Page 19 of Daughter of the Drowned Empire
“You can’t stop me.” I exited the litter, signaling for Tristan’s escort to accompany me forward. “Make a path.”
The escort nodded, stave already drawn, and much to the annoyance of the crowd before me, they were forced to step aside, parting the way. Tristan’s grandmother didn’t trust soturi, so she only relied on the most skilled mages for protection. I was grateful for that then.
“Lyr!” Tristan yelled, leaping from the litter behind me.
I quickened my pace and headed down my makeshift aisle, reaching the center. Shock at a girl simply pushing her way to the front of the fight caused some of the crowd to still and watch me. My throat hitched from the attention.
I found the young man, still surrounded, dodging hits and kicks as his attackers grunted and closed in around him. He fell to the ground, his face smashing against the waterway.
“Stop! Release him at once.”
“Under whose orders, girl?” snickered the soturion watching me.
“Under mine. You stand in the streets of Urtavia, Bamaria, ruled by Arkasva Batavia. Ka Kormac has no authority here. Now cease and let him go. I command you.”
The crowd laughed at my demand. The soturi were amused enough to stop attacking. As he jumped to his feet, the young man’s eyes landed on me. They were a bright, brilliant green, and for a second my chest tightened, my heart skipping. I knew those eyes, that exact shade of green. I’d dreamt of them for years.
Time stopped, I was dancing under the stars, staring into those eyes.
Rhyan. Rhyan was here.
His eyes flashed with recognition, running up and down my body before settling on my face. One dark eyebrow lowered, his lips quirking into a smile. “Hello, lover.”
I froze, my heart pounding.
“Go home, girl,” shouted the soturion. “Asherah.” He gestured crudely between his legs.
“You brute!” I took a deep breath before I lost my nerve and pulled back my hood. My hair spilled across my shoulders in long, wild waves. Deep brown a moment ago, the strands now lit up beneath the sun into an unmistakably bright, fiery red. Batavia red.
The crowd went silent, and the soturi stilled. Several Lumerians standing close to me backed away, their heads hanging low, before they sank and prostrated to their knees.
“I am Lady Lyriana Batavia, Heir to the Arkasva, High Lord of Bamaria. And you will release him at once.”
CHAPTER SIX
MYORDERTOthesoturi left them stunned, and while their mouths dropped and eyebrows scrunched together, my mind raced over what I was seeing.
What in Lumeria was Rhyan doing here? Or, rather, what was his Grace, Lord Rhyan Hart, Heir Apparent, doing here?
Lord Rhyan was from the North, the opposite end of the Lumerian Empire. His father was not only Arkavsa Hart, High Lord of Glemaria, he was Imperator to the North—the twin in power, and cruelty, to Imperator Kormac.
Ka Kormac was the most brutish and violent of the Kavim in the south. Imperator Kormac, the source of my nightmares, ran his country with an iron fist, a fist he’d extended to my country and to Jules. But the horrors I’d heard of Korteria, Ka Kormac’s country, were nothing compared to the whispered cruelties committed on the snowy mountains of Glemaria, where Rhyan hailed from.
Students at their Soturion Academy were frequently killed in training or injured to the point of forced withdrawal. A year ago, rumors spread that Rhyan had killed a fellow classmate with his bare hands during a tournament in honor of the birthday of his father, the Imperator.
Twice, Lord Rhyan had visited Cresthaven, accompanying Imperator Hart on official state business. First, for a summer when I was seven, and then again for a month just before I’d turned sixteen. That first summer, he’d mostly stalked around the fortress looking too beautiful for his own good and bored out of his mind. He ignored every attempt made by me and my sisters to be friendly, scowling with derision whenever we said hello or sat down to dinner.
It seemed every other day his father was growling for him to come to some state meeting or scolding him for one of the many fights he’d started. I could feel the snowstorm of the Imperator’s rage from the other end of Cresthaven. The first time, I’d been scared his father would blow Cresthaven down until Jules assured me auras didn’t have that kind of power.
But when Rhyan had come to visit the second time, nineteen and a novice soturion, I’d been mesmerized by his eyes, so bright, so green, like glittering emeralds. He’d been cold then, too, snide and full of vitriol. But that visit had coincided with the summer solstice celebration, and we’d ended up sharing a dance beneath the stars. With his arms tight around me, his fingers threaded through mine, our palms pressed together, he’d seemed different. Sweet. Almost vulnerable. When the dance was over, we’d disappeared into the forest, hand in hand. I leaned back against a sun tree, and there, he’d kissed me, slowly, with such surprising sweetness. The icy exterior he’d projected had completely melted away as he held me like I was precious, so gentle in that stolen moment. He had been my first kiss.
Rhyan looked almost the same as before—a little older, a little rougher, his jaw more squared and in need of a clean shave. But there was one marked difference in his appearance. A red, angry-looking scar crossed through his left eyebrow and eye.
“Shekar arkasva!Daughter of a usurper!” The shout came from deep within the crowd, pulling me from Rhyan’s gaze. Cheers answered in support, screaming like a rising wave through the mob.
The wolfish soturi smirked harsh, toothy grins. They understood crowds as well as I did, and it was obvious what had happened. Neither Ka Kormac nor Ka Batavia were popular in Bamaria at the moment. But in the battle of who was least popular at that exact second, I had lost the crowd to the bastards of Ka Kormac. With one snarl in my direction, they resumed their fight. The path Tristan’s escorts made began to falter. One second, Tristan stood right behind me; in the next, dozens of people surged around us.
“Lyr!” Tristan pushed through the crowd, fighting his way back to me, his remaining escort fast on his heels, staves drawn. “LYR!”
