Page 6 of The Last Guardian

He spoke up, breaking the silence. “You used to smile like that.” He sipped from the whiskey glass the bartender had served him, the brown liquid dancing on the stone ice. His face softened, fixed on Lyra with the kind of longing that not even words could name. The look reserved only for her. As if he were etching every inch of her into his soul.

It wasn’t a secret that Arthur liked her—he liked Lyra a lot, actually. When his eyes sparkled with intensity like tonight, I wondered if like was the right word for what he felt.

“You too,” I replied, glaring at him.

Arthur fixed me with a stern gaze, his dark brown hair falling on his shoulders; neither of us added anything to the discussion. For the past five years, his travels throughout Perygan had often kept him away from the palace; we hardly ever saw each other.

As a child, Arthur had always had this warm smile clinging to his face, one that could light up a room and make me feel safe. He had been the kind of boy who was at peace with the world—even with the weight of the crown on his shoulder. He loved riding his favorite horse across the highlands of Vallen or swimming in the streams of the northern forest. I remembered how his face softened when he taught Lyra and me archery. Or when he quietly worked on a puzzle in the palace gardens with Romy, when duty left him time.

I remembered watching him and feeling something I could never quite grasp—a longing to be as untouched by the world as he was. But the hard truth of adulthood eventually claimed him, as it did all of us at a certain point in life. The warmth in his smile became rarer, more controlled.

Since Mother’s death, Arthur followed duty more than his own heart, and like each of us, he had to find a way to hide the damage that had rooted inside of him.

“Where were you earlier?” I asked him, as I observed Lyra laughing in Finn’s arms.

Arthur gulped down his drink, leaning back in his chair. “Had a meeting.”

“With whom?”

“Some people.”

“Who are they?”

“Can you stop interrogating me like that?” Arthur grumbled. “Not like it’s your business, but I was with some friends.”

Friends? I had never seen these people in the capital.

“Where did you meet them?” I frowned.

“Seven fucking Hells, can’t I have one evening without people tracking my every move?” Arthur snapped, his voice sharp enough to cut through the chatter of the room, his hands clenched briefly on the arms of his chair, knuckles white with irritation. He finally gave up and stood.

With no explanation, he turned his back to me, pushing his chair aside with a strident scrape against the floor. He strode toward the door and went straight outside without sparing a glance back.

I stared at the door for a while, as if Arthur would come back with a broad smile on his face, the one smile I loved so much about him, the one he didn’t have anymore.

But the door never opened.

After a while, I accepted the fact that he wasn’t coming back, the brother I’d grown up with, nor his broad smile. It was alright; the little sister he knew was gone, too.

Now that I was alone, I allowed myself to look at my wrist. The sensation that had been running down my arm since I stepped inside the Sacred Domes. I still felt it.

The burning. The pain.

Rolling up my sleeves below the table, I looked around to make sure no one was watching me and gazed down at my skin.

Seven Hells.

My heart raced when I saw what was happening. Something moved under my skin, swelling along my veins. It spread, evolved. And formed… a mark.

FIND ME, SOMETHING whispered in the dark, a deep instinct urging me forward. A force commanded me to come closer. A persistent feeling burned in my chest.

My hand traveled along the cold wall, my steps echoing on the ground, resonating in the far end of this cave. A silver light gleamed, bouncing around me for a moment, then it burst; white light blinded me, and the cave was no longer dark.

No, it was no longer a cave.

Where was I?

Come.