"I'll take three vials," she told the merchant, her voice shaking."No, four.And do you have anything stronger?"
The merchant's eyes narrowed."How strong?"
"Strong enough that the effects last all day."
"That'll cost you.And you'll need more of it, more often.The stronger formulas are more addictive."
"I don't care.I need it."She paid too much.She knew she was paying too much.But she couldn't go out looking like this—haggard, desperate, old.
At home, she applied the new formula.The transformation was immediate and dramatic.Her skin glowed, flawless and luminous.Lines vanished.She looked twenty again.
Perfect.
She looked at her reflection and tried to feel triumphant.Instead, she felt hollow.
Viktor had never looked at her the way Jin looked at Wren.Had never walked through the market holding her hand, proudly declaring his intentions.
She'd been a placeholder.A convenient partner with useful magic and decent connections.But the moment someone better came along—someone withlandandpower—he'd discarded her without a second thought.
Two years wasted.And now she was in debt, addicted to expensive makeup that was getting harder to find, and watching everyone else get their happy endings.
The rage that had been simmering for weeks boiled over.If she couldn't have happiness, why should they?
The Spiral
––––––––
PEOPLE STARTED NOTICINGLyra's behavior.
She showed up at the market looking either impossibly beautiful or disturbingly haggard, no in-between.Her mood swings were erratic, charming one moment, furious the next.
She'd gotten into a screaming match with a merchant over pricing.Used weather magic to create a localized rainstorm over someone's stall after a perceived slight and was escorted out of a tea house for causing a scene.
"She's getting worse," Sara told Wren during one of their tea visits at the elevated farm."Everyone's talking about it.Some people think she's losing her mind."
"Or losing control of something," Wren said quietly.She'd been thinking about Lyra's behavior and the erratic mood swings, the increasingly desperate quality to her anger.Something was wrong beyond just jealousy.It looked familiar, something she’d seen in another life.
