Crown of Beauty and Vengeance

Chapter 47

Chapter 47

"Are you sure you have it, Lyv?" Bridget, her mother, called from the opposite side of the shell of what used to be the ballroom. "You've been at it all day and you just got all your magic. You don't even really have to hold them up now since I can take over..."

"Promise, I'm fine!" Lyv called back, nodding, as she held the six giant beams of stone horizontal in the air up without much effort. In truth, she was testing her limits...and she had yet to reach them.

They were hovering a couple dozen feet in the air and waiting for Bridget and Thia to stand the columns they would be resting on into upward positions. Bridget had half of hers up, but Thia had to coax the dragons back so they wouldn't feel the need to help...or their version of helping, that is. That was all they needed, three dragons blocking their view.

Thia ran past her and called back, "Give me just a moment to get the last one in place!"

"Take your time!"

"I'm not taking my time, Lyv. You can't hold it forever."

Before that wall holding back her power fell, there was no way she could have been doing what she was doing then, not when she'd been using her magic all day. It seemed limitless and unending and barely even left her winded.

She, her mother, and Thia had been at work all morning, going through the city and cleaning up what they could with magic. Though the battle hadn't lasted long, there was still a lot of fire damage to the buildings. But with one sweep of her hand, Lyv was able to repair almost everything and making what couldn't manifest into place. She didn't create it out of thin air, but rather got it from where she knew it would be in the city, leaving money in its place to pay for it. They worked through the city from sunrise until noon, then Lyv headed to the makeshift infirmary outside the city gates where Alberich, her father, was waiting.

For the afternoon, Lyv worked with him and the other healers, going from cot to cot and taking care of those who had been injured. Thia had been a big help, though she couldn't do much of the healing herself. She had been there mostly for support since Lyv refused to talk to anyone else besides her or her parents.

And even though she wished he hadn't been, Gideon was always there watching over her. She hadn't talked to him after the day before either, realizing he had known about Jai being Amory all along and never telling her the truth. He'd followed a dozen feet behind Lyv and Thia as they made their way back to the palace later that afternoon, but never said a word.

It would have been hard to anyway with all those who lived in the city slowly making their way back home from the shelter at Silverstone Lake. And whenever they saw Lyv now, they weren't seeing the Escarrali princess who had come in with Crown Prince Jai. They saw the Asturian heir...the one they had known existed and was stolen away, but kept from the whole of Dalcaine.

Her parents promised to tell her the story when she wanted, but never mentioned telling her why they never went after her once they realized she was in Escarral with Guinevere acting as her mother.

Lyv still did a double take whenever she'd catch her reflection in the broken pane of a window or in the waters that ran through the city. She definitely did when she woke up that morning in the room she'd stayed in at the palace. Having barely slept, she expected to see dark circles under her tired eyes...and stepped back when she saw herself in the mirror above the wash basin.

Mother above, this was going to take some getting used to. And she thought her Audry glamour was strange to be in. This...this was Lyv. The dark burgundy hair and bright emerald eyes like her mother and the sharpened features, delicately pointed ears, and silver streak in her hair like her father.