Page 135 of Lady of the Drowned Empire

“What are you thinking?” he asked quietly.

“That you were right. This helped.” I hadn’t forgotten anything. There was still a pit in my stomach, but it had shrunk. Considerably so. It felt manageable for the moment. “And definitely preferable to push-ups. Why were you training before when you could have been doing this the whole time?”

He pushed a curl from my face, tucking it behind my ear and tracing my lobe with his finger. His callouses caused me to shiver.

“I couldn’t,” he said. “There was no one else I wanted. And for a while, the desire….” He bit his lip, the muscles in his jaw tensing. “The desire was gone. I felt nothing.”

“Rhyan.” I squeezed him tighter, lifting my head and finding his lips, hugging him close.

“It’s okay. Clearly,” he coughed, “it returned.”

“How did you get through it?” I asked.

He shrugged. “I just knew I had to. I had to keep going.”

“Was there anyone? Anyone who helped you? Who took care of you?” I asked.

“No. There was no one.”

I sighed against him. “I wish I’d been there. I wish I could go back in time, be there beside you every step of the way. Hold you. Help you the way you’re helping me.”

“You are,” he said. “In a way that I can’t explain. I never wanted any of this for you. If I could take your pain for myself, if I could carry it for you, bear it, I’d do it. But I can’t. So, I do the next best thing. And, for some reason, being able to hold you, help you, touch you, it’s healing to me. Pain I’ve carried for months, for years, it feels lessened, it feels like it’s fading when you’re in my arms.”

I cupped his cheek and stroked it with my thumb. “I love you.”

“I love you, too.”

I closed my eyes, sinking into the bed, into him, cocooned in the warmth of his body and the cool calming feel of his aura. It was the perfect combination of temperatures for sleeping.

“You still promise to show me the real meaning of stamina?” I asked drowsily.

“What do you think I was doing all that training for?”

I laughed and felt his hands sliding up my back as I lost consciousness.

I spent the following morning back on edge. We had breakfast and again ordered lunch to be packed, and then Rhyan snuck me out of the inn. He left me in the alley we’d traveled from the night before.

I was waiting for him to check out and say goodbye to the owners when I heard it again: hissing. I spun on my heels in the direction of the sound, but I saw nothing. No shadows. No snakes. My body stilled as I held my breath, my ears straining.

Only the wind, the sounds of the city it carried, and light music playing in the distance could be heard. Torches crackled outside a restaurant so patrons could dine outside and stay warm. An ashvan horse flying overhead whinnied.

Maybe all I’d heard had been the wind, the sounds of the city.

“Partner.” Rhyan wrapped his arms around me from behind. “Ready to run?”

I heard it again—the hissing. Louder this time, the sound echoing. No, not echoing…doubling. Tripling.

A shadow slithered past the alleyway.

Rhyan’s grip on me tightened.

“Turn around, Lyr,” he whispered. “Slowly.”

I started to turn, and the nahashim appeared, far larger than I’d imagined, larger than what I’d seen last night. It was at least ten feet tall—the size of an akadim.

The giant snake released a vicious hiss, more like a growl, before its scaly body retracted then expanded, its mouth open as it flung itself toward us.

“NOW!” Rhyan screamed.