“Lyr,” she croaked, her voice hollowed out. Spots danced in her vision. She was on her hands and knees on the carpet, her head in agony.
The two forms before her solidified slowly. Lyr, still kneeling, and Lady Bellenet, her hand resting on his hair. Slowly, the lady stepped back. Blinking, Lyr got to his feet.
Ru hardly dared to breathe. “Lyr,” she whispered, grasping desperately at some remaining mote of hope.
He turned. “Ru.”
Something broke in her. A piece of her heart or the worn-off edge of a ragged soul, falling into a dark abyss. The King's Guardwas alive, safe and well. His scar remained. And there was that patch of unshaven stubble at his throat. But the familiar glint in dark eyes, the affectionate curve of his mouth, features that had been so dear to Ru, were gone.
Lyr regarded her with a look of vacant boredom. No, worse than boredom — emptiness.
“What,” Ru said slowly, each word heavy with rage, “was thepointof this.”
And as she spoke, unable to contain her emotions, the artifact responded in kind. It boiled up into her throat, hot and bitter, encouraging her.
I should have killed her, Ru thought, burning with hatred for Lady Bellenet. And choking with self-loathing, for not stopping this. Lyr was gone. What stood facing her was an empty thing, a reminder of a man who was lost forever.
Ru let out a strangled sob.
Lady Bellenet turned to her. Her cheeks were pink, her eyes bright, as if she’d just finished eating a filling meal. “You see what your lack of obeisance has brought, Delara? Do not question Festra. And now let us rejoice, for Lyrren Briar has found eternity. He will join us on our journey to the Isle of the Sun on the solstice. It is a gift.”
Ru choked on another sob. Her voice wouldn’t come; she felt as if she were engulfed by a raging flame, unable to move, hardly able to think.
The lady smiled sweetly in the face of Ru’s pain. “Do not attend Prayer again. Do not contradict Hugon. Do not evade my guards. It is for your own good, Delara. You must perform the Cleansing. There is no escaping your destiny.”
A seemingly endless stream of burning tears blurred Ru’s vision. She clenched her hands, fisted against the floor where she still sat half-sprawled.
“Lyr,” she murmured, unable to think of anything else.
“Ru,” he said. But her name on his lips was meaningless. It rang empty in the room, devoid of feeling, ofLyr.
Lady Bellenet went to the door, flinging it open. She turned back to Ru, eyes flashing. “The Solstice falls in two weeks. If you do not show clear progress with Taryel’s heart in the interim, I will be forced to bring more of your loved ones into Festra’s fold. Use your time wisely. Now begone.”
So dismissed, Ru stood and left the room in a grief-stricken haze until she stood alone in the empty corridor. Lyr and the King's Guards — But no… not Lyr. One of the Children, the shape of him only, a dark emptiness where Lyr had been. She didn’t know how long she stood in the hall, weeping into her hands, snot hanging from her nose, sobbing until she choked.
When she was finally exhausted enough to lift her head, forcing herself to wipe her nose and breathe, Lyr was still there. He had been watching her as she cried, his expression uninterested.
CHAPTER 33
Somehow, Ru made it back to her room. Her contingent of King's Guards followed. And Lyr, no matter how many times she screamed at him, sobbing at him to go away, trailed after her. It was as if Lady Bellenet had known, understood that Lyr would haunt Ru like a specter. A nightmarish reminder of what she could do. Of what would happen to Gwyneth and Archie, to Simon, if Ru tried to rebel.
When she at last slammed the door in Lyr’s vapid face, Ru found herself feeling utterly lost. Untethered and unknowing. Prayer had shown her what Lady Bellenet was capable of and how she fed her power. But there was no hint of how it might be stopped. What could Ru do? Empty the palace of people so Lady Bellenet had no one else to change? Such a thing would be impossible.
Alone in her room, with the reality of Lyr’s loss crashing down on her, Ru sat unmoving for what felt like an eternity, staring into the fire. She couldn’t let this break her. She could not give up. Taking a long, rattling breath, Ru began to think.
She tried to wrack her brain for hints that the lady might have dropped, anything to indicate a weakness. But all Ru could picture was how horribly steady the woman’s gaze had been,how avidly she truly seemed to believe what she said about Festra. Ru held nothing over her — Lady Bellenet had every opportunity to be honest, to admit that she was nothing but a sorceress with a desire for annihilation. But she stood by the Festra story. She truly believed.
Ru couldn’t accept that Lady Bellenet’s faith was based in truth. She railed against the possibility.Because if Festra was real, if all of this was celestially planned, then Ru’s world as she understood it would be upended. Like a puzzle, scrambled up and reassembled, perhaps into a similar shape but a new image entirely. Science, facts, her own free will — all would become meaningless.
In all her studies at the Tower, Ru and her friends had found almost nothing of Festra. If he was a god who routinely interfered in the lives of mortals, then surely there should have been records. She would have believed that Festra had been invented by Lady Bellenet altogether had she not seenInfinite Night, a painting in a book from the Cornelian Tower. Had she not readGods & Glories.
There had to be more to learn, more to understand. So she would go directly to the source.
Taryel found her there in her rooms, tear-stained and shaking. It took coaxing, soft words and softer touches, to open her up. She didn’t want to recount what happened to Lyr. But Taryel saw it in her eyes, had seen the guard in the hall, and had drawn a line between points.
Ru held him as if he would save her while she recounted the Prayer, and what had occurred in Lady Bellenet’s rooms after. She cried until his shirt was soaked with her tears, at last allowing herself to open up to grief.
Taryel sent for a late supper, and afterward, Pearl brought dainty cups of melted chocolate. Ru ate dutifully, not tasting anything.
