Chapter Twelve: Training with Mira

Lyra’s POV

"You need something to do with your hands," Mira announced, setting a basket of bandages and dried herbs down on the healer's house worktable, "before you worry yourself into an early grave over a man who probably enjoys unsettling people for sport."

"That's oddly comforting," I said.

"I try." She pulled out a stool and patted the seat beside her. "Sit. I'm not letting you spend another day pacing your rooms and flinching at every raven that lands on the tower."

I sat, grateful for something as simple as a task to occupy the restless energy that had been building since Malachar's visit three days ago. Cassian and Rowan had spent most of that time behind closed doors, deep in conversations I wasn't invited to, and the waiting had worn thinner on my nerves than I wanted to admit.

"What exactly are we doing?" I asked, eyeing the basket warily.

"Basic healing work. Nothing dangerous." Mira selected a small clay jar and unstoppered it, releasing the sharp, clean scent of crushed mint and something earthier beneath it. "You used to help me with simple wounds back home, remember? Splinting fingers, wrapping burns. I thought it might help to have something familiar."

"I remember you doing most of the actual work while I handed you things and tried not to faint at the sight of blood."

"You were twelve. You've improved considerably since then." She smiled, sliding a shallow bowl of salve toward me. "Besides, I have an actual patient today. One of the stable hands caught his palm on a nail yesterday. Nothing serious, but it needs cleaning and a proper wrap."

The stable hand, a young man barely older than myself, arrived a few minutes later looking faintly embarrassed by the fuss, his palm wrapped in a hastily tied cloth already soaked through.

"Just needs a proper wrap," he insisted, wincing as Mira unwound the makeshift bandage. "Didn't mean to make such a bother of it."

"It's not a bother," Mira said briskly, examining the wound with practiced eyes. "Lyra, come look. Clean cut, not too deep, but it'll need proper care to avoid infection."

I leaned in, studying the gash across his palm the way I'd been taught years ago — checking for embedded splinters, judging the depth, the surrounding swelling. It looked worse than it likely was, angry and raw, but clean-edged enough that infection seemed unlikely with proper care.

"You're good at this," the stable hand said, glancing between the two of us. "Didn't realize the healer's house had two of you now."

"She's not staying to work here," Mira said, a teasing edge in her voice. "Much as I'd love the extra hands. Lyra's a guest of the crown, if the rumors haven't already told you that."

"Rumors tell me a lot of things," he said carefully, clearly deciding not to press further. "Most of them contradict each other."

"Wise man," Mira said. "Best to ignore all of it equally."

"Clean it first," I said, more to myself than anyone, reaching for the small basin of warm water Mira had already prepared. "Then the salve, then wrap it snug but not too tight."

"Good," Mira said, sounding genuinely pleased. "You remember more than you give yourself credit for."

I worked carefully, cleaning the wound the way muscle memory guided me, the stable hand hissing softly at the sting but holding steady. When I reached for the salve, smoothing a thin layer across the cut, something strange happened low in my palms — a faint warmth, gentle and unfamiliar, spreading from my fingertips into his skin.

The stable hand's breath caught. "That's — that feels different."

"Different how?" Mira leaned closer, frowning.

"Warm. Like sunlight, almost." He flexed his fingers experimentally, wonder creeping into his voice. "The stinging's gone."

I looked down at my own hands, and my stomach dropped.

A faint golden light pulsed softly beneath my palms, fading even as I watched, but unmistakable — the same shimmer I'd glimpsed reflected in my own eyes days earlier, now spilling from my fingertips into a stranger's wound.

"That's not — I didn't do that," I said, snatching my hands back like I'd been burned. "I don't know what that was."

"Lyra." Mira's voice had gone very careful, very calm, the tone she used for frightened patients. "Look at his hand."

I forced myself to look. The gash, moments ago raw and angry, had already begun knitting closed at the edges, faster than any wound should heal without days passing, faster than anything I could explain.

"That's not possible," I whispered.

"Clearly it is," Mira said, "because it just happened."

"No." I stood abruptly, backing away from the worktable, my pulse hammering hard enough that I could hear it in my own ears. "No, I don't have power. I'm not— I'm just a Beta's daughter who happens to have strange eyes sometimes. That's all this is."

"Lyra, breathe—"

"I don't want this." My voice cracked, panic bleeding through despite every effort to hold it back. "Do you understand? I've spent my entire life being ordinary, overlooked, unremarkable, and now suddenly I'm glowing, and Malachar's asking about my birth, and Elowen won't explain anything, and I don't want to be something else. I don't know how to be something else."

"Nobody's asking you to be anything you don't choose to be," Mira said gently, though the words did little to slow my racing heart. "But pretending this isn't happening won't make it stop happening, sweetheart. You know that."

"I know." I pressed the heels of my hands against my eyes, willing the panic to recede. "I know, I just — I'm scared, Mira. What if this is exactly the kind of thing people abuse power to hurt others? What if I turn into someone I don't recognize?"

"You won't," she said, quiet and certain. "I've known you your whole life. Whatever this is, it doesn't change who you are underneath it."

"You don't know that. Nobody knows that." I dropped my hands, meeting her eyes properly for the first time since the panic had set in. "Malachar is powerful, and cruel underneath all that charm, and he wasn't born that way either. Power doesn't announce itself as good or bad. It just is, and then people decide what to do with it."

"And you're not him," Mira said firmly. "You've spent your entire life putting other people's needs ahead of your own, Lyra, sometimes to a fault. That's not going to vanish just because your hands glow when you're healing someone. If anything, I'd trust exactly you with something like this far more than most people I know."

"That's a lot of faith to put in someone who nearly fainted at the sight of blood at twelve."

"You've grown since then." A small, warm smile. "In more ways than one, apparently."

I managed a shaky laugh despite myself, some of the tightness in my chest easing slightly at her certainty, even if my own doubts hadn't fully quieted.

The stable hand had gone very still throughout our exchange, clearly unsure whether to stay or flee, his healed palm forgotten in his lap.

"I should go," he said finally, awkwardly. "Thank you. Really."

He slipped out quickly, leaving Mira and me alone amid the drying herbs and unspoken fear still hanging thick in the air between us.

"Mira." My voice came out small. "What's happening to me?"

Before she could answer, soft footsteps sounded in the doorway. I turned, already half expecting Darius, or perhaps Cassian, come to check on the commotion.

Instead, Elowen stood framed in the entrance, her expression grave, her old eyes steady and unflinching on mine in a way that made my breath catch entirely.

"It's time we talked about who you really are," she said softly.