Page 21 of Son of the Drowned Empire

Chapter Twenty

“ W hat? Bowen, what is this?” I stepped back. “I put one foot outside, and you pull me back in? Run to tell my father so he can humiliate me. Put me in tighter chains?”

“I expect he’ll receive word,” he said roughly. “But it won’t be from me.”

“Right. Because twenty-one years of experience says otherwise.”

Bowen frowned. “This time’s different.”

“Shut the door, Bowen. Return the key.”

“Your Grace?”

“I said shut the fucking door.” I retreated and sat back on the cot. Hadn’t I already given everything? My pride, my secrets. I’d tried to give my life. And my father always remained one step ahead, pushing me and back taking more. Not this time. “I’m not escaping. There’s no escaping. You’re farther than Lethea if you think I can!”

He grimaced, his hand flying to his left wrist. “Maybe I am! Maybe I also know we can do this. You have a window of opportunity, Rhyan, and it’s right now. The guards are changing. Soturi are on the move, heading to their new posts. It’s the final hour of shift and the darkest time of night—when they’re most tired, most likely to make a mistake, miss something they weren’t supposed to see. I’ve been planning, preparing, far longer than you know. And it’s now. We need to use this chance. You might not get another.” He jerked his chin at the hall. “Come! Your chances to escape thin every second we wait.”

“They thinned the moment I was named forsworn.”

“They are thinning right now!” Bowen roared, glancing anxiously down the hall the same way Kenna had. He’d never yelled at me before. Never lost his temper. He was gruff and grouchy and dismissive, but he’d never been angry with me. I looked up into his wide eyes, and found a surprising desperation in them.

“If you had a whole plan, why not say anything before?” I demanded. “For weeks you’ve been silent.”

“Because I couldn’t. He’s been checking your fucking aura. I couldn’t tell you. Couldn’t risk a shift in your emotions. The smallest bit of hope inside of you, and he'd have known. Just trust me. It’s all set. Now come on.”

I hadn’t seen my father since it happened. He hadn’t visited, but I’d sensed his presence. It sounded just like something he would do.

“Bowen?” I asked, barely daring to believe him. “You’re serious?”

“Yes.” He squeezed his wrist like it was hurting him then straightened, one hand on the hilt of his blade.

I thought of when I’d asked Kenna to run away with me. I’d understood her objections. Much as I hated it, this was my home. Maybe not anymore. But nowhere else was either. It was one thing to be the runaway son of the Imperator, the rogue Heir Apparent gallivanting through the Empire, and quite another to be forsworn, accused of murdering the wife of the Imperator, accused of murdering his own mother. There was nowhere in this world for me. Nowhere I could go.

My hands opened and closed helplessly at my sides, my fingers numb from the ropes.

“Even if I escape, I’ll have nothing. He’ll track me, you know he will. If not through you, through one of his other spies. Someone else he pays off, someone else whose oath he’ll demand, who’s loyal to him. He’ll find a way. He always does. He owns the North. He’ll punish me. Punish everyone I care about. Punish everyone who… who’s left.” I punched my hand. “Haven’t I done enough? Haven’t I hurt enough people? If I leave, it’ll only make things worse.”

“Then, don’t let him bring you back!” he hissed. “Rhyan! You’re acting like this prison and these last few weeks are all you have, all you are. That’s gryphon-shit. You know it’s gryphon-shit. You’re more than this. So much more. I wouldn’t be here now, risking everything, risking my Godsdamned life, if I didn’t believe in you. Believe you were capable of escaping, of evading his reach. I wouldn’t be doing this if I didn’t think you were fucking worth it. If I didn’t know with all I am that you’re stronger than this. Stronger than he is.”

My breath came heavily. Bowen had just said more to me in the last minute than he had in a month. All these years, he’d never shown this level of concern, of care. He’d always just done his job. Barely guarded me, then reported to my father.

“Rhyan, I’m taking you out of here whether you like it or not. I made promises, too. Swore my own oaths. And I intend to keep them.” He was across the cell in seconds, easily overpowering me in my state, as he brought me to my feet and pushed me against the wall.

“What!” I struggled against him as he reached behind his back and produced a fresh soturion cloak, which he immediately began wrapping around me. I stilled.

“It’s been extensively glamoured,” he said. “You’ll go nearly unseen, even indoors if you keep the hood up.”

I stared down, seeing my body fading in and out of the shadows, almost like it did when I was losing control of my emotions, starting to travel. A second later, he switched out my prison shoes for my soturion boots. My heart pounded, my mind too stunned to object or move.

“Now do I need to carry you,” he snarled, “or is Lady Kenna’s final gift going to be wasted?”

“She glamoured this?” I asked. Kenna’s talents were immense, but I’d never seen this level of spellwork. Except from… from Aiden.

“She paid for it. Heavily. This is Aevan’s work.”

My father’s spymaster. I tried to quiet the part of my soul that knew Kenna asking Aiden for help hadn’t been an option. Tried to tell myself it didn’t matter.

Bowen pulled up his hood, newly enhanced as well. But I was frozen, still disbelieving this was happening. Still waiting for the trick to be revealed, for my father to be at the end of the hall laughing cruelly.

“Myself to Moriel!” he growled. “Are you really going to make me carry you?” He extended his hand. “Trust me.”

I took his hand, and we kept walking, moving down the hall. I felt the unusual sensation of burning in my calves. So many days without exercise, cut off from my power and my strength, had left me winded.

There was a small noise behind us, and I turned just as Bowen’s hand clamped down on my mouth. A door had opened at the opposite end of the hall, and a small flare of torchlight poured through the threshold.

“Aye, Soturion Bowen?”

“Aye,” he called back, his fingers digging into my cheek. My bandage dislodged.

“Taking final shift?”

“Aye!” Bowen yelled.

“Any trouble?”

“No.”

“Aye.” The door closed.

Bowen shoved me into a darkened corner, his eyebrows narrowed into a tight V before he released my mouth. “We need to reach the next rest point.”

He urged me forward, taking me farther down the hall before shoving me inside a small alcove. Another hallway jutted forth; thin torches lined the wall, and prisoners shouted in the cells along it. Two soturi marched back and forth. Bowen pressed his back to the stone, watching as the soturi turned, changing direction. They began marching away from us.

I gritted my teeth, trying to control my breathing. The moment the soturi were out of sight, we moved again, crossing the hall and winding down another just before two more soturi arrived at their stations. Bowen jerked his chin toward a door. A closet.

I moved inside, breathing heavily, my arms folded across my chest.

“You still don’t trust me?” he asked.

I glared, the bandage covering my eye starting to fall off my face. “You betrayed me before,” I said. “Turning me in. Getting me into trouble. Don’t think I didn’t know. I always knew that you knew. Knew that I was… I was vorakh.” I gasped at my own words. Panic fluttered in my stomach after all these years of never saying it out loud, of keeping the secret. But what was the point of hiding it now?

Bowen uncuffed the leather around his left wrist, then shoved it under the faint light above us. I ripped the bandage off my eye and blinked rapidly. The whole left half of my face felt stiff as I peered closer at Bowen’s arm. There were two thin scars, the traditional ones soturi wore.

The first was the cut he’d received when he was nineteen at his Revelation Ceremony, promising to become a soturion. The second came from the forming of his kashonim .

I frowned.

“There are four scars,” he said, bringing his wrist closer to my face. “Here. And… here.” His finger traced two invisible lines.

“I don’t see any—” My eyes widened. Beside the two thin ones, another was forming, red slowly seeping to reveal a raised scar. “Gods, Bowen, is that…?”

“My blood oath to your father.” He sucked in a pained breath. “It’s been burning since I opened your cell.”

“You said there were four. What’s the other one?” As soon as the question left my lips, a single bell cut through the air, calling the quarter past the hour.

“We need to move,” he said, replacing his cuff. He grabbed me by the collar, pushed us out of the closet and down the hall, and rounded another corner.

We walked silently through one door and then another. Bowen paused, still holding my collar, and we stood pressed against the wall, barely breathing as another soturion passed by. My father’s prisons were an endless maze, but Bowen never faltered. He seemed to have the schedule and pattern of every single soturion completely memorized. Was this what he’d been doing when he left me alone?

“Faster,” he muttered, steering us further into the shadows. We stopped in front of another closet door before he unlocked it. As it opened, the footsteps of a patrolling guard sounded in the hallway. Without warning, I was pushed into the closet, and the door was slammed in my face.

“You were relieved, Bowen?” The muffled voice of the soturion came through the door. I did my best to still my labored breathing.

“Need a small break,” he said. “Oskar’s on post. All quiet. The little lord’s asleep.”

“Not lord anymore,” he laughed.

“No,” Bowen said. “Not anymore.”

“New one on the way, I expect. Already fu—”

“Well, that’s expected. I’m beat,” Bowen said pointedly. “We’ll talk later.”

“Aye,” said the soturion.

A minute later, my door creaked open, and he slipped inside.

“There,” Bowen muttered, pointing to a bag stashed in the corner. “Your weapons. Your armor, it’s all here.”

I reached for the rough cloth, nearly dropping the whole thing as I pulled it against my chest.

“Why?” I whispered. “Why break your oath for me?” Giving me the cloak, knowing the schedules, having my things waiting for me…this was more than just Kenna’s last gift. It was his as well. “It’ll kill you.”

Bowen pushed past me in the closet, saying nothing. He reached up and knocked each corner of the back wall. Wood creaked, slowly swinging away from us. A secret door. After shoving me through it, Bowen sealed the opening behind him. His aura was growing in intensity with his nerves, but there was also an odd kind of peace in it.

He grabbed my bag and tore it open. My armor was shoved over my head and my belt tightened around my waist before he slid swords and daggers into the sheaths at my hip. Another sword was strapped onto my back, and another.

“I swore a blood oath to your father, but he never knew that I swore another,” he said, strapping the leather across my chest. “I can’t show you. It won’t appear because the one who made it…she’s gone.” His eyes reddened, and he waved his wrist at me again. “But I can still feel it. Feel her touch.”

Tell him it’s right.

“My mother?” I asked, my heart pounding with a truth I’d taken too long to put together.

A tear slipped down his cheek. “Yes.”

I sucked in a breath. “She said to tell him—”

“To tell me it was right,” he finished. “I heard.” He opened a pocket on his belt and removed a vadati stone. It was small, far smaller than the ones issued to the rest of my father’s guard and Council. It was rough and scratched and a perfect match for the three my mother had gifted me. “I…” He swallowed roughly. “I heard everything. Knew everything. I always did. I know exactly what he did to her,” he seethed, “what he said to you. And I know,” his voice cracked, “what she said to me.”

“What was right?” I asked, trying desperately not to hear my mother’s anguished cry in my arms.

He stared at the ground. “Saving your life. Giving her life for yours.”

“My father’s killing blow—she came between us,” I said. “It was supposed to be me.”

“No,” he said fiercely. “No, it wasn’t. I didn’t want it to be her, but it shouldn’t have been you, either. Rhyan, your father set you up. I told you before that he’d never force you into a blood oath, that he was afraid of you breaking it and dying. He found the workaround. Had Connal force the words out of your mouth. I know you have the evidence on your face, but it wasn’t a true blood oath. It didn’t have the same power. You have to say the words on your own.”

My father would have known that—would have counted on it. Gods. “He wasn’t going to kill me for breaking the oath?”

“I don’t know. But at some point, he will try. Every day you stay here, he comes closer to giving into the urge.”

A rock fell from the ceiling. Boots marched overhead, and Bowen pressed his finger to his mouth. The sounds faded, and he led me ahead, stopping in a stairwell.

“He’d been planning your mother’s death for some time. He’s had plans to marry another, one he thinks will bring him greater power. More authority. He was waiting for the opportune moment.”

My mind reeled, trying to put the pieces together, to solve the puzzle Bowen had figured out long ago. “I…I don’t understand. Why now?”

“He needed a problem to fix. Needed her death to bring the country together instead of tearing it apart. It would only work if he had the right person to blame. The right person to control.”

We reached the end of the stairwell and turned left, moving into a stairwell that smelled of earth and cold. I shivered.

“You,” Bowen said. “It was you.”

Of course, it was me.

My entire face felt hot as a new wave of sadness crashed down on me. “So, it’s my fault, my fault she’s dead.”

“No.”

“Yes, it is. He should hurt me more. He should—” I turned back. What in Lumeria was I doing?

“NO!” Bowen said. His eyes widened, as he listened for sounds of soturi nearby. “Rhyan, you’re not thinking clearly. Your mother knew she’d only have one chance to protect you. She’d been unable to for years and blamed herself. She got her chance. She died doing what she wanted, loving you, protecting you. He was going to kill her anyway. She always knew that.”

“It doesn’t fucking matter now.” Only it did matter. It all mattered. Because I was crying. My throat tightened, and I turned from Bowen, staring at the wall.

“I haven’t always been the best protector, I haven’t always kept you safe. And I am truly sorry.”

“None of this is right. Why would my mother say that?” I asked.

“You told me in Bamaria,” he said slowly, “I was the shittiest guard that ever existed.”

“I remember,” I said, my voice dull. I’d just kissed Lyriana, just come alive for what felt like the first time in my life. Then, I’d been knocked out. I’d woken the next morning in the Bamarian prison with Bowen watching over me. And Bowen had been the one to put me there.

“You also told me my life was meaningless.” He shrugged. “It may not be an important one. But it’s not meaningless. Not to me.”

I turned and met his gaze.

He urged me forward, and I took another step, then another, making my way to the next landing.

Bowen followed me, his body tensed. A soturion walked just outside the door, his steps hurried and purposeful, on his way to his posting. When the sound faded, Bowen continued, “Your father forced me to swear to always obey him. I couldn’t refuse a direct order. If he told me to report seeing you travel, I had to. If I tried to lie, my scar burned. Or worse. So, I stopped looking at you. I stopped listening. Found every loophole I could.” He closed his eyes, his face screwed up in pain. “Not to save myself. But because I swore my first oath to your mother. To protect you.”

Her final words, I love you. I had sensed they weren’t for me, that she wasn’t speaking to me. I stared at Bowen. “You loved her,” I said. It wasn’t a question. It was a thousand tiny moments coming together at once. All the looks he’d given her over the years. The way he’d turned his back whenever I’d found myself in trouble. The way he’d never seemed interested in taking lovers, in finding a wife. The tears he’d shed the first night I was imprisoned.

His throat worked, his eyes blinking rapidly before he exhaled. “With all my heart. With every breath. I loved every moment of hers I was allowed. I’ve spent the last two decades toeing the line between their oaths. Upholding both as best I could. Now, I only intend to honor one.”

“But you’ll die,” I said. Blood oaths always took their price. The magic found a way—even with me. Even if the words had been forced from my mouth, the magic had found a way. It just hadn’t been my life that was the debt.

“Your mother said it was right, and I agree with her. I will happily honor your mother’s last wish. It’s the right thing to do.”

“Bowen… don’t be a martyr over a promise.”

“That’s not what this is. When are you going to hear me? You’re more than just a promise. Your father’s evil, a tyrant. But if anyone in this Gods-forsaken world has the power, has the strength to bring him down—it’s you, Rhyan.”

“Me?” I laughed, gesturing at my weakened state.

I was barely standing up straight, barely able to hold the weight of my armor and weapons. Weeks ago, my sword had been an extension of my arm, wielded as easily as I moved my fingers, and now I barely had the energy to hold it up.

“Yes, you. This, right here, right now, this isn’t who you are. This is temporary. You’re going to find your strength again, and you’re going to become even stronger. I make few promises, but I promise this. You won’t feel this powerless forever.” His jaw worked. “And you won’t always feel this sad.”

I shook my head.

“Everything that happened with your mother, with Garrett, it’s not because you’re weak. Everything happened because he fears you. He always has. Since Bamaria, he’s lived in terror of your power. He bound you twice, left you weakened in prison, stuck his mage on you and surrounded himself with twelve guards, and still… still! With all of that against you, you still nearly brought him down. What happened that night was inevitable. He was dangling the idea of saving her to manipulate you. It was never going to happen. She knew the truth, had known for some time. So had I. And in her capacity, she was protecting you, all the way until the end.”

I stared down at my hands.

Bowen sighed, placing the vadati stone in my palm. “She had the other. She’d given it to me before… before they were married.” He closed my fingers around it. “Here. This completes your set.”

I’d have four. But this was more than just a means of communication. It was a love token, sacred between them in a way I didn’t think I’d ever understand. I couldn’t take it.

“She gave it to you,” I said. “You should keep it.”

He pressed it to his heart. “Thank you.” His voice shook. “Do me a favor and remember what she told you.”

“Survive. Just survive.” I swallowed a sob.

I was forsworn. I’d be in exile. I might not find shelter. I might never find comfort or return here again.

Bowen nodded. “Just keep going. Keep running. Do whatever you must. But get out of Glemaria. Get beyond his reach. Even if you’re scared. Even when you doubt yourself. Do it for her.” He turned and led me to the top of the stairs.

We came to a window three stories from the ground. He offered a nod before kicking a stone in the wall. It fell forward, silent as he caught it in his hands and carefully laid it aside. He sucked in a breath, pain pinching between his eyebrows. “Fuck.” He undid his cuff and tossed it to the ground. The scar was redder than before. “I don’t have much time.” He reached through the hole he’d created, producing yards upon yards of thick, woven rope, the kind we used to tie down the gryphons. “This is our only way out, the only place that has any sort of blind spot for his soturi.”

I watched nervously as Bowen secured the rope to a hook opposite the window. I was no stranger to heights or climbing, but I could feel the stark difference of having scaled heights before, knowing my vorakh was supporting me, versus now. My vorakh was cut off, and I was at the weakest I’d been in years.

“You’ve got this.”

I almost laughed. I was not used to Bowen being reassuring. How much of our interactions my entire life had been an act on his part—an act so he could keep protecting me?

“You go first,” he said. “You run into trouble, I’ll catch up to you. But you won’t.”

He was right. My arms burned, and sweat ran down the nape of my neck into my two sets of cloaks, but we made it to the bottom without issue.

Bowen led me forward, around the corner, and we continued unseen. A crack of lightning lit up the field surrounding the outer gates of Ha’Lyrotz, and thunder clapped across the sky. Despite the snow we’d been having, rain began to pour violently. It blew out the torches of every soturion on guard, leaving us in near darkness save for the moon.

Another bolt of lightning hit. As the field came to life with light, so did the appearance of our unseen enemies. A dozen soturi stood in formation before us, their swords drawn, their bodies guarding the sole exit. A bell began to ring.

“Prisoner escaped!” came a yell.

“Fuck,” Bowen breathed. We’d both ducked behind a wall, Bowen’s chest rising and falling with rapid breaths. “Someone must have doubled back to your cell hall.” He pressed his fingers to the bridge of his nose.

“What now?” I asked, peering over the ledge.

Bowen sighed and shifted on his heels, looking over the wall before crouching back down beside me. “Unless a mage magically appears to remove your binds, we have no choice but to go through those gates.” His eyes met mine. “Now we fight our way out.”