Page 80 of The Trials of Ophelia
The thunder in my head echoed as I stalked away from the stables and nearly collided with Lyria. She looked as frantic as she had every night since my arrival, purple circles shadowing her eyes and hair falling from her braid, voice shooting up an octave.
“Okay, Malakai?” she asked. Despite her state, she checked on her warrior, like it was her job to hold everything together.
“Fine,” I grumbled.
Her eyes swept across my set jaw and clenched fists. Flicked over my shoulder to the stables. I heard the clinking of vambraces being removed and soft steps pass us, but didn’t look.
“Walk with me,” Lyria said.
Because she seemed so agitated lately, I did.
Lyria didn’t speak as she led me away from the heart of camp, to a small outcrop ringed with trees already stripped by the coming winter. She looked at them, lips twisting.
“When we first arrived here, this spot was my favorite. The leaves were turning, a perfect array of oranges and golds, and they were crisp beneath your boots.”
I stayed silent as she strolled the circumference of the space.
“Sometimes I came here to cry, to mourn Danya. Sometimes I came here to scream and hoped the foliage would absorb the sound. Would take away every worry, every battle I didn’t think I was strong enough for.” She ran a hand down a frost-bitten trunk, chipping off a dead piece with her nail. “Sometimes I came here to be quiet.”
I cleared my throat. “And why did you bring me here?”
“Because I want you to understand what I’m about to tell you is private, but I also want you to know I’m not telling you to hurt you. I’m showing you this piece of me so you can better understand the pressure we’re all under here.”
“I—” I cut myself off at the bob of her throat.
I was about to say I understood pressure, but this was fucking warfare. The second war Lyria had fought in twenty-three years of life, and it all sat on her shoulders. Or so she thought.
“You have a team with you, Lyria. It’s not all on you.”
She huffed a laugh. “And believe me, I know it. I’d be dead without them, I promise you that.”
I scratched my hand along the scar on my jaw. “What did you want to tell me, then?”
Lyria, the commander of our armies and Master of Weapons and Warfare, worried the hem of her cloak, considering her words with such gentle care.
“What she’s doing for you…it’s hard for her.”
My stomach hollowed out. “What do you mean?”
“We all faced our own horrors during the last war. We’ve all been plagued by nightmares every day since it ended. This is bringing those memories into the light.”
I leaned against the trunk of a tree, crossing my arms. “I’m not asking you to tell me what she experienced, nor am I asking her. That’s her business.” Dammit I wanted to fucking know.
“I wouldn’t share it even if you did,” Lyria said. “But I can share mine. And you can know hers was so much worse.”
She looked me directly in the eye as she spoke, and her pain was so thick in the air I thought I’d choke on it.
“I was dragged off the battlefield once,” she recounted, and my body chilled. “I was always taught how to be a soldier growing up. Perfect was the standard, accolades were praised. So when we were in one of the most gruesome battles of the war—spirits, the smells, the sounds…” She shivered. “I remember it all so vividly.
“But warriors on our side were falling and I thought I could handle more than I was capable of. Charged through the forest surrounding the field to try to reach their camp myself and secure the general. A stupid plan, but I was foolish and fueled by adrenaline that made me feel unstoppable.”
She swallowed, and the next words came out stiff, like she had to say them. “I didn’t make it thirty feet before an Engrossian pulled me from my horse. He and a friend…held me down. Ripped off my leathers and armor. They were going to…well, they were going to take something no one has a right to take. Mila found me before they could and drove both of her swords through one of their backs, then we continued to dismember him together. The other got away.”
Her face didn’t expose a bead of emotion as she finished, but if that was her response to what she experienced, I wouldn’t comment. She needed to process it her own way.
The story she told had a knot forming in my gut and bile stinging my throat. It was so fucking vile—a side of war many pretended didn’t exist. The pillaging, the assault, soldiers high on power, taking a number of things that didn’t belong to them.
“I’m sorry, Lyria,” I said. “I’m sorry they did that to you, and I know nothing can replace what they tried to take, but I’m glad you got a modicum of revenge.” One corner of her lips lifted. “And the fact that you returned here, that you continue to face those troops every day, is really fucking admirable. Damien, I don’t know many who could. I can’t imagine how strong you have to be to face it every day.”
