Page 31 of Daughter of the Drowned Empire

“You are dismissed, Lord Tristan.”

Tristan remained firm, not moving.

“Lord Tristan,” my father said pointedly. “Good night.”

“She has no vorakh,” Tristan snarled. “I won’t rest until she’s brought home.”

“Be prepared to stay awake a very long time,” said the Imperator.

“Lord Tristan,” my father said once more, his voice cold, full of warning. It was the voice of the Arkasva, the one Tristan could not disobey.

He turned to me one last time, his head cocked, his neck red, his stance ready to fight. “I am so sorry,” he mouthed. Then he nodded, looking away from me, and retreated through the door that closed off my hall. It slammed shut behind him.

Deep breath, deep breath. Don’t cry.I was exhausted and scared and humiliated. I wanted Tristan to burst back through the doors and hold me. I wanted to punch through the bars and strangle the Bastardmaker for watching me so closely. I wanted my stave. I wanted my magic. I wanted to go home.

The Imperator’s eyes ran up and down my body curiously. “I believe you’re hiding a vorakh. There’s no other explanation just yet. So you’ll remain locked up for now. But, as Heir to the Arkasva, you’re being afforded certain privileges—one of which is where you’re to remain imprisoned.”

“And how long am I to be imprisoned?”

“Until we understand what happened,” my father said. “The findings will determine our next step. We’ve sent for an examiner from Ka Maras in Lethea. He’ll evaluate you for power and vorakh and, by the Gods, explain what happened once his ship reaches harbor.”

“But I’m not going to Lethea?” I asked carefully.

“No, your grace.” Aemon stepped forward. His red cloak had been pinned over the shoulders of his golden armor. The exposed seraphim feathers were sharp as spikes, pressing against the flexed muscles in his arms. He was tense. “We’re not sending you away.”

Imperator Kormac raised his eyebrows, a gesture that clearly saidNot yet.

“Ka Maras has an expertise on…non-magical Lumerians,” Aemon said carefully.

I bit my lip to stop trembling. There were only two kinds of non-magical Lumerians: those who were under nineteen and hadn’t taken part in the Revelation Ceremony and forsworn who’d been stripped. I was neither.

“So Ka Maras is coming to tell you why I have no power?”

“To tell us what power you’re hiding,” said the Imperator.

“I’m hiding nothing. You’ve had two opportunities to prove it and couldn’t.”

My father’s eyebrows narrowed, and I took a deep breath, willing my tone to calm and sound even.Control what they see.

A memory popped into my head of a day not long after word had reached us of Jules’s death. I’d been forbidden from grieving. Pavi, a noble girl from Ka Elys, was going on and on about how we were better off without Jules because of her vorakh. I’d nearly punched her in the face before Arianna had stopped me. She’d warned that if I acted out of anger, I’d reveal my true feelings that I was sympathetic to those with vorakh—a truth I couldn’t admit in public.

“Pavi didn’t even know her!” I’d shouted.

“Then her words have no weight. Lyriana, no one ever takes offense at a falsehood. Only at truth. Know your truth and own it, and if you do, no circumstances, no event, no person can take that away from you. A gryphon does not shed tears when it’s called a seraphim. It knows what it is. Only a seraphim in the mask of a gryphon would be upset—for their truth has been revealed. Never show offense, or you reveal your truth to your enemies. Control what they see, and you control what they think.”

A gryphon does not shed tears when it’s called a seraphim.If I showed emotion, I’d give myself away.

“Will I be free after I agree to the examination?” I asked calmly.

“I didn’t ask you to agree,” said the Imperator. “But to follow orders. You may be third in line to the Seat, but I control your fate now. Until such a day when you are cleared of these charges, you’ll be under my lock, my guard.”

I shivered. The days were still warm, but at night I’d freeze. And I’d just discovered a second item in my room—a small bucket. Nausea at the thought of having to relieve myself in it, to use it without privacy, roiled through me.

“The Senate has agreed to allow you to remain in Cresthaven. Under guard until the examiner arrives,” said Aemon.

“I can stay at home?” I asked, my voice smaller than I liked.

Aemon nodded. “You’d be under house arrest, and there will be a rotation of guards.” He paused to pointedly glare at Imperator Kormac.