Page 15 of Lady of the Drowned Empire

By the Gods…. We were surrounded by so many people, so many enemies.

Meera paled, her eyes rolling back.

Fuck.

Morgana and I switched positions, putting Meera between us, both taking one of her arms. Her head rolled back, and Morgana winced, gasping in pain. Fuck. Fuck.

I switched my hold on Meera, grabbing her with my other arm, using my hand to prop up her head, my grip tightening in her hair.

“Run,” I said to Morgana. “Now!”

CHAPTER FIVE

MORGANA

Gods. My head felt like it had been split in two. Since last night, since Father died, my vorakh had felt more sensitive. Harder to shut off, to ignore. We’d just barely made it up the stairs to Meera’s room without notice and before her strength had become too much for me to handle. By the grace of the Gods, we were in her room before all the nosy ass-kissing nobles crawling the fortress for my father’s scraps could hear. But just barely. My legs gave out the moment Lyr closed the door behind us. Meera’s vision was already too loud, too intense, too much. My back bowed in pain as my ass hit the ground, my head slamming into the doorframe.

Fuck.

I tried to open my eyes, to crawl to Lyr, to help her. She’d hauled Meera onto her bed and was pinning her down, her arms straining.

Meera’s mouth was open, and she was screaming. Too loudly.

Lyr tried to cover Meera’s mouth then grabbed a pillow to muffle her cries before anyone could hear.

I tried again to help my sisters, but I couldn’t move. All I could do was try and take my stave from my belt to cast a spell on the room that would silence our voices. But white flashed across my vision, and I was gone. No longer myself.

Akadim. Bright red eyes, sharp, long teeth, clawed hands…the beasts towered over me…over Meera. In the distance, I could hear her scream, feel her fear and terror. A claw slashed across my face, and fire erupted beneath my skin. I was burning and bleeding, the blood dripping down my body hot as flames.

I scrambled back. Or, Meera did…I was still her. I saw what she did, trapped in her vision. Trapped in a way I never had been before. Meera hit a stone, and I felt the sensation of it slamming into my spine. I also felt the Godsdamned door again. I felt everything at once—my vorakh, her vorakh. It was too much. Too painful. Too terrifying.

I tried again to grab my stave, but my hands weren’t working. I was Meera. And I was hearing Meera. And I was Lyr. All at once.

No! Please. Lyr was crying, losing the battle to keep Meera silent, losing the battle to keep her from pain, to do what she had to to stop the vision. To pull our sister back to us.

My mouth opened, but no sound came out.

The akadim in my mind struck again, a blow to my jaw that left me seeing stars. Meera was lying unconscious, the front of her body on fire, the back freezing as she—I—sank into a bed of snow.

We were surrounded by roughened, craggy, snow-capped mountains, nestled in a valley.

My eyes closed, the vision going dark. My veins burned. Something was inside me, changing me, killing me.

When I opened my eyes again, I was still trapped in Meera’s vision. The snow was melting, the mountains bare, the cliffs reddened by flames burning in the distance.

I stared down at my hands—at Meera’s hands. Her nails had elongated into claws. I screamed, recognizing them as the same claws I had seen last night on Haleika Grey. I was an akadim.

Meera turned, frantic, screeching with terror at her transformation, still in pain. I turned with her. I still was her. A goddess lay on the mountaintop. Fires burned everywhere, but she remained untouched, unburned. Snow fell in a protective circle around her body.

The goddess opened her eyes, yawning as if she’d slept a long time, as if she’d been asleep since the birth of the universe. Meera’s heart was beating too quickly. Each thud against her chest was like a punch to the gut. I cried out, hearing my actual voice rise against the noise inside Meera’s head.

I pulled myself from the vision by sheer will and forced an eye open, using all I had to tear myself away from Meera’s mind. I was out just long enough to see her lunge for Lyr and get her hands around Lyr’s neck. They struggled until both of my sisters were flying off the bed.

Lyr cried out as her back hit the ground. Meera landed on top her, fingers squeezing her neck, prying off the necklace Lyr had put back on tonight.

Then I was torn away from the world, thrown back into Meera’s mind.

“Asherah,” I said, Meera said, the akadim we were trapped in said.