But the waterfall took me. The ground below was rushing toward me, and I was falling. Falling. Dying. My hands thrashed, trying to stop it, to climb back up. To find her again. To do anything but fall. Anything but drowning.
And even as the end came, I couldn’t stop fighting, couldn’t stop searching for—
“LYR!” I yelled as my eyes opened in the darkness. “Lyr!” My chest heaved, my breath coming in short, painful bursts against the cold air. “Lyr?” I reached blindly across the folds of the cloak beside me, but they were cold. She was gone.
I threw off my cloak. It had been wrapped around me like a blanket, my entire body shivering from the icy chill of the damp cave. Cold, even for me who’d been raised in winter. My heart was pounding too hard, and I clutched at my chest, seeing Lyr drown in my mind’s eye again and again. I couldsee the waves take her. See them take me. My heart felt like it was splitting in two. It wasn’t real. It was just a dream. Like the others I’d had, the ones that had tortured me when we’d been apart. When I’d missed her. When I needed her.
But that was a lie. Because this? This wasn’t a dream. It had been a memory—at least, it started as one. My soul remembered what had happened, how we’d ended. My soul could never forget. She’d died. Asherah had died. To heal me. To save me.
But it didn’t matter.
Losing her had still destroyed me in the end. There wasn’t a world I could survive in that she wasn’t part of.
And now, every fiber of my being remembered.
CHAPTER THREE
LYRIANA
She’s alive. She’s alive. She’s alive.
I paced back and forth across the cave as Morgana’s words repeated in my mind. They’d been repeating in my head for the past three days. Ever since we escaped the Allurian Pass, ever since she betrayed us. Since Aemon betrayed us.
Since the whole fucking Empire betrayed us.
I turned before I reached the wall, just barely tempering my urge to slam my fist into it. My breathing was uneven, my shadow shivering in the faint torchlight as I walked. I continued on in my loop, completely possessed, utterly unable to stop, unable to slow my mind.
I passed Meera, still asleep and curled up on the floor, her frail body inside my cloak. She was also wearing my pajamas. There were few blankets in this cave—it wasn’t one Rhyan had inhabited during his exile—but he’d been slowly scavenging for supplies. Every day he traveled through the countryside to patrol and spy, and every time he returned, he brought back the items we so desperately needed to survive. We had only a few belongings with us to start, the things Rhyan had initially packed for us when we left Bamaria. But Meera had had nothing beyond what I’d given to her.Thankfully, Rhyan was slowly building a soturion uniform for her to wear and stay warm in.
I turned again, pacing down a short corridor that led away from her makeshift bed. It also took me away from the passage leading to the small corner Rhyan and I had claimed as our sleeping space.
After reaching the end of the cavern, I turned and found myself at my sister’s side again. I paused, only long enough to hear her breathe, long enough to make sure she was still here. That she was still alive. Still safe.
Unlike Jules.
I suppressed a groan of frustration, not wanting to wake Meera, and began retracing my route again. Circling around, moving back and forth, over and over again. No matter how hard I tried, I couldn’t stop. Couldn’t tire my mind. I kept rushing through every small moment I’d overlooked these last two years, every lie I’d believed.
And every truth I’d been too afraid to face.
Before I’d killed that fucking bastard Brockton Kormac for assaulting me, he’d said Jules was alive. Said he’d … said he’d raped her. Recently. He said she’d survived Lethea. That she’d survived for years. And some part of my soul had believed him. I knew Godsdamned-well he was trying to manipulate me, trying to stay alive. Rhyan had slain his three lackeys, and Brockton was next. We all knew at that moment he was as good as dead. Rhyan had sworn Brockton would die for touching me, and Rhyan never broke an oath. Brockton knew that, and he knew it didn’t matter if his death came by Rhyan’s hand or mine. Because the moment Rhyan had sworn, there was no stopping the outcome. And yet, despite the obvious manipulation ... I understood in my soul that he wasn’t just saying those words. But I’d been too terrified to fully admit the truth, too scared of its consequences, too frightened of opening that door again. Of the fear.
Of the hope.
But when Morgana had said it—confirmedit … Gods.
Two fucking years! Two fucking years I’d thought Jules had been dead. It had nearly torn me apart. The only comfort I’d ever found in that time was in the knowledge that her suffering had ended. That her soul had been freed, even if we’d never been allowed to utterHa Ka Mokanwhen she was mentioned. Not that she was ever mentioned.
And it was all a lie.
I gritted my teeth, the rage simmering inside my stomach was making me sick as the truth hit me again and again.
We’d never had permission to acknowledge her, to say the words she deserved to have spoken in her memory. We’d never even been able to properly discuss her. To grieve for her.
But Jules’s soul wasn’t freed. She wasn’t at peace.
And I was never going to be. Not until I got her back. Not until I made sure everyone who had ever hurt her had paid. In full.
The Emperor. The Imperator. The Bastardmaker …
