“Rhyan,” Lyr said softly. “Look at me. Look.”
I opened my eyes and turned back to her. She’d sat up, the blanket we’d slept under falling to her hips. Her bare breasts peeked out from the long waves of her hair, red in the morning sun. Her hazel eyes blazed. “What happened to me wasn’t your fault. And what happened to you, wasn’t yours either. I know who you are.” She reached for my heart. “Ani janam ra. Rakame.”
“I know you,” I said back. “Mekara.”
Lyr nodded, her eyes softening. “There’s more than one person who needs to pay for what they did to you. And I think it’s time to extract payment. Because it’s what’s right, because it’s the justice they fucking deserve for their crimes. Because it will protect others—save them from their evil, their cruelty. And, most importantly for you—for you to take back your power.”
My mind flashed on the box in my dream. In my memory.
“Lyr,” I said, “When you came to the arena and found me, my father was there. Was he holding a black box?”
She gasped, her eyes widening. “Yes. Kunda was putting your magic in there after he stripped it. I remember—your father took it and ran.”
“So he has my magic.” My hands clenched into fists, even as a small burst of hope rose to the surface. “Have you ever heard of it being restored after it was stripped?” I asked.
She shook her head. “No. I haven’t.”
I exhaled shakily. “Auriel in my dream said I should have died when it was over. That you had tethered my soul to yours, you kept me here. You saved my life.”
“He did?” Her voice quaked.
“He did. Maybe there’s a way,” I said. “If I can survive being stripped, if you can bring me back to life, restore my soul after I became akadim, then maybe there’s a way I can take back my power—not symbolically. But actually fucking take it back.”
“Anything is possible,” she said. “If it can be removed, it can be put back in. Just like your soul.”
“Nothing new was ever created. Nothing destroyed.” The words of the Valya. My lips lifted, just for a second. “Maybe with the red shard, and your ability to heal, it truly is possible.”
She gripped the back of my neck, forcing my gaze up to her. “Rhyan, I will find a way. I swear it.”
“We’ll need to remove my father first. Permanently. He sacrificed me to curry favor with Kormac. But also I think, I think it was because he could never really control me—or Auriel peeking out. He wanted my power. Wanted it for himself.” Despite the fact that I was his son, his flesh and blood. The one person he was supposed to love. My chest tightened as my gaze locked onto Lyr. “He’s not going to give it up.”
“Not alive, maybe. But dead,” she said simply, “he’ll have no choice.”
My heart thrummed. “He’s let too many innocents suffer my fate.” My hand clenched. “Allowed the enemy to grow too large, allowed the Allurian Pass to go unchecked, allowed akadim to roam free, all so he could keep the North unstable, so he could keep his power. Continue his tyranny. It ends now.”
Lyr’s eyes blazed.
“And not just my father,” I said. “All of them. Kane, Kormac, Aemon—they all need to be removed from this world.”
Lyr squeezed my hand, her aura now filled with a different kind of fire. Not fury, but a kind of controlled understanding of the need for vengeance, the need to right the wrongs done not just to us—but to all of the Empire. A fight that was always coming. And it was about fucking time we met it head on.
“Where should we start?” she asked, a dangerous gleam in her eyes.
I swallowed. “My father. We’re going North. It’s time. His reign is finally going to come to an end. I need to remove him from his Seat of Power.”
Lyr nodded. “You will. And I’ll be right beside you.”
Chapter
Thirty-Eight
LYRIANA
My pulse thrummed with excitement and fear. We were going to end the tyranny of Rhyan’s father. Ever since the night Rhyan had confessed to me how he’d gotten his scar—since he’d woken from a nightmare so powerful, he’d caused a blizzard to erupt in his apartment—I’d wanted his father to pay. I’d wanted to offer him violence.
And ever since I watched him run from the dais like a coward, his son dying, Rhyan’s stolen magic in his arms—I wanted to rip his throat out.
Of course, we needed a plan. Glemaria was well protected with far too many soturi who remained loyal to their Arkasva and Imperator, either out of a sense of nationalism, or fear and coercion. Either way, we needed to think, and that meant I needed Rhyan strong again.
