I turn around to face where we came from. Only to find the hills still rolling on for miles behind us. No wall. No gardens. No castle.
“We aren’t in Vitalis…are we?” I ask, my voice tight with panic. Mind working to piece together where we are, and what had just happened.
“Close your eyes,” he says with a sincere gentleness.
But as I turn to him, he’s backlit by moonlight. Shrouded in shadow, with light only in his irises. He takes step after step toward me, his limbs seeming to almost grow longer. The grass beneath his boots almost stretches away from him. He stops a step away from me, a soft breeze carrying his hair off his shoulders and sending it waving beside him, partly covering his face.
I’m too afraid, too confused, to close my eyes. “Will you answer my question, first?”
“We are no longer in Vitalis, no. And this place…” he gestures to the beautiful, dark rolling hills around him. “This is not a place I can name. I don’t feel like I am worthy to commit it to one. You only need to know you’re safe.”
Safe.But there’s an ice in the air. Something that chills my skin, settling deep within my soul. A hint of heaviness I can’t quite put my finger on.
As I take the smallest step back, he whispers, “Lyra, you said you trustme, right? I promise you I have no intentions to hurt you. Just close your eyes.”
As I stare up at him, another breeze ruffling my skirts, I swallow back my anxiety. And close my eyes.
The breeze picks up a little more, a humming rolling in the distance like a longing friend. Slipping up and down like it rides a wave.
“Do you hear it?” he asks quietly. “The humming?”
“Yes,” I whisper, nodding. Following each lull and rise in the rhythm. Pinpointing its melody until I’ve caught onto it. And before I can stop myself, I start humming alongside it. Threading my own voice with it. Until it surrounds me. Vibrates within my very soul, shaking away the weight within my bones.
“Good.” There’s a smile in his voice. Satisfaction. “Now open your eyes.”
When I do, my heart stops. Cyrus still stands before me, as elegant as ever. As does the starry night sky, with a sliver of a moon behind him. And the same rolling, dark hills.
But dotting all of them are thousands and thousands of blue roses. All with a soft, glowing center.
My mouth drops open, and I slowly turn to survey the rest of the hills around us. Blue overpowering the dark. More of them crowd around me, and I sweep my gaze over them at my feet. “It’s…it’s…”
“Beautiful,” he whispers.
Smiling at the roses, I float my attention up to him to find him not staring at the landscape around us—but at me.
Nowhere else but me.
My pulse skitters. That soft look to his expression as he grins melts my anxiety away. Flicking his head over his shoulder, he gestures out beside him. “Do you like it, Lyra?”
Biting into my smile, I nod. “Indeed. I’d venture to say I love it.”
He bends, crouching down to cup a flower. Plucking it, he offers it up to me. I take the steps between us and duck my head with a smile as I take it from him.
“Thank you.” I look down at the petals where the glow slowly fades from its core. As I nudge the petals around to see where the light had been coming from, I say, “Not only have I never seen a wild blue rose, but I’ve also never seen a glowing flower.”
“Now you understand why I find the night so lovely.”
I flick a look up at him. We’re toe-to-toe now. His eyes are intense; so deep it’s like I’ve fallen into a well. Despite the endless hills of blue flowers and stretch of starry sky around us, I can’t look away.
Every nerve and muscle in my body leans toward him, like a tide being pulled into the ocean. Relentless and overpowering, the closer we get.
A strong breeze kicks up behind me—strong enough my skirts flap in the wind toward him, like the very earth has conspired to push me closer. I take a small step forward to steady myself before I fall into him entirely, my hands bracing against his chest as I fight to regain my balance.
He sucks in a breath near the top of my head, and the wind dies in an instant. As I step back from him, I brush down my hair that’s wildly mussed. Realizing that at some point I’ve dropped the rose.
So as not to look at him for fear of embarrassing myself further, I drop into a crouch to retrieve the rose on his boot. “Sorry about that.”
He drops down in front of me as I grab the rose, gently grabbing my chin with his bare fingers to tilt my head up to finally look at him. “You have nothing to be sorry for, Lyra Goldbrook.”
