Page 136 of Lady of the Drowned Empire

I buried my face in his neck and wrapped my arms around his waist as my stomach twisted and tugged. I screamed as Rhyan took me away from the alley. My world was spinning. My back felt like it was burning.

Feet slamming into the ground, I immediately tried to get my bearings. We were in a forest. I had no idea where we were, how far we’d traveled, or how exhausted Rhyan would be.

He was shaking in my arms, trying to catch his breath, to regain his energy. “Are you okay?” I asked.

“Lyr,” he said, his voice feral and commanding. “Don’t. Let. Go.”

“What’s wrong?”

There was a hiss behind me.

I turned. The nahashim. That had been what had made my back feel so hot. The scaly, slimy creatures were hot to the touch. It had traveled with us, attached itself to me, used me as its host to follow Rhyan.

Only there wasn’t just one nahashim. The snake that had struck at us had been hiding the others behind its scaly back.

There were nine.

CHAPTER TWENTY-SEVEN

“Lyr. Take out your sword,” Rhyan said, voice low. “Stand behind me.”

“But they’re here for you,” I said.

“Doesn’t matter. I’m still your bodyguard, and trust me, if my father sent them, they’ll take you, too.”

“But—"

“Behind me, Lyr. Now.”

He’d just traveled, and he needed to recover. But I knew this wasn’t the time to argue. I followed his orders, brandishing my sword, my hand shaking as I positioned my arm the way he’d taught me. My fingers wrapped around the hilt, holding it as if it were an extension of my arm. Sweat was already coating my palm.

“Avoid their mouths. Don’t let them bite you,” he said quickly. “A fully grown nahashim’s bite is paralyzing. That’s how they transport their prey—unable to move.”

I widened my stance, ignoring the growing pit in my stomach.

The nahashim’s bodies undulated together, slithering, twisting, and knotting until they looked like one large snake with nine heads rolling, biting, and hissing in different directions.

Rhyan’s body tensed, his sword lifted, as I took position. But it was clear there was no way to get to them—there were too many heads, too many chances to be bitten.

Then, without warning, they stilled, nine pairs of eyes glowing. One snake’s head shot forward, its mouth open, its fangs dripping with venom.

For a second, all I could think was that this creature had been inside me. Two of them had slipped through my skin, stolen my secrets, invaded my flesh.

The nahashim before us hissed, and I returned to the present, lifting my sword, ready to strike.

“Hold your ground,” Rhyan yelled, running forward. With a leap, he traveled, vanishing and reappearing by the nahashim’s neck, his sword slicing down with a force I’d never seen him use before.

Rhyan’s strike should have cleaved the snake in two, but it looked like he’d only made a scratch. The nahashim screeched, its voice grating as Rhyan’s boots hit the ground. Before the snake could retaliate, he vanished again, reappearing back at my side.

He took my hand, his grip on me vicelike. “Hold on!”

In an instant, my feet touched down on the earth, nearly two dozen feet back from where we’d stood. Releasing my hand, Rhyan took off again, running, jumping, and flying past the snake, his body vanishing and reappearing again, and again, as he tried to place himself exactly where he was needed to finish the job.

But the nahashim were faster, turning their heads in quick blinks and snapping their venom-dripping jaws.

Rhyan landed behind them and called out.

He was trying to draw their attention away from me. But this wasn’t like fighting an akadim. The nahashim were on a mission, and they weren’t going to stop until it was complete. Only half the snakes fell for his distraction and turned toward him, their bodies unraveling from the single formation and retwisting together until there were two sets of nahashim, one with five heads, one with four. It was the five-headed monster that slithered toward Rhyan while the remaining snakes glided across the ground toward me.