I don’t know how I know it, but I do. Could sense it even at this distance. Or rather, couldnotsense it at this distance. Not the pull I had come to know ever since I was a little girl.
More, Lyra…what else aren’t you remembering?
A bolt of pain splits through my head, hard enough that I flinch forward and the guards turn to me in concern. I wave them off, and as we walk the rest of the way I can’t stop my racing mind.
Of the lady’s maids cleaning our blood up on the first day. Collecting it in bottles that looked so similar to the ones I just saw. And if all thirty of us were bled out to the extent we were? If all of our blood was collected?
Why?
We were taught the effects of dragonblood this morning, but if my anxious thoughts aren’t misguided…
Why collect our blood? What would they use it for?
As the guards open a door and lead me inside, I almost forgot why I came to see Devin in the first place. We’re in a large two-story room with windows overlooking part of the gardens. Devin’s back is to us, looking over large scrolls on a long table with two other guards.
When he turns to us, confusion washes over his expression, he excuses himself and walks to us. “Lyra? I’m glad to see you, but to what do I owe the pleasure?”
I meekly glance at the two guards beside me, mumbling, “May I speak with you alone?”
Devin nods and guides me to the farthest corner of the room. “Is everything alright?”
I nod, biting down on my tongue to stir an idea of what I’m going to say now that I’m face-to-face with him. My original plan of sharing that Marcella stole a butter knife feels insignificant in the face of what I just witnessed.
“Hey,” he whispers, hesitantly patting the side of my shoulder. “What’s wrong? You lookterrified.”
I drop my gaze from his, glancing behind him at the other guards near the table. The window of the gardens just beyond them. My mind slows just for a moment to catch onto something that might save me. “I-I was in the gardens with some of the other women earlier. And…” I shake my head, dropping my attention down to my fingers as I fidget. “And we happened upon opium poppies.”
“Alrightttt…” There’s a slow question in his voice.
I look up at him and drop my hands. “One of the others almost touched it, and I told them what they were. I don’t know them well enough to know they won’t revisit them. And if it was some sort of secret we stumbled upon…”
“Don’t worry,” he says. “The plan is to harvest them week after next, but I’ll be sure to have guards posted there just in case.”
My mouth slightly parts. “Harvest them…in two weeks?”Like when the first trial is supposed to start.
He tosses a glance over his shoulder at the other guards before dipping his head closer to mine. “If your pain resurfaces for whatever reason, you let me know, and I’ll be sure to get you something to relieve it one way or another. Alright?”
I nod, taking his misunderstanding as my advantage.
For now, I’ll keep the blood collection to myself until I can better understand why Marcella took that knife.
Because maybe, just maybe, she knows more than any of us do.
Twelve
- LYRA -
Two weeks later
It’s been a struggle keeping things to myself these last two weeks. Every time I share a smile with Aelia, I can’t help but wonder if I should be trusting her with the information.
I convince myself I don’t know enough yet. And I haven’t been able to ask Marcella privately. Every time I’ve tried to invite her to spend time with me, she declines it. Pushes me away when I try to connect with her. Even as I try to quietly help her during etiquette lessons.
She’s hiding something.
While the rest of us, day in and day out, share information about ourselves and the world as we remember it, she sits there in silence. Most of the time she gazes off in the distance, but with the slight reactions of her body, I know she’s listening.
It feels unfair for her to know so much about us, and us so little about her. Perhaps it's a defense mechanism to not get close to any of us as we draw closer to our trials.
