Page 193 of Lady of the Drowned Empire

“No, I don’t.” Rhyan took my hand, his thumb stroking my skin. “But you do. You have it. Auriel’s blood was in Asherah’s. They were kashonim after he fell. Kashonim when they battled Moriel. Her blood is in your blood. Which means his blood is, too.” He unsheathed his dagger, handing it to me.

I understood. I had do it. He couldn’t. Wouldn’t harm me. And was still trying to give me a choice, as little as I’d had one since my sisters were taken.

“It’s okay,” I said softly. “How much?” I grasped the handle.

“Only a drop,” he said, looking distant, as if he were reviewing notes he’d studied for a test. He moved closer beside me, his shoulder pressed to mine, before his arm wrapped around me. “We’ll open it together.”

I pressed the blade to the tip of my finger and, hissing through my teeth, pushed it into my flesh.

A single drop fell into the snow, the color spreading like a blooming flower, before I held my finger over the star. Rhyan retrieved the blade, and sheathed it, as I squeezed the tip of my finger, drawing out another bead.

This one fell onto the center of the key, and all at once, the indentation of the lid flared to life, glowing bright red.

Rhyan was breathing shallowly as he pressed his finger to the key, pushing it into the stone. Into the tomb.

Magic hummed, and fires erupted around us, melting the snow. I clutched at Rhyan as the flames rose and spread, wild in the cold wind. Within seconds, we were surrounded by a ring of fire. The buzzing of a ward around the tomb flared before fading. The tomb was unlocked. And I watched in shock as the lid floated up and up and up.

I squeezed Rhyan’s hand, not wanting to look, not ready to face myself, to see my old body, my death.

“It’s okay,” Rhyan said. “She’s in a coffin. You won’t…you won’t see any of her, just a carving of her likeness.”

My throat was dry as I stepped forward. Asherah’s coffin inside the tomb was made of gold, her entire body sculpted. She was beautiful, and the details of the carvings of her face reminded me of my own. My own likeness. Her eyes were closed, and her arms folded across her chest. Space had been created in the carving beneath her arms, and tucked into them was what we’d been sent here for.

One of the original seven shards of the Valalumir, lost for centuries, was now within my reach. The crystal was the length of my forearm. It was shining and dark, pointed at the end like a sword. Gleaming beneath the fires that surrounded us. I felt an instant pull toward it. An ancient fear, like a warning in my heart. The power within this crystal, the trouble it had caused. The way it had directly led me to be standing here at this very moment…I could feel its power. Feel its strength. Feel its danger. Otherworldly. Divine. Beautiful.

And terrifying.

But then my eye caught on something beside it. A stave, unlike any I’d seen before. It was long and thin, made of the wood of a dark sun tree embedded with starfire diamonds. Someone had broken it into two pieces.

And out of nowhere a sensation overwhelmed me. A feeling of ownership, possession.

Mine.

I remembered my own stave, snapped in half by Aunt Arianna when she’d cut me off from the life I’d dreamed of—the life of a mage.

I reached for the pieces, and my hands closed around the smooth wood. Asherah was etched into the side in the old letters of High Lumerian.

And that was all it took. One touch. And I was her. Rhyan’s face vanished, as did the fires of Gryphon’s Mount. The seraphim, the tomb, all gone.

I was in battle, holding up the stave—the tip of which sparked red light—in one hand, and in the other hand holding a sword as I charged forward. Shouts rang in my ears, and in the sky agnavim, with wings of pure fire and light, soared forward against the enemy.

Then the vision was gone. And I was back on the cliff, with Rhyan, with Asherah’s tomb, and six soturi who were going to regain consciousness any second. Unless the fires found them first.

I gripped the stave in both hands. I knew it was common practice for a stave to be broken upon a mage’s death to prevent another Lumerian from using it. I had been one of the rare exceptions—my stave broken while I still lived, before I could ever find my magic.

“Lyr,” Rhyan warned.

Smoke was billowing around us, the flames growing higher and higher.

We had to get out of here. And I saw in that moment, the fires weren’t spreading out, they were moving in. Getting closer to me, to Rhyan, almost as if they were a fail-safe. Were the tomb to be opened, the fires would trap the thief.

Rhyan reached for the crystal, for the shard of the Valalumir in Asherah’s arms. But nothing happened. He gripped harder, grunting, his knuckles white as he pulled. He couldn’t take it.

“Is it stuck?” I asked.

“No,” he said slowly. “It’s not. It has a spell on it. My—Auriel’s—doing as well. It’s you. Only you can remove it.”

I stepped forward, my palms sweating, and at last, I reached for the crystal. Light burst from it, so bright I stumbled backwards, almost falling into the flames before Rhyan grabbed me.