I think I drift. The heat clings under my skin, deep in my bones. Could be minutes. Could be longer. Bren shifts beside me. His leg brushes mine, solid and real. He hasn’t moved.
I don’t know how much time has passed, just that I finally drag in a full breath. And when I do, I open my eyes.
In front of me, the sky’s still black—night holding, but below it, Ashvale. Gone.
God, just a month ago, I sat here—the night before my twenty-first—looking out over the place I called home. Now it’s nothing but orange haze rising in thick columns, glowing where the fire hasn’t burned itself out. Walls lie in heaps, roofs caved, the tight lines of streets I’ve walked my whole life reduced to smouldering rubble. The heart of the town is gone, and only a ragged edge of the outer quarter still stands, flickering like it knows it won’t last. And all I can do is sit here, hunched and shaking, staring at nothing as I fight for breath—each inhale ragged, but a little easier than the last.
“We need to go back,” I rasp, my voice cracked and weak. “We have to help them.”
Bren’s hand presses firm against my shoulder. “No. You need to rest. You nearly died.”
“I’m fine, I’ll be fine.” I snap, though the words tear on the way out, raw as my throat. “At least you need to go back. Help them.”
“I’m not leaving you again.” His hand finds mine, fingers lacing tight, steady even as mine shake.
“But Rhiann, Charlie. Oh god, Nessi…”
“Lyra.” His eyes catch mine, soft, steady in the flicker of firelight. “They’re gone. It’s too late.”
The ground tilts, my chest squeezing so hard my words hardly come. “No. It can’t be. I should have stopped it—I could have stopped it.”
“How could you have?” His voice frays. “Three dragons, Lyra. We didn’t stand a chance.”
But I could have, I could have tried harder, trained harder, learnt to control my Threads, got more answers.I had the opportunity.
My gaze drags across the wreckage, down toward the ravine, the wall beyond it, until finally it lands on the Citadel, perched like a crown, black against the smoke-thick sky.
My fists tighten. All the lies, all the power they hoard, all the control. I know this ties back to them. The pieces in my mum’s journals. She knew they were up to something—that’s why she ran, why she left. I did the same. And look what it cost.
Rhiann, Charlie. Nessi... Nessi’s the only person I’ve known since I was born. She’s the one who kept me fed after mum died… Now she’s gone, they’re gone, Ashvale’s gone.
And I just sat there choking, paralysed, watching as it burned.
Heat prickles beneath my skin, sharp and restless, my fingers twitching against my palms like something inside me is clawing to get free. I glance down—threads shimmer faint under the surface, taunting, waiting. And all I can think is how worthless it feels.
I have all this magic inside me, but it’s fucking useless.
I can’t keep being this weak, always one step behind until there’s nothing left to save. If I’d had any control—if I knew how to use this—maybe I could’ve done something. Maybe they wouldn’t all be dead.
My mum’s journals, the answers I never got, the lies Merrin fed me—there are answers buried in all of it. I need them. I need to know who did this and why.
And when I know, I need to be strong enough to make them pay for it. To stop this from ever happening again.
Not Lyra the smuggler, not Lyra the runner. I need to be what they think I am.A weapon.
A squeeze, warmth against my hand. I look down. Bren’s fingers are curled around mine, steady and safe.
I could stay here, with him. Let it end here. Try and love him, let that be enough. But I’d be choosing comfort over truth. Over justice. Over every name burned into the rubble below me. And I can't do that. I won’t.
I know what I need to do.
A shiver crawls over me, and Bren pulls me closer, his arm hooking around my shoulders, dragging me flush against his side. Warm. Solid. But it doesn’t quiet the thought slamming through my chest so hard it steals what little air I’ve got left. A thought I can’t bring myself to say out loud, sour on my tongue before it’s formed.
Because saying it makes it real, my gaze drags to Bren, and because god, it means losing this.
His arms are tight around me, like he can hold me here through sheer force. The smell of iron still clinging to his shirt, the way his heartbeat thuds against my cheek—it’s all I have left of home. The only solid thing that survived tonight.
And I’m about to throw it away?
