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Rhyan slid my sandal all the way off and pressed his palm to the bottom of my foot, slowly moving it in circles. “Does this hurt?” he asked.

“No.”

“This?” He shifted my foot again, fingers pressing in.

“No.” But it was making me feel something else. Gods. He was just touching my heel, and we’d agreed nothing could happen. But his skin against mine, even on a body part that didn’t particularly excite me, was causing my nerves to jump again—this time with anticipation. Anticipation for something that was never, ever going to happen.

He slid my sandal back over my foot as he gazed up at me, his emerald eyes blazing. My stomach clenched. And then his expression became neutral, studious as he looked down and methodically laced my sandals back up my calves. One hand rested behind my knee when he finished, lingering—too long.

“I just had to check. I don’t trust him.”

“But he’s gone,” I confirmed again.

“He’s gone.” He pulled his hand away at last and stood. “Listen, partner, I know it’s strange between us—all these oaths and duties. But I swore an oath to you first. I’m going to make sure you stay safe. I don’t want you to worry, not on top of everything else. So whatever he’s up to, know I’m watching.”

“Thank you.” I bit my lip. “Rhyan, I think I need to tell you something.” All day I’d been debating whether or not to reveal to Rhyan what Mercurial had said to me. Immediately after the Afeyan had vanished, Rhyan had seen me and the ghostly expression on my face. He’d asked what had happened, and I’d brushed it off, claiming Mercurial had just repeated the same nonsense as before. I didn’t know how to explain my concerns, not without revealing my dream to him. And now that we were openly deciding not to be together, to honor our oaths and duty, I worried I’d mess things up between us, make everything more awkward than it clearly already was.

Telling Rhyan I’d had a sex dream about him after our Oath Ceremony was not something I’d wanted to do today.

But he had sworn to protect me. When he’d seen I was weak before the habibellum, he’d made me call on kashonim, which had allowed me to take all his strength and magic and power to protect myself when I fought. And he was nursing me back to health so carefully. He really was my friend. I could trust him with this. Mercurial wasn’t just a threat to me. If he’d really pulled his words from my dream of Rhyan, then he was a threat to us. And Rhyan needed to know.

But before I could say any more, the door opened.

Turion Dairen stood in the doorway, his golden seraphim armor shining. The sharpened Valalumir stars hanging on the leather straps of his belt gleamed and glittered in the sunlight streaming through the window.

“Soturion Lyriana,” he said.

I held back a sneer. It was completely acceptable to address me as such in a soturion setting, but something told me he wasn’t just using the informal address because we were in the Katurium. Dairen had shown his true colors in his eagerness to have me lashed. He’d even tried to have me lashed my first day of training when another noble, Lady Pavi Elys, niece to the Bamarian Senator, had tripped me and stomped on my hand.

I could feel his glee emanating from his aura in his ability to avoid saying “your grace,” to lessen my title, to strip me of my status.

“We’re in the middle of training,” Rhyan said. He sounded bored and disinterested—a cold noble High-Lord-to-be who could not care less about me.

Dairen’s eyes jumped between us. “Soturion Lyriana has been summoned as witness to a trial taking place in Arkturion Aemon’s townhouse. She’s to present herself immediately. I was told you were to accompany her. You’re both excused from training for the length of the proceedings.”

CHAPTER THREE

“Trial?”Iasked,heartpounding. My mind immediately went to the worst—to Meera having been caught. Or Morgana. My hand closed over my wrist, over my blood oaths, and I squeezed.

No. If they’d been caught with vorakh—if we’d been caught concealing it—the trial would be held in the temple, not the townhouse. And the trial would be presided over by the Imperator. He wouldn’t have sent Turion Dairen, a general in Ka Batavia’s soturi, to summon me. His own soturi would have arrived fully armed. I’d have been bound and carried away.

“Lyr.” Rhyan watched me from the corner of his eyes, his voice too low for Dairen to hear. “Breathe.” He stepped forward, angling his body in front of mine, his stance protective, shoulders tensed. “I’ll escort her grace right over.”

Dairen bowed. “I’ll alert the Arkturion.”

The moment the door closed, I turned to Rhyan. “What does this mean? What trial?”

Rhyan reached his hand out to me but dropped it suddenly, making a fist at his side. Touching me was dangerous unless necessary—unless for teaching or medical purposes.

A truly horrifying possibility entered my mind as I recalled my fight with Tani the day before. She was a soturion from Elyria, not a noble, but she had been absolutely devoted to Soturion Pavi, a noble of Ka Elys—a Bamarian Ka that had taken over power in Elyria after Ka Azria. Since Pavi had been whipped, Tani had made it her personal mission to get revenge on me. When she’d found me in our apartment building yesterday, she’d revealed another horrid secret—she was a supporter of the Emartis, the rebels who didn’t want my father on the Seat of Power in Bamaria, the rebels who almost twenty years earlier had tried to kill my father and left him with his permanent limp. She’d taunted me in our clash, questioning my usage of kashonim and why Rhyan had been so eager to give his power to me. She seemed to know or suspect we were more than novice and apprentice.

What if—Gods. What if the trial had to do with me and Rhyan? A trial at Aemon’s…he’d preside over any sort of breaking of oaths amongst the soturi. My stomach knotted.

“Rhyan.” His eyes locked with mine. “Do you think—I mean—What if…?”

“No,” Rhyan said, shaking his head. “No. I don’t. Lyr, relax. He said you’re a witness. Not the defendant. You’re not on trial.” He stepped closer. “We did nothing wrong. Remember, I just saw Aemon for our security meeting, and he didn’t mention anything. Let’s just go, and we’ll find out what this is, and once we know, we’ll deal with it.”

I gave a small nod, his gaze holding me, sure, steady, and calming. But the icy shiver of his aura flared up, reaching out like a cold caress before he tempered it down.