Chapter 5 Nightproof Promises

The yard still smelled of wet ash when day broke. Brian woke with that taste in his mouth-metal and smoke-and the wood of the tower creaked like a tired old beast. He lay there a moment, feeling the thread at his ribs like a second heartbeat. It was a small thing, stubborn and bright. He had told himself to keep a lid on it. He had told himself the world wanted men who could swallow a feeling and look steady. The truth was uglier: he couldn't unhear the way Sera fit in his chest.

He dressed quickly. The castle felt thinner today, like a house where someone had opened all the windows and let secrets drift out. Men moved with eyes that counted him and guessed wrong. Asher watched him from the yard like a hawk that had learned to wear a smile. Lucius sat in his chair, all cold lines and quiet fury, but he didn't strike. Not yet. He liked to let poison work slow.

Brian found Lyra at the small practice yard again. She had taken to the place like water to a dry cup-quick, thirsty, and careful. She worked with a short wooden stave, hitting a hanging sack in quiet, precise strikes. Her movements were small and steady. No flourish. No show. The thing about her was she was all muscle and quiet joy in work. She never wasted motion.

He sat on the low wall and watched her. The thread hummed when she bent to tie a knot. He would have sworn he could feel the exact place inside her where whatever had been taken had been stitched up. He had seen warriors before. Few moved like her-like a thing who'd learned to speak in motion when sound had been taken.

"You're up early." She mouthed the words. Her eyes were sharp, a little amused. They had a look that said she found the whole lot of this ridiculous and wrong.

"You're the one who won't sleep," he said, because he liked hearing his own voice. He had to hear it to prove it still worked. He kept his words plain. They always did more damage when he tried to gild them.

She didn't try to answer with a speech. Instead she tapped a rhythm on the stave and then pointed to the sun, then to the tower door, then at him. It was a small joke: watch the light, watch the doors, watch me. He smiled, a short half-grin, and leaned forward.

They trained through the morning. Guards drifted by and pretended not to stare. Some tried to make small talk, and Brian felt the whole room shrink when they did. Men who were good at war were bad at soft. The softness made them itch.

At noon he took her food from the kitchens and ate with her in the small room. They didn't say much. They didn't need to. Eating with a person says more than a speech sometimes. She ate slowly, like someone savoring a memory. He watched the way she folded her hands when she chewed, the way her thumb rubbed a small crescent scar as if it were a bead. He felt foolish, like a lad who'd found a coin in his boot. The coin made his head light.

"You'll bring her down tomorrow," Asher called from the hall as he passed, voice easy as a cat. The words landed like a slap. Brian's jaw clicked. He had hoped the day would pass easily. He was naive as a child sometimes.

"Not tomorrow," Brian said without thinking. His voice surprised him-more iron than plea. Asher pretended not to hear. His back was a river of silk and venom. He didn't bother to hide the way he wanted to watch Lyra break into a show.

That night, the tower felt different. Shadows pooled like heavy cloth in the corners. The guards had a taste for the dark. Some left their torches to gutter so they could gossip in lower voices. Brian sat by the narrow window and kept watch. Lyra slept on the cot, her breath slow and even, like the tide. He wanted to press his palm to her back and feel the steady rise. He wanted to hear her say his name. He wanted to be an idiot and say his truth and be burned for it. Instead he kept the watch.

They used small tricks at night. Lyra had learned to read feet-listen to the bounce of someone's stride and know if they're lying. She had taught him to listen for the chain. He had set extra locks and had two men he trusted on the stairs. It was not enough, he knew in his gut. Asher liked nets; he had a way of making the whole field look like a fainting chair before he pulled the cord.

At some point, late when the moon was a coin lost in wool, Lyra woke. She didn't open her mouth. She sat up and folded her knees, looking at him. Under the moonlight, her cheek looked like peach skin after frost. She tapped his hand; it was a small, certain motion. He moved and their fingers brushed. The touch was a prayer.

He leaned close, not because he wanted to but because the world felt too loud. Her face was inches from his. He could smell pine and smoke. The thread sang. He thought of whispering the old word back to her. He wanted to speak it and make it right, like undoing a bad seam. He stopped himself. Words were dangerous. They could make the moon fall.

Instead he kissed her hand. It tasted of iron and bread. He felt ridiculous and brave at the same time. She didn't pull away. Her eyes did something. They softened. It was not a firework. It was a small ember. He liked it.

"You'll be careful," she mouthed, as if it were a favor to ask. He felt her meaning in the way she watched the door, in the way her shoulders twitched. Keep our night safe. Hold the line.

"I will," he said, firm as stone. He meant it. He had to mean it. The whole thing over him felt like a cup that might break any minute, and he couldn't bear to be the one holding the shards.

They settled and the night wrapped itself around them. Sleep tried to find him, but his ears were roads and he was listening for footfalls. The men downstairs moved like predators sometimes-easy to read if you knew what to hear. He heard nothing for an hour. Then the stair creaked once, soft and careful.

He startled, heart like a fist. The chain around Lyra twitched. He put his hand out, fingers going to leather and iron. A shape slipped through the doorway like a shadow that had learned to breathe. Brian reached for the torch on the wall and then froze.

The shape moved with purpose, not like a thief taking what he could but like a man with a plan to break a thing he hated. He recognized the gait. It was a gait he'd seen in the yard when Asher wanted to make a point. The man's face was under a hood, but the mouth-Brian would have known that mouth from a coin-was Asher's, as cold as river stone.

"Asher?" Brian said, voice a low thing. The man didn't answer. He moved forward, and behind him two guards followed, faces blank as new graves. Brian's stomach dropped like a stone in a well.

"You should have thought twice," Asher said, in the tone of a man who'd finished crossing a field and was polishing his boots. "You'd have had fewer problems."

Brian stood. He put himself between Asher and Lyra. The night smelled of wet cloth and fear. "What do you want?"

Asher smiled like a man who had a knife to polish. "Proof," he said. "Proof of who you are and what you do. You keep a prisoner you shouldn't. You make your choices and you think no one sees. We will see." He took off the hood and Brian saw the cruel shine in his eyes. The guards behind him drew in a motion that made Brian's scalp prickle.

"By dawn they will see," Asher said, slow and certain. "We'll make an example. You will be the one who lets the law fall soft."

Brian's hands tightened to fists. He saw the edge of the room sharpen like a blade. He thought of the men in the yard who had laughed; he thought of the child Lyra had saved and the eyes of the crowd that had turned like weather. He felt the thread in his chest buzz like an angry wasp.

He was ready to fight. He would fight. But he was not stupid. He had to make a choice that would not get them both killed.

Asher stepped forward and, with a smooth motion, pulled a small, folded scrap from his belt. He tossed it on the cot between them. The paper was black with something that looked like ash. Brian picked it up. A note. The words were short and clean.

Find the spark, the note read. Prove the arson. Or we burn what you love.

Lyra's eyes went wide. For the first time since she'd been brought to Onyx Crest, she made a sound-not a word, not voice, but a small, sharp noise like a stone knocked from a ledge. Brian felt that sound in his bones like a bell.

Asher smiled and tucked the scrap away. "You have twenty-four hours," he said. "Find who put the fire. Or we will find them for you."

He left like a man closing a book. The door clicked shut, leaving Brian alone with the scrap and the moon and a voice in the dark that said, in a thought that wasn't his, Remember Sera. Remember who you are.

Brian folded the paper into his palm until the edges bit. He didn't know which way the world would turn. But he knew one thing: to those who would make threats with torches, he would answer with something harder. He would do whatever it took.

Outside, someone laughed soft and pleased. It was a laugh that sounded like a coin falling into a well.