Page 191 of Lady of the Drowned Empire

More snow fell. A gryphon screeched in the distance, followed by an answering roar. Rhyan’s gaze turned up.

“A scout.” His voice darkened. “Hopefully, it’s not looking too closely.”

My hand shook as I fitted the red Valalumir-shaped key against the lock. It hovered above the carving then seemed to be sucked into the statue like it had been part of it all along. I could no longer see an edge, find the places where the key ended, and the statue began. A red light flared behind it. Batavia red.

Rhyan cursed under his breath in surprise, his eyes widening.

My heart was beating so hard, so fast.

But nothing else happened.

“Look for the opening,” he said. “The key’s in. So the tomb should be unlocked. We just need to lift the lid.”

Frantically, I moved my hands across the statue, and just as my mother had described in her journals, there was an indentation, it was slight, but I could feel where the tomb was meant to be opened. I grasped what I believed to be the lid and I pulled, but there was no give.

“I’ll try with you,” Rhyan said.

He placed his hands beside mine. The moment he made contact, the star fired up, flames burning like the key was made of starfire.

Rhyan cried out in pain. A sob full of agony on his lips, as he fell to his knees, his hands slamming into the frozen snow beneath us.

I knelt beside him. “What’s wrong? What happened?”

His breathing was heavy, his eyes glazed over and distant, his mouth open in horror.

“Rhyan? Rhyan?” I reached for his face, trying to lift him up, to get him to see me.

Tears rolled down his cheek. His lips shook, as he sat back on his heels, kneeling before the seraphim, before Asherah’s tomb. His hands were in his lap, opening and closing helplessly.

A strange feeling washed over me. An uncomfortable familiarity. I’d seen this before. I’d seen Rhyan fall onto his knees and sit back on his heels. I’d seen it in my dream just after our kashonim had formed. I’d walked into the Temple of Dawn, a dress made of water. And Rhyan had fallen from the sky, naked. In anguish. His skin red and smoke swirled around his bared body.

The paintings of Auriel and Asherah had come to life and it was the first time, their clothes fading away after Auriel placed the red light into her heart. Into my heart.

Rhyan opened and closed his hands, making fists, just as he had in my dream. Everything looked and felt so eerily the same, I felt myself being pulled into my own dream-like state. A feeling of warmth on my cheeks. Golden sand, and a burning in my heart as light entered.

Auriel walking toward me.

“The fuck are you doing here?” One of the soturi had woken up, and I was immediately pulled back to reality.

But Rhyan hadn’t been. He was still on his knees, still somewhere else, not seeing what was before him.

I unsheathed my sword, facing the Glemarian soturion. “I don’t want to hurt you,” I said.

“Don’t worry,” he said. “Because I’ll be hurting you.”

Our steel clashed just as another gryphon soared overhead, screeching into the snowstorm. I swung out, stepping away from the statue, not to retreat but to draw the soturion away from Rhyan. I needed him to stay clear of him until this vision or whatever was happening had passed.

The soturion charged at me, snarling.

But I blocked him easily, pushing his sword back. Using the moment of his surprise, I spun out and attacked again, my boots sliding in the snow.

With a swift lift of his arm, our blades crashed, ringing until I pulled back. His gaze fell on Rhyan.

I raised my sword over my head, breathing deeply, my breath on the air, my fingers tightening and loosening over the hilt. I couldn’t miss. I didn’t have much time.

I lunged to crash my sword on his shoulder, but his blade blocked me, the impact so forceful I nearly crashed into the seraphim. I grunted in frustration and spun on my heels. He’d widened his stance and had a derogatory look in his eyes, like he didn’t believe I could take him.

But what he thought didn’t matter. I knew how hard I’d trained, knew I’d slain two akadim, and I ran at full speed.