Chapter 37
Their hours' long celebratory dinner was filled with smiles, laughter, and conversation that lasted for hours. Lyv was seated in between Jai and Elys, of course, with Posy's own place on the table in front of her. Elys somehow ended up in her lap when dessert came and Eamon took over his seat. The boys were chattering excitedly about their swords and daggers and getting to show Lyv everything as soon as they could. Even though she hated the idea before when Jai had first gotten his weapons, she couldn't wait to see Elys's progress.
When they moved their conversation into the sitting room, a fire was already roaring in the heart as they all took random places in front of it. Some on the cushy sofa and chairs, the rest finding various places on the carpet.
Since he was now wide awake, Archer was the center of attention. Quite literally, too, since he was surrounded by all the females, Posy, Elys, and Eamon as he lay on a soft pile of blankets on the floor. They were all talking to him, but his eyes almost always went back with his mother, which made Laurel smile as she watched everyone loving on him.
That happiness was shifted with one simple thing, though.
All through dinner, Lyv had kept her leather jacket on. But now, with the heat coming from the fire, she took it off to place behind her and pushed up the sleeves of her tunic, completely forgetting about what the others quickly caught sight of that she hadn't been able to tell them about yet.
When Laurel's breath caught in her throat as she spotted the slight glow of the obsidian stone, Lyv automatically met her gaze and saw where she was looking.
She quickly pulled her sleeves down to try and hide it.
But Laurel wasn't the only one who saw.
Alexea and Emmeric, who had been catching up with Jai, saw before Lyv could cover up once more. Michel was sitting in one of the chairs behind Laurel, so he saw, too. He'd been watching her carefully all through dinner, though he tried to make it seem like he wasn't. Lyv had suspected it was those whispers his susurrate magic was telling him, a truth she was trying to keep hidden for just a little while longer.
Sensing the atmosphere around him changing, Archer began to cry, shattering the quiet that echoed around them. Laurel was quick to pick him up, cradling him gently against her chest as she continued staring at Lyv.
"Lyv," she whispered. "You still..."
She was quiet, looking around at the four faces who hadn't known what she still carried inside her.
Just as she opened her mouth to speak, Elys jumped up, eyes shifted downward, and pushed past Lyv to run for the door. Both she and Jai jumped up to follow him, but she stopped him before he could.
"Can you tell them for me?" she asked before nodding to the doorway. "I'll...I need to talk to him. By myself for now, all right?"
Jai was quick to nod, taking her hand in his to kiss her knuckles. "I will. Then I'll find you two in a little while."
Lyv pulled him forward to kiss him, pulling back with a slight smile before she turned to leave. As soon as she was out of the sitting room, she focused on Elys's running footsteps up the stairs and down the hallway.
She quickly followed behind him, down hallways, taking a few more turns, before they stopped all together after a door slammed shut. One that was just a little way down from Jai's own room. Lyv remembered him mentioning Elys had moved into one that was connected to his own because the little boy wanted to be closer.
Lyv tried to open the door, but found it locked. Had the situation been different, she would have laughed as she unlocked it with magic, but this was different.
When she stepped inside, closing the door behind her, she had to take a moment to look around the room. Everything about it said Elys. The bed she'd gotten for him when they first got back to Ayveri months ago was along one wall between large windows. One door of the wardrobe was open, allowing her to see all of the clothes and boots inside. Two cushy chairs sat in front of a small hearth that was lit to keep the room nice and toasty. Ceiling-high bookcases were on either side, lined with multiple books and toys. Lyv recognized a lot of them since she'd gotten them for him, but the rest of them were new. One object on a shelf caught her eye – the toy pirate ship she'd gotten for his sixth birthday in Blackloch...one she wasn't able to give him herself.
Lyv swallowed the emotion that clogged her throat, turning to the bed. The pillows were messed up and one had fallen onto the floor. An odd-shaped lump was hidden beneath the thick comforter. A lump that breathed steadily and tried not to move otherwise.
Stepping out of her boots before she pulled back the covers, Lyv slid beneath while Elys still kept himself hidden. He wiggled slightly, only so he could turn his back to her and hug one of the pillows. When she lifted the covers to see him, he was shaking just a little, trying to muffle his tears so she wouldn't hear him.
She knew him too well to not know what was going on in that head of his.
Lyv moved to lay down beside him, pulling him into her even though he was still faced away. She held him tight, pressing her face to his hair.
"I knew it," Elys finally choked out after a few minutes of laying in silence. "I knew you didn't really get away from the darkness. Because I...I still can't see you. Not only you with no one else to guide me. I have to watch you through Jai or Gideon or Thia or Allel. Everyone else except for you. And with Jai...both of you disappear after something happens. I don't know where, but we're in a desert. But then you're both still with everyone else after that. Until you're not."
Lyv's breath caught in her throat. "Elys..."
The little boy quickly turned in her arms, curling himself into her chest with his head under her chin. He was shaking still and grabbed for her hand to hold. But it also allowed for him to turn her arm over so he could see the slight glow of the obsidian stone beneath her skin.
"You don't need to worry about me, Elys," she told him, shifting slightly so she could see his face. His eyes were locked on her arm, though. "I've learned how to control it. Jai's helping me with it, too. And we're going to figure out how to get it out of me, all right? You won't lose me to it again. Promise."
He shook his head, letting out a shaky sigh. "You can't promise that, though. The future...it's been changing too much over the last few days."
She reached up and brushed his tears away from his cheeks, leaning forward to kiss his forehead before smiling slightly. "Well, you and I both know someone that ensures the future we'll have, don't we?"
Elys's mismatched eyes lifted to hers...and then a blush blossomed along his cheeks as a small smile lifted the corners of his mouth. "You saw her. Dessa came to help you."
"Because you took her there. Twenty-six-year-old you says hello, by the way."
That smile turned into a slight smirk. "She's going to get into a fight with you about how you 'never let her do anything' when really you do...just at a close distance. You're just trying to keep her safe, just like me. She's going to be constantly mad at me during that time, too, though. Because...well...I left her. She'll forgive me, though. After being too stubborn and refusing to for a while."
"She really is just like me, isn't she?"
Elys's blush reappeared as his eyes dropped to her locket and he started playing with it. "She definitely is. Stubborn and brilliant and beautiful just like you."
Lyv's heart jumped in her throat at the love that rang through his voice, echoing what older Elys had said to her in those last few moments. Of course, she was sure he knew what Dessa would be to him one day when they were older, but he would be her protector and friend first and love her something fierce. Whatever they would go through to put distance between them, she knew they would overcome it. They had to in order to do what they'd done for her.
For now, she wouldn't push him into knowing more about Dessa from six-year-old Elys's eyes and visions. In all honesty, she wanted to get to know her in real life instead of through what he would happily tell her. She just had about twenty years before she could know her as she saw her.
But only about two before she was born. Less than that, really.
Gods above.
Elys's fingers were tracing the outline of the obsidian stone again, not as scared as he once was of it, but still hesitant.
"We're going to figure it out, Elys. I promise," she whispered to him. "Like I said before, I won't let the darkness take me away from any of you again. I know you can't see what happens because of it, but I've never let you down, have I?"
He shook his head, finally meeting her eyes once more. "I know we will. I love you, Lyvi."
"And I love you," she told him, kissing his forehead.
They stayed there for a few more minutes as he kept his eye on the stone. It pulsed once, making him pause, but that's because it was Lyv's own doing.
"I want to try something," she said then, sitting them both up against the pillows.
Elys immediately snuggled into her side. "What?"
Shadows began curling themselves around her right elbow, easing slowly along her forearm to her palm. Elys's eyes widened in fright as he held onto her tighter, recognizing this was the same darkness that snatched her that night in Asturia.
But this was Lyv's darkness.
And she was going to make it beautiful.
The shadows grew and hovered over them, rolling and silent and casting the room into almost pitch blackness save for the fire.
And then tiny pinpoints of light began to appear within that darkness, burning and dancing and growing. Bright stars and tiny constellations formed with just one flicker of her light magic, resembling the night skies they'd laid under when they were in Ethran.
Elys's fright turned to wonder as he pulled himself from her side to slowly stand up on the bed. The shadows lowered and wrapped around him, the stars dancing and trailing dust in patterns throughout the darkness surrounding them.
She'd never thought she would hear that laugh as she did then as he jumped up and down on the bed, trying to catch those stars that were just out of reach.
That was how Jai found them. Lyv was able to look through the darkness and stars to see him leaned against the doorframe, arms crossed as he watched the two of them.
At least she knew where Elys would learn to reflect the absolute love in his eyes.
And she couldn't help be smile back.
***
Lyv found herself standing in the middle of her room by the infirmary just a little while later. She'd left Jai and Elys in Elys's room, wanting to get cleaned up after their long day of travel. Her hair was still damp after her shower and she was pulling a robe on over Jai's tunic she'd stolen as she surveyed everything in front of her.
Of course, nothing had been moved. But it was still strange, realizing she hadn't been there since before she, Jai, Gideon, and Thia left for Blackloch months ago. And to think her and Jai's mating bond hadn't been whole then. Even though it had been home to her for so long...it didn't feel like that now.
"Everything all right?" Jai asked as he walked into the room behind her.
Lyv nodded, tying the belt on her robe. "Of course. It's just..." She shrugged, looking back at the space around her. "I guess it doesn't feel like home in here anymore."
"Does that mean you want to move your stuff into our room tomorrow?"
She looked over at him with a raised brow. "And why would you think I'd want to do that?"
"Oh, you know," he shrugged as a grin stretched across his face. He sauntered his way over to her, smoothing his hands along her waist as he pulled her into him. "Because Gideon and Thia are here now and I'm pretty sure you don't want to be their neighbor on the other side of the wall."
"True."
"And then there's the fact that Elys and Posy have also moved in with me. You don't want to be far away from them, do you?"
"Never."
"And finally, there's the small fact that your mate doesn't want to spend another night without you to share his space, his wardrobe...or his bed."
"Does he? I guess I didn't see that..."
With a growl, Jai ducked his head and captured her lips with his, threading his fingers through her damp hair. Lyv couldn't help but laugh against his mouth, craddling his face in both of her hands. Gathering her closer, Jai's hurried kiss turned to one that was sweet and slow and full of longing. The hand on her waist dipped lower and made her breath catch.
Somehow, both of them were able to pull away, though their eyes glanced over at the bed and then to the wide-open door.
"Just tonight," Lyv whispered to him, her eyes falling to his mouth as she traced her thumb below his bottom lip. "Elys can stay with us just for tonight and then he'll be sleeping in his own room."
"He was trying to bargain with me when you came down here," Jai chuckled. "I told him no deal on him being able to sleep with us at least twice a week. He could have you for story time before bed, though, until he falls asleep. He was happy with that. He said I'm out of a job with that, though I can still be the male voices if you'd allow me."
"Sounds like a plan," she nodded in agreement, and leaned forward to kiss him softly again. "It feels good to be home."
Worry furrowed his brow. "I was a little hesitant, thinking it might overwhelm you like before."
"I think it was Archer. Babies always defuse any uneasiness in me. I told you, I'm going to snuggle him as much as I can."
"Of course," he laughed. Jai's eyes were full of wonder and love as he looked down at her, his fingers dancing across her skin. His voice dropped to a whisper. "Just seeing you with him...it makes me not want to wait for Dessa, even though I know we have to with everything that's to come."
"She can't be born in the middle of the war that's to come," Lyv told him, shaking her head. "We're going to have to be careful. With being locked up for months, my cycle is already thrown off, so I'm not sure when to expect it. But I'll go to the apothecary and get everything for a birth control tonic for both of us..."
Jai nodded again, his hand fisting at the back of her robe as his other rested against her neck, though his eyes glanced over at the bed once more. "We're going to have to go back upstairs to Elys if we don't want anything to happen now."
Lyv threw her head back to laugh, but that only gave him easier access to lean down and place a kiss to the base of her throat. "You're impossible."
"And Elys will be mad at me if we're not there in a minute like I promised him. He was running into his room for his favorite storybook whenever I left to come get you."
"Then we can't keep him waiting, can we?"
"No, we can't."
And after slowly walking through the palace hand in hand and every one of their moves being watched by any palace staff they passed, Lyv and Jai made it back up to there room where a little boy they loved so absolutely was waiting. He was all snuggled up in the middle of their bed, covers pulled up to his waist, pillows fluffed behind him, and his story book open to page one in his lap.
So, that was the rest of their night. Lyv read Elys's favorite story about pirates, mermaids, and dragons, pulling the pictures from the pages to dance in the air above them, with Jai reading the male characters' lines. Several came to check on them after they were finished, but all of them found the same scene – Lyv and Jai fast asleep with Elys cuddled between them.
And it was one of the most restful night's sleep Lyv had gotten in a while.
***I'm so happy their all home and back with the rest of their family! I've definitely missed them all! The next handful of chapters are going to be normal, which I feel we all kind of need, right?
Then the fun/chaos begins again!
What did you guys think of this chapter? Comment and vote!
Happy reading!
- Ansley***