Page 12 of Daughter of the Drowned Empire
Our seraphim settled at the port, flapping her wings slowly, offering me a gust of cool air until a port attendant floated a water bowl before her beak, and her wings stilled as she drank.
I caressed the gold encircling my arm, the place where I kept Meera’s secrets. It was a perfect match for the seraphim’s golden feathers. Tristan eyed it adoringly, the corner of his mouth lifting. He thought it was cute how I never took it off. A matching cuff was on my other arm, just over my newest wound, and an anklet concealed an unfortunate bruise.
He led me forward, his fingers entwined with mine as his escort returned with a litter adorned with gauzy white curtains that had been embroidered with silver moons. Of course. Ka Grey had to have silver everything in honor of their sigil. Tristan’s grandmother, Lady Romula Grey, never left her villa without silver dangling from her ears, fingers, arms, and any other place she could accessorize. The escorts returned and nodded at Tristan before standing back to make way for our ride.
Four mages stood beneath the litter, their eyes turned up in concentration as it hovered above their shoulders. The lead mage called out, and in unison, the rest dropped their gazes and stepped aside, allowing the litter to float to the ground for me and Tristan to enter.
We slid inside onto opposite benches filled with lush velvet pillows boasting silver embroidery. Tristan looked pleased. He started to draw the curtain shut, but I insisted on keeping it open. Shut curtains invited others to look inside and see who sat within. Open curtains forced onlookers to avert their eyes. And in any case, I’d come to see the festival. If I’d wanted to stare at curtains all day, I’d have stayed in my room.
We moved slowly, floating over the heads of the other guests in attendance. Lumerians from every corner of the Empire filled the streets. Couples sat outside restaurants, wine and fruit trays floating to their tables. The city was always full of bazaars and small shops, but vendors were ever present today, having set up tents and stalls full of tables to show off their wares and spells.
The people in the streets wore a bright clash of colors, all representative of their own countries and Kavim. The Lumerians hailing from Elyria wore orange, the color of Ka Elys, the tribe that replaced Ka Azria. Lumerians who’d sworn to Ka Elys but still lived in Bamaria wore purple. My eyes jumped to the Korterians moving through the crowd; the brutes wore Ka Kormac’s silver wolf on their tunics and pins of snarling wolf heads.
A troupe of dancers came next, full of girls from Ka Daquataine performing the traditional Lumerian water dance. Their hips rolled sinuously to the beating drums, their undulations perfectly in sync. Four girls stood outside the dance floor holding blue satin ribbons for each dancer to jump and step over. Additional ribbons were tied around each girl’s ankles, symbolizing the Lumerian Ocean.
The dance performed over Urtavia’s main waterway, full of blue streams, gave the girls the illusion of dancing on water. I knew a few magic spells completed the effect. One girl in the center caught my attention, her movements precise and fluid. Even the other girls seemed to be watching her for cues, as if they depended on her alone to keep the beat. I wondered why she wasn’t in the front row. She seemed to be the unofficial troupe leader. The dance ended and another began.
My gaze wandered beyond the performance. The streets appeared unusually empty of soturi.
Tristan leaned closer to me as I scanned. “None of those girls can move their hips like you.” He took my palm in his, slowly bringing it to his lips before sliding his hand around my waist. “You’re a far better dancer.”
As if I were jealous and needed reassurance from him. They were impressive, but I knew I was better. I rolled my eyes. “Studying under Bamaria’s top dance instructors will do that.” I loved water dancing, both watching and performing it. But I was more focused on picking out the soturi silently watching over the city. I recognized several from Ka Batavia wearing golden armor with thick shoulder plates sharpened into seraphim feathers that curled over their biceps. Their green cloaks, infused with Lumerian magic to camouflage and blend in with their surroundings, were hooded over their heads, even in the heat. The long material wrapped in pleats around their waist was held together by a leather belt with seven hanging straps, each one decorated with seven golden Valalumir stars sharp enough to slice off an arm or leg in battle.
But after scanning the rest of the street, I couldn’t find any more soturi. The numbers just didn’t add up. A day like today should have at least doubled the guard, especially after the attack on the border.
“Why aren’t there more soturi on patrol?” I asked.
“Because of the akadim attack?” Tristan traced lazy circles over my hip and nuzzled his face against my neck, his breath hot on my already heated skin. “That was a week ago. What are you worried about? You’re safe, and if it comes to it, you know I’ll protect you.” His hands rose up my torso, his fingers tickling the underside of my breasts.
I shook him off. “I know it was a week ago. But with the festival, our guard should be in full force. Riots could happen at any moment with these numbers.”
Tristan pressed a kiss to my shoulder and sat back. “You probably just can’t see them, Lyr. You’re not supposed to.” He shrugged. “They’re trained to be unseen.”
“I can always spot a soturion.” Knowing them and growing up in Cresthaven with the constant intention of sneaking out as a young girl had left me highly skilled in that arena. I used to have contests with Meera, Morgana, and Jules to see who could sneak the farthest away from Cresthaven before getting caught. I always won.
The crowd outside erupted into applause as the drums hit a crescendo and the dancers finished their performance. Tristan signaled to his escorts standing outside. The litter lurched, and we began floating forward. Quickly, I pulled several gold coins from my pouch and slipped them to an escort. He ran it over to the dancers and returned before Tristan noticed.
More shops and vendors appeared on the streets, and we floated past a troupe of acrobats and a greasy looking mage who’d trained an old seraphim to do tricks. I turned away in disgust. We used the seraphims for travel, but they were also part of the sigil of Ka Batavia. They were meant to be honored and respected, not turned into circus performers. The show ended, and the crowd dispersed, revealing Turion Brenna Corra, Master of Peace on my father’s Council. Brenna was one of the esteemed, earning at the young age of thirty the rank of turion, a general of the soturi. She was even rumored to be in line for arkturion one day. With the low number of soturi standing guard in the streets, I was relieved to see her. She was worth five soldiers.
Brenna shifted, and the steel starfire swords strapped to her back caught the sunlight. Instantly, the swords’ color turned from silver to red flames. It was the same effect the sun had on my hair. As she shifted again into the shade of a red store awning, the swords released their flames, returning to silver.
Bamaria’s timekeeper rang the warning bells for noon. Glimmers of onyx, moonstone, and topaz shined in the sky as our ashvan horses flew into the air, circling Bamaria as they did every hour to search for threats. The guards marched to their new posts, and Brenna stepped away from the awning.
That was when I saw them. The city was filled with soturi, just not our own. Instead of women and men in golden seraphim armor, everywhere I looked I found only brutish looking male soturi, all wearing silver armor and the sigil of Ka Kormac—a snarling wolf. These men were loyal to the Imperator and the Bastardmaker, hailing from the cruel hills of Korteria. I didn’t know them, so I hadn’t seen through their camouflage.
Leather sandals marched on the streets. The Soturi of Ka Kormac did not even try to blend in or hide; they blatantly showed themselves off to my people. Meanwhile the guard was changing, and every single soturion was a member of their soturi—not ours. A young soldier from Ka Kormac just reporting for duty stood beneath the sun, and his starfire sword, slightly thicker than any carried by Bamarian soturi, turned to flame. His eyes focused on me, staring right into the litter, and I glared back. I’d known they were present in Urtavia, but seeing just how many there were made my heart race. This wasn’t just a case of extra forces on the street after an attack or because of the festival. This wasn’t even about student safety, as Aunt Arianna wanted me to believe.
Ka Kormac, the soturi loyal to the Imperator, the man who had ended my cousin’s life and threatened everything I held dear, was occupying our city.
CHAPTER FOUR
SHOUTSSOUNDEDAROUNDus,aimed at the soturi marching through the streets. I wasn’t the only one dismayed at seeing the wolves. It was custom for foreign soturi to disarm in another country unless they were part of a personal guard. Their starfire swords and gleaming Valalumir stars hanging from their belts highlighted their wolf sigils, alerting everyone within the vicinity to their presence. The chaotic, light, quick energy of the festival-goers exploded into dark, hot, barely tempered rage.
“Go home!” came a shout.
“Back to Korteria, wolf-shit,” sounded another.
This spurred others on, and soon insults against Ka Kormac ricocheted through the streets. But just as quickly as they began, the tide turned. Against me.
