Page 4 of The Last Guardian

The High Mages were thousands of years old, their magic—the only magic left in our continent—prevented death from claiming them. How unfair it was that he could look so young when some never lived long enough to grow old… like Mother.

Dorian breathed a sigh of relief once everyone had left the courtyard. Lyra linked her arm with mine, taking my hand in hers, stroking my skin gently near my wrist. I recoiled at what she had almost brushed—where my skin still burned. She frowned at my movement, opening her mouth to speak, but Dorian got ahead of her and spoke first.

“Well, anyone feel like ruining their dignity with a drink or five?” Dorian offered with a beaming smile that never reached his eyes.

Arthur chuckled, his gaze falling on something at the foot of the hill, near the cemetery; his shoulders tensed at whatever he saw down there.

“Go ahead; I will join you later,” he declared, stepping toward the cemetery without waiting for an answer.

I frowned as he ran down the hill.

“He’s weird sometimes,” Dorian said, rolling his eyes, “So? Drinks, ladies?”

Lyra glared at him. “You’re obsessed with booze, aren’t you?”

“Would you rather I were obsessed with you?” Dorian winked with a grin.

“Spare me,” Lyra sneered.

The two of them walked in the direction of the Old Town, arguing like siblings, as usual, but I focused on Arthur and the people who had come out from behind the cemetery wall.

Arthur’s back stiffened, his hands gesturing wildly at the two men. Was he arguing with them?

One of them—the taller of the two—wore a black leather suit from head to toe, his hair as black as his attire. I tried to make out his features, but from where I was, I could see only his eyes, a dark green color so vivid it caught the light itself. The other man next to him also wore leather, his brown mid-length hair flowing in the wind.

Leather? Strange. It wasn’t the fashion of the North to dress in leather; here, we wore cotton, wool, or maybe linen, but not leather.

Arthur and the two men entered the cemetery, out of my view, and Lyra called me from the top of the hill, in the opposite direction.

“Alya, aren’t you coming?”

A feeling of curiosity stirred in my heart. I wanted to follow Arthur; something urged me to go there.

No. Today wasn’t about me, nor about Arthur. It was about Mother.

I turned around and joined Lyra and Dorian, and together, we walked toward my favorite part of the Old Town.

THE THREE FOXES buzzed with people. The evening’s atmosphere brought back memories of the past. It reminded me of the nights I used to come here when I was younger—enjoying excellent drinks and food with great company, dancing until our feet were sore. Nights when my laughter was so intense that my belly ached and tears of joy rolled down my cheeks. The dull clatter of glasses hitting the wooden bar spread through the hall. A few tables had been knocked over.

Lyra sat next to me while Dorian made his way to the bar, a habit of his over the past few years. “Are you alright?” she asked, biting her lower lip.

Her eyes searched mine for the truth I never let out. She had always been able to see right through me, since we were little girls. But since Mother’s death, sometimes it felt like Lyra didn’t recognize me anymore. I knew the feeling because the girl I saw in the mirror each morning wasn’t someone I knew either.

“I will be tomorrow.” I forced a smile as I leaned back in my seat.

Lyra studied me with a skeptical gaze, clearly not convinced by a single word of my lies. But she did not insist, knowing perfectly well when to press for the truth and when to withdraw. She had been by my side for as long as I could remember. My siblings, my mother—everyone loved her.

Lyra had always been our ray of light in a world frozen in gold. She breathed life and laughter into it. She was everything we could not grasp, everything we could not live—and yet, with her, everything was possible. Over our twenty-three years, she had become more than a friend to all of us; she was part of our family, the very thing that made the air easier to breathe.

Dorian returned with drinks and sat next to me, looking around at the people present in the tavern, mostly the women dancing.

“Have you already found your conquest for tonight?” Lyra arched a brow with a knowing smile.

“Mm… The brunette by the bar has been eyeing me since we came in.” Dorian glanced at her while the woman rolled her hips in a seductive dance, looking at him.

“Oh, someone’s feeling ambitious tonight,” I teased him, sipping my lavender ale.

Dorian scoffed, a cocky smirk tugging at his lips. “At least I’m not sinking below my league by fucking someone like Nevan.”