Nerissa – Onyx Tower, Kayj
Clamoring rose beyond the heavy black doors, drowning out my footsteps on the dark stone floor as I prowled through the halls of the Onyx Tower and toward the throne room.
I hated this place.
Death lurked everywhere, and my sunlight flared in defense at every shadow flickering in the corners. Lyvia never told me what happened here, but I knew.
The damage that had been done by Cyril… That sort of damage lingers in the eyes of their victims. It hovers like a wraith, waiting for a moment of weakness when its host hasa lapse in mental control and seizes the victim, shoving those painful memories back into the light.
I grimaced as sound flooded my senses. The group beyond the doors was animated and loud. Their voices carried across the vast black stone that made up the throne room.
Lyvia sat at one of the oval tables, her face pale and her eyes darting to the people throughout the room, as if she didn’t know where to look. Her wan mouth parted, and her black brows tilted up. Her body and mind were in a clear state of shock.
Aeriden approached with a mug, and Lyvia took it without looking at him, the brother Dark King Daimos tricked her into thinking was dead. Aeriden’s chair scraped as he found a seat beside his sister. His blue eyes darted to her ears before he murmured quietly to her.
Isla’s hand was clasped firmly in Lyvia’s grip on her other side, and my chest warmed despite theI-told-you-solook she shot my way. Isla’s full lips pressed into a hard line as she dragged her amber gaze to Bayne.
My brother sat across from Lyvia, his back to me. Lida hovered a short distance away. A jab of guilt and pity hit me in the chest, and I offered Lida a brief nod as I rounded the table to face them.
I frowned as I registered Bayne’s face. His expression was pained and hard, and his eyes were unable to stop as they roved over the living darkness under Lyvia’s skin. Someone had found her new clothes, it seemed, as she donned a fresh cream tunic. The laces left little glimpses of skin at her collarbone where the Obscura and Transcindiel moved together. Had she even had time to bathe?
Lyvia’s eyes darted to mine as she attempted to answer a question from someone, bright veins of red spiderwebbing in the whites of her eyes, the only evidence she’d been crying.
“It’s time for Lyvia to rest,” I announced, tenting my hands on the glass table. “She and?—”
I paused as I searched for Astraeus. My eyes caught on a dark shadow in the corner of the throne room. His arms were crossed in front of his chest.
My sunlight flared in defense as his dark eyes met mine, a stormy violence gathering behind them. Something was different with the pirate lord. Gone was the smirking captain, his swagger all but buried beneath the lethal intent sitting in his demeanor.
“I agree, but Selvina and the others are on their way,” Isla replied. “They’ll be here in a few minutes. And we have a lot to discuss…”
My lips pursed, and I sent a wave of irritation to the ice queen.
Selvina had been… difficult.
In no way did I deny her role in aiding our defeat of Dark King Daimos. And I knew we owed Lyvia’s life to her during her time at the Crystal Castle. But the white-haired, castle-loving, pretentious elf was pig-headed and loved her lavish life a little too much.
Was she a fellow Bellator? Yes.
Was she powerful? Yes.
Had she used her powers to heal thousands of humans and elves after Lyvia transformed them from their ashen forms? Yes.
Did she have a knack for organizing the refugees and caring for them? For ruling? Perhaps.
But she had been a fucking idiot to lead us all to that cave in the first place. We didn’t know how it had opened, but clearly, gathering there had been more than a coincidence, given the gate opened moments later.
And she preferred pretty dresses to training leathers.
A wave of warning shot down my bond with Selvina, smacking me right in the chest, and I chuckled at her threat.
I blinked as I felt a mental knock from my caeluma, and Aquila’s cast materialized in my mind. My eyes opened to a cyclone of ash-like snowflakes spinning through the wind, the chill biting across my beak. My eyes caught on the bright white of Nishanth’s feathers and her three riders as she landed in the courtyard of the Onyx Tower.
Selvina’s caeluma, her snowy mountain hawk, was far more likable. Nishanth was a vicious, ruthless thing, never hesitating to use the Ramadiel power against the monstrosities that flooded through the Vael Lacrima.
I shook my head, breaking the cast with Aquila and turning back to Isla.
“They’re already here,” I announced, crossing my arms.
