Page 195 of Lady of the Drowned Empire

“I do. I can feel it thrumming inside me, itching to get out.”

Someone moaned behind me. And a second voice joined it. The soturi were waking up.

“Now,” Rhyan said, sobering. “We need to go.”

But something squeezed my waist from behind, too violently and sharply to be Rhyan or the sensation of travelling.

I looked down, and saw rope. Black bindings were snaking around our bodies, pushing us closer together.

“The fuck!” Rhyan’s eyes widened as he struggled to hold onto me, and there was that familiar tug on my stomach—the one that signified traveling—the one I felt every single time Rhyan had taken me away from danger, or taken me somewhere new. But this time it was only the feeling. We didn’t actually move from where we stood. We couldn’t. We had both been cut off from our magic.

I met his frantic gaze. “I thought only soturi patrolled up here.” And this had clearly been performed by a mage.

“They do,” Rhyan seethed, then he looked beyond me. “My father wants me. Let her go, and I’ll come willingly.”

“Unfortunately, I wasn’t sent by your father.” A mage was on the mountain with us—she seemed to have appeared out of nowhere. She was thin, her body swallowed by her blue mage robes, her gold and silver stave shaking in her bony hand.

“Who the hell are you?” Rhyan asked.

“I’m not who you need to be worried about,” she said.

“What do you want?” I asked.

She smiled, turning her head, her eyes flicking to the seraphim. “What I want, you cannot give me, unfortunately.” Light caught her cheek, and a golden Valalumir tattoo—the sigil of the Emperor—shined on her face.

One of the Emperor’s servants. My pulse spiked. Was she going to bring us to him?

But she shook her head. “I no longer work for him.”

“What?” Rhyan asked.

And then I realized—she’d answered my question. The question that was in my mind. No one but Morgana had ever done that before. She was vorakh.

The mage grinned at me. “Exactly.”

My heart pounded. We won’t tell anyone you’re vorakh, I thought desperately. If you let us go. I won’t tell anyone, not even him. I swear. Please.

Rhyan was struggling against me, trying to break free of the ropes, his hand straining to reach for a blade, his other using all the muscle he had to simply break free. He’d done it before. Torn the rope apart—broken free of his bindings when we were in the arena, when Haleika had turned and was after me.

The shard in my hand began to glow, brighter and brighter and brighter. I had to close to my eyes and gritted my teeth as it warmed in my palm. Spots danced beyond my eyelids.

“Ah, exactly what he said would happen,” said the mage.

The heat around my body from the ropes vanished, and I stared down, the spots still obstructing my vision. The shard had torn through the rope. The piece of the Valalumir in my hand was too powerful to be contained by mere mage magic.

Rhyan noticed in the same moment, his grip on me tightening. “Go,” I hissed. “Just go.”

But claws dug into my hips as I was wrenched away from Rhyan’s arms.

“LYR!” he roared.

I watched in horror as an akadim appeared behind him, its claws around his waist as he was lifted into the air.

“Rhyan!” I yelled, as I was lifted up by my own akadim. “You beast!” I hissed, holding the shard against it, but nothing happened, either because akadim were immune to magic or because they were stronger than the Valalumir’s thrall. I kicked helplessly in the air, its claws digging painfully into my stomach.

I tried to remain logical. I could escape. I’d fought akadim before without magic, and now I had it. But my muscles weren’t cooperating. I felt sluggish, sleepy, like I could barely hold my head up. My body was going still.

The mage watched us, completely undisturbed by the presence of akadim. Her eyes seemed merely curious, roaming back and forth between me and Rhyan. “I told you I wasn’t the one you should be worried about.”