Page 50 of Lady of the Drowned Empire

He pushed a wild and loosened wave behind my ear, his finger tracing the slope of my ear and running down the length of my neck until I shivered.

“We’re us,” he said definitively. “And it’s enough for now. Let’s go to bed.”

His hands slid around my thighs to my ass, and he lifted me against him as he stood. I gripped the edges of the blanket around his neck and wrapped my legs around his hips, locking my ankles behind him, as he blew out the candles in the living room and kitchen and carried me back into the bedroom.

He gently laid me on my back and crawled beside me beneath the blanket. Our arms and legs tangled. I waited for his breaths to even and slow. He’d been the one to stand guard and watch over me last night. Tonight was my turn.

Sleepily, his hand grazed my hip, seeking the warmth inside my shirt. Skin to skin. His palm rested on my belly, fingertips just beneath my breasts, beneath my Valalumir. His hand twitched.

A soft glow began to emit from beneath my shirt. A golden seven-pointed star.

I held my breath, waiting for the pain, waiting for the fire. But no heat came.

Rhyan made a small noise, his eyebrow furrowed, and he pulled me toward him, his hand sliding onto my back. I smoothed the crease between his eyebrows with my thumb until he relaxed.

The glow faded from my chest. The room covered in darkness. I finally closed my eyes.

CHAPTER ELEVEN

MORGANA

The clocktowers were shouting midnight. My head was pounding. I’d gotten Meera to calm down and sleep after this gryphon-shit nightmare of a day, after having to tell her the mistake she’d made in naming Arianna as arkasva. The mistake I’d made in not knowing she’d betrayed us.

Like Lyr, Meera had been too upset to question me much. She’d been more focused on her own role in this Moriel-damned thing. It was only a matter of time, though, before she’d ask. Before she’d demand to know.

Why hadn’t I known?

I was going to find out.

Arianna was in the Arkasva’s rooms. Too close. I wasn’t sure yet if it was a curse or a blessing that she was so exhausted from the day she was already asleep. At night, when she was alone in her room, I had an opportunity to listen in and try and hear her secrets. And I was waiting to see whom she’d invite into her bed first. My money was on the Imperator. He wanted her.

Not as much as he wanted Lyr and had lusted for her the past year. Now I knew why. His obsession with her made so much more sense even though I still could barely believe the reason for it—that she was Asherah.

I’d heard him speaking to her on the litter earlier, discussing marriage.

Over my dead body.

I rounded a corner in the fortress, bombarded with thoughts too loud for the hour.

She needs to add more salt to her cooking. I keep telling her.

Where the fuck is he? It’s midnight. Change of the fucking guards.

Lord Eathan’s sure licking his wounds.

I narrowed my eyes, ready to approach the guard disparaging Eathan, when another thought caught my attention.

Can’t believe they left me behind. As if I’m so dispensable? The Emperor can go fuck himself.

It was coming from down the hall on the first floor.

I turned and listened for more.

It’s going to cost me a month’s worth of earnings to book transport. The akadim are dead anyway—not like his majesty was in any actual danger. But no, he has to run. And leave the rest of us commoners behind. And Gods know, I’ll be punished for missing work.

I followed the voice into the dining hall, arranged with tables full of food for all the guests currently walking through the fortress.

A female mage stood in the corner, slamming back a glass of red wine. She had black hair braided down her back, cat-like eyes, and full, pouty lips dyed red from her wine.