Page 32 of A Thousand Burning Ravens

Myla faces him squarely, her chin tilted in defiance. “Tell me, Bryar. What good is a queen who will not die alongside her people? What good are my people’s oaths to die for me, if I will not die for them?”

Bryar frowns and releases her hand, clearly angered. “What good is a dead queen? What good is a dead queen to the child inside her womb who is our only hope of truly cleansing the realm of the Blood Stealer?” It is his turn to walk now, leaving her behind in the darkness of the old trees. “Your people died with honor. Do not rob them of that honor by loathing your survival.”

They enter the cave, and Bryar kneels to coax a flame into the circle of stones, which has warmed many travelers and worshipers before. At first, the spitting of embers fizzling at his palms does not strike Myla as odd. Within seconds, however, his hand glows like an iron from a smithy’s furnace and the blaze erupting is massive, causing Myla to step out of the cave entirely.

“What the hell—” she coughs, choking on the smoke wafting out of the cave.

Bryar exits, shaking his palm and cringing, the heat clearly more than he is used to. “I did not mean to do that.”

“I can see that!” Myla exclaims, reaching to examine his hand. “Are you okay?” Her eyes travel to the wound in his arm, tied with a strip torn from his cloak.

“Yes,” he mutters, walking back into the cave. “Wait there. I will get the fire started and bring you back in when it is ready.”

Soon enough, Bryar has it warm and illuminated inside the cave. The lick of the fire heats Myla’s face and causes her shadow to dance on the smooth rock alcove behind her. Across the fire and lying on his side facing away from her is Bryar. He is silent and unmoving, though the grip on his sword tells Myla he is still awake. She has never felt anger toward a person she loves the way she does now.

Myla replays over in her head how he pulled her from the palace, listening to her shriek objections and beg him to put her down. Her pleading fell on deaf ears, as he took her further and further away from the very place she was most needed. Even now, she looks on him and feels the deep cut of betrayal, knowing any attempts to return would be intercepted. Her loyalty is to her people and his is to her.

They are silent, Bryar pretending to sleep, and Myla sitting, leaning against the wall of the cave, her mind drifting in and out of anger and memories.

Like the day she was taken to the Institute of Mystic Arts by her father. Or the evaluation of her natural abilities, which propelled her right into the arms of Caius. Her parents beamed with pride as the Grand Mage had told them a Conveyer of the Voice of the Gods had not been documented in a century. Her gift was a sacred honor; it was the kind that changed her course entirely. Before that day, she was not the kind of match the king was looking for. A king with ethereal magic needed a queen of equal power. And suddenly, there she was.

“Bryar,” Myla whispers, watching as he slowly rolls to face her. “I wish I had listened to you and never gone to the Grand Mage.”

A slight smile threatens to erase the glum look on his face. “I had more exciting plans for you that day.” They both smile, and Bryar sits up, jabbing the toe of his boot against a displaced log, probing it back into the fire. “This was the right path for you,” he says. “You were meant for this. The Gods will not fail you.”

“I am not afraid of them failing me, Bryar.”

“Then what?” he asks.

“I am afraid of me failing them.” She places a hand on her belly. “I am afraid of failing her.”

His brow furrows. “Her? How do you know?”

Myla smiles, offers a slight shrug, and responds, “It is just a hunch. And I do not want to fail her, like I failed Elsa today. And every other person I left behind.” Myla’s voice cracks, a fresh wave of sobs slipping through her stoic cracks. Bryar moves to sit next to her, his strong arms pulling her into him.

“Myla, failing is allowing yourself to become small and breakable. Failing would be to stop trying. Elsa would never want you to give up. So, honor her by getting up in the morning and doing whatever you have to do to see the sun set again and again and again until Vesperian lies dead at your feet.”

A gentle hand strokes the crown of her head, brushing dark wisps of stray hair out of her face. No response is necessary. He is right, though his truth is a painful one. Persevering is painful, and this night, Myla wonders how she will wake and walk further from her people.

“Did you see how my father looked today?” Myla asks, allowing her head to slump against Bryar’s shoulder. “I have questioned his loyalty for a long time now, but watching him in the throne room today has shed new light upon it.”

“He certainly was not trying to help you,” Bryar answers, taking a deep breath of frustration. “I have questioned his motives for a long time.”

“A long time?” Myla probes.

“Since he stepped into the privy Council.”

There it is. The truth, stripped to its bare form, a naked beast Myla has averted her gaze from for many years. “My mother passing so soon after I married Caius was crippling, you know. I recall feeling as though for all of my tears, my father did not weep enough.”

She feels Bryar nod. “Well, Maverick has proven many times, his only care in life is to die with a title.”

“One would think ‘husband,’ ‘father,’ or even ‘lord’ would be enough,” Myla scoffs, “but it seems he needs more, even if it costs him both his wife and his daughter.”

They awaken to the sound of chirping birds outside the cave. The sun beginning to illuminate the silhouettes of the forest, its golden breath whispering just barely inside their hideout. “We will arrive at the monastery before midday,” Bryar says as they appear. “If they survived, Callum and Rhyland will know where to meet us.”

Myla cuts him off, surprised. “How would they know that?”

“When the Council told me of their idea to send word to the Ashborn for help, I thought we might need a backup plan.” He glances sidelong at her, something dangerously close to annoyance written on his face. “They have not been known to help humans since the fall of Old Falkmere. I did not expect them to help this time. So I told them, if anything went amiss, where I would take you.”