Land of Light and Shadows

Chapter 3

Chapter 3

Knowing she had to get back to Ayveri, Lyv only spent a few more hours with her sisters and family before jumping back on Roshan and taking off. He stayed only a couple hundred feet above the ground, so she was able to see everything below. Everything was green and dotted with color from the blossoming flowers as summer came into full swing. Nothing like the wasteland they were in just a few weeks before.

Once back in Ayveri, Roshan landed in the palace courtyard, allowed her to unharness herself and jump off before taking to the skies again. Lyv sighed as she watched him go, longing for when he was little again and not so independent or completely smitten with a certain female dragon who was back at the dragon quarters on the Branvon Estate.

The Commander of the Eld army and lead dragon rider Donovan Beck, his dragon Kova, and his other riders and their dragons had stayed close to Ayveri and were camped out on Thia's family land. They went out on their own patrols near Escarral's shores, but always came back empty handed and exhausted since there was nowhere for them to rest if no Dalcaine or Blackloch ships were nearby.

Walking down the hallway toward the dining room, Lyv shrugged out of her leather jacket, making sure to move her sleeve back down to her wrist, before pushing open the door. She was met with confused looks as soon as she walked in. She barely took another step after her eyes swept over those at the table. Everyone was accounted for – Gideon and Thia, Allel and Mik, Jai's parents, Laurel, Michel, and a snoozing baby Archer. Even Posy and Jett were sitting at their own small table atop the larger one, clinking tiny glasses of apple juice together as they smiled at each other.

Everyone was there...all except Jai.

Before she could even ask, Gideon beat her to it, asking the same question she was going to ask them. "Where's Jai?"

Lyv shrugged, shaking her head. "I thought he would be here with you. No one's seen him?"

"Not since he left after training," Thia said as she shook her head. "But then the boys said they hadn't seen him either, even though he was going up to check on them."

"We think he was in your room, but he wouldn't answer when we knocked and he magically locked the door, so we couldn't get in," Eamon told them then before he took a sip of his drink.

Locked himself in their room?

"Is everything all right with you two?" Alexea worried.

Lyv nodded, eyebrows furrowed as she glanced down. "As far as I know, unless..."

Oh, gods.

Lyv scanned all their faces once more...before her eyes landed on the one male who wasn't looking directly at her.

Mik.

He could feel her eyes on him, and he shifted uncomfortably. Their previous conversation replayed in her head, but it didn't seem like he had told anyone there in the dining room. If he had, they would have been asking more questions, yelling at her and asking how it all happened. They weren't, though.

He had to have talked to one of them, though. The very one that wasn't there.

Lyv's breath rushed out of her. "You didn't," she whispered. "Mik, please tell me you didn't tell him."

Lifting his gaze to hers, he nodded once. "I had to, Lyv."

"You didn't have to!" she burst out then, making everyone jump. "I was going to tell him tonight, Mik. Tonight! I just...I needed make sense of it myself. But I'm fine! How could you take that opportunity from me?"