Page 75 of Daughter of the Drowned Empire

“I…I don’t know.” My mouth went dry. “Well, is it?”

“No. That’s the oath we swore, not the first rule. But you’re on the right track. The first rule is our guiding principle in a fight. It’s the reason we swear the oath in the first place.”

I bit my lip, confused and no closer to an answer than before.

He stepped forward. “We swear at the Oath Ceremony to form our kashonim. To join in a lineage, in friendship, but not to fall in love. And yet, there isn’t a more intimate relationship than the one that develops between an apprentice and novice. But we’re never to fully acknowledge or act on it. Why?”

My heart pounded as my head swam with visions of Rhyan in my dream. Naked and burning, his skin red, his body pressed against mine in the most intimate way.

“I-I don’t know,” I said, flustered, still hearing him say “intimate” in my mind. I felt like an idiot. How many scrolls had I read in the library and I couldn’t answer this basic question? “I’m sorry.”

“Don’t apologize,” he said, sounding sincere. “You never needed to know before. But you’ll get it. Tell me this, what are the words of the oath?”

Conjuring my memory, I said, “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 gave an encouraging nod. “Yes, but it’s not a question. You need to say it like you mean it. Go on.”

Steadying my voice, I repeated, “And in my pledge I will forsake everything and everyone that should come between me and my fight.”

“Better. Keep going.”

I swallowed, a lump forming in my throat. “I shall fight beside my fellow soturi, I shall honor my Ka and all my vows. And I shall fight with my lineage…my lineage,” I said again, trying to sound confident, “always working to end all evil. And if I shall be forsworn, if I should put others before my duties—”

“Stop. That there. That’s the answer. ‘If I should put others before my duties.’ Being a soturion means doing whatever it takes to stop evil. It means you never let an akadim escape.”

I frowned. “The first rule of being a soturion is never let an akadim escape?”

“Here’s how I learned it. Say you came upon an akadim attacking someone you loved. What would you do?”

My mind flashed to Meera and Morgana. “I would fight the akadim off of them.”

Rhyan shrugged. “All right—you manage to separate them, and you see the person is injured and needs help, they’re likely close to dying. The akadim was mid-feed, but now it no longer has easy prey and runs away. What do you do?”

“If my loved one is dying? I’d get them help. Bring them to safety and—”

“Wrong. You never let an akadim escape. You go after it.”

“What? No. But then…my loved one could die.”

Rhyan smiled grimly. “While you’re saving this person, what does the akadim do?”

“It runs away?”

“It escapes,” he said, voice rising.

“So what? It’s gone then, and I saved a life. Isn’t that what we do? Save people?”

Rhyan didn’t acknowledge the question. “You just deprived the akadim of a soul to eat. It’s hungry, it was feeding until you came. So what’s its first instinct?”

I shrugged, out of answers. “Tell me.”

“You haven’t eaten all day, and you’re starving. I place a bowl of pomegranate seeds in front of you…the most delicious, ripest, juiciest, sweetest seeds you’ve ever smelled. Your stomach is rumbling. You’re ravenous, you reach for a handful.” He gestured, mimicking picking seeds and bringing them to his mouth. “They’re just about to touch your lips. You open your mouth, it’s watering, your belly’s burning with hunger.”

My mouth did water at his words.

“And I smack them from your hand and take them for myself,” he said sharply.

I laughed nervously at the sudden turn. “You take my pomegranate seeds?”