MasukLyraShe reached for the laces of my dress and freed my breasts from the silk, the fabric dropping away, and then her mouth was on my skin and her hand cupped my bare breast and squeezed, and I arched up into her hands before I'd decided to.She pulled my nipple into her mouth.She sucked hard, her tongue pressing it flat against the roof of her mouth, and the direct line between my nipple and my pussy went taut all at once. I grabbed her hair. She did it again, slower this time, tongue circling the tip before she sucked again, and then she bit it — soft, enough to feel — and I made a sound that came from my chest.She moved to the other one without asking. Her teeth grazed the nipple first and I felt my pussy clench before she'd even put her mouth on me properly. When she did — hot and wet and pulling — I pushed my breast into her face and held her there.She let me hold her.Then she pulled back.She pressed her palm flat against my pussy through the silk. No movement. Just her hand
LyraI had begged Sera on that call. I had begged her because Nadia had asked me to. I had begged Sera to stay away even when I knew Nadia was suffering for it. Father was ready to execute them all if they didn’t provide Sera. Knowing that, I still told Sera not to return. Not to ruin the entire thing we had worked for. And that plan had ended up with Nadia’s life on the line. Still I chose to protect my sister over the woman I loved.I had agreed because refusing would not have stopped her, and the only thing worse than letting it happen would have been refusing and watching it happen anyway with my refusal between us. I had agreed and then I had spent three months sick with it. I had eaten breakfast across from the woman who was telling me she had made her peace with dying for my sister, and I had not made my peace with anything.The night Sera escaped I went into my cupboard and cried until I could not breathe. Not because Sera was gone.My father had already arrested Nadia. Her p
Lyra"It is, actually."She came off the doorframe. She did not come to me first. She went to her desk and blew out the lamp. The room was half its size after that, lit only by the small candle on the table by the bed, and I could feel the wall behind me even though I was not touching it.Then she came.She did not sit beside me. She knelt on the floor between my knees, settling there in the position she had used when we were sixteen and before we knew the names of what we were to each other. She put her hands flat on my thighs through the silk of the dress.She looked up at me."You don't have to tell me anything. We can sit. We don't have to talk."I almost broke right there.I did not. I held it. I did not know what would happen if I let it go in this room, and I did not have the energy left tonight to find out.She rose up onto her knees and took my face in both her hands and kissed me.It was the kind of kiss she used when she wanted me to stop talking for a moment. It had weight
LyraNadia's room was three corridors over and a half-stair down from my mother's wing, and I walked it in the same bare feet I had walked the other way in an hour earlier. The stone had been cold the first time. It was colder now. Or I was. I could not tell.The lower wing was where the scribes and the household clerks slept. Smaller rooms. Plainer carpets. No silver on the door frames. The corridor was lit with the cheaper oil lamps, not the soft ones from my mother's wing, and the shadows fell harder. I knew this hall by heart. I had been walking it for years.I stopped outside her door.I did not knock at first.I stood there listening for whether she was sleeping. I would not wake her if she was sleeping. That had always been the rule, since before any of this had become what it was. Nadia worked her hours. Nadia kept her schedule. I did not arrive at her door demanding she stop being a person on her own time.I heard a page turning.She was awake.I knocked. Three soft. Two paus
Lyra"She knows you miss her, Lyra. She does not need to be told."It was the answer I had been afraid of. My mother would have invented messages. She would have invented affection. She would have invented anything I wanted if Sera had asked enough for the invention to be needed. She did not invent anything tonight.I drew in a breath."Does she still seem like Sera, Mama.""What does that mean.""I don't know what it means." I had to stop. "I have been trying to picture her for five weeks. Every time I try, I see her at fifteen at the breakfast table refusing the eggs. I know that's the wrong face. I just want to know what's right."She set the cup on the side table.Her hand had a small tremor as she set it down."Why do you keep asking about Sera, Lyra."Her voice came out flatter than she meant it. I heard the moment she heard herself."Mama —""Sera is fine. Sera is — Sera. She does not need either of us anymore. She has what she wants. Can we please talk about something else."T
LyraMy hair had been up and down twice tonight before the maid knocked, and I knew before she said it that the carriage had come through the south gate.Three taps, even and polite. She did not wait for an answer. She opened the door a hand's width and put her head through."My lady. The Queen's carriage came through the south gate."The pin fell out of my mouth and I was on my feet before I had decided to be.For five weeks I had sat at this vanity every evening, putting my hair up and waiting for someone to come and tell me what she had just told me. I had pictured the moment so many times that the words sounded slightly off in real air."Where is she.""Her chambers, my lady. She's just gone up."I left the brush on the vanity and the cooling tray of dinner on the writing desk. The pair of shoes I had not yet decided between stayed where I had set them. I went out past the senior maid and into the corridor.The corridor was lit for evening, lamps every six paces, the soft kind, no
Sera“What just happened?”"Forced healing takes fuel," Yvara explained. She paced in front of me. "It pulls energy directly from your reserves. It burns calories at a massive rate. In a battle of attrition, this will keep you alive, but it will also kill you if you aren't careful. You just got the
SeraMy mother’s hands were too soft. They felt strange against my skin, like something that didn't belong in the North. She dabbed a wet linen cloth against my cheek, her fingers trembling so badly she kept missing the dirt.The guest room was stifling. She had ordered the Valdris servants to buil
FenrisThe leather bag was old. It was cracked in several places, leaking thin streams of sand onto the stone floor every time I hit it. The heavy chains groaned, a high-pitched metallic scrape that echoed in the small, windowless space. This was the belly of the mountain, a place the torches barel
SeraI didn't feel the laces tightening across my ribs, even though Mina was pulling them hard enough to make me wince. My body was on autopilot—arms lifting when she nudged them, chin tilting when she needed to reach a fastener. My mind was stuck in the dirt of the training yard, picturing a seven







