“What if we can’t?” Nyssa asked.
Aydra swallowed hard. “Then the people will wait for the First Sign of the awakening darkness.”
“What is the First Sign?”
“An Infinari child.”
Dorian and Nyssa exchanged a long look, and Aydra grasped Nyssa’s hands in hers.
“Can you do something for me?” she asked Nyssa.
Nyssa nodded, and squeezed her hand. “Anything.”
Aydra’s chest tightened as she pulled the tourmaline ring off her finger, and she set it in Nyssa’s hand. “Give this to Lex. Tell her under no circumstance is she to come to this tower. She is to protect you. Follow you. And you will listen to her. Do not treat her as beneath you. She is your equal, the only person you can truly trust to lay their life on the line for you.” She swallowed hard as Nyssa curled the ring in her hand. “She is my greatest friend.”
“You know she will not listen if I tell her she is not to come to you,” Nyssa argued.
“It is an order,” Aydra affirmed. “She will respect that.”
Nyssa swallowed hard and nodded. Aydra gave her a tightlipped smile as she squeezed her hand. “Exhale the fire, my sister,” she whispered. “But don’t forget to breathe in the smoke.”
Aydra took hold of Dorian’s hand in hers too then, and she stared between them.
“I am so proud of you both,” she told them. “Be brave for me. For Haerland.”
A sob emitted from Nyssa’s lips, and she broke into tears in Dorian’s arms.
“You have to go,” Draven managed. “Find Balandria for me. Send her here. And Prince—have her bring quill and parchment.”
Dorian’s eyes squinted, but he nodded nonetheless. He nudged his sister in his arms. “We have to go,” he whispered.
Nyssa screamed and lunged at the bars again, her hands grabbing hold of Aydra so tightly that Aydra’s breath caught in her throat.
“Nyssa, we have to go!”
“No!”
It was the tears on Dorian’s face when he last looked at her that did her in.
Draven’s arms wrapped around Aydra as she felt her heart shredding. Dorian grasped Nyssa around her waist and he pulled her backwards. He had to carry her down the steps, her cries cutting through the still night air. Aydra’s core bled as Draven pulled her back against him, and the screams of her sister’s pleas echoed in her ears.
It was all Aydra could do to keep her composure as Balandria fought to keep a stern face for her king when she came by. The wind circled the tower as both of them stood on either side of the bars, and she watched a silent tear stretch down Balandria’s face.
“I wish you would run,” she told him.
Draven gave her a small smile, and pressed his hand to her face. “You know better than to think I would.”
She huffed under her breath, and she shook her heat at him. “I do,” she managed.
Draven reached into his shirt then, and he pulled the stone and chain he always wore over his head. “Take it this time,” he insisted.
Balandria swallowed hard and bowed her head so that he could place it around her neck. Her gaze met his when she lifted her head once more. Draven gave her a proud smile.
“Balandria Windwood. Venari King,” he said as he clapped her shoulder. “I couldn’t have asked for a better successor.”
When Balandria left them, Draven practically fell backwards into the hay bales at the corner of the bars. Aydra held his hands as he cried quietly, and after a while she held him against her chest, staring out at the stars sparkling back at them in the sky. Tears came down her own face as she tried to assure him he’d done his part as being a great king, leading his people out of the shadows they’d so rested in for generations.
Her body felt empty and full all at once.
Empty because she knew this was the end, full because of the love she’d felt just within those last few hours. Proud of the people her siblings had become. Proud of Balandria for trying to keep a stern face in front of her king.
It was all she could have asked for on her last night.
The parchment Balandria had brought him was quickly filled with their story. The truth. Not whatever lies the Chronicles would say about them. Their love. Their comfort in darkness. How they’d found each other despite the fear and hatred their givers had so spewed upon their races throughout history. Upon its completion, Draven stuffed it between two rocks, securing it for whomever he thought would need it in the future.
As he sat back against the wall, he cradled her in his arms, the both of them fighting the drooping of their heavy eyes. They’d not slept the night before, but neither wanted the morning to come any faster than it would already.
“I have to tell you something,” Draven whispered after a while.
She sat her chin on his chest and met his gaze. “This isn’t like the other times, is it?” she said, almost playfully. “I don’t think I can take anymore faints of surprise.”
He chuckled under his breath, and he grasped her hand in his, kissing her knuckles. “No, not like the other times,” he promised.
“Then tell me.”
Draven sighed, and her eyes squinted at his suddenly solemn facade, eyes staring at
