Page 114 of Daughter of the Drowned Empire

A minute passed, and then another. I could feel my power waning, the surge of Rhyan’s energy and strength starting to burn through me. Still, I was defending myself, my space, my right to be here.

“Shekar Arkasva.”

The words echoed through me. I stumbled, my foot sliding in the mud, my ankle—already injured from earlier—twisting further. I collapsed on the ground, mud caking the backs of my sandals and legs. Though my attackers were closing in on me, I searched the habibellum. Who had yelled it? Who had dared?

The move cost me. I was caught by Viktor’s soturi and handed over to Pavi.

She grabbed my arms, wrenching them behind me as one of the brutes surged forward, arm swinging.

This was it. I was going to be knocked out.

I knew I had to use the full force of Rhyan’s power. It was that or pass out.

With a primal scream, I broke free from Pavi and raced at the brute, staying along the circle’s interior until I was behind him. I leapt onto his back, punching and kicking everything I could touch.

A horn blew, and lightning flashed.

The silver circles vanished across the field, one by one. I didn’t wait, didn’t hesitate.

As ours began to dissolve, I jumped from his back and ran, arms covering my face as insults were hurled behind me. I stumbled through one fight and then another. A hurricane churned inside me—ice and fire and rage and strength and Rhyan. It was all too much. Between the fighting and Ka Kormac and the Emartis…I was going to burn out. My flame was nearly extinguished.

“Hal! Haleika! Galen!” I screamed. “Hal!”

“Lyr!”

Haleika was across the field, running for me, brown curls flattened with rain to her head, mud splattered across her legs and shoes. Galen ran on her heels, holding his arm at his side like he’d been injured. Thunder clapped, and rain fell so heavily I couldn’t see. Blue domes of light began to pop up around the field, each one catching the rain that fell, offering a reprieve to anyone fighting beneath it.

The small distraction cost me, and a Ka Kormac brute found me first, his teeth gnashing as his pudgy rain-soaked hands reached for me.

I was running out of strength, slipping in the muddying grass, my energy burning out. Haleika was racing toward me, but she wouldn’t get to me in time. In one final push, I used the power inside of me to throw him off, crouching down and kicking his legs out from under him.

My vision went black. The pain of every hit, kick, punch, and scratch reverberated through me. Blearily, I saw Rhyan on the edge of the arena, his hand gripping the wall to hold himself up. His eyes were fixed on me, and he was yelling, roaring my name, but there was so much noise in my head I could barely hear him. He seemed suddenly so far away. Everyone did.

Haleika was screaming. Someone else shouted, “Emartis!”

Lyr! Rhyan’s cry sounded in my head, our minds connected once more, just as the kashonim closed and our link severed. Silence filled my ears.

My world went black.

CHAPTER THIRTY-ONE

ISPUTTERED.WATERwasin my mouth, rolling down my throat, splashing in my eyes, and rushing up my nose. Coughing and spitting, I rolled onto my side. Had the rain gotten that bad? I opened my eyes. The thunderstorm had ended; it’d stopped when I’d been passed out. Turion Dairen stood over me, an empty bucket swinging in his hand. Bastard.

“Missed part of the fight,” he said.

“I…what?” I tried to look to the side, still coughing. My neck creaked. That was when the pain really hit me. With the kashomin out of my system, by the Gods, it was the worst feeling I’d ever had. I coughed again, nearly gagging, realizing mud—and blood—was in my mouth.

Blinding white light filled my vision, and I felt another cough but suppressed it. I couldn’t take it, couldn’t bear to move my ribs. My vision went in and out of focus. A sob wracked through my body. Pain unlike anything I’d felt before—worse than the nahashim burning their way through my body—pounded everywhere. Every muscle ached and stung. Tears fell down my cheeks freely. It hurt to breathe. Gods. It hurt so bad.

“Soturion Lyriana,” Aemon said. “Stand.”

Panic fluttered inside me. How? How could I stand when my body had been broken?

“Stand,” he ordered. “Now,” he said under his breath.

We were being watched. The Imperator was near. I had to obey.

Crying with every shift, every movement, every bit of pressure, I rolled fully onto my side, into a seat, and then somehow onto shaky legs—legs that nearly gave out beneath me. I stood and nearly fainted on the spot.