Kaelen
Ifeel it before I see it as Eres and I race down the steps.
Darian’s erevas hums in the air, cold and oppressive, the kind that presses against the skull rather than the skin.
Dreamwalker power always feels like I’m standing too close to a cliff edge on a pitch-black night, never quite sure where the edge is.
Valcor is pressed against the wall. His hands claw at nothing, his eyes wide and unfocused as his breath comes in wet, panicked gasps. Nythen stands a few paces away, rigid as a statue and his jaw locked. His pupils have blown so wide that there’s almost no color left in his gaze at all. Both of them look like drowning men in invisible water.
And on the floor—
Lyra.
Curled on her side like she’s trying to disappear into the stone. One arm over her head, knees drawn tight. Her hair is spread across the filthy floor, pale and bright and so wrong in this place that my chest tightens painfully as Darian leans over her, his body covering hers as if he’s guarding her.
For a fraction of a second, the world narrows to a single, unbearable point.
“Lyra,” Eres breathes, already dropping to his knees beside her. His healer’s focus snaps into place like armor, the anger in his eyes buried beneath the need to fix. “Lyra, can you hear me?”
Darian crouches on her other side, one hand hovering near her shoulder, the other clenched tight as he keeps his grip on their minds. His eyes are too bright, his jaw locked hard enough I can see the muscle jumping. As if he’s lost to his own nightmares, not just forcing them on him.
“I’ve got them,” he says hoarsely, not looking away from Lyra. “They won’t move. They can’t see.”
“Good,” I snarl, and my voice echoes off the stone.
I kneel opposite Eres, my erevas spilling forward instinctively and wrapping the space around Lyra in something darker and safer.
I don’t touch her yet. She looks so fucking small. I’m afraid that if I do, and if she breaks, something in me will break wide open too.
Eres checks her pulse, her pupils, the line of her jaw.
“She’s conscious,” he murmurs. “Shock. Cold. No obvious physical injuries.”
Shock.The word lands like a blade between my ribs.
Lyra doesn’t fight when Eres gently shifts her arm. She doesn’t flinch when his fingers brush her wrist. She just lies there, eyes open but distant and her breathing shallow. There’s no fire left in her eyes, I realize. As if it’s been extinguished, water tossed over a flame.
Something cold coils in my gut as I turn to them. “What did they do to her?”
Valcor lets out a strangled sound that might be my name. Nythen doesn’t react at all.
“Enough,” Darian says flatly. “Enough that they’re going to remember the consequences.”
Good.
I glance at Valcor first, assessing. He’s shaking, sweat slick on his brow despite the cold. He looks older like this. Smaller.
“Release Valcor,” I say to Darian.
Darian stiffens. “Kaelen—”
“Release him,” I repeat. “Now.”
Darian hesitates, then exhales sharply and pulls his hand back. Valcor collapses to his knees with a choked sob, hands clutching at his head as if trying to hold it together. His eyes refocus slowly, horrified clarity bleeding back in. He looks at Lyra on the floor. Then at me.
“I tried to stop it,” he blurts hoarsely. “I tried.”
“The council ruled that she was not to be interrogated,” I snap, my fury boiling over. “Because information gained through torture is not to betrusted.”
