Page 58 of Draekora

Her parents, her teachers, her classmates. All dead.

Roka, Kyia, Zain. Dead.

Kaiden…dead.

When she woke up panting in the middle of the night, Alex felt the weight of a thousand lifetimes linger between her and everyone she cared about.

Homesick for a place currently well beyond her reach, all she could do was turn over and try to get back to sleep. When she finally managed to drift off again, she did so with a wet pillow and a single tear still rolling down her cheek.

Nineteen

Almost an entire week passed before Avenshowed his face around the palace again. Until then, the yelling match he’d had with his father was all anyone talked about—how the prince had lost his mind and screamed at the monarch about the mortals who were stealing from Meya. The news had spread swiftly beyond the palace walls, and anytime Alex wandered the city, she heard the gossiping voices of Meyarins in the streets. She did her best to ignore it all, knowing that what would be, would be, and instead focused on her training.

Roka was a demanding teacher, but Alex would have expected no less. At her request, they focused primarily on theory-based knowledge rather than practical experience since she still had no idea how to get around the problem of her red blood and stubbornly avoided sparring with him every time he offered, with her excuses becoming more paltry each time he asked. The bonus was, within the span of six days she became nearly fluent in the Meyarin language, began to learn thelonghistory of the immortal people, and, most excitingly, was taught how to use theValispath.

It turned out the latter was actually rather simple. All she had to do waswillit to activate around her and focus on where she wanted to go and it just sort of… happened. But she also had to concentrate for the entire trip, otherwise she would end up somewhere unintended—as she’d learned the hard way during one of her first solo outings. One moment she was rollercoasting along with her mind on the Golden Cliffs, and the next she’d been wondering why Zain was repeatedly refusing to take up Roka’s offer to try out for theZeltora. That led Alex to thinking about the warriors themselves, and before she knew it, theValispathspat her out in the centre of the garrison, right when the elite guards were in the middle of a training drill. All eyes had come to her and she’d awkwardly forced herself to laugh it off, saying in Meyarin, “Well, this sure isn’t the kitchen.”

Roka hadn’t let her live it down for a full day. Niyx hadn’t either, since in Aven’s absence he’d pulled out the ‘best friend’ card and was regularly checking in with the royals, telling them their son and brother was fine but needed some time to cool off. Doing that, Niyx was around the palace a lot more than Alex would have presumed normal. Stranger still, he seemed to be on friendly terms with them all—even Roka, who had been the one to counsel Aven on choosing better friends. It was just plain weird seeing Niyx interact so casually with Roka, Kyia, even Astophe and Niida, knowing that, like Aven, he wasnotone of the good guys. And yet, in this time period, he kind of was. Sure, he was a pathological flirt and relentless charmer to boot, but Alex had noticed he was like that not just with her, but withanythingthat moved. Once she came to that realisation, she was much more comfortable being around him. She couldn’t forget the threatening future version of him, but as unbelievable as it was, she didn’t absolutely detest him in the past. His buoyant personality alone made that nearly impossible.

Other than having lessons with Roka and what felt like daily verbal sparring matches with Niyx, Alex spent much of her time with Kyia, who had been given the task of teaching her about Meyarin customs and culture. It was all frightfully boring, but it gave Alex the chance to carefully scout out how the female Meyarin felt about Roka. Unfortunately, the prince hadn’t been playing coy when he implied that he and Kyia didn’t get along. In fact, if Alex read their relationship correctly, Roka had severely downplayed the level at which they detested each other. So much so that she wondered if perhaps she was best just letting them get on with it themselves, knowing they would eventually end up together. She was only going to be there for another couple of weeks and came to the conclusion that it might be safer not to make any more waves in the time she had left.

Deciding that was the best plan—unless, of course, opportunities arose where she couldn’t resist playing Cupid—Alex kept the ripples at bay by going about her life in an almost perfunctory manner. Every morning she breakfasted with the queen, whose common tongue improved just as quickly as Alex’s Meyarin. Other than her desire to converse better with Alex, the queen’s official reasoning was that she was housing someone raised by mortals and thought it was a good indication that she should invest in the ability to communicate with the human race. That might have been her official response to anyone who asked, but Alex knew better. One morning Niida had broken down in tears and admitted that she was thankful she had something to do in order to keep her mind off her youngest son who she was deeply concerned about. The love and fear shining out of her eyes had nearly brought Alex to her knees, and she knew without a doubt that the queen was terrified of the changes in Aven. All Alex could do was hold Niida’s hand and tell her everything would be okay, offering false hope but true comfort as the queen wept on her shoulder.

When she wasn’t lying to emotionally wrecked monarchs or learning from Roka and Kyia, the rest of Alex’s free time was spent exploring the copious and extravagant halls of the palace, strolling around the streets of the beautiful city and checking in with Xiraxus to find out how close he was to having the energy to re-open theabrassaback to her time. Every day his answer remained the same: not close enough. But still she continued asking, waiting for the day when he would tell her they were good to go. And in the meantime, she was determined that when she finally left the past, her presence would leave hardly any mark at all.

… Other than sorting out Zain.

… And maybe Kyia and Roka, if she could swing it.

But nothing else.

It would be like she was never there.

On Sunday, exactly one week after her arrival in the past, Alex was on her way to her bedroom to freshen up for dinner following a mind-numbing, three-hour session where Kyia lectured her about the seven different Houses of the Meyarin High Court. Dalmarta was obviously one of them, as well as Niyx’s family in House Raedon. The five others were Lorenn, Varsae, Fraelorn, Quoris and Tarennia. Each of the Houses had one elected representative who sat on the ruling council, and Kyia had felt it imperative to educate Alex as much as possible on short notice after discovering that all of those council members would be attending dinner that evening.

Head pounding from having to take in so much information in such a small amount of time, Alex’s eyes were on her feet when she opened the door to her room, so it was only when she heard a throat clear that her gaze shot up and she saw who was sitting on her bed, waiting for her.

“Aven!” she yelped. “What are—How—I mean—Everyone’s been looking for you! What are you doing here?”

Realising he wouldn’t have understood her words, she opened her mouth to repeat them in Meyarin when he jumped in first, showing that he had also been practising his language skills, replying perfectly in the common tongue.

“Forgive my intrusion, Aeylia,” he said, standing to his feet and running a distressed hand through his messy hair. “I only wished to speak to you without an audience.”

Alex had never seen him look so dishevelled, neither in the past nor the future. His clothes were rumpled, his skin streaked with dirt and his eyes lined with shadows, suggesting he’d been without sleep for some time.

“Are you okay?” she blurted before she could help it.This is your enemy, she reminded herself. But looking at him now, she simply couldn’t dredge up any kind of antagonism towards him. Not when he looked so… lost.

He let out a startled laugh, but there was no humour in it. “Am I okay?” he repeated, his tone as unreadable as his expression. “Aeylia, I abandoned you in the middle of a foreign city without the means to return to safety right before we were hit by one of the most severe tempests the city’s ever seen. How, after all that, can you possibly be kind enough to ask ifIam okay?”

When he put it like that, Alex couldn’t fault his reasoning. Shoving a lock of hair behind her ear, she moved hesitantly away from the door and closer to him.

“You seemed pretty upset when you left me,” she cautiously said, pressing on even when his jaw clenched. “And no one’s seen you in almost a week. Of course I want to know if you’re all right. Your mother, your father, Roka—everyone’s been so worried.”

“Niyx was supposed to relay that I was fine,” Aven said, his stance rigid.

“And he did,” Alex confirmed. “But it’s one thing to hear that you’re ‘fine’ from your best friend, another entirely to believe it. Or so I presume, since your mother has cried in my arms for the last three mornings.”

Finally a flash of remorse travelled across Aven’s face, telling Alex that Niida’s deep love for her son wasn’t one-sided.

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