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“I want to,” Lily said. Desperately. “I don’t have a way to prove it’ll work, but I have to try.”
“And if it doesn’t?”
“He’s good, Kyer. A good kid and a good Guardian. I know he can do it.”
Kyer’s face grew stern. “If you want Tyrsia’s leaders to see you as their equal, you need to have the answers to these questions. As the Guardian’s compliment, it’s up to you to make decisions on his behalf, even if they’re ones you don’t want, and I know you know what they’ll expect.” A lead weight dropped in Lily’s stomach. “No one other than you thinks that boy is worth any time, so you need to make them see that.”
Lily swallowed hard. “I understand.”
“Amalia won’t act without your willingness to cooperate, nor will she without Minerva’s blessing, so consider him safe for the time being.” He tilted his head. “If you’re right, Luka could be worthwhile alive, if we—”
“Manipulate him?”
“Would another phrase work for you? How about, ‘steer in the right direction?’”
Lily’s attempts to stay calm were only that. “Does that include teaching him it’s okay to eradicate hundreds of acres of medicine?”
“Cut me some slack, kid. Killing off the Lithance—”
“It’s not just the Lithance,” Lily snapped. “It’s about the message Amalia wants me to deliver for her. One I won’t agree with.”
Kyer paused, and his features tightened. “What the north is doing—”
“Is wrong, I know.” Lily finished with a sigh.
“The system they have is unsustainable. It’ll collapse, and the rubble will fall onto us.”
“I know, I know…” Lily thought of Reina and Xavier. “They aren’t all monsters, and they’re capable of great things. They shouldn’t push the limits of their bodies for centuries, but destroying everything they’ve built doesn’t sit right with me either.”
“What they’ve built requires Dusk shards being ripped from living bodies. Does that sit well with you? What about babies born still because their parents couldn’t afford a soul in a bottle? People turned into something barely recognizable for the sake of avoiding death?”
The pain behind his voice was obvious. Kyer believed in everything he was fighting for, and she couldn’t take that away from him anymore than he could rip her stance out from under her. It was all so tangled up. How could anyone fix what happened to Eizreth?
“It can’t be that simple.” Lily sighed. “Maybe you should have a little less faith in the Flares, Kyer.”
He didn’t respond to that. Instead, he wrapped an arm around her and squeezed. Lily didn’t pull away this time. “You know, it might hurt less if you follow your instincts more and just let things fall into place. There’s a balance that needs to be met with a Flare and its body, much like the Flares with their opposite. You give, it takes. It takes, you give. Understand? That requires you to be a little flexible.”
“I don’t trust the Wraith enough to let go of myself completely.”
“Then it’s not fair to expect so much from Luka if you don’t for yourself. Like it or not, the Wraith is a part of who you are. Try and make peace with it.”
Push, pull. Give, take. Life, death. “I’ll try,” she said, thinking of Luka’s courage.
“Good. Now don’t ask me to lose my faith because it’s never going to happen. The Flares are only as good as their vessels, and you’re a perfect fit. Some day you’ll see it like I do.”
“Maybe… What do you think about Luka?”
“I hardly know the boy, but if you trust him, then I do too.”
Lily’s lips began to shift to a smile before another curiosity popped in her head. “What about the Serpent and its current vessel?”
“Isn’t that obvious?”
Clearly, she was missing something since everyone else wanted to pretend like this was completely normal. “I must not be as familiar with the events of the Reapers’ War as I thought. He killed Keara, did he not?”
Kyer raised a brow. “He hasn’t spoken to you about it yet?”
“If it’s not at my expense, he rarely speaks to me at all.”
