Page 28 of Lady of the Drowned Empire

Gripping the hem of the shirt, I pulled it up the center of my torso to my collarbone, exposing only the middle patch of my skin with the star. Rhyan sucked in a shaky breath then trailed his fingers up my belly to the star.

“Is this okay?” he asked.

“Yes.”

His fingers paused. “Does it hurt?”

“No.”

His touch was light, his finger tracing the shape carefully while he frowned in concern. “You feel warm,” he said. “Soft.” He pressed his hand over the star again, holding his breath as if he expected it to flare up or for me to go cold again, but the star seemed to be dormant now.

I slid my hand down over his, holding it in place. My shirt fell like a blanket over our arms.

“Lyr, if he wants you to claim your magic, there’s a reason. And not a good one. He wants to use you. And he’s not the only one. There’s,” his jaw worked, “there’s something I need to tell you.”

I searched his eyes. “What is it?”

His shoulders tensed as his fingers pressed into my skin. “Three years ago, when I was here with my father, he said something to me. Something about you that I never understood, not until tonight.”

I narrowed my eyes. “Your father?”

Tears were wetting his thick lashes, his gaze distant. “He was trying that summer to force your father into signing a marriage contract for you.”

My heart pounded. “With you?”

His eyes darkened. “No. With our warlord. Arkturion Kane. He, um, well….” Rhyan’s mouth tightened. “He makes the Bastardmaker look like a gentleman.”

My mouth fell open. I’d never known about this. That summer, I’d had such a crush on Rhyan. I was always trying to catch his eye at Court or dinner, to find something to say to him to get to know him, to make him open up. But he’d been cold. He’d ignored me and all my attempts at friendship for weeks. I’d felt this undeniable pull towards him all summer, even while thinking he’d hated me, until the night of solstice. That night, he’d taken my hand, and we’d danced and stolen away into the trees where we’d kissed, and kissed. And then the next day, he’d been cold and distant again. And then he was gone. I had been heartbroken until I’d forced myself to forget him, to move on.

Then he’d returned, scarred and forsworn.

“Was this why…?” I searched his eyes. “Was this why you ignored me that summer?”

He nodded, his expression miserable. “I thought….” He ran his fingers through his hair. It had curled when he’d been fighting earlier in the snow but now fell into loose waves. “I thought my father was using you to get to me. It was around the time he was starting to lose control—he was less able to manipulate me with just pain. He introduced other tactics. And I believed you were one of them at the time, a way for him to control me, a way for him to have leverage and ensure I did his bidding and kept his, our, secrets—what he was doing to me, to my mother, and that I was…that I was vorakh. But it didn’t matter in the end. Not much. He knew immediately how I felt about you. I tried to hide it. To bury it. To protect you. I tried all summer to stay away.”

I squeezed his hand tucked beneath my shirt, pressed between my heart and my hand. “Rhyan.”

“But on solstice, I couldn’t.” His eyes burned emerald. “We danced. And…Gods. We kissed, and it was all over. He knew. He’d known. And I had to…had to do some negotiating to force him to end the marriage discussions.”

The way he said negotiating, his voice strained, made me wonder just how much he’d sacrificed, how much he’d secretly given up to protect me years before I’d had any idea.

“And when he was convinced,” he swallowed, “he said I’d made a huge mistake. That I’d regret what I’d done. I never did. It was the right thing to do, and I’d do it again to keep you safe. But the words he used always haunted me, as if you’d been more than just a way to get to me.”

My heart pounded. “What words?”

“He said you had ‘the potential to unleash more power and destruction than anyone in the Empire ever has.’ And now, I think I might know what he meant. That you have magic we don’t know about and that the Afeya want to use. Somehow, because of who you are. Because you’re….” He trailed off, not ready to say it. To say I was Asherah.

My eyes searched his. “Does he know?”

Rhyan shrugged helplessly. “He never told me anything more. He might know who you are, what you can do. Or maybe not the specifics. I’m not sure what information he has—or how in Lumeria he got it—but to be safe, we need to act as if he does. We have to expect every arkasva to know the truth about you. Every arkasva, Imperator, and the Emperor himself. Every single one of them is now a direct threat.”

Shit.

I bit my lip, knowing I couldn’t wait any longer. Knowing I was only adding to the lists of dangers we faced. “This threat, it now includes our newest arkasva,” I said, tears beginning to stream down my face.

“What?”

I stared down at my lap, my lip quivering. Saying it out loud almost felt like I was betraying her, spoiling the façade she had so carefully created—that I had so desperately bought into.