Lyra POV
My heart sank deeper and deeper into the pit of my stomach at each failed attempt. Tears stung my eyes, rolling down my cheeks, the salty mixtures slipping through the crevices of my pursed lips, as I bent low—arms angled in concentration—brushing the lock of his hair over the column of the sword continuously— expecting, wishing, praying that bright greenish glow that had brought me here would appear around the sword like it did before.
Just like always, nothing happened—no greenish glow around the sword, no portal opening around me—nothing.
Why doesn't it work? There must be something I was doing wrong. I kept on, even as my joints groaned in protest, my fingers aching like they were on fire—half-crazed, I kept brushing his hair over the sword. I couldn't relent. I couldn't stop. The longer I am here, the nearer the future Draziel was to his death.
"Stop, human. You are going to hurt yourself." I heard Draziel scream, his voice tight in alarm.
His arms shot forward, reaching fast for the sword.
"No!" I yelled, jumping back before he could get to me. I couldn't let him take it. I had to save him—the future him.
Then I heard the voice. That familiar voice that haunted every one of my deaths. I stiffened in alert, my fingers frozen around the lock of hair and the sword. I raised my head up carefully. Leaning on my toes to look over Draziel's broad shoulders—my eyes fell on him—Zarek. The devil.
He was probably here to collect on the blood oath. I lunged forward, covering Draziel with my body as much as I could. And I raised the sword high and threateningly at Zarek's neck.
"Go back to where you came from, Zarek. I won't let you take him. If I have to kill you, then I will." I snarled at him.
Unlike Draziel, Zarek had stopped aging around twenty. Though he was centuries old, he held heavily to his boyish face—a delicate oval, slightly cheeky, with an aristocratic blend that hinted at his centuries of experience—and gave his face the radiance of manhood.
He walked deeper into the sword with his 6-foot self, carrying his muscles, nearly as large as Draziel's, with him as if to intimidate me. His short horns, barely consumed by his dark raven hair that fell in a swoop over his broad shoulders, gleamed like shiny metal under the golden glow of the sun.
I took a step back, and then another, putting the needed space necessary for a strike between us—should I need to strike him down.
Cold tremors shot down my veins as I held the fire in his gaze, his bright crimson eyes pinning me down. I wouldn't let him win. I steeled control into my trembling fingers, tightening my grip on the sword.
"Stay back, Zarek. Don't come any closer. I will cut you down." I snarled at him, meaning every word. I couldn't kill him—he was as fast as Draziel. But that doesn't mean I wouldn't try.
He stopped at a point. I was expecting him to try to disarm me with his superhuman speed, slap the sword from my hands, and perhaps stab me with it. But he just chuckled, his jaw crumbling into an easy smile.
His eyes jumped over my head, finding Draziel behind me. "Is she your human friend, brother? Did you tell her my name?" His eyes jumped to me again. Then, with a swift motion, his fingers tightened around the sword.
"Take your filthy hands off the sword," I snarled, dragging the sword from his grip. But it won't come off. It felt like I was wrestling with a mountain. He wasn't just super fast. He was super strong also.
"Let go of the sword," I snarled again. Still, he ignored me. His crimson pair traced the obsidian length of the sword. "This is your sword, brother. Why does she have it? And why is she so stock up? She looks like she really wants to kill me."
I spun around to Draziel, waiting for him to charge at Zarek, grab his neck, and punch him down for his sins against us, just as he had always done when they met. He wouldn't kill him, because he couldn't kill his brother, but he would always beat him up.
Draziel just grunted instead, his voice tainted with irritation, not the rage and murder I expected, "You are asking me so many questions all at once. How do you expect me to answer them all?" he said casually.
A huge lump seized my throat as I watched, seeming so hard to push down no matter how hard I swallowed.
Within the blink of an eye, Zarek was beside Draziel the next second, hugging onto his arm playfully. "At least answer one of them. Is she your human girlfriend? She looks cute, though." He teased, looking up to Draziel, his eyes twinkling with mischief.
Draziel shook him off, his jaw clenching tighter in another grunt—a louder one. "She isn't. I wouldn't be foolish enough to have a human girlfriend. I don't fight lost battles."
I didn't know what to say or what to feel, or even what to do. I just stood there, like the aberration that I was. A relic of another time, blurred from their reality, watching as the man I loved and our mortal enemy joked about me.
"Then why is she wearing your robe? Why does she have your sword?" Zarek persisted.
Draziel shrugged his shoulders nonchalantly. As if I meant nothing to him, as if I were just a random entity that popped up on his doorstep.
"She claims she is a time traveler. She got here using the sword and hair of my future self. And she has to go back and save him,"
Zarek's eyes jumped to me, then came back to Draziel and back to me again. "And why doesn't she travel back the same way she had come?"
"Apparently, she needs a lock of my hair, as she has exhausted the hair of my future self. But when I gave her my hair. Her time-traveling act didn't work." He said, speaking carelessly, as if I had made everything up.
I had always looked forward to hearing him speak, eager for the melody of his voice to soothe my ears. Never would I have expected that same voice to shatter my heart as it was doing now with his words. My heartbeat dulled inside of me—almost nonexistent. The only thing I could feel was a searing ache in place of my heart.
It hurt so much. Tears sting my eyes again. I tried to hold it in, but I couldn't, and it flowed down my cheeks.
Zarek's eyes fell on my face, and the crimson pair darkened. "I think she is telling the truth, Draziel. She is crying."
Looking at Zarek now. I began to see some things I had missed earlier. His crimson eyes weren't as dark as those of the evil Zarek. His smile was genuine—he wasn't the cold-blooded Zarek that had always killed me. Just like Draziel. He was of this time frame. He was the Zarek before he hated his brother.
As if something snapped in him at Zarek's words, Draziel's shoulders fell. Instantly, he was before me.
He raised his hand high. And I crunched back into myself. The other Draziel wouldn't hurt me—this one—I wasn't so sure. But he grabbed my shoulders, holding me to stand firm on my feet. His crimson eyes locked into mine, and then his lips stretched in a full smile.
"If my words were mean, just know I didn't mean to hurt you, human. I just had to know you weren't a spy." He brushed my tears away with his thumb.
I wished he knew he was hurting me again right now—calling me human. I had never felt derogated by that word until now. Until I heard them roll down his lips for me.
I wanted to speak, but I stopped, my eyes wide and round as I stared down at myself—my arms were glowing. I looked down at my nose too. My face was glowing too—an ethereal greenish glow rising from my body.
Draziel retreated a step back for a broader view of my body, his eyes swirling—dazed, as if he couldn't believe what was happening.
Zarek appeared beside him, staring at my glowing body too. "She is truly a time traveler." He practically screamed, the loud and sharp pitch of his voice echoing his shock.
Draziel's eyes darted fast to Zarek. "Quickly, get Varin. He should know what to do," he yelled, a strain in his voice. Immediately, Zarek disappeared at his order.
A sudden coldness hit my core, washing down my spine, as the name repeated in my mind. Varin. The bastard that cruelly betrayed Draziel, almost killed him, and stole his kingdom away from him was also alive in this timeline.
I snatched at Draziel's sleeves. My lips parted, my lungs trembling to scream "no" to warn him of Varin's betrayal. But a searing pain hit my head, freezing the scream halfway through my throat, everything around blurring fast into indistinct shapes, even Draziel. The next thing I knew, I was falling fast to the ground. I had the faint idea of hitting someone's arms—I moaned softly at the familiar warmth—Draziel. Then my mind went blank, and I felt nothing again.