Page 35 of Daughter of the Drowned Empire
Rhyan frowned. “The Lady Julianna, you mean?”
I bit my lip, tears welling behind my eyes. “Yes.” My voice came as a whisper.
Rhyan took a step forward. “I was sorry to hear when that happened.”
I stopped, wanting to laugh and cry at the same time. My heart felt like it was being squeezed too tight. I hadn’t expected that. Hadn’t expected him—of all people—to be nice. And certainly not about Jules.
“Most tell me to forget her,” I said, throat raw. Tristan was among those people. “That I should be glad she’s gone.”
“Vorakh doesn’t make a person who they are. And even if she was…bad, or whatever, she was still your cousin, and you have a right to grieve. But, for the record, she was a good person,” Rhyan said quietly. “At least from my interactions with her, she was kind. I’m sorry for your loss.”
A sob built deep inside me, one I had to swallow. For years I’d needed to hear that, needed one person to say they were sorry, to remember Jules with me—the way she was.
Two years. Two years had passed since her death, and Rhyan was the first who ever offered me condolences.
I wanted to ask him more—ask him what his every interaction with her had been like and tell him how amazing she’d been, and how much I’d loved her, and how much fun we used to have, and how hard we used to laugh. But the walls around me were closing in. She’d been brought here on this night two years ago, screaming and under the thrall of her vorakh before she’d been bound. How had she felt down here? Had she been scared? Had she been alone? Had she suffered under the Bastardmaker? Had anyone done anything? Stepped in? Cared? I shivered, my chest tightening. I didn’t even know the full circumstances of her death, of how exactly she had died, and the not knowing…it ate at me every day.
Bells rang as the timekeeper called the hour. I glanced up, just catching the flash of blue light from ashvan galloping beneath the moon. That was when I realized the moon’s position.
It was the middle of the night.
“How many hours since my arrest?” I asked urgently.
Rhyan gazed up, squinting. “Three.”
“Three! Is that all? Are you sure?” I asked.
“Is the time not passing quickly enough for you?”
I’d seen my father and Tristan, but not my sisters. Surely if my father could come, they could have, would have…but they hadn’t. Panic gripped me over their absence. Perhaps they’d thought it best to go home for appearances…but what if they’d been kept from me? My chest tightened.
“Any other scandals tonight? Was anyone else arrested?” I asked anxiously. Was that why my father had looked so scared?
Rhyan scrunched one eyebrow in confusion. “No. Your sisters were briefly detained for questioning.”
“Who took them? Where are they?” I clutched at my chest, the tightness around my heart suffocating.
“They’re fine,” he said. “Already released, home at Cresthaven. Are…are you all right?”
They were home. Safe at Cresthaven. But for how long? Meera had just had a vision, which put her in a safe window for the next few weeks, but Morgana…she’d need my help, especially after being in such a large crowd. Plus, the examiner was coming from Ka Maras to investigate me. What if they extended the investigation to Meera? To Morgana? Would the Imperator suggest it? Or would Tristan—in some weird attempt to prove our innocence? I thought of all the things I needed to do at home for them and felt the desperate clawing instinct to protect them, to keep my family safe, to not let another member of my household be lost. To do all the things I couldn’t do for Jules, that I should have done for Jules. But I couldn’t—I couldn’t protect them. I couldn’t even protect myself. I was here. Like Jules had been. And they were….
I was spiraling. Each breath felt like an unreachable mountaintop, the next cliff too far away. My vision blurred, and the blackness threatened to drown me once more. The cell looked increasingly smaller, the walls unstable, the ceiling lower. I was losing it, losing all sense of reality.
“Your grace?” Rhyan gripped the cell bars. “Lady Lyriana.”
I couldn’t respond. I clutched my chest, nails digging into my skin. I’d worked so hard to hold it together, to appear strong before the Imperator. But I wasn’t strong. I was weak. I was a seraphim barely concealed behind the mask of a gryphon. I’d let Jules die, and now I was here, and I….
“Lyriana!”
Rhyan was calling my name, but I couldn’t respond. His voice sounded far away, like there were walls between us. Walls that were crumbling, crashing down on me.
“Auriel’s bane. Lyriana!” Rhyan stretched his arm inside my cell. “Take my hand.”
The gesture was so at odds with every interaction I’d had with Rhyan, I stared, incredulous. “What?”
“I’m not having you shatter on me. You need something to hold onto. Now, take my hand,” he said again.
Take my hand.
