Page 31 of Guardian of the Drowned Empire

Can’t today. Start tomorrow.

-R

I tossed the scroll into the flames of a candle I’d lit in my living room and slumped onto my couch. What in Lumeria did that mean?

He’d sworn he wouldn’t go back on his agreement to give me extra training. But with the way he’d treated me the last few days, I was worried. And, if I were being honest, I was disappointed.

I was suddenly faced with an entirely open day and no idea what to do with myself. Through my opened bedroom door, I could see my dummy with my armor on it, the golden seraphim wings on the shoulders glittering from the morning light.

I sat up and stretched, my back aching, my calves sore from the previous day’s work-out. I didn’t want to be in the city, and I’d be at Cresthaven for dinner tonight with my sisters and with Tristan. I was too stiff to try and train on my own—not that I had any idea what I was even doing. I couldn’t sit here all day. Even if I wasn’t training with Rhyan, I still had to prepare for the Emperor’s test.

Suddenly, I knew exactly where to go.

I got back up and threw open my wardrobe. It was time for a visit to the Great Library. When I’d last been there, I’d been able to read a scroll by Sianna Batavia—an eyewitness to the Drowning. According to the title, she’d promised to write about Asherah, the Goddess who’d been an original guardian of the Valalumir in Heaven and had lost her power after being banished to Earth for her affair with Auriel.

But the scroll, The Fall of Asherah and Her Loss of Power, had cut off just before the events of the Drowning occurred, right when the Lumerians lost the war over the Valalumir—the sacred light that had crystalized when stolen from Heaven. When Moriel, the God who’d sided with the akadim, had overrun the Lumerian forces and their land, the scroll had ended.

There was a part two. But Mercurial had borrowed it in the knowledge that I would want to read it—that I would be desperate to read it and would potentially enter a deal with him in order to do so. Such a deal would be one I’d been taught since birth never to make.

As far as I knew, Mercurial was still outside of the country since he’d approached me earlier in the week. Something told me that despite having crossed the Bamarian borders, he still had the scroll in his possession. He wouldn’t have let go of his leverage over me so easily even if it was illegal to take a scroll from the Great Library outside Bamaria. Only copies were allowed to leave, and according to Nabula Kajan, one of the lead librarians, all of those were in restoration beneath the pyramid.

Gingerly, I pulled off my sleep clothes to check my back in the mirror. Rhyan hadn’t changed the bandage since our fight. He’d promised to do it today, but it looked like it was still secure in place. No weird smell or stains were coming through—a good sign the wounds were healing and not infected after what the Imperator had done. Thank the Gods.

I pulled out a black gown with a high back, and after lacing up my new soturion-issue boots, I brushed out my hair, pulled half of it back with golden pins, and placed my diadem across the center of my forehead. The gold circlet at the center shined and highlighted the golden jewelry adorning my arms, wrists, fingers, neck, and ears. And thanks to the meticulous application of sunleaves on my face and a little bit of makeup, my black eye and cut cheek were nearly invisible. This was the most I’d looked like Lady Lyriana Batavia in days.

I usually didn’t like wearing my diadem outside of formal events, during which it was expected of me to present my station to the public. But I needed to make a trip into the restricted section of the pyramid, so I was pulling out every last stop.

On my bureau lay the largest golden necklace I’d ever seen, made of connecting seven-pointed stars of pure gold: golden Valalumirs. Inside the center of each star was a diamond infused with starfire—a rare metal that we forged our weapons from with the help of the Afeya. In the sun, they burned with flames, the steel turning red. Like my hair.

The necklace had been an artifact found in the Lumerian Ocean in a recent fishing expedition. It had been cleaned up and most likely heading for a display case in the Museion, where it would have been lifeless and ogled at by visitors to the exhibit on Lumeria Matavia.

But now it was mine—thanks to Ramia, the Afeyan librarian. She was half-Afeyan herself, half immortal, and half as dangerous as Mercurial…though I’d never considered her to be before Mercurial had waltzed into my life. Before, she had simply been a fun librarian who’d also created and sold my favorite jewelry.

But Ramia hadn’t made this piece. It had technically been stolen, and now it was mine. I felt a sudden pull to the necklace, a sudden urge to put it on, to let the gold mold to my shape and warm against my skin. I wanted to let the stars shine with the flames of starfire beneath the sun, to let the Valalumirs drip down my shoulders like armor and feel its weight across my breasts.

But I stepped away from the necklace. Knowing Ramia wanted me to wear it made me uneasy. It made me unsure if I’d ever put it on again even if I sometimes caught myself absentmindedly staring at it, imagining myself wearing it while walking along an unfamiliar golden shoreline.

I’d gotten it on my birthday to serve as a distraction during my Revelation Ceremony; I’d hoped to dazzle every noble and the Imperator with my excessive jewels so they wouldn’t notice if I revealed a vorakh.

Now the necklace was just distracting me.

I shook my hair out and left my room, leaving the necklace behind, but before I left the apartment, I added my soturion cloak to the ensemble. I was grateful to wrap the extra material around my shoulders to protect me from the chill in the air, and also to hide my hair from any onlookers. I was in full Lady Lyriana regalia—I just didn’t feel like having anyone notice that fact until I arrived in Scholar’s Harbor.

A brisk wind pulled at my makeshift hood, and I pulled it tighter against me, my boots slapping down on the waterway as I attempted to hurry, unseen, through Urtavia. Vendors were filling the streets and drawing crowds. Tents had been set up to sell fresh fruit and spices. More harvest stands had appeared with lines of Lumerians forming to purchase vegetables and baked goods. As I looked more closely, I could see soturi camouflaged in the alleys of the city buildings, behind the shrubbery, and alongside the trees. It was the Soturi of Ka Kormac—the occupying army of the Imperator.

I tugged the hood of my cloak farther down my forehead, shadowing my face, and my feet moved faster across the sparkling waterway until I reached the seraphim port.

“You think you’re clever.”

I whirled around, coming face to face with my least favorite soturion in Bamaria—Markan. Fucking bastard.

“Is this your way of trying to tell me you don’t think I am?” I asked.

“You think you can sneak off, fly wherever you please without an escort?”

“We both know I’ve done it before. So, if that makes me clever, there’s your answer.”

“It makes you a fool.” He stepped closer, his hulking form now in my personal space. I wanted to hit him, but I knew from experience he was like a wall of bricks. I’d been helpless when he’d carried me away from the temple after Jules and Meera’s Revelation.

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