Page 115 of Daughter of the Drowned Empire
“Arkturion,” I said, wiping at the disgusting taste in my mouth.
“Soturion,” he said, “you missed the habibellum.”
“Sorry, I was incapacitated.”
“Yes,” Turion Dairen said. “You passed out rather completely. Strange, when we don’t allow for any contact to the head.”
My eyes found Rhyan’s across the arena. Did Dairen suspect us? Know what we’d done?
“I thought I lasted pretty long,” I countered.
Dairen scoffed.
“I told you, Aemon,” the Imperator said. “This is a waste of valuable resources. She missed the habibellum with her weakness, and I didn’t see a single properly executed maneuver to escape the five or fight back. Her grace is just as powerless now as the girl she was weeks ago. What has she been doing for the past month?”
“She’s been training. She’s on the mat with me every single day and has never missed a class,” Rhyan yelled. He was pale. The scar running through his left eye was red against his skin. I’d never seen him look so weak, like he was struggling just to stand. Sweat perspired around his forehead, and his hair curled at the ends. “She’s doing her best.”
“Her best?” asked the Imperator. “Considering what’s at stake for her grace, I’d imagine she wouldn’t be picking and choosing which parts of training she deigns to do.”
“She’s not,” Rhyan shouted.
“By my reports, she knew nothing her first day—had not studied, had not prepared. She skipped her very first combat clinic. And tonight she was late. That does not sound to me like someone taking her training seriously. Nor does it sound like someone who’s going to improve. We follow the chain of command here. And Lady Lyriana Batavia has not been following. She has disobeyed her Arkturion several times, a crime which demands punishment.”
A hush of astonishment made a wave through the crowd—a watery mixture of fear and vindication. Storming over the wave was a whirl of energy, a hurricane of dark power emanating from Aemon as his face changed, his expression no longer angry but furious.
“End it now,” the Imperator said. “She’s not doing her part. Clearly.”
“She will,” Aemon snarled, “when she realizes what it means to truly be a soturion. Turion,” he called to Dairen, “bring Soturion Lyriana to the pole.”
Everything hollowed out inside of me. “No!” I shouted, my ears ringing. “No!”
“Arkturion!” Rhyan yelled. “You can’t. She’s injured.”
“I can’t? Would you like to be next, Soturion?”
“Sir,” he said. “That’s not what I meant.”
“We follow the hierarchy of command,” Aemon said. “Something you’d do well to remember. The Imperator is right. Soturion Lyriana missed her first combat clinic. She chose to disobey the command. She chose to arrive late tonight. And now she will suffer the consequences.”
Dairen grabbed me around my waist, hauling my body across the field.
The shouts coming from the stadium seats—the howls of Kormac’s wolves—rang in my ears, mixing with the jeers of my classmates. It all became one unbearable blur of noise.
I tried to push my sandals into the ground and stop Dairen from dragging me forward, but all my strength was gone, replaced by battered muscles and bones. Struggling against him hurt. He was holding me too tightly, his fingers pressing into sensitive bruises as he brought me before the pole.
It was impossibly tall and black, stretching into the night above me, promising punishment and pain.
Dairen pulled me forward. I felt the exhaustion consuming me, my consciousness fading as my body attempted to manage my injuries. He pressed me against the pole, which was shockingly hot and dry, having absorbed heat from the fires of the arena. He lifted my arms just like he had Pavi’s, securing the rope around my wrists, then pulled them up so high I stumbled forward, my chest smashing into the rounded metal as I tried to find balance on my toes.
“POLE! POLE! POLE!” The shouts grew louder, and with them, so did my panic.
My body started to shake. Every part of me hurt. I was having trouble breathing, tied up like I was, like an animal, with over five hundred wolves from Korteria howling at me.
“Aemon!” Tears fell freely down my face. I’d seen what this had done to Pavi, and she had magic in her body. “Aemon, please!”
He was already by my side, eyebrows drawn tightly together. “I’m sorry,” he said quietly. “If there was any other way, I’d take it. But there isn’t. They came here for this. They were waiting. Lyr, you sealed your fate being late and with that one skip. They knew. I have no choice. You have to be punished.”
“Aemon,” I sobbed. “Please. I’m sorry. I’m so sorry. I’ll never do it again.”
