Page 21 of Lady of the Drowned Empire
But who? That was the part I hadn’t figured out. That was even more infuriating than being blindsided by Arianna’s treachery. Who on the Council had worked with her? Who else had betrayed us and managed to keep their secrets safe even in their minds?
Even from me.
I stared down at my left wrist. The two scars that had been there for two years were gone now, thanks to that Afeyan bastard. And because Lyr had let Rhyan in on our secret.
I scratched at the skin, bare and pristine, with no sign of ever having been marred. I’d railed against the blood oath that had sworn me to secrecy for years, done all I could to find a way to undo it, but I had to admit—my instinct now was to keep this new secret only between me and Lyr. And Meera when she woke.
But I knew we needed to tell Rhyan, too.
Lyr was thinking the same thing.
He was too close, too protective. And he was a strong and powerful ally to have in our corner. And…Lyr wanted him to know.
But I’d already been present for enough revelations tonight. I had one more job to do for my family, and that was it. I couldn’t do one more thing without my head exploding.
“Listen,” I said, reaching for Lyr’s arm. “Meera’s asleep. She needs her rest. I’ll fill her in on everything tomorrow morning. But right now, the most pressing emergency we have is getting all the paint off her walls.”
“You’re right,” Lyr said, putting on a brave face though she also looked completely exhausted. Rhyan watched her carefully, preparing to step in and tackle the physical labor on her behalf.
I shook my head. “No, I’ll do it.” I brandished my stave. I barely had the energy, but I was the only one capable of doing this in the timeframe we needed. Relying on the soturi in the room to do manual labor wasn’t going to cut it. “You go to your room. Fill him in.” I glared at Rhyan, letting my own aura of shadows unleash itself on him.
He froze, palms up in surrender, though his face showed his annoyance. Rhyan absolutely hated being told what to do. He only seemed to tolerate it from Lyr.
“I don’t need to threaten you with a blood oath, do I?” I pointed my stave toward his upturned wrists. “I hate them, but I’m also not above using them to protect my own.”
His fingers curled into fists. “I gave my oath to protect Lyriana a long time ago. There’s nothing in this world or the next that could make me break that. I keep her secrets, and in turn I keep yours. As I trust you with mine, Morgana. But you choose. You want me to submit to a blood oath? Ask.”
“Go,” I said, my stave warming in my hands, the incantation on the tip of my tongue.
Meera’s door shut behind them, and I closed my eyes, allowing their voices to soften behind the expanse of hallway and Lyr’s bedroom door.
I gripped my stave, my palm warm from its heat, the tip glowing with blue light as I uttered the incantation, pulling the paintings of Meera’s visions apart, removing each layer of color until two years’ worth of visions were gone. Afterward, Meera’s walls were bare, as white as they’d been when Jules had walked these halls.
I sucked in a breath, sweating from exertion, my head pounding. I checked Meera one more time. Maybe she wasn’t as expertly tucked in as she would have been with Lyr, but she was safe. She was in her bed and had enough blankets to keep her warm. She was breathing. It was good enough.
I’d felt the vision, too, but no one was tucking me into bed. And I’d been the one thrown into the ocean with far too many revelations tonight—from Arianna’s truth to Lyr’s ridiculous Afeyan deal to the knowledge of who she was—all while hearing every idiotic thought in the fortress on top of it. All while having the worst fucking headache I’d had since the night of my Revelation Ceremony.
I made one more sweep of Meera’s room, making sure there was not one sign of treason, of vorakh, and then I left her to her dreams.
I lit the torches in my bedroom a minute later. I was too sober for this. Too Godsdamned alert.
Yes! Yes! Ugh. Some Korterian soldier had a girl against the wall beneath my room.
Gods, he could hurry it up. The bored thought was courtesy of the girl he was fucking.
I eyed my dresser. An empty decanter of wine sat atop it. Three empty bottles were beside it, the glasses reflecting the flames above them.
With a scream, I slammed my fist against them, pushing them away. The glass crashed and shattered against my floor.
Tonight had been too much. With the betrayal I felt from Arianna, I wanted to strangle someone. And yet…it was all my fault.
I should have known the betrayer was Arianna. I, of all people, had the means to discover the truth, to stop this from happening. And I’d failed. She’d never had a single thought to tip me off. Not even tonight. From the moment I’d known downstairs, I’d been listening, straining, and not for one second had Arianna’s thoughts faltered. Or, if they had, there had been no way I could have heard them.
She had protection. I was sure of it now. She was one of them.
The only bright spot in a very bleak-as-shit night was the fact that Lyr hadn’t questioned me. She hadn’t asked me how I hadn’t known Arianna was a traitor from the start, why I hadn’t read Arianna’s mind.
She should have asked me. The Lyr who wasn’t grieving, who wasn’t in shock over all she’d learned and experienced tonight, the Lyr who thought too much and was too smart for her own good—she would have questioned me at once. I could read minds. Why couldn’t I read Arianna’s?
