Page 178 of Lady of the Drowned Empire

After Rhyan finished his apology, and then apologized again with his…favorite meal, he laid on his back and pulled me over him, lazily rubbing circles up and down the length of my spine. “I don’t want to leave this cave.”

“Me neither.”

Leaving meant leaving behind the place where we’d come together. The place where it had felt like our souls had met. Outside was dangerous and cold. Full of akadim and duty and Glemaria.

“Are you nervous to be back in your country?”

His throat bobbed, an unusual amount of vulnerability in his eyes. “I’m terrified.”

I hugged him tighter to me. “I’ll be there with you.”

“That helps.” He continued stroking my back.

“We’re almost at the border, right?” I asked.

“We’ll be at Gryphon’s Mount by nightfall. We’re going to need to walk all day though, because the only way to make sure we’re not seen is to travel to the cliff where it resides. The mountaintop connects to the keep. So, I’m going to store everything I have.”

“That makes sense.”

We stared at each other, both knowing we had to move, to get up, to get dressed, but neither wanting to. The fire Rhyan had started last night was still lightly crackling and smoking, but was surely dying down. Mainly burning embers at this point. It made sense to go, not try to start a new one. And we were now less than a week from the deadline to reach the Allurian Pass.

A sudden wave of guilt washed over me. What the fuck was I doing? My sisters….

“Lyr, don’t. You did nothing wrong. You’re allowed pleasure. You’re allowed pleasure no matter what else is happening. You can’t suffer enough to save them. You’re doing the best you can. And we’re almost at the last part of the journey.” His thumb rubbed a crease between my brows, frowning as he gazed around the cave.

“Almost at…” I didn’t want to say Asherah’s tomb.

Rhyan’s eyes fell on the star between my breasts. And the weight of last night seemed to settle between us. Not just how we’d connected, but…what that connection might really mean.

“All right, partner. How about on the count of three?”

A short while later, we were out of the cave. All the food we had been carrying with us had been ruined when it had gone underwater, but, luckily, our clothes had dried. My mother’s journal had been miraculously protected by its case, and the notes I carried from my “supporter” were safe inside my cuff with Meera’s vision log.

Though it was out of the way, Rhyan insisted we head to the nearest village for food. We were likely going to be moving the rest of the day without stopping, and he had to be sure his magic was at full strength. We quickly found a restaurant, one of the few that seemed to exist there, but the moment we decided to get food, the Aravian clock tower rang, the bells a low hum that sent my pulse racing. From the corner of every building, tree, and bush, a soturion that had been in hiding stepped out. It was a changing of the guard.

Even the villagers seemed startled at this, many stopping in their tracks and staring as a dark aura of fear and tension rose into the air, all tinged with the cold of winter. The soturi wore the brown leathered armor of Aravia, close in design to Rhyan’s Glemarian armor, meant to protect against the snow and winter. The sigil of the country’s ruling Ka, Ka Lumerin, displayed a silver ashvan soaring over the moon, similar to the sigil of Ka Elys.

Rhyan kept his hood down, and I adjusted mine. I’d been careful to keep my hair concealed whenever we were outside, especially since the Elyrian woman had caught my hair at the brothel. Since then, I’d been sure to keep it covered every hour of the day until night fell. The morning sun was pale from the gray winter sky, but it would be enough to bring out the true Batavia red I was known for and give us away.

Rhyan and I didn’t have to say anything to each other; we both knew there was only one reason for this number of soturi to be present and on guard in a tiny village. They were looking for us. What wasn’t clear was who’d sent them. Imperator Hart had to have known exactly where we were going the minute Rhyan had stolen the key.

We’d been betting on reaching Glemaria first—on Rhyan’s father being slowed down by politics and Arianna’s consecration—but there was nothing stopping him from putting out an alert to find Rhyan. To find the forsworn murderer, and thief, and bring him back to his father for justice.

If they found me, I’d be brought before Arianna and locked up without any chance of escape, or any chance of finding my sisters, finding my power. Or I could be sent to the Imperator and forced to marry Viktor—assuming they still believed Brockton and his wolves had killed each other.

For a second, there was a flash in my mind of my sword going into Brockton. The light leaving his eyes.

Rhyan squeezed my hand, immediately sensing my distress, but said nothing. We’d moved into a crowd, and he took a few steps back, placing us behind an Aravian family of mages huddled together and staring at the soturi, their starfire blades gleaming with flames even in the shallow rays of the sun.

His other hand reached for me, sandwiching mine between his. His thumbs rubbed soothing circles on any bit of my skin he could touch. “They don’t see us,” he said under his breath.

I nodded shakily.

It didn’t really matter whose orders the Soturi of Ka Lumerin were following or who they’d allied with. Anyone catching us immediately stopped us from everything we needed to do.

But it seemed we’d escaped detection. The green cloaks were fading, as the soturi stepped into their new placements.

I heard several of the villagers moving on, muttering to themselves about the ridiculousness of so many soturi on guard, especially during the day. Northern soturi spent more hours guarding in the night, protecting against the akadim hiding within their borders.