Chapter 128 HELP HER

Chapter 128 HELP HER
If the healers examined Lyra thoroughly, if they searched the room, if they checked for external sources of corruption rather than attributing everything to the head injury the tooth would be found. And a corrupted dragon tooth found in the mattress of a rider who had just crashed out of the realm of magic was not something that would be attributed to coincidence.

She needed to get it back.

Calista pushed off from the wall and moved away from the corner quickly and quietly, back the way she had come, before the voices inside the corridor changed.

Her heart was moving faster than she was comfortable with.

She was not someone who panicked. She had never been someone who panicked, she had watched Cassius panic over small things their entire lives and decided early that panic was a waste of resources that composure needed more than the feeling did.

She had not meant for this.

The thought arrived and she set it aside because it was not useful. What she had meant or not meant was irrelevant to what had actually occurred.

She did not examine the discomfort that thought produced.

She needed the tooth back.

~

Healer Coraline had been in Ser Thorian’s office for eleven minutes and she had spent most of them being thorough with her report.

She had given him the full account. The ankle, the head injury, the period of unconsciousness, the vital observations since waking, the clarity of Lyra’s cognition on straightforward questions and the complete absence of it on anything relating to the past twelve months.

Ser Thorian had listened without interrupting.

He was standing behind his desk rather than sitting, which Coraline had understood by now meant he was dealing with something that required physical readiness in some way. His hands were flat on the desk surface and in front of them, positioned precisely at the desk’s centre, was the book.

The small, plain, dark-covered book that had been in Lyra’s travelling bag when the healers brought her things in from the field.

He had been looking at it for most of the conversation.

“And she has no recall of why she was flying last night?” he asked, when Coraline finished.

“None,” Coraline replied. “Her last clear memory predates the Choosing. She does not know she is bonded. She did not recognise her dormitory. She did not recognise Calder.” She paused. “She recognised Kai.”

Something moved in Ser Thorian’s expression at that. “She knows Kai?.”

“By name, immediately. Whatever she retains of him goes deeper than the accessible memory.” Coraline looked at him steadily. “Which is not uncommon. The emotional memory and the factual memory are stored differently. Strong emotional associations can survive injuries that factual recall does not.”

Ser Thorian said nothing for a moment.

He traced the edge of the book’s cover with one finger, a small unconscious movement.

“We will not know why she flew into the realm,” he said quietly. “Whatever she knew, whatever she had found, whatever drove her to go alone without telling anyone, she cannot tell us now.”

“Her dormitory partner,” Coraline offered. “Calder. They are close, by all accounts. If Lyra had confided anything—”

“Send for them,” Ser Thorian said. “Both of them. Kai and Callory.”

Kai and Yvaine sat across from Ser Thorian’s desk and the silence was deafening.

He had not spoken since they sat down. He was looking at them both with focused attention. The book sat on the desk between them and neither Kai nor Yvaine looked at it, which told Ser Thorian something about what they knew even before anyone had spoken.

Yvaine glanced at Kai.

Kai looked at Ser Thorian.

“I know you know something,” Ser Thorian said finally, his voice entirely level. “I am not asking whether you have information. I am asking you to share it.”

“We don’t know why she flew into the realm,” Kai said. “That’s honest. We don’t.”

“But you know other things,” Ser Thorian replied.

A silence.

“She is unconscious in her dorm,” Ser Thorian continued and something in his voice shifted. “She does not know where she is. She does not know her dragon's name. She does not remember this Academy or anything that has happened in the last twelve months.” He looked at them both. “Tempest is sedated and wounded. Every rider in this Academy is grounded indefinitely. The principal is managing correspondence from the palace about the incident because the palace has already heard about it.”

He set his fist down on the desk surface. “Her recklessness has consequences that extend well beyond herself. And I am asking you both, directly, to tell me what you know.”

Yvaine looked at her hands.
Kai looked at the desk.

“We want to help her,” Ser Thorian said, and the shift in his voice this time was personal and unmanaged that came before he could stop it. “Whatever she found, whatever she was trying to do… I need to understand it if I am going to help her. Both of you know that.”

The office was very quiet. Kai looked at Yvaine and she looked back at him

Neither of them spoke.

Ser Thorian looked at them both waiting.

“If you do not speak to me now,” he said, carefully and clearly, “there will be consequences. For both of you. As a reality. This Academy cannot function with riders who withhold information during a crisis of this magnitude.” He looked at Kai specifically. “I am asking you as your instructor. I am asking you as the person responsible for the safety of every rider on these grounds. And I am asking you—” He stopped.

Something in the stopping had weight.

“I am asking you,” he said, quieter now, “to help me help her.”

Kai held his father’s gaze.

Yvaine held her position.
Neither of them answered.