Page 23 of Son of the Drowned Empire

Chapter Twenty-Two

“ W hat was the plan, you foolish idiot?” Ronan asked. “Always knew you’d be nothing but trouble.” He jerked his chin at the guards on either side of me, two distant cousins of Ka DeTerria. One had the traditional black curls, the other was bald with a jagged scar on his neck. “Fucking Bowen. Can’t trust anyone.” He stretched his neck then removed a vadati from his belt, eyeing me up and down with a look of disgust on his face. “Devon,” he said.

“Ronan,” my father’s voice barked through the stone, now brightly lit with blue. “Find him?”

I could feel his anger even now, and my entire body was shaking.

“We’ve apprehended him, Your Highness,” Ronan said. “Found him trying to cross the border on gryphon-back.”

“Myself to Moriel. Bring him to me immediately,” my father yelled. “Call off the search. Tell everyone it was a mistake and he’s with me.”

“At once, Your Highness.”

“Rhyan!” he roared, the vadati pulsing with his voice. “You listen to me. Enough of these games. Time to stop acting like a pathetic child and face what you’ve done like a man. You think you can just take a life and not suffer the consequences? Now you have people dying for you—for you! For no fucking reason. We’re losing soturi because you can’t accept reality. If you think you’ve been punished before, you have no idea what’s coming.”

Survive. Just survive.

I closed my eyes. I had only one chance to fight back. It had to be here, on the ground. If I was brought back to Seathorne, if I was brought back to my father, that was it. I’d never have another chance. And Bowen would have wasted his.

I wiggled my fingers, flexing my arms, testing, straining, resisting their hold.

The vadati stone’s light faded, and I was hauled before Ronan.

And then… Garrett’s voice was in my head, clear as it had been when he’d been alive.

Stop the threat, he said, just like always.

Maybe it was my imagination, maybe I was so desperate for help I’d hallucinated, but I felt it—my strength, my power. This wasn’t kashonim . My lineage had been cut. But I could swear Garrett’s energy was here, helping me. Like there was some final link between us, some connection allowing me to draw strength from him, to draw hope. The scar on my back was suddenly alive, burning the way it had when our blood oath had been first forged.

I fisted my hands, lifted onto my toes, and slammed down, sliding out from their hold. I rolled forward, jumped to my feet, and unsheathed my blades.

All three soturi ran for me, and in the distance, I could see another.

“Rhyan!” Ronan roared.

The black-haired soturion was before me, his eyes dark and spelling death. I didn’t wait, didn’t think. I struck with my sword, pushing it through his belly.

He fell immediately, a stunned, blank look in his eyes.

Some part of my mind was going into shock. I knew where I’d struck him, knew the blow would kill him before he got help. I’d just killed one of Dario’s cousins. Now I was the killer my father had claimed me to be.

But it was his life or mine.

My sword met the neck-scarred soturion’s blade just as Ronan grabbed me from behind. I stabbed backward with my dagger. He groaned in pain. I pulled out the dagger and slammed my head back into his just as I brought my sword forward again.

The steel sang as it met my opponent’s, hard enough to force him back.

Ronan released his hold on me. I lunged forward. I knew I had one more chance with the stunned soturion. They’d underestimated me, heard I was weak, heard I was bound, felt my lack of strength when they’d grabbed me.

Now, they were suffering for it.

“Take him down,” Ronan ordered.

Another lunge, a step. The scarred soturion reached behind his back, withdrawing his second blade. I could see death in his eyes. I didn’t wait—I jumped, knocking him to his back.

“Forsworn bastard!” he growled, knocking the sword from my hand. He flipped me onto my back. My lungs wheezed as his hand tightened around my neck. I reached for his, my fingers pressing into his scar. He hissed in pain before he drew his dagger over my heart. “Got you.” He drew the point up and pressed the tip of the blade against the base of my throat.

“Enough,” Ronan said. He stepped forward. I was out of time.

I glanced beside us. With the right stretch, I could reach my sword. I grimaced, my muscles burning as I reached. My fingers wrapped around the hilt. With a grunt, my breathing thinning, I lifted the sword, angled the blade, and brought it down on the soturion on top of me.

“No!” Ronan said.

“I’ve got hi—” The soturion’s eyes widened, and his hold on me tightened.

I gasped, unable to breathe, my strength fading.

Then, I pulled the sword up, but I was too weak to hold it above my head. I threw my arm out to the side, and with everything I had left, I plunged it into him.

I turned my head away just as the blood spilled from his mouth, and I pushed him off me.

Ronan was roaring at me, flinging himself onto my body. The air again went out of my lungs in a whoosh as his knee dug into my stomach. One hand trapped my arm against the cold ground. My heart began to pound, not with fear or guilt but with another sensation I knew far too well.

His aura was wild, erupting around me, full of malice and violence. There was something there I hadn’t seen before, hadn’t noticed all these years, something that I should have recognized. Ronan possessed the kind of anger and hatred I’d only ever felt from my father, the hurricane of vitriol that only came when he was mad at me, when he wanted to hurt me, when he was hurting her.

In all of our years of friendship, I’d never seen a bruise on Dario. He’d hinted at knowing what my father did to me but had never said anything about my scars. He always had the right salve to help them fade. And Dario’s anger from the night Kenna had been hurt; he’d come so close to asking me again. Just before I’d left, he’d sat down, said my name… like he’d wanted to tell me something, reveal something.

All of Dario’s drinking, his volatile moods, the way he fought… I was seeing it differently now, seeing the shadow of my father’s reflection in Ronan.

He dug his knee into my belly as he choked me with his hand.

There were shouts in the distance. More soturi were on their way. They’d be here in minutes.

I could feel the scream in my chest, desperate to explode. Stars played at the edge of my vision. I couldn’t breathe. I’d be unconscious soon and brought before my father.

The blood oath felt like fire on my back. I focused all my strength on the arm he had pinned and shoved. Caught off guard, he loosened his grip, just for a moment.

It was all I needed. I freed my hand, reached for his neck, and dug my fingers in. He jerked against me. But then he wrapped both hands around my throat.

I flailed and kicked.

Then, a monstrous growl curled against the wind.

Ronan froze, looking up.

I felt a shadow looming behind me. My heart stilled. Akadim?

With a grimace, Ronan eyed the creature. My gryphon was on the ground behind us, agitated. Her wings fluttered, and her squawk sounded desperate.

Something flew at Ronan, too fast for me to see. One second, he was cutting off my air, and the next, he was on his back. A trail of blood ran down my torso.

My lungs filled and. I gasped, coughing as the crushing pain began to fade. I sat up slowly, still dizzy from the lack of air. My knees wobbled, and Ronan screamed in pain as I rose to my feet.

When I looked closer, I realized it wasn’t akadim attacking. It was the red gryphon.

He turned, his red wings fluttering, as he leapt from Ronan. Ronan had been mauled, but he was still moving.

The rest of my father’s men were approaching. If Ronan died, it was on me, just like the deaths of the other two soturi.

The Afeyan gryphon bounded forward. He’d grown even bigger since I’d seen him weeks earlier. Artem would be proud.

He reached my side and lay on his belly. He wore no saddle, no strap. It would be up to me to hold on. I climbed up, hearing Ronan’s faint yell.

The gryphon sprang to his feet, not waiting for me to adjust. He tore past the border, running faster than any other gryphon I’d trained with. We were in the air in seconds.

The first arrow whooshed by, missing us completely. The next two grazed dangerously close to my leg.

“Mahara!” I yelled.

Another arrow shot past us, another just an inch from the gryphon’s front paw. The next arrow hit.

“NO!” I screamed as the rope unfurled and began tying itself around the gryphon’s front leg.

I tried to reach forward, to untie it, but it was too far from me, and without a harness, I’d fall.

The rope went taut, and my gryphon screeched in annoyance. His entire body jerked back, and we dropped several feet in altitude as I screamed, “No! No!”

The gryphon’s feathers were standing on end, his wings spread wide. We dipped, tilting to the side, and I barely held on, preparing to fall.

But the gryphon righted itself, soaring higher and higher. I looked down. The rope around his leg was torn.

This gryphon hadn’t been raised like the others. He hadn’t been taught to fear the rope. He hadn’t been taught that the rope was stronger. He was stronger, and he knew it.

So was I. I’d escaped Glemaria. I’d escaped my father. Now I was going to face my past. It was the only way I could have a future.

I steered to the west, my stomach rolling. It was time. I was going to survive.

“To Hartavia,” I called, just as the sun began to rise.