start with the Veilspire boundaries.”
My brows knot. “There are no Veilspire boundaries.”
“Exactly.”
Lyra
“You areimpossible.” The low, hissed noise registers at around the same time that the pain hits. “I’ve made my decision. She can’t stay here.”
I inhale sharply, but the heated words flying around my head pay no attention at all.
“Perhaps we should take this discussion elsewhere,” another voice interjects. “Eres hasn’t slept in days, and he said that Lyra could wake at any time—”
“I’m not leaving.” The first voice is familiar, and I breathe around the agony in my chest, attempting to place it. “Tell Duskbane to leave, since he refuses to see any form of reason.”
A long, deep breath follows. This third voice is lower. Deeper. Ragged, his anger barely veiled. “She doesn’t care about yourfinery—”
“You can’t possibly care for her the way we can in Solvandyr.” A snort. “You would have her scrabbling around in the dirt for scraps, Duskbane. She’ll have every luxury with me.”
The second voice echoes again, this one tighter. “As Kaelen said, she doesn’t care about any of that.”
“You don’t know her at all.” Furious words bellowed across me. “And I would pick up my sword and go to war with you again,Commander, before I ever allowed you to take Lyra back tothat fucking place!”
The bed shakes beneath me.
The bed.
I turn my head very slightly, testing the softness beneath me.
My father. Reena—
Eres. Darian. Kaelen. His shield had failed, and they had been down on the field without protection.
And I had failed. My eyes slip open.
A face mirrors my movement, only a few breaths away. I stare into deep, midnight blue eyes, and my heartbeat settles into something resembling a normal rhythm. Eres looks close to sleep, deep lines engraved in his forehead and the circles beneath his eyes darker than Darian’s. He blinks, slowly.
Once. Twice.
When I blink back at him, his whole face seems to drop. His eyes close, and when they open again, they’re shining. “There you are,” he whispers, quiet beneath the shouting still going on above us. “I’ve been waiting.”
He’s here.Alive.
Waiting for me to come back.
I don’t think I can say anything. The back of my throat burns as my face collapses. He shifts until his lips touch my forehead. My cheeks. Anywhere and everywhere he can reach, his hand raising to cradle my face. “Don’t move. You’re still healing. You need—”
“I know. Rest.” Every word hurts.
He grins at me. There’s so much joy in it that I try to reach for him, to touch my finger against that smile, and I suck in a breath as my entire body protests. “I think… you might be right.”
The shouting has stopped.
Darian’s face appears beside Eres. My healer shifts out of the way, letting Darian get closer as his eyes travel slowly across my face. “Little Lightbringer. How are you feeling?”
