Don’t move. Don’t move.
After a few moments, their small patters against my skin resume. Another minute passes, and I open my eyes again. Everyone’s eyes are on me as more small dragons land on my forearms, my shoulders, my head.
Lady Bethany claps, and all of them lift and flutter away in a cloud of vibrant oranges, blues, yellows, greens, and purples.
“Well done,” she says, but her eyes are mostly on me. “You may all rise.”
We stand, and I gaze off at the treetops where they disappear. Feeling for the first time a deep sense of curiosity for the little creatures.
Lady Bethany leads us out of the clearing and back to the main gardens. We walk past a path that ends distantly in rose bushes. I slow my pace, attention narrowing in toward the end of it, until I pause.
“What?” Aelia asks. Flicking her blue eyes from my face to the path as the rest of the women tread ahead down another path. “What is it?”
A scream snaps into my head for a quick second, followed by a growl. Flashes of blue roses. White eyes.
“You cannot run from me.”
Some unexplainable force tugs me forward down that path. Almost dragging me away from Aelia until I take a small, dizzy step back to defy it.
The steady beat in my skull returns again.
Pound. Pound. Pound.
“Lyra?” Aelia’s voice sounds like it’s underwater. Her hand gently shakes my shoulder. “Lyra?”
The tunneled path of ivy trellises, of overgrown willow trees and flowers framing the path, begin to swirl into a blend of color.
Aelia grabs my cheek and yanks my face toward hers, “Lyra, are you alright? You look pale.”
Biting my lip, I nod. But I’m struggling to keep the heat from my skin, my head beginning to buzz. A heavy, strange tingling sings in my nerves, and I stumble as my vision begins to grow black. It feels hard to breathe.
Aelia lunges for me. Awkwardly we both fall to the floor as sheattempts to catch me. My vision swims, and Aelia pulls me into her arms as the other girls ahead of us turn back at the commotion, gasping in surprise.
Lady Bethany turns to see what the fuss is about, sweeping the women out of the way to run to us. Devin appears with Marcella behind him, coming from another direction.
My eyelids are heavy, dragging closed as my stomach roils.
“Lyra, can you hear me!” Aelia says in a panicked voice. She shakes my shoulder. Her voice is growing distant. “I don’t know what’s wrong with her! She got pale, and suddenly dropped!”
“Let me have her,” Devin urges. Hands shift about, my body flopping limply as I struggle to keep my breathing steady. “Lyra, listen to me. I need you to open your eyes. Are you hurt?”
But peeling my eyes open feels as hard as if I were trying to lift mountains. I part my lips to respond, but it’s as far as my strength will allow.
My sense of gravity shifts, and arms hold me tight. I’m pressed against something hard. Metal. The sounds of all the flustered girls fade away, and the last thing to go is the heavy steps against the cobblestones. Right before I’m lost to oblivion, I manage to peek open my eyes.
Devin’s carrying me, his armor shining golden in the daylight. He looks down at me, eyebrows pinched as he mouths something I can’t comprehend.
I slip into my darkness.
Twenty-Seven
- LYRA -
A hand rests on my hot forehead for a few heartbeats before it brushes my hair back from my temples and is gone.
“Will she wake by tonight, you think?” asks a familiar voice—Devin.
“It’s possible, yes,” someone else responds. The voice is deep and rough with age. “Call one of the assistants for me if she wakes. If she stirs and becomes agitated, give her this immediately.”
