Chapter 148 AFFLICTION

Chapter 148 AFFLICTION
KAI

My father looked at me. “What happened to my mother’s body after the realm,” I did not want to acknowledge it, it would make it real. “The exposure. The way she was sick when she came back.” I looked at him. “Is that what’s happening to Lyra’s?”

He looked at me for a long time.
“I don’t know,” he said.

“But you’re afraid it is,” I said.

He said nothing.

Which was its own answer.

I looked at the window. At the Academy grounds visible through it. At the training field in the distance with its marks that had not yet been smoothed away.

Come back and tell me what you found in there. Come back and give us the chance to stop what’s happening before it becomes what happened to my mother I begged, as if Lyra could hear me. I could not handle what happened to my mother happening to Lyra, I would not be able to bare it.

My father sat at his desk in silence. Neither of us moved for a long time.

THIRD PERSON

The roost was quiet at this hour.

Most of the Academy had settled into the early evening, dinner finished, the last of the day’s sessions concluded, riders drifting back to their rooms with subdued energy. Kai was not in his room.

He was sitting on the low bench beside Zephyr’s stall with his palm flat against his dragon’s scales, moving it slowly in long strokes that Zephyr had always responded to. The simple contact that meant more than words.

Zephyr’s scales were warm under his hand.

Kai looked at the straw on the floor and talked.

He told Zephyr everything his father had said. Cadence at the tournament, the bond snapping into place in front of everyone. Carew in the library. The council, the betrayal, the letter found in her empty dorm room. Her death and Stormweaver ascending into a red sky with a fractured bond then disappearing through the threshold.

He told Zephyr about Lyra’s ankle.

He said it out loud for the first time. Cadence had come back through the threshold sick, and the sickness had not responded to any treatment. She had died from it three months after giving birth to him and now Lyra’s ankle was not healing. Now the injury was worsening rather than improving despite everything the healer had prescribed.

The connection sat in his chest like lead.

“What if it’s the same thing?” he asked the question that had been in his mind. His voice was low and the roost was quiet. “What if the realm did something to her when she crossed and her ankle not healing is the first sign of the ailment?” He pressed his hand harder against Zephyr’s scales. “My mother went in and didn’t come back the same. What if Lyra is the same?”

Zephyr shifted.

The movement was slow and deliberate, he turned his head toward Kai. The bond between them ran warm and steady as it always did.

Not your fault.

Kai exhaled.

“I know it wasn’t me,” he said. “I know I didn’t make any of the choices that led to this. But if my father hadn’t gone to the council, Stormweaver would never have fled to the realm with a fractured bond. The corruption would never have started bleeding through. Lyra would never have had reason to go in looking for answers.” He paused. “The chain starts with my family.”

Zephyr made a low sound. The bond pushed back. “She went in to stop the corruption,” Kai’s voice was quieter now. “I know that. She went in because she had found enough to believe she could help.” He looked at Zephyr’s eye, large and dark. “It came from a good place. The most reckless possible expression from a good place, but—”

He stopped.

Zephyr pressed his head slightly closer, warm breath moving over Kai’s hair. The warmth in the bond did not answer the question about what he would do if Lyra got worse. 

He heard footsteps at the roost entrance and turned.

Yvaine stood in the doorway.

She was not looking at him, she was looking at the ground just inside the entrance then she raised her eyes and met his. 

She crossed to Zephyr.

“Hello, Zephyr,” she greeted in a warm tone., 

Zephyr regarded her with a patient, benign interest. Yvaine took hold of Kai’s hand and squeezed once. She did not ask if he was alright because the question would have been an insult to both of them at this particular moment.

“If only Tempest could wake up,” she sighed, looking at the stall rather than at him. “We would at least have something. Some direction, some hope for Lyra.”

Kai exhaled. “I hate this,” he said.“I can’t help her. I can’t fix her ankle and I can’t get her memory back and I can’t—” He stopped. “What if she gets worse, Yvaine?”

“Don’t think like that,” Yvaine argued, and her voice came out sharp. There was a slight tremor underneath. “We need to be positive. We need to—” She stopped herself. 

She started again much steadier. “What happened with your father?”

He told her.

All of it, and Yvaine listened without interrupting, which was the gift she was best at giving. Her expression moved through several things.

“I fear Lyra might be at risk of the same affliction”  Yvaine’s facefell.