“Lyriana, you call onRakashonim, and you’re dead,” Imperator Hart shouted. “Keep your mouth shut.”
I stopped, thunder pulsing in my ears, my blood raging.
“Now, we can all return to the capital, and I can try to appeal to the Emperor on your behalf. Or we can do this the hard way. Your choice, Rhyan.”
Aiden yelled out in pain.
Rhyan was beside me, his face pale.
And then I began to feel the squeeze of my own nahashim. My breath came short, and I was starting to panic. I couldn’t move, couldn’t fight back.
“Lyr,” Rhyan said, like my name was a prayer.
“Rhyan,” his father said. “Walk away. Or you kill her faster.” He held his hand out, his wrist twisting. “You kill them all.” His growled, the sound low in his throat.
Dario yelled in pain, and the snake wrapped around me, brought its face to mine, its mouth opened wide. The other two snakes had vanished from my sight, but I had a feeling I knew their targets—Jules and Galen. The Emperor’s prisoners.
Rhyan vanished.
I held my breath, forgetting the snake wrapping around me for a moment while I waited for Rhyan to reappear. I could already see his sword running through his father’s belly in my mind. But would it be enough? The snakes already had their orders.
And then he reappeared, his sword flashing behind his father.
Imperator Hart called out, his next command on his lips.
Rhyan wasn’t going to fight him. I realized it too late. He was going to stop the threat—remove the command from the nahashim, by removing their commander. Removing our own paralysis. His arms wrapped around his father.
I tried to scream. But I couldn’t make a sound. Imperator Hart’s eyes widened, just as Rhyan’s gaze found mine.
They both vanished.
“What the fuck!” Tristan yelled.
But suddenly, Dario gave a battle cry. I could move my arms again but just barely. I was still pushing through the pain of disobeying my orders, and the nahashim was still wrapped too tightly around me. Imperator Hart was gone,but his command was still in effect. And it would be until he was too far for my blood to sense it. But as the nahashim’s muscles flexed its scaly body tightening around me, I realized it didn’t matter. The snake had me.
I coughed, trying to breathe, trying to shift my body, to escape and reach my weapons.
Galen yelled, his hands wrapped around Aiden’s nahashim, his fingers puncturing the scales.
“Lyr, fight!” Meera cried, her stave pointed.
“Trying. It’s too tight … can’t … breathe.” The panic was rising, and I could see it in Meera’s face, too.
“Lyr!” Tristan yelled. “Lyr, I’m coming!”
“Meera!” Jules yelled suddenly. Her voice changed. There was something commanding, and ancient in it. “Control them,” she ordered. “Now!”
I stopped, unsure what she meant. Even Jules looked taken aback, as if she wasn’t sure what she had just said.
But Meera’s eyes widened, the light catching in their bright hazel color. And then she blinked, revealing her eyes were now alight in the glow of blue. Coldness seeped against my skin even with the snake tightening its hold against me, it’s scales as hot as fire.
Meera looked distant, lost almost. And I feared the worst, a vision.
Until she lifted her arms, a gust of wind blowing through her hair. This wasn’t vorakh—at least no vorakh I’d ever seen. Her eyes weren’t rolling back. They were focused, intense and glowing with the blue of a vadati stone.
The blue I associated with Cassarya. Guardian of the Blue Ray. By the Gods.
“Ani Cassarya, nahashim. Ani petrova ra shah. Nahashim, ani turio, teka.”Meera’s voice rang out, foreign, almost other-worldly. Like it was her voice and Cassarya’s mixed together. That commanding look I’d seen her wield sooften these last few weeks—it was the Goddess. And she had just demanded the snakes fulfill their oath to her and kneel.
