“Meera won’t be harmed. Rhyan is healed and freed from your prisons,” I said. “And his binds are removed.”
“Sign,” was his only response.
I stared down at the contract, and the blade he’d handed me. A scratch pen but no ink was offered next. I was signing my name in blood. Gods. This wasn’t a blood oath.
It was worse.
Signing a blood contract was an old practice. It would bind me to Imperator Hart, compel me to follow his orders whenever he was near. Like a blood oath, I’d be bound to what I signed, to any request or order he gave. Compelled to fulfill his every request. I’d be his slave. My free will would be gone any time he was near enough for my blood to sense him.
But there was no other way out. No other option that gave us a chance. That got us to Jules.
Anything is possible.
I squeezed my eyes shut, and pressed the blade into my skin, hissing as the sound of my blood splattered against the parchment. Then I picked up the scratch pen. And signed.
CHAPTER TWENTY-ONE
RHYAN
I was shivering furiously. The cell they’d left me in was a Godsdamned ice box. It didn’t matter that I was bound, that the ropes tightened around me were meant to burn. Even they were of no use down here as they barely conjured heat.
I’d been taken to the absolute bowels of the dungeon in Ha’Lyrotz. This wasn’t where my father had imprisoned me before. Last time, I’d been placed where my bodyguard Bowen could get to me without issue. Where healers could reach me after I’d nearly lost my eye the night he gave me my scar. The night my father forced the blood oath on me.
The night he’d killed my mother.
It had happened in the Seating Room. Right where he’d tortured Lyriana. Just thinking of it now … Gods, I could fucking kill him.
I resumed my fight to tear through the ropes. It had been hours. I was exhausted, hungry, and thirsty. But I kept going, fueled by my worry for Lyr. Determined to not lose anyone else. Especially not her.
I picked up the speed of my pacing, though the cell was so tiny, I could barely manage more than a few steps before I hit the wall. So little space made it difficult to work up asweat or retain any semblance of body heat. And I needed heat, needed energy, if I was going to break free.
A tiny fire flickered in the hall, offering the dimmest light for me to see. Aside from the faint sounds of the flames licking, and the inconsistent drips of water from a nearby pipe, it was silent through the outer labyrinth of halls. I was so far down the lower levels of the dungeons, there weren’t even any guards nearby.
I wasn’t sure what to make of that knowledge. That even my father doubted my escape. Or that he knew I couldn’t leave—that Iwouldn’tleave. Not without Lyriana, not without Meera.
Gods. Fuck. Please, please let them be okay. Let Lyr be all right.
I squeezed my eyes shut, and I turned again, hitting the wall once more. Each of my three walls were made of rough stone, but not sharp enough. If only they could cut the ropes that bound me. But even after hours of rubbing against them, the threads had barely begun to weaken.
I hit my shoulder against the wall and turned. A light burst beyond the bars before the darkness resumed, just as a sudden flash of heat rose up my frozen limbs.
“Thought I’d find you here,” purred a feline voice. “Right back here in the very place you hate.”
Mercurial stepped out of the darkness of the hall beyond my bars.
The blue Afeya was almost naked, as usual, wearing only glittering sandals that were laced up to his blue knees, and a silver loin cloth. Small diamonds sparkled in the center of each tattooed whorl across his body. He clearly didn’t feel the effects of the freezing cold that permeated every damp inch of this place.
My mind flashed. The memory of Kane as Shiviel, followed by my memory of Mercurial on Gryphon’s Mount a thousand years ago.
“No more falcon head?” I asked. “Quite an interesting look for you.”
“You remembered? It was stunning, wasn’t it? Shame having a bird’s head went out of fashion. At least, it did outside of the Night Lands.” Mercurial clucked his tongue. “But look at you, wearing the latest trends in binding. Atrocious. Those ropes are all ragged and torn.” He lifted an eyebrow. “Not your best look, my lord.”
“Don’t you meannot-lord?” I asked. “Or are you finally addressing me as Auriel?”
Slowly, seductively, he shook his head. “You were once Auriel. He peeks out from behind your eyes. Every now and then, I see it. Sometimes I think he sees me.” Mercurial shuddered. “But you are not the same. Not completely. The shifting of shared personalities and lifetimes between souls is not a subject I have time to explain. In any case, I would not presume to address you as what you are not. You seemed so preoccupied with the status of your titles, their relevance, their currency. But soon you’ll see exactly what I mean,LordRhyan, Heir to the Arkasva, High Lord of Glemaria, Imperator to the North.”
My old title. At least, most of it. I was Heir Apparent before. I looked the Afeyan up and down, hearing his words echo in my mind, almost like a song. The title I’d been forced to bear. The title I hated.
