Page 25 of Daughter of the Drowned Empire
“You?” Morgana bit her lip. “We think so.”
I followed the scene that depicted me walking through a darkened forest. An akadim appeared, three times my size in every way, its features sharp and grotesque. Its wide mouth swallowed the sun and then opened to release the moon. Meera had painted my arms sprouting black feathers. In the next image, I was no longer human but a seraphim flying beneath the moon. A seraphim with black feathers.
“A black seraphim?” I felt hollow. “I saw that image twice today. First on a flag and then on the pins of that vendor. He tried to tell me it was the sigil of Ka Batavia.” It had seemed like an honest mistake at the time, but…three black-winged seraphim in one day?
Meera paled. “But our seraphim are gold. What…what does that mean?”
“I don’t know—Morgs?”
Morgana shook her head. “I’ve never seen that before. There’s no such thing as black seraphim.”
I fought through the twisting nerves in my gut. “I think it’s important. The first person I saw with it was shouting ‘shekar arkasva.’”
“False arkasva,” Morgana said, reading my mind for the translation. She frowned. “I’ll listen for anyone thinking that phrase.” She pulled out her stave, lighting a fresh roll of moonleaves before taking a puff.
I returned my attention to the black seraphim on the wall, further unnerved as I glanced at the broad brushstrokes that turned me into a black seraphim. In the next panel, I was in flames. The final image was of me again. Meera had captured my exact likeness—my hazel eyes, heart-shaped face, strong nose, and bright red hair. A black hole stood in place of my mouth, like I was screaming.
I stepped back into the doorway as the air rushed from my chest. The expression she’d painted on me was identical to the one Meera wore during her first vision. The same face Jules had made. I exhaled sharply, my stomach sinking.
“Lyr?” Morgana’s voice was gentle. “We don’t know that it means anything. The black seraphim or Meera’s vision.”
“They never mean anything,” Meera said sadly, black paint on her cheeks.
“I know it doesn’t mean anything,” I snapped. “There’s no such thing as black seraphim!” I slammed her door and stormed to my room, watching the sun sink down and wishing I was just a normal girl celebrating my Revelation Ceremony and birthday. But Jules was gone, and nothing was okay, and I was either about to be engaged to a man I could never trust or lose everything I’d fought to protect. We’d kept our secrets for two years because I bore the weight. I carried the burden and carried my sisters along. But if the pattern continued…Ka Batavia would become the new scary story used to terrify noble children.
Meera and Jules had visions. The first order of vorakh. Morgana could read minds, the second order. Logic demanded I be the third, that I manifest traveling. Logic also demanded that everything ended for us tonight. My father had concealed two expressions of vorakh right under the Imperator’s feral nose. We’d never pull it off a third time. We couldn’t be that lucky.
I slipped on my white robes, fixed my hair, centered my diadem over my forehead, the gold weighing down on me, and waited alone in my room for the sound of bells that would signal it was time to meet my fate.
CHAPTER SEVEN
ISATONthefloor at the center of the Temple of Dawn beside my fellow initiates—every nineteen-year-old of the southern half of the Empire without magic. Tristan’s cousin Haleika had propped herself next to me, along with Galen. They kept looking at each other and turning away before the other noticed. It was sort of cute—the kind of thing another version of me would have delighted in and gossiped about all night.
But all I could think about was Jules, sitting in this very spot two years before. She’d been so excited, so hopeful…. My stomach twisted.
I caught Naria’s eye on the opposite side of Auriel’s Chamber. My cousin turned her nose up and returned her attention to the young man beside her, a blonde soturion-to-be with the same black, soulless eyes as Imperator Kormac; he was the Imperator’s eldest son and Heir Apparent, Lord Viktor Kormac, great-nephew of the Emperor.
He turned his gaze on me. It was filled with an unexpected boldness, not in league with the level of deference and respect shown to an Heir to the Arkasva. Viktor, Lord and Heir to the Arkasva, in his own right outranked me, but not in my own country. He was one of the few here possessing the rare privilege of wearing a diadem, dark silver and shaped like wolf claws across his forehead. I glared until I realized Imperator Kormac sat in the pew right behind him. Panic rose in my chest.
The eternal flames crackled, flashing shades of green, blue, purple, and white again, as Arkmage Kolaya stepped onto the dais, her white robes trailing behind her. Her golden belt with seven straps of cloth holding Valalumir stars in every color swayed as she settled into place, pressing her hands together and chanting the invocation. Scrolls of the Valya hovered in their honeycombed shelves of the temple walls and floated through the seven rays until every Lumerian in attendance was seated and in possession of the text.
I readjusted my robes and shifted, unable to get comfortable. I hadn’t eaten dinner; I was too nervous. But now my stomach was rebelling, roiling with hunger.
I twisted to peer at my family’s pews where Meera was still and pale in her seat. Morgana looked stiff next to her, unnaturally so. She’d had three glasses of wine at dinner and carried a silver flask full of fermented moon tea inside her belt. But her black eyebrows were tensed, her face contorted with pain. Her diadem had already shifted off center. She swayed in her seat as a middle-aged mage cast her eyes down on her in disapproval. I’d seen the judgmental looks before, the snide comments of how hard it must be to live as we did in Cresthaven, wealthy Heirs to the Arkasva. What a pity that the Lady Morgana was drinking it all away.
The stories hurt. But it was better they saw her as a drunk than a vorakh.
Kolaya’s chants, the annual retelling of the story of the God Auriel stealing the Valalumir from Heaven and falling to Earth for the love of Goddess Asherah, came to an end. The Valya scrolls rolled up, floating back into the walls. My father limped onto the stage, the Laurel of the Arkasva glowing golden atop his dark hair.
“Citizens of Bamaria, my fellow Lumerians and guests, tonight on the auspicious and forgiving evening of Auriel’s Feast Day, we welcome a lost soul to our midst,” he said solemnly.
A set of doors burst open from the temple’s green ray. Two golden-armored soturi of Ka Batavia hauled Rhyan forward like a prisoner. He still wore his ruined cloak and uniform, but he looked clean and freshly shaven. His mess of curls had been shampooed and somewhat tamed. The soldiers reached the center of the Chamber, walking through one of the thin aisles between initiates, and lifted Rhyan on stage, forcing him to his knees before everyone.
Tristan’s expression tensed from his seat. Mages and soturi stirred in every corner of the temple, their whispers quickly building into murmurs that echoed off the walls.
“He should be dragged to the border,” came a whisper from behind me.
I turned and glared at the girl from Ka Elys. “You disagree with the decisions of your Arkasva?”
