Page 2 of Son of the Drowned Empire

Chapter Two

M y heart had risen to my throat by the time we reached the Seating Room’s thick stone doors. Soturi in black leather and green cloaks lined the hall, silver gryphon wings shining against their armor. Bowen’s heavy footsteps sounded behind me as my father’s soldiers came to a sudden halt. Though I’d technically been unrestrained, the soturi walked so close to me that I was sweating, overheated, and imprisoned by their nearness.

Arched windows lined the hall beyond it, and the sun streamed in too brightly; the tops of the blades of each soturion’s sword danced with flames.

The herald, an ancient, spindly man who’d stood guard since my earliest memories nodded, bowing deeply before opening the doors and announcing, “Lord Rhyan Hart, Heir Apparent to the Arkasva, High Lord of Glemaria, Imperator to the North.”

I glanced back at Bowen. The flare of his nostrils, and a slight nervous edge to his aura, were his only tells of his unease. He lifted his chin and assumed a guarding stance, legs apart and hand on the hilt of his sword, like the line of soturi beside him.

I was to go in on my own. Unprotected. Of course.

A gryphon with its wings outstretched had been carved into the wooden doors, and as the herald opened them, the gryphon split in half.

I stepped forward, steeling myself as the heavy doors closed behind me, their bolts thudding into place.

A sharp bite of cold rushed forward from my father’s aura. His energy was so bitterly cold, it could stab as sharp as his blade. He sat on his golden Seat of Power, his golden laurel glowing beneath the fires. A starfire sword was strapped to his hip, the leather hilt gleaming. His dark beard was trimmed close, and he donned the leathers of a Glemarian soturion, but the golden-bordered black cloth slung across his shoulder marked him as something far more powerful and dangerous. He wasn’t just my father or my Arkasva. He was my Imperator. Ruler of my country and every country north of the capital. Half of the fucking Empire.

Stomach clenching, I stepped forward, embarrassingly aware of the sound of my breathing, of my every footstep echoing into the emptiness of the room. I was sure he’d find fault with all of it.

How could I hunt akadim if I couldn’t cross a room in silence? How hard was I actually training if I was this out of breath from a walk?

I willed myself to calm. I had to think clearly, to not give anything away.

Crackling torches hissed against the Seating Room’s darkened interior. The room was stark, so plain it almost seemed like a space one would find in the center of town, built as a gathering place for commoners, rather than the room of the Court of Nobility in the Arkasva’s fortress. The benches that created the aisle for me to walk through were plain and made of dark wood. Simple. Clean. Harsh. Green velvet tapestries embroidered with the silver sigil of Ka Hart, gryphon wings, and the sun, smothered the otherwise plain walls. The only ornate object within these walls was the golden Seat, the jewel upon which my father sat. Lest anyone dare look anywhere or at anyone else. When he was in the room, he was the center of the world.

My father’s chill deepened as I reached the bottom of the dais. He was angry. Agitated. More so than usual.

I could never tell what it meant. For twenty years, I’d tried to understand, to do the right thing, to earn some kind of positive reaction from him, or, at least, avoid the negative ones. I never could. A minor infraction could have me suffer five lashes. An even smaller offense could land me ten. The punishment never fit the crime. My entire life, I’d received them, and they still didn’t make sense to me. They just came. And came. All they had in common were their cruelty. Their harshness.

I hadn’t seen my father this angry in months, not since I’d last worn the ropes. There was a reddening to his cheeks that made me feel sick. The color spread down his neck, and his chin twitched, as his eyes, dark and unfeeling, stared through me. Every step I took, I felt more ill and had more difficulty walking, as if he’d filled the room with a wind that was pushing me back.

Did he know what I’d done?

My heart was threatening to hammer through my chest, and I debated coming clean, apologizing in advance. But I didn’t know if that would even help. If he was truly this angry at me, or if I was just the final straw in an otherwise tempestuous morning for him. Gods. I never knew.

He tapped his fingers against his thigh in impatience as I bowed formally.

“Took your time, Rhyan.”

I stood tall, making sure to roll my shoulders back, to keep my chin lifted just the way he liked it. “Your Highness. How may I be of service?”

“Court is in session today,” he said, his voice cold and clipped, devoid of any Glemarian accent. So many of the Council had altered their accents over the years, suppressing the natural Glemarian lilt, but he had never needed to suppress his because he had not been born with one. He was a foreigner, born in Hartavia. My mother was the true Glemarian, the true heir, the one who should have been sitting in the Seat. Every day, her accent reminded him of this fact, as did my own, much as I tried to hide it.

I took a deep breath, relaxing my hands as best I could at my sides, making sure I continued to affect the proper posture of an heir. Then, I sorted through his words. They were not what I’d expected. Not an insult, not a punishment, just a statement.

Court is in session today.

“Court is usually in session today, Your Highness,” I said carefully.

“This is not the morning for your attitude. I needed to make sure you were prepared.”

As if I ever wasn’t. As if I hadn’t spent my Godsdamned life trying to appease him, to do the right thing to avoid punishment.

Slowly though, I began to realize…he didn’t know about this morning. For once, I’d gotten away with it. But only because something else was happening, something worse.

“Prepared for Court? The Court I attend every day?” I shook my head. “Why? Are we having guests?”

My mind instantly wandered to Emperor Theotis, and the southern Imperator, Avery Kormac, two of the most insufferable, hateful men of the Empire. They were the only men in all of Lumeria to rival or outrank my father’s power and status. Was it actually possible his agitation had nothing to do with me? Was he so distracted that he truly didn’t know I’d traveled or what I’d rescued?

“No guests,” he said. “But some news has arrived. It will be publicly announced shortly.”

My fingers clenched at my sides. “Correct me if I’m wrong, Your Highness, but news is announced every day.”

He growled in annoyance, looking toward the ceiling. “How is it that I have the stupidest son in Lumeria?”

“You dragged me here for this?” I asked, my face heating. “To tell me today is like any other? To share an opinion of yours? One I know far too well?”

“Dragged you? An Imperator does not drag. He commands. And I had good reason.” He leaned forward in his Seat, his head tilted to the side. “Tell me, Rhyan, what happens when you lose control of your emotions? When you can’t handle your own little feelings?”

Tears welled behind my eyes like a trained response, and I didn’t even know what was happening, or what news he could possibly be referring to. “I am doing all I can to control them.” As he Godsdamned well knew.

“Forgive me if I don’t trust you to stay in control with what I’m about to share with you. And as usual, it is my job, my responsibility, to protect you from yourself, from the wrath of the Empire.” His nostrils flared with anger, “Ungrateful as you are.”

“What news?” I asked. “What happened?” What made him doubt I’d keep control? I glanced around the room, so empty, so devoid of life. Had someone died? Mother? I tried to remember what mood he’d been in last night as the panic rose in me. No. She was okay, she had to be okay; my father was cruel and twisted, but I had to believe he wasn’t this evil. And yet…

Fear rose like nahashim slipping through my skin.

Still, he was silent. Gods. What in Lumeria did it mean? The severity with which his guards had come for me, the unusually harsh bite of his aura…

“You’re already fucking fading!” he snarled.

I looked down and saw my body blurring. I felt dizzy, lightheaded; an invisible hook had stabbed its way into my stomach and was pulling me forward, threatening to take me away. I grounded my heels and took a deep breath, and my body came back into focus.

“Please. Just tell me this. Mother is…” I bit the inner corner of my cheek, “she’s all right?”

“You forgot to say, Your Highness.” He gripped the hilt of his sword, fingers dancing on a red stone embedded inside the leather.

I closed my eyes, praying for patience. He was just fucking with me, trying to get a rise, to force me to lose my temper so he could prove he was right—prove that I was weak and he was strong, prove that he had every reason to demand authority and remain in control of me.

“Your Highness,” I said, using all the will I had left to keep my voice even.

He smirked. “Untense your jaw.”

I forced my face into a neutral expression. My back was straight, my chin lifted, the perfect posturing of the Heir Apparent.

“She’s fine,” he said jovially as if I was farther than Lethea for having asked.

I unclenched my fists, my aura ready to explode. “Then, what is it?”

“Rhyan.” His voice softened, and he shook his head, his eyes sympathetic and crinkling at the corners. When he looked like that, almost vulnerable, I could swear I saw a hint of something else inside of him. Proof that he truly was my father, not the Imperator, not the Arkasva, but the man that shared my blood, the man that had once loved me.

If he ever did.

I hated myself for searching for such a thing. For still wanting. Needing. I knew better. Knew the truth. My heart didn’t.

He shifted forward in his seat. “I know you had somewhat of an entanglement, to the point where I am not sure what this news will do to you.”

Entanglement? I’d had no entanglements. Not for a year.

He continued, “I called you in here, as I said, to prepare.” He snapped his fingers, and the back door opened behind him.

Arkmage Connal Hilsen appeared, his white robes and rainbow-colored leather belt a sharp contrast to the dreariness of the Seating Room. Connal had become the Arkmage of Glemaria on my nineteenth birthday. After I’d revealed my vorakh in a secret ceremony in my bedroom, Father had killed the old man who’d witnessed it. Connal had been anointed into his position as a replacement that very night. Since I’d officially been unbound, he had been the one my father most often called upon to put the binds back on me. To restrain me. To teach me. To humiliate me. To ensure that I didn’t outrun the others on the track. That I didn’t accidentally travel in our combat clinics, or in our habibellums.

He had no idea that the more he restrained me, the stronger I became.

I still hated every second of it. Still burned with fury. The ropes made me feel insane, made me want to crawl out of my skin. My power was like an itch beneath my muscle and bones, thrumming, pounding, making me too hot, making me feel the need to rip myself free of the confines of my body, to claw my limbs off and release the magic inside. The ropes were their own kind of hellish torture once the magic was unleashed.

If Arkmage Connal was here now…

“No!” I shouted. “I refuse.”

“You refuse your Imperator? Your Arkasva?” my father asked. He turned to Connal, only in his late twenties, and still new to his position. He was weak, and completely obedient. “See how he still has no respect? Bind him.”

My hands balled into fists. “Remember the last time?” I snarled.

Two months ago, Arkmage Connal raised his stave at me. I’d rushed forward so fast I’d knocked him off his feet. His back had slammed onto the floor, his head nearly cracking, the crystal atop his stave smashing to pieces. The rage had been mine. It had come from me, not my vorakh. It had been my speed. My strength. And had Connal not been so young and in good health, it might have killed him.

The newly replaced crystal on his stave now glowed a blindingly bright white.

“Rhyan, Rhyan,” my father said gently, his face glowing from the crystal’s light. “If you do not wish to cooperate with your sovereign freely, perhaps someone else can convince you.” He snapped his fingers again, and once more, the door opened.

My mother was shoved inside the Seating Room.

“Shakina,” he said coldly. “Talk sense into your son.”

“Mother,” I said, rushing toward her, but with one look from my father, I stopped in my tracks.

Her eyes were drooping, her long brown hair—always down, always covering something—curling down her back. She wore a silver diadem though she’d never rule. The golden sun shone in the center of her forehead, clustered between the silver gryphon wings that stretched back into her hair, but as she looked up at me, her face remained blank.

Her hands were clasped together beneath the flowing sleeves of her white dress and remained so even when she stepped onto the dais beside my father. A silver satin belt with green gryphon wings threaded into the material hung from her waist.

When I was still a boy, I used to be so intimidated standing up there with all the eyes of the Court on me. I was sure I’d do something wrong, make some mistake. I’d reach for my mother’s hands, seeking them beneath her voluminous sleeves. She always squeezed my hands in return, her touch full of reassurance. When my father finally noticed, he ordered me to stand on the other side of the dais, alone.

“Rhyan,” she said, her voice beautiful and lilting. She never hid her accent, her one small rebellion against him. “Your father has the right idea. Just listen to him.”

He’d already hurt her today. I could tell. Her make-up was too bright, too heavy. Her shoulder was stiff.

“Do you plan to comply now?” he asked. “Or do I need to convince you further?” His eyes flickered as he reached for her. Rage surged through me as my mother flinched, pulling her hand away from his on instinct before forcing herself to relax and let my father take her hand. The small light of life in her eyes, her tiny resistance, was gone, and her gaze returned blank and lifeless.

“I can convince you myself…or I can have my guard.” He gave my mother a pointed look.

Trying to calm myself, to catch my breath, I looked down, and my eyes fell on my bare hands and arms. I saw the ropes that might as well have already been in place. The image had my chest heaving, panic sputtering inside my belly. The need to be free, to run, to travel, was threatening to take me on the spot. I was almost nauseated with fear.

“For how long?” I asked, my voice rough, my accent heavy.

My father shook his head in disgust. “Try to ask me again, using actual words this time.”

Inhale. Exhale.

“How long must I wear the bind, Your Highness?” I gritted through my teeth, my accent pushed down.

“Until I know you’re under control.” He jerked his chin at Connal.

With a sneer, the arkmage stepped forward, the crystal atop his stave glowing with fresh life. He uttered the incantation, those hateful words, as the black ropes sprang forth from his stave, glittering as they snaked across the room and grabbed hold of me. They coiled and tightened across my body, digging into my skin.

I stumbled back, unable to stop myself from retreating, from trying to escape. But it was no use. I was trapped.

All the strength inside of me vanished as the ropes dug into my flesh, burning me, weakening me. I bit my lip to keep from crying out. The sense of power I’d felt surge inside me was gone. And instead, a panicked, strangled sensation washed through me, and I lost my balance.

The glitter vanished, the ropes stilled and secured.

For two months, I’d been free. For two months, I’d avoided the itching, the burning, the feeling of losing my mind with my power trapped inside me, shaking, violent, desperate to get out.

I staggered backward, feeling the rope’s effects, its weight, as my father casually dismissed the arkmage. The door closed behind him, leaving just the three of us.

“Well?” I asked. Tremors wracked their way down my limbs. “I’m as you wished. Share your news.”

My father reached behind his sword and produced a scroll with a torn wax seal. It was red—Batavia red—a broken sigil of seraphim wings beneath a full moon.

Lyriana…

I stiffened.

Her name…there it was. Sacred, secret. And now it was in the front of my mind, the grip it had on my heart, tighter than ever.

“It appears that there was a commotion at the most recent Revelation Ceremony of Bamaria. One of the nobles unveiling their magic was discovered to have vorakh.” My father’s eyes scanned my body before his gaze landed on my face.

The tremors increased, my fingers tapping against my thighs. I knew two of the nobles who would have been in the ceremony, both of Ka Batavia, both deeply close to Lyriana.

“Who?” I asked carefully.

His eyes narrowed, and with a slight upturn to his lips, he said, “It was the niece of the Arkasva. The Lady Julianna Batavia.”

Jules.

I stumbled again, a wave of dizziness washing over me as my stomach tightened. Swaying on the spot, my vision danced, going in and out of focus.

“Rhyan,” my father warned. “Did you hear me?”

My eyes zeroed in on my father’s sword, on the black leathered hilt, on the gemstone that had been embedded within it. It was red. Batavia red. All these years, I’d never noticed before.

Small details. Small details.

I gasped, feeling my chest tighten with panic. I couldn’t breathe. I couldn’t… Gods, please… please .

“Which… um… which vorakh?” I kept tapping my sides, trying to focus on the sensation of my fingers and legs and not the sinking doom in my heart.

“She was in possession of the first,” my father continued, almost conspiratorially. “She had a fully violent vision in the temple, the entire Bamarian nobility witnessed. Imperator Kormac had her arrested on the spot. According to the reports, she was taken to Lethea the next day, escorted personally by him and the Bastardmaker.”

Lethea. One did not return from Lethea.

There was a flash of gold in my mind. Golden seraphim wings designed to be a woman’s arm cuff. I’d touched it last summer when reaching for her hand, had given it a squeeze as Imperator Kormac had arrived unexpectedly in Cresthaven on the night of the solstice celebration. Her sharp intake of breath, the fear she’d tried so hard to conceal in his presence, had haunted me for weeks. He’d hurt her before and had probably hurt her again, far worse now that she was under his power.

I caught the tips of my boots in my periphery. Black leather, scuff marks on the toe. A piece of hay from the gryphon stables stuck to the side.

Breathe.

“Remind me,” my father said, “was this the one that you fucked last summer? Or not? I could never keep your ridiculous story straight.”

I continued staring at my boots, willing every cell in my body to still, willing my heart to keep from pounding out of my chest, willing my eyes to keep from tearing.

Breathe. Breathe. Breathe.

“Well?” my father asked. “Was it?”

“Does it matter?” I asked. There’d never been anything between me and Jules, nothing more than an agreement. We let the nobility believe we’d slept together to protect Lyriana, to throw my father off my scent, away from my feelings for her. It hadn’t worked. But then I’d found other ways to protect her.

Lyriana. Lyr… By the Gods. Was she all right?

“The…the other ladies of Ka Batavia… were they… are they…?” I was still finding it hard to find air.

Vorakh were arrested on-site and taken to Lethea. They were stripped. A process so painful and deadly it nearly always killed. But every noble I knew carried in their heart the fear of the fate of Ka Azria—the noble Ka which had kept their vorakh concealed. As a result, they no longer existed. The Emperor had ordered the execution of every last man, woman, and child from their Ka in Elyria.

The fear I felt for Jules, rising violently in my chest, was already battling the worry I felt for Lyriana having had to witness this. Or worse. The Imperator could easily have arrested her and her sisters, especially if they’d interfered. They’d been fiercely protective of each other, and based on what I’d seen, Imperator Kormac would have loved another excuse to steal more of Ka Batavia’s power for himself. He would have relished any reason to station more of his soturi inside their country.

“The rest of Ka Batavia understood the unfortunate evil Lady Julianna possessed,” my father said. “By all the reports, they stood back, remained still and dutiful to let the Imperator do his work.”

I could barely process this—the horror Jules was experiencing, the helplessness, the idea that the people she most loved hadn’t helped her but had stood back and watched. My eyes watered. “The report said they stood back?”

“Yes.”

I tried to believe his words. To accept them, horrifying as they were. But I knew the stubbornness inside of Lyr. I knew the bond she had with Jules went deep. And I knew how easily she allowed her mask to slide in Court, to reveal her true feelings. The genuine smiles I’d captured all summer when she thought I hadn’t been looking… so few nobles had them. Even fewer ever gave them.

“No one else was arrested? Arkasva Batavia still rules?”

“You’re asking a lot of questions, Rhyan,” my father warned. “Almost as if you care.”

I stifled a growl. Of course, I cared. He knew I fucking cared. I’d bargained away all I had to him last summer because I cared so fucking much. It was the reason he had me in ropes in the first place. If I had more to give, more to bargain to keep her safe, I would have given that, too.

“Was anyone else arrested?” I asked again.

My father remained silent, drumming his fingers against the Seat.

I stepped forward. “Was anyone else—?”

“If you’re asking about the fire-head—”

“Lady Lyriana.”

“No. No one else was arrested. Lady Julianna’s Ka did not act.”

My eyes went to my mother, then back to my hands at my sides.

“Now, do well to calm yourself down,” he said.

I forced myself to stare at my palms, not look back up. I couldn’t bear to see my mother’s sympathy, to look and face her for the hundredth time as she saw me in clear pain—saw, and did nothing.

“May I be excused now?” I asked. “Your Highness?”

“Do you understand what this means?” he asked.

I nodded. I knew perfectly fucking well. I had to play my part. I had to play it to perfection. When Court was in session and Jules’s fate was announced, when she was ridiculed, when she was demonized for vorakh, when the name Batavia was uttered, I was to remain still, to remain cold. Indifferent. Heartless.

One misstep, one ounce of appearing sympathetic, and all eyes would fall on me. On my vorakh. On my curse.

And we would all be damned.

Hours later, after the sun had set, I was alone in my room. The news had been met as expected, and I’d remained still. I’d refused to look at my best friends, even when Garrett’s face had darkened as he heard, his blue eyes searching mine as I stood stoic on the dais beside my father. I felt his aura reaching out toward me, felt that he was far too aware and invested in what had happened, as if he’d suspected something, known something about me he shouldn’t have.

I remained frozen and quiet afterward at the Oath Ceremony, not speaking, not commenting. Not taking part in the jokes going back and forth between Dario and Aiden. Not daring to breathe or make eye contact with Garrett who was watching me again as the soturi and mages formed their kashonim, entered their lineages, and swore their oaths. And when the celebration that always followed sprang to life in the fortress fields beyond Seathorne and my friends—already half-drunk and ready to let loose—insisted I come out and drink, I excused myself. I turned down request after request from my friends and other members of the nobility to join in. Then, I walked alone past the staring Council members and nobles.

I’d run back to my room the moment I’d been able to, Bowen on my heels. I couldn’t bear to be around anyone. To celebrate. To act as if this had been some normal day, act as if my friend wasn’t suffering, act like she wasn’t scared, and alone. That she hadn’t been given a death sentence.

Nor could I go on pretending that the girl I loved wasn’t terrified and grieving.

Last summer I’d felt my heart breaking. Now that feeling was rushing back without abandon, leaving me lying in bed, clutching my chest in pain.

No one would come. No one would comfort me. Because no one could. No one knew. No one but Bowen, and my father.

And my mother.

We’d spoken about the events of last summer only once, on the night I’d returned.

“You’ve changed,” she’d said, her Glemarian accent heavy, startling to hear after a summer away, especially when I’d spent that summer repressing my own. There had been a rising sadness in her eyes as she’d looked at me, a look I hadn’t seen before on her. I’d been sure she’d already known my heart had been broken when she’d said, “Something about you, Rhyan. Something happened?” She’d looked to Bowen who retreated to stand guard outside the room then back to me, the question in her eyes.

I’d sworn that when I returned home, I’d forget it all. I made promises to the Gods that the moment I walked through the gates of Seathorne, I’d stop thinking about Lyriana, stop missing her, stop wanting her.

I had to talk myself out of seeking an Afeya to cut my binds. I’d been close—so close to losing control and traveling back to Lyr’s fortress, so I could take her and press her against that tree one more time. I’d been consumed with desire, with thoughts of bringing her pink, pouty lips to mine and kissing her until I was breathless, until my heart pounded, until hers did, too.

I’d wanted nothing more than to hear her sighs, hear her say my name, to just hear what she was thinking. Even weeks later, I’d still been able to smell her, taste her, feel her, the heat of her… Gods. She’d consumed my every waking minute and flooded my dreams as I’d made my way home.

It had been driving me farther than Lethea. So, I’d decided when I returned to my life in the fortress, I wouldn’t think. I wouldn’t feel . I would return to who I’d been for years—someone without hope, without feeling. I’d bear my punishment, find a way to survive the ropes until the Revelation Ceremony, and close my heart back up again. The pain of the heartbreak… I never wanted to feel that again. So, I decided, I would keep my heart locked and sealed forever.

The whole journey home, I carried a golden sunleaf in my hand, plucked from the very sun tree I’d kissed her beneath. I slept with it in my fist every night and traced its veins with my fingers for the endless stretches of travel inside my father’s litter. By the journey’s end, it had become a crumpled mess of a thing, and I stuffed it into the bottom of my belt pouch, knowing it’d been a sign the dream had, at last, ended. It’d been time to extinguish the hope that’d been flickering in my heart, the fantasy that things had not been over between us, that somehow, someway, I’d find her again. That our story had been beginning, not ending.

It had ended. So, I decided I wouldn’t think of what had happened, and wouldn’t speak of it again.

But that night at my mother’s urging, the whole story had poured out of me in a hurried rush of words. I couldn’t talk fast enough, couldn’t stay far enough ahead of my emotions, my mouth racing against my tears to tell the story before I crumpled against my rising sobs.

She stroked my hair like she had when I was a boy, as I confessed and waited for her to say something comforting, to ease my pain, to offer wisdom, to tell me some way I could repair the hole in my heart.

I waited for her to be my mother.

I used to sit with her for hours, listening to her stories, finding solace in them. Tales of great heroes of ancient Lumeria. Legends of the War of Light. Love stories from the Valya of Auriel and Asherah. She’d shared them with such excitement and passion, her Glemarian accent rolling and beautiful. They’d brought me peace. We used to visit the Temple of Wind together, just the two of us as Bowen stood guard, her eyes alight as she explained the pictures to me, describing their movement before my own magic allowed me to see for myself. For endless hours, she would effortlessly weave tales of hope, and of love.

But that part of my life was over. She’d long stopped telling me stories.

That night, she had no advice, no words of comfort, only a hushed, “My heart, I’m sorry.” I’d lain in her lap and cried, and when I finished and sat back up, her gaze had been distant. She’d gotten up a minute later, leaving me broken and alone, my heart raw and open.

I hadn’t been able to breathe when she walked away. I felt like I was going to die on the spot, like the pain vibrating from my broken heart would strangle me in my sleep. It had been too much, too raw, too fresh, and there’d been nothing I could do to ease the pain, to soothe myself, to forget Lyriana, to close the gaping wound in my chest left from wanting her.

That had been the last time I sought comfort from my mother.

By morning I sobered, my eyes puffy but dry. There had been a new wall around my heart, a new determination not to feel or remember, a new promise to banish the girl whose taste still lingered on my lips. I vowed to lock her in the darkest depths of my soul, to make my will stronger than my heart.

And then the letters arrived and split me wide open again.

That same feeling plagued me now. The feeling as if I couldn’t breathe, as if I were drowning with emotion and nothing would save me. Were it not for the ropes cutting off my magic, I’d have faded, I’d have traveled to the woods by now, the distant wildlands of Glemaria, desperately trying to outrun my tears.

Without warning, my door swung open. Before I could yell at Bowen, my father strolled in.

“Unless you’re here to remove my bind,” I said dully, holding up my heavy hands, “get out.”

“That’s never been the way to get what you want.” He closed the door behind him.

“I take it I’m to keep the bind on?” I sat on the edge of my bed, my hands lifeless in my lap, the black ropes crossing back and forth, cutting through my skin. All day I’d been resisting the urge to itch. And I Godsdamned wouldn’t give in now—not in front of him.

He sat down beside me, his aura, for once, not too harsh, not too cold.

“You’re missing the party,” he said gently, his hand brushing against my face.

I flinched, my entire body tensed, prepared for a hit. But he only wiped away a tear rolling down my cheek.

He stared at the teardrop on his finger before wiping it against the pad of his thumb as if it’d been dirtied.

“I didn’t come here to fight,” he said, his voice still gentle. “Now tell me, why aren’t you attending the party?”

I was still on edge. He could be his most dangerous when his voice softened, when the smallest hint of kindness shined through. These moods could end at any second, over any trigger.

He watched me expectantly as my stomach churned.

“You know I’ve never liked them,” I said.

“All of the Glemarian nobility are there, all of your friends,” he said, stroking his neatly trimmed beard.

I shrugged.

“So, you only attend parties on solstice? Or only when a certain Lady Lyriana is present?”

I closed my eyes, my nostrils flaring. By the Gods. Why were we still talking about her?

My father clicked his tongue. “I can’t say I haven’t minded your natural inclination to avoid people over the years. Gives you less opportunities to say the wrong thing, to threaten our Ka’s great reputation.”

“Great?” I sneered.

“I believe it’s capable of greatness. After all, it has produced an Imperator. And… that Imperator produced you. We still don’t know what you might achieve.”

I turned my gaze toward the door.

My father clucked his tongue again, drawing my attention back. “I’m only trying to help you,” he said, but there was a warning in his voice. He unsheathed his sword and held it up, examining the shine of the blade with slow twists and turns, letting the torchlight cast the steel in a fiery glow.

I knew that sword well. I’d been ordered to clean it a thousand times and nearly as often forced to endure its cuts and the brunt of its hilt. It had drawn a map of pain across my flesh over the years. But its blade had dulled. He relied more on his mind games now to rile me.

“You’ve never been the most social heir, but you at least had a presence in Court—remembered that it extends beyond meetings in the Seating Room. Remembered the duties of a male Heir to the Arkasva.” He traced the ruby gem on his hilt before he lifted his gaze to me. “You used to have a regular number of girls brought to your bed.”

I stiffened.

“I know it’s hard for you,” he said, his voice dripping with sympathy. “You pined long for the Batavia girl. But her Ka has been tainted with this news. She’s not an option for you, for our future Arkasva. And certainly not if you’re going to become the man that I always believed you could be.”

He’d never believed in me. He’d spent my entire life making sure I knew. My fingers clenched at my sides.

“This self-inflicted celibacy, Rhyan, has too many at Court talking. Gossiping. That’s a problem for me, and that makes it a problem for you. It ends tonight, along with this ridiculous rebellion.”

The logs in my fireplace shifted as a pop of fire burst, the flames smoking toward us. “What rebellion?”

He tilted his head to the side. “I know you were trying to protect Lady Lyriana by forcing my hand last year. But there’s nothing left to protect. And nothing left for you to do. Your little threats are null. What happened to Lady Julianna changed the game. It is possible for a vorakh to be exposed, for a noble to be arrested, and the ruling Ka to remain untouched.”

His aura swelled, exploding across my room, snuffing out the flames of my fireplace, extinguishing every torchlight.

My body shook from the chill. The only way I’d been able to protect Lyr, to stop my father’s negotiations for her marriage to Arkturion Kane, had been for me to threaten to reveal my vorakh. It had been all the leverage I had.

“You are done refusing me. Done with this attitude. Done with this ridiculous anti-social behavior, done spending your mornings covered in shit with the servants of the stables. And you are absolutely done keeping this bed empty. You’re going to change your behavior—start acting like a proper Heir Apparent. And you will start tonight by attending this party. You’re going to remind everyone of the presence of Ka Hart, and you’re going to remember how it feels to get your dick wet. No one will wed their daughter to you if they don’t believe you’re capable of fucking her well enough to produce an heir.”

I closed my eyes, trying to keep my hands calm in my lap, to not ball them into fists, to not lose control.

It had been more than a year. A year since I’d held a girl in my arms. Longer since I’d shared my bed with anyone. After holding Lyr, after kissing her, I hadn’t desired anyone else, couldn’t bring myself to even look at another, forget trying to…

I was still hers. Under the solstice sky, somewhere between the trusting look in her eyes, the swelling of love and hope in my heart, and the feel of her body against mine, I’d become lost. She had complete and total possession of me. I didn’t want anyone else, couldn’t imagine anyone else, and for the past year, there had been no one else. I hadn’t wanted there to be. I wasn’t sure I ever wanted there to be another again.

“This is your command, Your Highness?” I asked, my voice dry.

“Put your boots back on, get your ass outside, and remember how to be a man. And I may consider having Connal free you in the morning.”

I could only seethe in response.

“Agree,” he said. “Agree, or you’ll watch as I find other ways to convince you. Nothing is holding me back now. You don’t want to disappoint your mother, do you?”

Bastard.

“Fine,” I snapped. “I’ll attend. But you know as well as I that I can’t promise anything further tonight, even if I wanted it.”

“Look in the Godsdamned mirror. Remember the title I gave to you. You have no excuse to not be successful. Whether that be from your face, the diadem on your forehead, or any other means of coercion necessary, you make it happen.”

I snarled. He was farther than Lethea if he thought I could do that.

My father shook his head, his dark eyebrows drawn together in a tight V. “Unless,” his eyes dipped below my belt, “the rumors about you are true? The choice between a good fuck or the shackle of your ropes should be an easy decision for you. If you have half a brain.” He stood and tossed a scroll and parchment onto my bed. The scroll was closed with a small plain purple seal, identical to the dozen others I’d cracked open this past year.

I bit my lip, trying not to scream.

“These arrived for you late this morning. Read if you must, then make your appearance. I was far too lenient with you this past year. Letting your attitude run wild. No more. You’re not as strong as you think are. Be smart about this, Rhyan, be smart for once in your Godsdamned life. Choose between the binds you hate or something sweeter, warmer . And I want you to remember, when you disappoint me, you’re not hurting me. You’re only hurting your mother.”

I gritted my teeth.

“I know you don’t want to hurt her.” His voice was soothing, understanding. It made me want to scream. “So, do what you must to avoid that, hmmm? Consider carefully. I keep her around now only for you. But if you cannot do this one simple act, perhaps I’ll find myself in need of a new Heir Apparent. And a new wife to make him with.” He strode toward the door and left me alone with the scroll.

I was reaching for my dagger before I could think, my fingers tightening around the hilt until my knuckles were white, my muscles straining against the binds as I pulled my arm back and threw my blade, watching it slice into the door.