Page 4 of Son of the Drowned Empire

( One year later)

“Right there?” I gasped.

“Yes,” Kenna breathed. “Yes… right… fuck.” She tightened, clamping down around me with her release until I had no choice but to follow.

I groaned into her shoulder, pulling her closer against me. Her chest flattened against mine, and my fingers squeezed her ass as I pumped up into her one last time.

With a final moan, Kenna collapsed into my arms, her head on my shoulder, both our bodies covered in sweat.

Struggling to catch my breath, I gingerly slid myself out as I lifted her up and off my lap. I was already softening. She rolled contentedly beside me and stretched, arms over her head, her back arched like a cat’s.

“Can I get you anything?” I asked, turning away. I slipped on a pair of short-pants before I took a long sip of water from a glass on my nightstand. I had a second glass prepared for her and held it out in offering.

“Thanks,” she said with a satisfied sigh, taking a long sip before lying back.

I opened the curtains, letting in the morning sun, catching the tail end of a gryphon’s wing as it soared past, its feathers gleaming with bronze and silver. Before I could sit back on the bed, there was a violent pounding on my door.

I squeezed my eyes shut in frustration. “Not now, Bowen!”

“Lord Dario demands your immediate attention, Your Grace,” he said. “If you’re… ready to receive guests.”

“Rhyan!” Dario’s voice boomed through the door. “Come on, man!”

I squinted at Kenna. “The hell’s he doing awake?”

Lord Dario DeTerria, the son of Glemaria’s Master of Peace Turion Ronan DeTerria, and my best friend, was many things. A morning person, Dario was not. After Kenna went on her way, I’d been planning to go to his apartment at the Soturion Academy and wake him myself. It was Auriel’s Feast Day, so no training was scheduled in the Katurium, but as nobles and sons of the Glemarian Council, we were both still expected to appear in Court this morning, a responsibility we’d known since birth not to take lightly. Well, it was a responsibility I did not take lightly.

Somehow, said responsibility of keeping Dario on schedule had fallen on me during the past year of training. I discovered more mornings than not had required me going to Dario’s bedroom and dragging him out to the arena. Sometimes I dressed him myself for training. Thanks to me, he had a perfectly pristine and unlashed back.

I hadn’t been afforded the same courtesy, not by my father nor our arkturion.

There was another knock on my door.

Kenna shrugged. “Might as well let him in and see what he wants.”

I eyed her naked body. “Did you want to get dressed first?”

She shrugged again with a sigh, twirling her light brown hair behind her shoulder. “Nothing he hasn’t seen before.” She sat up, reaching for her undergarments. “Let him in before he dies of impatience.”

I waited for her to at least step into her shift, not wanting to give Bowen an eyeful, before I yelled back, “Fine!”

The door burst open, revealing a bright-eyed Dario, already dressed in his full soturion uniform. His black leathers were shined to perfection, his boots laced up to his knees. He wore his dark hair curled and half tied back with a leather strap—the style he’d adopted for training. Sauntering forward, Dario’s hand jauntily played with the hilt of his sword, the edge of the blade turning to flame as he stepped into the sunlight.

“Morning. A good morning, I see.” He lifted his eyebrows in appreciation at Kenna, who’d just covered her breasts. “My Lady Kenna.”

“Lord Dario.” She rolled her soft brown eyes, as she pulled her dress over her slim hips.

“You want me to help with the laces?” I asked, already moving for her, but Dario beat me to it.

“I got her.” He winked, adjusting the position of Kenna’s dress at her waist, straightening the fall of its folds. Gathering her hair off her back, Kenna stood still as Dario expertly threaded the ties of her bodice.

Kenna had been Dario’s lover for a period of time. Their relationship had been like ours: not so much a passionate love affair but one of mutual convenience between friends.

In my case, it was a convenience that kept my father off my back. Kenna was the eldest daughter of Arkturion Kane, perhaps the only member of Ka Gaddayan to not have been born pure evil. Both our fathers wanted us together. Every father of a daughter who sat on the Glemarian Council or father who could consider himself part of the nobility wanted the same—for their daughter to be the future wife of the Arkasva. For them to be wed to me.

After I’d been through enough manipulations on their ends, some daughters attempting to force a betrothal with pregnancy scares (something I’d quickly put an end to with a rather expensive bit of magic) or feigning truly falling in love with me and claiming heartsickness, Kenna and I had fallen into bed together last spring. Partly out of loneliness, partly just to get our fathers off our backs. No engagement had been announced—something we both knew they would decide in the end. But at least for the moment, both rulers seemed pleased at our arrangement though the arkturion claimed in public that Kenna was a model of innocence and purity. As if it mattered. She and I had no true love for each other beyond that of friends, and I was positive that that was exactly how things would continue between us however long we kept this going for. Perhaps forever.

I was almost sure that the act of falling in love was one that was no longer a part of my future. I’d had my chance. I’d fallen. I’d lost her. Nearly lost myself. That was it. It was over, and it was never going to happen for me again. There’d be no one else for me. No one but her.

No new stirring in my heart. Only the strengthening of my will.

I cleared my head of her name, her scent, even the color red, pushing it all down as I’d done nearly every day for the last two years. It hurt too much to remember. And it wasn’t fair to Kenna.

I tried to focus on the positive. It was a small comfort that if Kenna and I were forced to marry, at least we had an understanding. And a strong enough ability to communicate in bed—enough to take pleasure from each other. Although admittedly, it often felt more like we were taking from the other rather than sharing an experience together. But when Kenna was in my bed, for a few moments—or hours—I could forget everything else. I could let my mind retreat and let my body take over. Feel pleasure. Real pleasure. Something more than my hand. Something less complicated than my affairs with the other nobles at Court. Or the ones who’d visited from the other northern countries.

But after it was over, much as I liked and cared for her, I sometimes felt empty. In some ways, I’d been more intimate with Kenna than anyone else in my life, and in others, it still felt like she was a stranger. Like we were actors pretending to play these roles, and when the play ended and we rolled out of bed, I was left a hollow shell of a person, reminded of just how truly alone I was.

This morning, the hollowness was heavy, like a hole had been punctured through my dormant heart, leaving a gaping wound down to my belly.

Fully dressed, Kenna relaxed back onto my bed, carefully moving the blankets to cover the place where we’d, well, come together.

Dario leapt onto the bed without abandon, crawling over Kenna’s outstretched body and patting the blanket beside him, signaling for me to join.

“Come on! Lie down,” Dario demanded. “It’s a holiday. Too early to be up.”

I glared but joined them on the bed. “Then, what the hell are you doing here?”

Dario stretched, his arms snaking around my shoulders and Kenna’s so we were forced to cuddle against him. “I may have been evicted from the bed of a not-so-friendly soturion. He was very friendly last night and extremely passionate about dick but woke up this morning with a newfound devotion to cunts. And cunts alone.” He smirked. “Not that I have any objection to them.” Dario winked at Kenna.

Kenna shook her head, her nose scrunched up as she laughed.

“And, so, you came all the way to the fortress to tell me?” I asked with a groan. “Why not just go home?”

“One, because for once, I’m not hungover, and I thought you’d be proud. Well, okay, I was hungover. Just a little. But I puked all over his door. Retribution! So now I feel fantastic. And two, because I needed to talk to you,” Dario said, his voice turning uncharacteristically serious.

“You puked? That’s my sign to go,” Kenna said, extricating herself from Dario’s arm. She sat up, leaning over him to squeeze my hand. “Thanks, Rhy.”

I sat up as well, kissing her cheek. “Anytime.”

Dario lifted his eyebrows, still lying between us, before pushing his cheek toward Kenna as she sat back. “What? No kiss for me?”

“Nope!”

“But I brushed my teeth,” Dario protested.

Kenna ignored him as she hopped off the bed, slipping on her boots and grabbing her shawl from my floor. “Enjoy your serious conversation. I’m going to find breakfast.”

I shifted out of bed as Kenna closed the door, cursing under my breath as I searched for pants. “Well?” I asked Dario, sliding a cleanish-looking pair over my legs. “What’s going on?”

Dario frowned, turning on his side, his head resting on his hand. “Isn’t sex supposed to put you in a good mood?”

“I am in a good mood,” I barked.

“Yes, I can see that. I’ve never seen you happier. If you looked in the dictionary for the word ‘happy,’ you’d see the scribes have made a rather exquisite rendering of your face.”

I glared.

“It’s also a holiday,” he said lightly.

“I’m thrilled,” I said, my voice deadpan.

It wasn’t just a holiday. It was the anniversary. Jules’s arrest. And it was her birthday. I’d managed to go months without thinking about her, banishing her from my thoughts, washing away the memory of her face from my dreams as I woke. But as this date had crawled forward, I’d found myself weakening, my mind wandering to her again and again, my mood worsening as I forced myself to forget.

Two years. Two fucking years since I’d seen her, touched her, tasted her. I still remembered every detail, every sound, every scent. The kiss…. The Godsdamned kiss.

I’d fucked so many girls since then, spent more hours literally inside of Kenna than I’d ever spent alone in Lyriana’s physical presence, but it didn’t matter. Lyr had crawled under my skin. She was still haunting me. No matter what I did or whom I invited to my bed, her memory, her scent, her taste…it all refused to fade.

“What did you have to tell me?” I finally asked.

“We need to do something about Aiden and Garrett.” Dario kicked off his boots and rolled onto his back, sinking deeper into my pillows.

“What do you mean? Are they fighting?”

“Worse. They’re fucking. All the time. Rhyan, it’s excessive, and this is me saying so. Not to mention they are not nearly as friendly as you are when I want to go back into my own Godsdamned apartment in the morning to rest. Well, except today.” He waggled an eyebrow at me.

“Right, because most people don’t like being interrupted mid-orgasm,” I said pointedly.

“No shit. And for the record, I didn’t interrupt. You and Kenna were done—trust me, I know exactly what that sounds like. But Aiden and Garrett… they’re never done!”

Dario and Garrett had been assigned together as roommates and shared an apartment at the Soturion Academy. I had my own down the hall as Heir Apparent. Not far from our building were the apartments for those in the Mage Academy where Aiden lived. However, the four of us had ended up drunk and passed out in Dario and Garrett’s place almost every night since our novice training had begun.

Until Aiden and Garrett got together. Unlike Dario, they were extremely private and possessive of the other. As well as insatiable.

My chest panged. I’d known that feeling. Briefly. Since then, beyond showing my lovers basic care and respect, nothing felt sacred enough to want to protect or keep secret. They all seemed to have the same attitude toward me, like I was replaceable, simply a body with a part they needed, serving a momentary purpose. Their own hearts remained as closed off as mine.

If Kenna came to me tonight and confessed that she wanted to end things and return to Dario’s bed, though I cared for her, I would let her go in an instant. I wanted her to be happy. I wasn’t sure I actually cared whom that was with. I’d barely feel a thing if I lost her, and certainly not sadness. If anything, I’d feel disappointment that I’d need to find a new shield against my father.

Fuck, that was depressing.

I slipped a shirt over my head. “So, that’s why you’re here? Aiden and Garrett are enjoying their morning and left you out?”

“Look, I was all for two of my best friends falling in love and getting their dicks hard. But not when it’s happening day and night in my apartment. Rhyan,” he said dramatically, “we have no choice. We’ve got to break them up.”

“Good luck with that,” I muttered. Those two were so in love with each other, it was a miracle they came up for air long enough to even acknowledge our existence. And though their relationship was still fairly new, we all knew they’d been in love with each other for years. It had just taken them both ages to find the courage to admit it. “Give them some time. They’ll cool off.”

“And you know this how? You live in cool. You’ve never gotten this heated over a lover.”

He didn’t know. None of them did.

I wouldn’t let our first kiss be in public.

“They will,” I said. “Just give them a minute to enjoy themselves. It’s new.”

Dario shook his head.

“Anything else?” I asked.

“Why, you have somewhere more important to be? I thought I’d go to Court with you today.”

“Of course, you did. Where else were you going to go?” I stifled a groan. “Let me shower first.”

Dario grinned. “Go on. I’ll have Bowen order breakfast.”

The rest of the day was uneventful. There were private parties to celebrate the feast day, a festival in town in Auriel’s honor, a morning session in Court, and then the Revelation Ceremony which, thank the Gods, was completed without anyone being arrested.

As each new mage or soturion stepped onto the dais to have their magic revealed, my mind wandered again and again back to her . To Lady Lyriana. To the temple in Bamaria where she’d be sitting at this very moment. Lady Morgana, her older sister, would be participating. Probably becoming a mage like all the other ladies of Ka Batavia.

The fact that I didn’t have confirmation of this fact made my chest tighten. If Jules was… if she were…then I’d know every detail. I’d have received multiple letters about it, letters about her dress selection for the night…and some kind of update on Lyr and Lord-fucking-Grey.

I flexed my fingers at my sides. Those specific updates did come from time to time, but from Senator Oryyan. They were not detailed, merely notifications that the courtship and alliance between Ka Grey and Ka Batavia still stood, despite no official word of betrothal—nor had there been any word of Lady Meera or Morgana finding matches. Arkasva Batavia seemed to be actively rejecting all prospects on their behalf. My father’s eyes always shot to me when the name Batavia was uttered, like he was testing me, taunting me. Then, he’d always follow with a pointed glance at my mother. I’d learned to keep a straight face, my aura under wraps, and my vorakh suppressed to the point of nonexistence. To keep him happy, keep protecting my mother.

To keep my heart from beating.

In all the updates we’d received the past year, no one ever spoke of Jules. It was as if she’d never existed.

As the Revelation Ceremony completed, I found myself out on the fields beyond Seathorne, sitting on the grass between Dario and Kenna, the three of us at least two mugs deep into our drinks. Drums beat into the night, and bonfires crackled around us. Musicians gathered in opposite corners of the party, their instruments battling for dominance as they each played a different song. Sitting in the middle of all the bands where we were, it all became some odd mix of noise that somehow worked together, though it was mostly just incredibly loud.

As expected, mages and soturi, drunk on their newfound power and wine, called on all the magic they could muster. Brawls were breaking out, untrained soturi testing their newfound abilities. Almost all of them ended up passed out on the ground while the mages released sparks into the sky, creating flashes of fireworks.

I was bored. I’d been to this party so many times before. It was always the same. The drinking. The fights. The false shows of power, the flirtations. I was a part of it all, and yet… not. I never felt like I truly belonged here—like I fit in. Everyone else was having fun. Enjoying themselves, celebrating.

And I wasn’t.

A noblewoman walked past, the firelight adding a glow to her hair, transforming the light brown shade to a bright fiery red. I felt my throat constrict, some of my dinner rising. Lady Amalthea. She looked back at me, our eyes meeting. Just as easily, she looked away like I was nothing, no one, and continued walking.

Kenna’s fingernails ran up my neck, tangling in the curls I needed to cut for the new year of training. “You want another drink, Rhy?”

Yes. No. I wanted everything and nothing all at once.

I wanted to want . But the hollowness didn’t let me. I’d sworn my will would be stronger than my heart, and now it was, and it had become so fucking hard to face each day this way. I just couldn’t…feel.

I shook my head and pulled Kenna onto my lap. She made a startled sound; I wasn’t usually one for public displays of affection. But the hollowness inside me was so overwhelming today. Gods, I just wanted to feel something. Anything. Myself to Moriel, I was prepared to fuck her in the middle of the field, to let the entire Soturion Academy watch if it meant this emptiness would go away.

My mind wandered, unbidden, to the south. Was the same kind of party happening there right now? Was Lyr sitting in a Bamarian field with Tristan, drinking and laughing? Was her hair up, was the night hot?

No, she wouldn’t be sitting, she’d be dancing. Her hips would be shimmying in perfect rhythm to the music, golden-sandaled feet stomping against the drums, blue ribbons around her wrists and ankles. Next, she’d be retreating to the trees with Tristan like we once had, because he was allowed to be with her, to protect her, to touch her, to love her…

Kenna’s lips crashed against mine; her fingers tangled in my hair. I opened her mouth to mine, sucking her tongue.

Her breath caught, and I pulled her closer, my body coming alive in all the ways my heart had been forbidden.

My hand rose up her waist, my fingers tickling the slight undercurve of her breast. “Let’s go somewhere,” I breathed.

“Real nice!” Dario said. “You know how rude this is to do in front of me and not invite me to join?”

Kenna pulled back and ran her palm across Dario’s cheek. “Jealous?”

“Yes!” He pouted. “You know how lonely I am?”

“Dario,” Kenna said, sliding out of my lap, “you’re not even a full day out from your last tryst. I think you’ll live.” She turned back to me, her eyebrows lifted in question. Where do you want to go?

But the moment had passed.

Two people holding hands in the shadows beyond our bonfire were walking toward us. Within seconds, their tall, muscular bodies came into view. One was adorned in the green cloak of a soturion, the other in the traditional blue robes of a mage. Garrett and Aiden. Garrett brushed his free hand through his blond waves, a feature so oddly soft against the muscles he’d developed in training. He always looked so much younger than he was—until he was in the arena. I’d seen him annihilate his opponents in the habibellum, leaving unconscious bodies in a circle around him. Garrett had even been responsible for injuring a soturion of Ka Gaddayan to the point of him being forced to drop out. It was an encouraged normalcy in the Academy—but one he’d always felt guilty about.

Aiden leaned his head on Garrett’s shoulder, and I watched, a feeling almost like longing moving through me, as they shared a quick brush of lips. Garrett pulled back smiling and lovingly kissed Aiden’s nose. Big and gryphon-like, Aiden reminded me so much of the beasts in human form. He was strong like them, too, unusually strong for a mage. If his mind hadn’t been so buried in scrolls, he’d have been a soturion to reckon with. As it was, he alone was the scholar, advancing even further in his High Lumerian studies than I had.

And I had advanced rather far.

Watching them now, I could so easily see that Aiden and Garrett looked right together. Happy. Whole. The opposite of everything I felt.

Dario downed the rest of his mug, slammed it on a rock beside me, and grabbed Kenna’s, swallowing what remained of her drink in one gulp.

“Dario! I wasn’t done with that.”

He ignored her. He had a determined look on his face as he eyed Aiden and Garrett up and down. “Finally,” he said, swaying before rising to his feet.

“Dario,” Kenna warned, realizing his aim. “Be nice.”

I stood, grabbing his arm. I knew what kind of mood he was in, and it wasn’t going to end well for anyone in our circle. He wasn’t just annoyed at Aiden and Garrett’s relationship; he was annoyed with Garrett in general. Nobles sharing spaces didn’t always work in everyone’s favor. I’d seen them nearly come to blows over where Dario had left his boots at the end of the night.

Honestly, they should have never been put together. Dario’s father was Master of the Peace, and Garrett, though not from a noble Ka, was the son of the official Turion of the Glemarian Council, Arkturion Kane’s Second in command. Too much power had been crammed into too small a space.

“Hey,” I said. “You’re not going to start something right now just because you’re bored and drunk.”

“I resent that accusation, seeing as I’m neither. I’m sleep deprived and tired of being kicked out of my own apartment. Just want to set some boundaries. Have a conversation.”

“Conversation? Come on, man, we both know what you’re trying to do here, and you’re too many cups in to not regret it. Wait until tomorrow.” Dario pulled out of my hold and stomped forward. I groaned, looking back at Kenna. “Sorry.”

She gave me a sympathetic smile but turned toward some of the other nobles sitting near us. She’d been friends with Dario since we were kids, and much as she adored him, she had little tolerance for his dramatics. At least, if he wasn’t warming her bed.

“Happy fucking feast day!” Dario roared, throwing his arms around Aiden and Garrett. “My friends!”

Aiden looked Dario up and down, always the most serious of our group and also the one least likely to be drunk. He brushed his fingers through his dark auburn hair. “Dario, have you eaten anything tonight?”

“Not as much as you, apparently. What have you been snacking on? Some di—”

“Okay,” I shouted, cutting him off.

Garrett offered me a weary look. He tended to have far less patience for Dario’s antics than Aiden did. He tightened his hold on Aiden’s hand, shifting his body protectively in front of him. “Dario, if you have a problem, just spit it out.”

“I do have a problem!” he shouted.

Before he could rant any further, the bells rang, a sudden burst of sound drowning out the music and the conversations of everyone on the field.

I frowned. We were not near the calling of the hour.

A second later, a gale-force wind nearly blew me back, and I looked up to the night’s sky just in time to see a gryphon swooping low across the fields. Debris from the party blew toward us, and everyone huddled together, squinting or shielding their faces.