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I looked from the wound, to her, to that soft smug smile.
“How?”
“Words have power, Caspyn Light Bringer,” she whispered, that turn of her lips fading as she dropped my hand and stepped away. I tried to ignore the cold hollow that built from gut to groin at her distance. “Just not enough power to soothe your ego.”
I made a sound that was close to a laugh, still staring at the stretch of my hand.
“You can tattoo any word on me and it will do that?” I asked, finally looking from my hand to where she had begun rolling her mat, carefully tucking the book and necklace in the folds.
“Heal you? No. Words only do what their meanings relate to. Even then, those words only worked because your Sypher blood has power. The words will only connect to your blood when you have accepted its power, and its meaning.” She was firm, all of that softness gone as she tugged and rolled the heavy mat.
“I have. With this, I have.” I spoke without hesitation. After everything, I think I finally knew where I was supposed to be.
She was already disbelieving as she rose, the bed roll tucked beneath her arm.
“What word do you want?” She clearly still didn’t believe me, but I didn’t move. I stood between her and the door, trying very hard to ignore the burn that was rolling over my skin, the way my heart was exploding in my chest, and everything that her scent was doing to me.
“Let’s start with two words,” I corrected her, continuing on before I lost my gall. “Caspyn. And Lyli.”
“Do you know what Lyli means…”
“I do,” I stepped closer to her, closer to that scent that I had placed the moment I had walked into her tent. The scent that reminded me so much of a home I didn’t know I had. The home my mother had hidden in my name. In my and Lily’s names.
She smelled like the caspyn lily’s.
“Caspyn Lyli. Light bringing Lynar.”
She stopped, her lips pressed tight. As though she might not do it. A fear I had never felt before ran over my spine, clenching deep in my gut. I had lost everyone, everything. I had faced death a million times over, and somehow, this fear of losing something I didn’t even have was more than I had ever faced.
“Please, Lyani.” I reached to her, the plea hanging between us before she bobbed her head, turned, and unrolled her bed roll.
“Take off your tunic and lay on your back.”
The fear vanished into a twist of nerves as she turned from me, my hands already pulling the heavy tunic and letting it drop to the floor. I was standing there, stripped to the waist when she turned, her eyes bright and damp.
I had been shirtless before her before, I had been bared before her before. But somehow this was different.
“Promise me one thing Caspyn.” I could only nod, unable to find words past the lump that had formed in my throat. “That if I do this, when everything is done you will find your way back to... You will find your way back home.”
Jayse had said nearly the same thing all those weeks ago, a lifetime ago, but then it had felt as though it was an endless dread. As though something was missing. As though it could never be. I was still hiding. She didn’t know who I was, not really.
That pang of loss that I had felt before when thinking of Jayse was little more than a shadow as I looked at Lyani, into those eyes that were burning with something that I swore I could feel scream its way through me.
“Come home, Caspyn,” Lyani whispered after a moment when I hadn’t said anything. “I don’t care how much blood you are covered in or whose, I will always find a way to heal you. Just come home..”
Home. I had used that word last night, but I don’t think I realized until that moment exactly what it meant. Or what she was.
It was as though this place was home. No, as though she was. I had felt that in her that first day. That bright something in her that I didn’t want to lose. They say I am the light bringer, but she had more than enough for everyone.
It was worth saving.
It was all worth saving.
“I promise,” I whispered, lifting my hand to her, to her jaw that was tight and nervous. To those eyes that shook with a fear I didn’t understand.
I had never seen anyone look at me like this.
Never.
