Page 95 of Lady of the Drowned Empire

“He tried to negotiate a marriage contract back then, when I was still a baby.”

“He knew what you were from the start.” Rhyan pushed his fingers through his hair. “How?”

“I don’t know. But there’s more.” I took a deep breath. “She went to Gryphon’s Mount and saw the seraphim statue. She said she saw a vision of Asherah there with dark hair.” My eyes burned. “I think she saw me.”

“Gods.” He squeezed my hand.

“She said that Asherah looked weak, but then she was holding the red shard of the Valalumir and strengthened. It was exactly what Meera saw.”

Rhyan chewed on the corner of his lip. “I once read a theory that the Guardian statues held the shards.”

“Where?”

“In our library back home. I mean, I read a lot of theories and speculations. No scholar or historian has ever been able to confirm a thing, and for every piece of evidence to back up one theory, there are a dozen other articles of evidence that disprove it. The most plausible ones I’d read were that the statues were signs of friendship across the Empire, or that they were once end caps marking the territory of Lumeria.” He shook his head. “I tended to dismiss some of the more outlandish ones, like that they held the shards. We’ve been searching for them for hundreds of years. If the Valalumir was simply within two statues, why haven’t we excavated them?”

“Because it takes a key,” I said breathlessly. I told him of my mother’s second visit to the seraphim statue at night, of the words revealed to her.

The sun revealed my secrets, so I hid them with the moon.

“My mother thought she saw an opening, and your father said ‘It takes a key.’”

Rhyan’s eyes widened. “It’s always covered in snow. And now that I think about it, we have servants all over the keep and fortress, shoveling and maintaining the grounds. My father has never once ordered the statue to be cleared or uncovered. Like he was hiding it in plain sight.”

“There’s more,” I said. “She saw a symbol and an inscription. It was in the shape of a Valalumir, the edges curved almost like the rays of the sun.”

His face paled. “Like the star on the hilt of his sword.”

“Exactly.”

“What else did she write?”

"She wrote the High Lumerian of what she saw. And it translates to this: We unlock for blood, soul, and key. Power is restored, with these three. I think I can open the statue. And I think that’s how I get my power. With my blood, with the soul of Asherah part of me, and with the key that your father has.”

“And he knows?”

“He told me he’d give it to me if,” a pit formed in my stomach, “if I married who he wanted, and if I brought you back to him.”

Rhyan put his head in his hands. “Bastard.”

“You know I would never—”

“No,” he said quickly, “I know. I just, I hate that he has something to hold over us. Over you. Something you need. Giving him any level of power over you—that’s when he’s most dangerous.”

“What do we do?”

“Nothing yet. We need to think through our options first.”

“I’m sorry I didn’t tell you yesterday.”

“It’s okay. Come here.” Rhyan reached for my waist, pulled me onto his lap, and wrapped his arms around me. “Anything else?”

“He’s breeding nahashim.”

“To find me?”

I nodded against his shoulder, my hands clasped behind his back. “He said they’d find you if you ever left Bamaria.”

“At least I know my political protection here still stands.”