Page 61 of Daughter of the Drowned Empire

But I hadn’t expected this. This look from Rhyan. This heated feeling inside of me.

Rhyan’s eyes were on me with a fiery intensity that warmed me from the inside out. I could feel each place his gaze lingered. Jaw clenched, he grazed my shoulders. His fingers, so rough and calloused, so unlike Tristan’s, against my now bared skin. The word janam ran through my mind. Recognition. Knowing.

The Ready gestured to a burning pyre behind us. Rhyan had fully removed my robe and tossed it into the fire.

“You are reborn as one,” he said louder. “Apprentice and novice. Soturi.”

The Ready presented my new uniform to Rhyan. “As the apprentice trains the novice with knowledge, so the apprentice outfits the novice in the clothes and weapons they will need.”

Rhyan pleated the green cloak around my waist, draping the ends over my shoulders the way he fashioned his. He strapped on my armor, golden with sharpened seraphim-shaped feathers curling over my shoulder. He cinched my belt around my waist; the seven straps full of Valalumirs weighed heavy against my thighs. Last, he sheathed my starfire sword.

The Ready grabbed our hands, holding our wrists together. His dagger struck swiftly, slashing our wrists. Our blood mixed and dripped into a silver goblet, and with a quick slice to my armor and Rhyan’s, our blood flowed through our sigils, turning them red. We were now linked. The magic which sealed our fates would allow us to draw strength from each other.

Now all that remained was the oath, made as one.

“I am a soturion. I pledge my heart and soul to the fight against evil, to the protection of the innocent, to the promise of a better world. And in my pledge, I will forsake everything and everyone that should come between me and my fight….”

Rhyan’s fingers brushed against mine, our wrists still bound.

“I shall fight beside my fellow soturi, I shall honor my Ka and all my vows. And I shall fight with my lineage always working to end all evil. And if I shall be forsworn….” Rhyan’s jaw clenched. His eyes found mine.

“If I should put others before my duties, if I should love those whom I’ve sworn to not, then I will no longer be a soturion. I will gladly accept my death. And so my oath is complete.”

At the final words of the oath—If I should love those whom I’ve sworn to not—my stomach tightened, and a sense of wrongness swept through me. The words felt poisonous, like I’d be sick if I spoke them. I’d loved Jules when I shouldn’t have. And my sisters. The oaths of Lumeria were starting to suffocate me. But I had no choice.

I had to swear it. For my sisters. For my life. For a future in Bamaria.

My voice came as a rasp before I managed to say with Rhyan the final words. “I will gladly accept my death. And so my oath is complete.Ani Dhara Me Sha El Lyrotz.”

The Arkmage stepped forward with the silver goblet, sprinkling what remained of our blood over our heads as she blessed us in High Lumerian. One drop of blood rolled down Rhyan’s forehead, down his scar. He closed his eyes.

“Your oath begins with the flow of blood, your oath will end when its flow may cease.Ra sha se ledah o ha vrania d’lyrotz, ra sha se lavra ru ha vrania halavra.”

The Ready slashed through the binding, releasing our wrists, and we found our seats below the Chamber. The next novice entered, cloaked in black, and a new apprentice stepped up, their face crackling under the flames, now a deep purple.

It was finished. We had sworn to be apprentice and novice. To be kashonim. To never be more than that.

What had I done?

THE THIRD SCROLL:

KATURIUM

CHAPTER SIXTEEN

“THEYBOUNDYOUtohim!” Tristan cocked his head to the side, fury emanating from his aura. “To him! That bastard forsworn.”

“Tristan, calm down.” I stepped back. The heat of his anger was irritating my skin.

“Calm down? How can I calm down when you’ve been blood-tied to a murderer? I don’t care that your father and Aemon let him in. There’s a reason he’s forsworn, a reason no other country will take him in.”

“I don’t think he’s a danger to me.”

“No? He got in my way that night. I almost had you free.”

“Tristan, he was doing his job. I had a guard on me to prevent exactly what you tried. And don’t forget he was put there by the Imperator.”

He shook his head. “I don’t like it.”