Page 19 of Lady of the Drowned Empire

“No,” Lyr said, squeezing his arm. Her hand slid down to his, their fingers entwining. “It’s not your fault. Don’t blame yourself for this. I had my part.” Her eyes watered. “There’s nothing you could have done. He wanted me, you know that. He was only willing to treat with me.”

I frowned at this. The Afeya—Mercurial—had something on Lyr and Rhyan, but he only wanted to make a deal with one of them? It made no sense.

“What the fuck?” I asked. “Why did you make a deal with him? You knew what he was, what he did to father.”

“I know. I didn’t want to, but….” Lyr’s cheeks reddened, her eyes meeting Rhyan’s then staring down in shame.

Lyr was emotional—her thoughts were all jumping forward, almost chaotically. But they were clear, and I could see. Within a minute, I began to piece her memories together, and from them what had happened, what had led to the bargain.

Mercurial had caught them together at the ball. I saw her lying underneath Rhyan, their bodies straining to be together, her attempting to tear off his clothes as he pulled the straps of her dress down, his mouth all over her, very clearly breaking their oath. And then Mercurial walked in, catching them. He’d blackmailed them into a deal.

“His silence for what price?” I asked.

Lyr looked from me to Rhyan and then Meera, her thoughts erratic, her desperation to hide them now almost blocking out every coherent idea in her mind. She was hiding the truth from Rhyan of just how badly the star had hurt her. When it had entered her body, it had done so with a burning hot pain that had numbed to a dull warmth. She was protecting this information, keeping it deep in the recesses of her mind, and yet, she was guarding even more tightly the secrets she’d learned from Mercurial. She’d been doing this earlier with her knowledge of Arianna—hiding from me that our aunt was the traitor, the murderer. She had been trying to protect me.

But she couldn’t protect me from this—nor could she hold the secret in her mind much longer.

“Lyr, stop hiding your thoughts. We’re all in this together. You need to come clean now. To all of us.”

Lyr sobbed and nodded, her eyes closing, her mind reliving what had happened.

I winced as I saw the moment Mercurial had explained to her how she’d powered up in the arena, breaking the stars on her necklace. She thought of the moment she’d learned the diamonds weren’t made of starfire but of blood—ancient, powerful blood. The blood of a warrior, of an arkturion. Of a goddess. I heard it then, the truth Mercurial had whispered to her, the way she’d appeared in Meera’s vision.

You’re the fire.

“Lyr,” I said, my throat going dry. “You’re….”

She shook her head. I’m not ready. I…I don’t know what it means yet or what to do with it. I’m scared of it. I can’t…I can’t….

“Lyr,” Rhyan crooned. “Come here. Come here to me.” He wrapped his arms around her, rubbed her back. “Whatever his price, whatever he told you, we’re going to figure this out. Together. I swear.”

“And the price, Lyr?” I demanded. “The price for his silence? For telling you this?”

Rhyan glared at me, but I didn’t care. We needed this out in the open. I had no patience for being soft or gentle. People were dead. Our father was dead from treating with this monster. And now Lyr had walked into the same Godsdamned trap even though she had known better. Even though I’d warned her.

She nodded, thinking the answer.

I narrowed my eyes. “The Afeyan messenger is forcing you to claim your magic?”

“What?” Rhyan stilled at this news, looking past Lyr to me, one eyebrow lifted in shock. He turned back to her, pulling her closer. “That’s what he wants? Is that even possible?”

Lyr shrugged helplessly. “If you trust his word. I don’t know. Remember when he’d said before I could be a powerful soturion? He said there was a way. That there was a…a map or something to get to it.”

“Map?” Rhyan ran his fingers through his hair, his mind sorting through all he could remember about maps and the Afeya, but he drew a blank and tightened his hold on my sister as she leaned instinctively into him. The trust between them was so palpable, so strong, it was like a living, breathing entity outside of them.

For a second, my heart felt heavy. Jealous.

I pushed the thought down. Trust could be broken. I didn’t need that gryphon-shit in my life. I needed something much simpler. I eyed Lyr carefully, still pulling out the pieces of her thoughts I could find and pairing them with what I knew, what I’d already heard.

“You were considering going to the Afeya after your Revelation Ceremony,” I said, remembering the desperation she’d felt months earlier. I’d warned her not to go to them, not to put her faith in them. I didn’t trust a single slippery word Mercurial had uttered to her.

Afeya, the immortal fuckers, were immune to my mind reading. For this, I would have wished to be around them all the time, save for my hatred of their games and lies. They couldn’t be trusted and were always attempting to get something, bargaining to extract a price far too high for anyone to pay. Around them, my head would be clear, but I wouldn’t last a day in their courts. And I wouldn’t want to.

Lyr nodded, admitting how she’d considered making a deal to get her power so she might stay in Bamaria and protect me and Meera. Any Afeya she’d crossed paths with would have struck this deal with her in an instant. I would have bet there were Afeya stalking Bamaria, hoping for a run-in with her—a chance to extract a price. And the price…Gods knew what it could have been.

“This Afeya,” I seethed, “is keeping both of your secrets, and in exchange, he’s giving you exactly what you most desperately want? And he lets Rhyan off without having to do shit? Do you see how messed up this sounds? Afeya don’t work this way. And I guarantee that Mercurial is not some exception to the rule. There’s something in this for him. Something very valuable. I can’t believe you were so stupid.”

“What would you have done? You don’t know what it’s like. He’s been stalking me for months—literally waiting to waltz in on me, to find me in any compromising position he could, all so he could use it against me. It was just a matter of time. And you were the one who told me he was here to begin with,” she shouted.