Page 1 of Son of the Drowned Empire

Chapter One

( O ne year after solstice)

“Shhh,” I whispered. “I’ve got you now. I’ve— fuck !”

The baby gryphon squawking like a maniac in my arms had been absolutely feral since I found him and had just attempted to bite a chunk out of my hand.

“Godsdamnit,” I growled. “I’m trying to help you.”

As a show of gratitude for saving his life, the little beast bit me again, this time drawing blood. Drops fell to my bedroom floor before I could stop them, and I shook my head. I was always cleaning up blood.

The gryphon’s eyes snapped up to mine, pale silver and full of innocence and confusion. I sighed in defeat. His heart was beating too quickly against my palm, his tiny body shaking. He was scared. Hurt. Definitely hungry.

My own stomach grumbled.

I could relate.

Yelling at him obviously wasn’t helping. So, I cradled the little beast against my chest, smoothing the back of his head, and gently squeezing his neck where his baby furs shifted to feathers. “It’s all right now,” I soothed. My aura flared out, covering him in the cold his species preferred, winter cold, Glemarian cold, the cold that clung to my body at all times since my aura had been released.

His eyes closed, and with the tiniest pathetic squawk, he at last snuggled against me—at least, he snuggled as much as a gryphon could. I pulled him closer. “That’s a good boy,” I gritted through my teeth, the wounds on my palms smarting.

Shifting him so his baby legs were exposed, I was able to see his left back leg hadn’t been merely twisted like I’d thought, but broken, explaining the ruckus outside my window. I’d spotted him immediately and without thinking made my way down the mountain’s side, not expecting to fight for my life as I tried to save his.

Had he been right under my window, the rescue would have been simple—a quick opening of the glass panes and one grab, and it’d have been over. But he’d been quite a way below, stuck on a jut of Gryphon’s Mount, lying helplessly with nowhere to go. Too young to fly, he should have had only three options: one, to fall to his death; two, to be scooped up by another gryphon, if one was willing to touch him; or, three, to starve until death claimed him.

The secret I carried, the ability I’d been forced to hide for over a year and a half, had made me his unlikely fourth option. I was vorakh, cursed with forbidden magic—traveling—the third and most feared of the three powers banned by the Lumerian Empire. This magic had allowed me to vanish from my bedroom and land on the side of the mountain beneath my Ka’s fortress. The toes of my boots had desperately clung to the rock as I wrestled the terrified gryphon into my arms while my soturion cloak flapped wildly in the breeze.

I slipped and nearly fell to my death three times before I’d wrangled him out of his nook and reappeared with us both in my bedroom, my chest heaving from exertion. Bells had pounded into the cold morning sky, announcing the hour. It was the tail-end of summer, and we were still experiencing our warmest days of the year, but being this far north meant our mornings remained chilly—though not chilly enough to keep me from getting drenched during my rescue mission. My sweat had already turned cold against my forehead and neck.

Now, my own heart was hammering as the reality of what I’d done sank in. I’d broken his rules. I risked everything I’d sworn to protect—everything I fought for, suffered for—without even a second thought. All for one crying gryphon.

I squeezed my eyes shut, my stomach churning. Fuck. I’d been so good; I hadn’t traveled for an entire month. It’d felt as if, after a year of forcing my will and tempering down my emotions, I’d finally gotten the power under control, and found the strength to suppress it. Gaining dominance over it, over my emotions, had been necessary, not just to avoid his wrath, but because he knew when I slipped. He always knew. And he always punished accordingly because if anyone else ever discovered the truth—if anyone else saw me vanish or suddenly appear—our lives were forfeit. Not just mine and his, but my mother’s also. One slip, one mistake, and there’d be a one-way trip to Lethea for my Ka.

And one did not come back from Lethea.

I bit the inner corner of my cheek, as I perked up my ears for any shouts of my father’s guards coming to drag me before him. Bowen, my personal escort and bodyguard, sometimes yelled my name to wake me, even on mornings I was permitted to sleep in. This had been one of those mornings. The Glemarian Academy was not yet in session. We were a week past Auriel’s Feast Day. Tonight, we would celebrate the Oath Ceremony, the forming of kashonim between apprentices and the newly made novice mages and soturi.

Technically, I’d been on break from classes for the past week. I was still required to train for the purposes of maintaining my strength and stamina, but I was free to appear in the Katurium whenever I felt like it. I could train as long as I pleased. I would lose this freedom in two days’ time when the Academy’s classes resumed, and I returned to my apprentice’s brutal training regimen.

If Bowen had any idea that I’d spent part of my morning dangling from the side of the mountain after having used forbidden magic to get to it, I was fucked. He’d never admit it out loud, as he’d never be allowed to speak such things even if he wanted to, but Bowen knew my secret, too. No one could spend as many hours as he did guarding me and not know the truth about my vorakh. I had no doubt he’d reported me to my father each time he witnessed my body fade in and out of existence, confirming what my Imperator and my Arkasva already seemed to know.

The bells came to a crashing halt, a cool breeze singing in their absence. The wind carried the deep squawking growls of the fully grown gryphons soaring overhead.

The one in my arms whimpered as the clouds passed and the bright golden sun streamed through my window. And only then, safely removed from the shadows of the cliff and the danger of falling to our deaths, did I get a real look at what I’d risked my life for. There’d been a reason I’d seen him so easily from afar, a reason I’d launched into action, and a reason he’d been in danger.

My throat tightened. This was no Glemarian gryphon I held. His feathers were not made of the muted grays and browns of the creatures that filled our skies. They were not even the bronze or silver of the prized gryphons we’d bred and raised for centuries. This little one had feathers and fur made of the brightest, most fiery red.

Batavia red.

The thought came so suddenly I almost stumbled forward.

My stomach twisted, the backs of my eyes on fire, before I brushed all memories of her away. Her name in the back of my thoughts felt like a dream I could barely grasp, one I struggled to recall. And yet… she was a dream whose images had been burned into my mind. Branded onto my body. Imprinted onto my heart.

My soul.

Hazel eyes flecked with gold stared up at me beneath the golden leaves of the sun tree. The scent of vanilla musk in the air wrapped around my body, and the warm breeze of a summer night blew through my hair as her soft fingers tangled in my curls at the nape of my neck. Her gasp was a kiss against my lips, leaving shivers all over my body. My blood pumping…

I blinked back the image and shook off the sensation.

She was safe. That was all that mattered. She was safe because of me; I’d bargained with the only thing I had left in the fight—my secret. My shame. My silence. All I had possessed had been given freely in exchange for her freedom.

One year ago, I’d sworn to my father that if he touched her, if he set his sights on her again, I’d reveal our secret. I’d damn the whole Ka, my family, and even my mother. It had been the first battle against him I ever won, but the victory had cost me.

And just like that, there was a flash of black ropes tied around my hands and arms. Too tight, too hot. My skin burned and itched; my breath came short.

No. No.

I blinked, and the ropes vanished. My arms were clear, my hands unbound.

I took a deep breath. I was alone in my room holding the gryphon. No ropes bound my body. There was nothing tied around me. There never would be again. As long as I stayed under his radar, as long as I kept our secret, I was safe. S he was safe.

That was more than I could say for the little one in my arms, twitching in his sleep.

The red feathers and fur were not natural to Glemaria, nor any part of the Lumerian Empire.

I’d rescued an Afeyan gryphon.

I had been horrified when I’d realized a baby was trapped down there, but I hadn’t stopped to think, to question why ? Now I knew. It was his Afeyan coloring that damned him.

Gryphons were sacred in Glemaria. For centuries, they’d appeared on the sigil of Ka Hart: silver gryphon wings beneath a golden sun. We’d even named the Godsdamned mountain we were on after them. The beasts filled our skies, patrolled hourly for akadim, and transported us back and forth across the north. Severe fines were given to anyone found guilty of harm or cruelty to the animals. Worse punishments had been written into law for the purposeful or accidental killing of gryphons, but only if they were of the Lumerian breeds.

When Afeyan gryphons from the Night Lands crossed into our territory, they were to be shot down on sight. I’d only heard of it happening a dozen times in my life, though in the last year alone, that number had tripled. It was as if the Night Lands were testing our defenses, trying to see how hard they could push, how many of their brightly colored gryphons they could send through our skies before we’d retaliate or figure out what the hell their purpose was. Afeya were always up to something, and it was never good. I knew that well.

And here I was, harboring the enemy, saving his life.

Rescuing a hurt baby gryphon should have made me a hero in my father’s court. Were I to be caught with this one, though… I looked down at him, his red feathers soft, his eyes so big, shiny, trusting. He was just a baby. I couldn’t abandon him.

Whatever game the Afeya or Queen Ishtara were playing at, this creature was innocent.

I sucked on my bleeding finger and wrapped the gryphon more tightly in my cloak, hiding his body, drawing on my aura to keep him cold and quiet. Then, I headed toward my door. I still hadn’t heard a word from behind it nor received any summons from my father. Possibly, I was in the clear. But still, my heart pounded and my body tensed. I was risking a lot. And for what?

I unbolted the lock and opened my bedroom door.

“Morning, your grace.” Bowen was leaning against the wall opposite my room, his eyes half-open, not even looking at me.

I strode forward and slapped his shoulder with my free hand. “My enemies are truly trembling at my defenses.”

He opened one eye all the way, a retort on the edge of his lips, before he shrugged, pushing his leathers back into place over his shoulder.

Bowen was more of a statement than a true protector when I was home. No enemy would dare attack me here—except for one, the one whom Bowen dared not stop. And because of that, he was often sleeping on the job, or not even paying attention at all. Except when he could get me in trouble.

“Katurium?” he asked, eyeing my armor.

I locked my elbow against my side, my green cloak concealing the gryphon. “No. I’m off to Artem’s,” I announced, knowing Bowen hated the stench of the stables more than anything. Hopefully, that would keep him from following too closely.

He cursed under his breath as I’d expected, and only as I rounded the hall did I hear his footsteps pick up, echoing on the gray stone floor behind me.

The gryphon squeaked, suddenly alert, and I coughed loudly to cover up the sound before craning my head forward and cooing, “ Shhh, tovayah, tovayah .”

He calmed and quieted, but if he made another sound, I was fucked. I picked up my speed, my pulse racing, both out of nerves at the thought of being caught and at the effort it took to not let my emotions take me away. I had to walk calmly but quickly; I could not allow my magic to interfere and transport me to my destination.

I’d become rather good at stopping my magic, but I could always slip without warning.

A few minutes later, I’d made my way outside, a practiced scowl on my face as I passed a line of my father’s personal soturi. Their blank eyes seemed to glaze over me, I’d learned long ago not to drop my guard before them. They were obsessively, annoyingly aware of every move made by the Heir Apparent to the Arkasva and Imperator to the North. My father would have their heads if they fucked up.

Luckily, my habit of spending early mornings in the stables was well known, and it had been a long time since they’d really paid attention to my current route. Still, I held my breath, eyeing them as I passed, my scowl deepening. Hand-picked by my father, every soturion standing before me was a right-shit asshole. Right-shit assholes forced to bow as I passed.

I pulled open the gates and was immediately blasted with the pungent scents of fresh gryphon-shit and hay. My little gryphon squawked to life, wings fluttering inside my cloak.

“Shhh!” I hissed. “Not yet.”

I stepped forward into the stables, built like a giant arena. This was the training ground for gryphons, the place where they learned to transport us, to hunt what we sought, to follow our orders, and to remember their place.

Each stable was built with open walls that reached toward the domed ceiling; seven stories high. I greeted several of the stable hands, carefully making my way toward the stalls closest to Artem’s office. He was occupied, dealing with a fully grown gryphon who’d been rather moody the past few weeks.

Before I could announce myself, Artem turned, having sensed me. He’d been doing that since I was a boy. “Good morning, Lord Rhyan, your grace.”

His gruff voice rose above the chaos of the gryphon calls. He stepped back from his stall and slapped his thigh—his version of a bow since he had a bad back—then returned to his post. His gaze focused on the gryphon before him. “Down!” he yelled. “ Dorscha! ” The beast sat back on its giant haunches; its beak turned in submission. It received a nod from Artem, who tossed a steak into the air.

The gryphon’s wings spread, its talons lifting from the ground as it flew up to catch its breakfast. With a surge of energy, its bronzed wings flapped, creating a gust of wind that pushed the hay across its stall out toward Artem. I’d seen this happen so many times, I was positive the scent of hay sticks and gryphon-shit had been permanently etched into Artem’s body.

The gryphon growled as it came to a halt from a tug on its leg by the rope that kept it grounded. The baby squeaked in response, shaking and suddenly very awake and once more feral in my arms.

“Lord Rhyan.” There was a warning note in Artem’s voice as his eyes pierced me. Two fuzzy eyebrows turned down as he observed the rapid movements behind my cloak and the look of guilt across my face. “The fuck did you do now?”

I gave him a rather purposeful cough, my eyebrows narrowed. To be fair, I had already broken two laws this morning, and I hadn’t even had my coffee yet. But since I was the Heir Apparent, it wasn’t Artem’s job to question me.

“Your grace,” he added through gritted teeth, nostrils flaring as his eyes darted back to the movement beneath my cloak.

“Please just…” I felt suddenly desperate. What if he refused me?

“Please what, your grace?” He rubbed some loose straws of hay that had stuck to his hands onto his pants.

“I didn’t realize when I first found him, Artem. He’s hurt.” I moved toward the only closed space in the stables, Artem’s office, jerking my chin for him to follow. He frowned but pulled a thick loop of keys from his belt and unlocked the door, ushering me inside.

With the door locked behind me, I opened my cloak to reveal the fiery red feathers of the gryphon, who was wide awake now and squawking angrily. One glance up at me though, his silver eyes watching me closely, and the gryphon softened.

Artem’s eyes widened, first seeing the broken leg and then its coloring. “Auriel’s bane, I…” He blew air through his lips, looking almost sick. “Where?”

“Right on my windowsill,” I lied. “Leg’s broken.”

“I can see that.” Artem was already reaching a hand out for the baby’s leg, making a hushing sound as he grazed over the break. “Nasty fall. Assuming he hitched a ride with the mother who was shot down.” He scooped the baby into his arms, his shoulders heaving with a tired sigh. The gryphon screeched in panic, a red wing reaching back for me. “I’ll make it quick. Painless for the lad.”

“No!” I pulled the gryphon back to my chest. His wings fluttered rapidly against me, as he buried his head in my leathered armor. “Artem, the fuck! He’s a baby.”

“It’s Afeyan.”

“So? I came here for you to fix his leg.”

Artem rolled his eyes. “Did you now? So, it could die with its leg in a cast?”

“So, you could help him,” I snarled. The gryphon’s agitation was growing. He seemed to be attempting to dig his way through my armor to crawl inside. I rubbed the back of his head, shifting my hold on his trembling body. One small talon wrapped around my finger.

“Oh, aye? And what then? I cast its leg, and it dies anyway once it’s seen, and then I’m, what? Thrown into prison? Awaiting pardon from the Heir Apparent? You know your father’s law. Afeyan gryphons are shot down on sight.”

“Grown gryphons,” I countered. That was exactly how the law had been stated. Nowhere did it say we were obligated to kill the Afeyan babies who entered Glemaria. It was a loophole I planned to exploit for all its worth.

Artem bit his lip, almost looking swayed. Then, he set his jaw. “Forget it. I’m not keeping this one alive and hidden just to kill it later when it’s grown. We’ve enough to take care of here.”

I was starting to feel hysterical. He was a fucking baby! He wasn’t responsible for any of his homeland’s crimes. He wasn’t able to understand what was happening to him, too young to process his own pain. He was alone and injured, and no one else would protect him, something he seemed to realize with how tightly he was holding onto me.

We’d come a long way in our relationship since he’d bitten me.

“Lord Rhyan, your grace, I don’t mean to insult you, but you’re too soft on helpless things,” Artem growled, grabbing the gryphon from me again. “It’s going to get you into trouble.”

“Artem,” I said, my voice full of the command of an Heir Apparent, of the Heir to the Imperator, the cold future ruler of Glemaria, which Artem Godsdamned well knew.

“Speak like that to me all you want, your grace. You think I forgot you outranked me before your balls dropped? It means gryphon-shit here.” Artem rolled his eyes but rummaged through the drawers of his desk before pulling out a small broken gryphon harness. He unwound the worn leather from the buckle and slammed it on the table, shaking his head. “We both know what will happen if your father knows what we’re up to.”

I slowly processed his words and the appearance of the harness. “What we’re up to?” I barely dared to breathe. “You’ll help?”

Artem’s face was scrunched in annoyance. “Aye. You’re right about the law. You can’t shoot a baby gryphon from the skies because a baby gryphon can’t fly. But I’m not staking my life on some legal loophole. You hear me? It can stay until its leg is healed, until it can take its first flight. Not a minute longer. When that moment comes, you’re going to set it free. If it makes its way back to those accursed Afeyan lands, so be it. If it’s shot down, don’t say I didn’t warn you. And then we never speak of this again. Not if you want to come back here.”

I nodded, the small knot in my stomach loosening. “Thank you, Artem. Truly.”

“Oh, fuck off.”

“I could have you punished for speaking to me like that,” I said, trying to lighten the mood. I even narrowed my eyebrows in disapproval.

Artem smirked. “Believe me, Lord Rhyan, your presence is punishment enough.” He rolled his eyes again, reaching for a glass vial on his work table. The gryphon was beginning to cry, a shaky, squeaking growl, his voice full of pain.

I moved to the other side of the table, holding the gryphon’s head, his feathery fur soft in my hands, as I made shushing sounds. Artem tapped a few drops into his mouth. Instantly, his silver eyes widened. He looked ready to riot over whatever Artem had fed him, but then he fell silent, falling gently back asleep before offering one final trusting glance up at me. I smiled grimly before I pulled my hands away.

“Make yourself useful, at least,” Artem said. “I have chores I can’t get to now, thanks to some meddling pompous heir.”

It was an empty request. I was here almost every morning before soturion training, helping Artem with his chores. Had been for years. When I was a boy, Lord Draken, my father’s Second and Glemaria’s Master of the Horse, had brought me to the stables with him for training. And then Artem took me under his wing as Lord Draken’s duties pulled him away. It was one of the only places I could go where I could breathe, even with the stench of gryphon-shit surrounding me. I liked being around the beasts. I liked feeling as if I did some good in this Gods-forsaken world, something more than just being the Heir Apparent, something more than just being trained to become my father.

Before I could leave the office, there was a violent pounding on the door and a strangled yelp from outside. A fight was breaking out.

On instinct, I reached for my dagger.

“Stand down,” Bowen yelled, his command carrying clearly through the door.

Artem was already moving: throwing the harness back in the drawer, covering the gryphon with a cloth, and stashing him behind the desk. The knock pounded again.

“Myself to fucking Moriel, your grace.” Artem’s already pale face turned white. “Were you seen?”

“I didn’t think so.” My fingers tightened around the hilt.

The shouts and stomps of more soturi echoed outside the office door.

“Open in the name of the Imperator.” The yell came from another soturion, one I thought came from my father’s escort, one of the assholes who’d watched me outside.

“Auriel’s fucking balls,” Artem growled as he unlocked and opened the door.

“I’m his grace’s escort. I’ll take him.” Bowen, along with three soturi from my father’s escort, crowded into Artem’s office, where, despite Bowen’s words, my father’s soturi sprang into action.

One soturion turned his ire on Bowen, restraining him from moving forward and dragging him back out of Artem’s office. The other two lurched toward me, grabbing my arms and forcing them behind my back, their fingers digging into my wrists.

I growled under my breath. Though these were the Soturi of Ka Hart, and all had sworn their lives, loyalty, and swords to my father, they were all the blood of Ka Gaddayan, the Ka of Arkturion Kane. And he was a monster.

“Soturion Baynan, what is the meaning of this? Answer me,” I demanded.

Artem retreated to a back corner of his office, his eyebrows narrowing as he realized none of the soturi appeared to have come for him.

“Your father sent for you, Your Grace,” snapped Baynan. He was a first cousin of Arkturion Kane, a fact that had made him far too bold for his own good. At some point, Ka Gaddayan had taken it upon themselves to take their posts a little more seriously than they ever had before. They were harsher with their judgments, quicker with their hits, and all seemed to worship the floor Kane stood upon. The more they worshipped him, the less respect they showed for me.

Bowen twisted in his restraint outside the door, his neck turning red. “Which is why I said I’d bring him,” he shouted as he freed himself from the soturion holding him captive, another lesser noble related to Kane who fell face forward, his nose an inch from a fresh pile of gryphon-shit. Bowen rushed back into the office, reaching for his dagger. “I’m sworn to go by his side.”

“Yes, but His Highness didn’t tell you to bring him.” Baynan tightened his grip on me, the shadow of a smile on his lips. He was loving this—overpowering me, overpowering my escort. “He told me to. Your oath holds no weight.”

Bowen looked ready to riot. “My oath is everything!”

I flexed my fingers behind my back, grounding into my heels. Since my Birth Bind had been fully lifted, I’d grown stronger than anyone truly knew, than every soturion in my year, than half the anointed soturi picked exclusively for my father’s guard. I could fight Baynan off me without breaking a sweat, and the asshole on my other side as well. I was powerful enough, but I wasn’t fast enough to fight the next half dozen soturi armed and lined up outside the door—not without my vorakh.

My eyes narrowed on Baynan’s hateful face. “He told you what?”

“To bring you to the Seating Room alone. Immediately.”

“Did he also tell you to leave a scratch on his son?” I asked, my voice devoid of any accent. I’d slipped into the affect of the rich, spoiled, powerful Heir to the Arkasva and Imperator.

Baynan flinched. He realized the line he’d crossed, though this line had been blurring since I’d become a soturion. He’d seen my father strike me, bind me, humiliate me. They all had. And as my father’s punishments became more severe, as I’d become a target in the Katurium at his behest, his soturi had taken it as an allowance to be rougher with me, as if my father’s mistreatment gave them permission to hurt me, too.

But it hadn’t. My father didn’t like his things to be touched. Not if he wasn’t present to order the harm or do the harming himself. He always seemed torn between wanting to hurt me, and wanting me to be respected by others—it just depended on the current mood he was in, and which outcome better suited his ego.

“You’ll be lashed if I find a single mark on His Grace,” Bowen threatened. “We yield to the Imperator’s command. You’ve made your summons. So, take your Godsdamned hand off him and let him step outside.”

The soturi released me at once, but they each took a step closer, ensuring I didn’t escape, at least, not in the traditional way.

I sucked in my breath, biting the inner corner of my cheek. I had to stay calm. To remain in control. To remain here .

Inhale. Exhale.

My father didn’t know about the gryphon. He couldn’t. The soturi would have grabbed Artem by now as well, and they hadn’t. But I was sure I’d been caught anyway on another charge, on a far greater crime. He knew I’d used my vorakh. He knew I’d disobeyed him, let my emotions take over. And now I was going to pay.