Page 158 of The Eye of the Fifth
Praying it wasn’t Naal on the other side of the door, Kyra padded across the room and cracked it open.
Kawai was leaning against the doorframe. He straightened instantly, his gaze raking over her puffy face. ‘Kyra, are you-’
‘You’re alright,’ she breathed.
‘You’renot.’
‘I’m-’
‘Do not say you’re fine,’ he said angrily, pushing himself inside her room and shutting the door behind him. ‘Naal told me you went to Avaldale. Did you free your brother? She didn’t tell me much else. She gave me a bit of a grilling too, by the way, for my part in the tomb. I would have come sooner, but I didn’t want to disturb you last night. I thought you’d need the rest.’
Delicately, Kyra pulled back the collar of his shirt, revealing a jaw shaped scar at his tanned neck. One that would never fade. ‘I’m so sorry,’ she whispered.
He laughed. ‘You weren’t the one who tried to rip my throat out.’
But it was her fault he’d been there. It was her fault. All her fault.
‘What happened in Avaldale?’ he said, gently caressing her arm. ‘Did someone hurt you?’
She shook her head.
‘ItoldNaal over and over again you weren’t a fucking spy,’ Kawai said darkly. ‘Throwing you in the ice cell… what was she thinking?’
‘She had every right to,’ Kyra murmured. ‘I still betrayed her trust, even if it wasn’t in the way she initially thought.’
‘Did you do it? Did you free your brother?’ he demanded again.
Kyra nodded solemnly.
‘Well, that’s good then, isn’t it?’ he said with a reassuring smile, running a thumb over her cheek. ‘You did what you set out to do.’
At what cost?
Raymond’s rolling head scolded her mind. The scent of burning flesh of Nythanorian men affronted her nostrils. The snapping of Zuriel’s bones swarmed her ears.
She shook her head, lip trembling.
Kawai’s smile faded. ‘Kyra, what-’
She shook her head again, more fervently this time. ‘Please,’ she begged. She didn’t even know what she was begging for. Didn’t know why she couldn’t tell him about it. About any of it.
He looked a little hurt, but nodded as though he understood. ‘Okay,’ he said, then opened his arms to her.
She hesitated for a split second, then buried herself into his warmth, the waft of lavender and peppermint hitting her nose. An ointment for his scar, she absent-mindedly noted.
His arms tightened around her as he pressed his lips to the top of her head, and in that moment, it was enough.Hewas enough.
A perfectly blissful, comforting distraction.
???
Later that evening, Kyra found herself in the small Council Room at thepramah’srequest, squished next to a surly Nysari, and sat opposite an even surlier Zuriel.
The latter appeared to be fine. There were no physical tells on her body of what Kyra had done to her.
It was the first time she’d seen Zuriel since it had happened. She wanted to apologise, wanted to somehow explain that it had been an accident, that she had never meant to hurt her in such a way.
But she couldn’t do it here. Not in front of everyone else.
