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(PresentDay)
You’re the fire.It had been hours since the immortal Afeya Mercurial had uttered those words to me. Hours since he’d vanished right off the track in the Katurium, Bamaria’s arena and training grounds for warriors. For the rest of my run and through all my soturion classes, all I could hear was the lilting, musical voice of the immortal replaying itself again and again in my head.
All I could hear was the way he’d taunted me and laughed and said I could be the most powerful soturion of all time. He’d seemed to know something I didn’t. Something crucial. Something dangerous. Even after hours of lecture on weapons, soturion history, and combat theory, I could barely touch my lunch as I sat down with my friends, Haleika and Galen, to eat. I couldn’t stop the dread building in my stomach.
You’re the fire.
It wasn’t the first time I’d heard those words. That was what made them so terrifying to hear. I’d heard them in a dream, a dream I’d had right after Rhyan and I had been bound together as novice and apprentice soturi—my blood and his blood joining to form a link between our power. This link meant we could never be more than apprentice and novice. Kashonim.
“You’re the fire,” he’d said in my dream just before he’d kissed me, before we’d fallen to the floor to make love…only to discover we were underground, buried alive, and the dream had come to a crashing halt, startling me awake.
Every time I thought about those words on Mercurial’s lips, a chill ran down my spine. Why had he used that exact phrase? Was it a coincidence? Did it mean something different to him? Or could the Afeya see into dreams? Did he have the ability to see, not only into my mind, but also into my unconscious? My stomach knotted.
I didn’t want an answer to my questions. Every single possibility scared me. Mercurial scared me.
Of all the people in Lumeria, he seemed to be the most suspicious of me and Rhyan, the most aware of the fact that, on some level, our relationship transcended that of just novice and apprentice. It was a fact Rhyan had just begun to acknowledge two nights before. A fact we had both decided immediately after could never be. A fact I knew was going to grip my heart like a vise forever, the way our first kiss had lingered with me the last three years.
I’d thought about that kiss, of the feel of his lips on mine and his body pressing me against the tree that night beneath the stars, far more times than I wanted to admit. Even now, with all that had happened and all the danger we faced, I was just as captivated by thoughts of him, of his emerald eyes, of the soothing sound of his voice and the light timbre of his northern accent. I could barely stop thinking about the way he moved his body with such strength and determination and the way he talked, as serious and insightful as he could be bitingly sarcastic and full of wit. The way he—Gods. I had to stop.
We were playing a dangerous game, one forbidden on so many levels. I still had a role to play, a duty to protect my family. I was still to be engaged to Tristan, and I still needed the protection of his Ka and wealth. If Mercurial had any inkling of the truth of what existed between me and Rhyan, neither of us would ever be safe when the Afeya was in Bamaria. The immortal had made it clear he wanted something from me, some power he believed I possessed, one I wasn’t even aware of. It was a power he claimed even the nahashim—ancient creatures from the old world capable of finding anything—had been unable to detect. After I’d failed to reveal any magic at my Revelation, the Imperator had ordered me to be examined by nahashim. The procedure had been painfully invasive as the snake-like creatures violated my body seeking answers. They’d found nothing.
I didn’t know whether or not to believe the Afeya. Mercurial knew I was desperate, that there was something I needed, something so important, I’d consider bargaining with the immortal for it; he knew I needed to find my power.
My lack of magic had led to my arrest and banishment and torn my life apart in a matter of days. It had kept me from protecting my family and from truly following my heart.
Mercurial had the ability to grant me any wish, any desire. It was what Afeya did. But every wish came with a price. And it was a price even I, a Lady of Ka Batavia, could never afford.
I tightened the laces of my soturion-issued sandals—so different from the sandals I’d worn all my life. These were of a heavy, dark brown leather, with straps running up the sides of my legs connected by laces that tied at my calves, thicker than anything I’d worn before. They were the shoes of a warrior, and I was not a warrior—unless Rhyan really could teach me to be one, as he’d promised.
I took a deep breath, trying to clear my mind before I entered our private training room for our afternoon lessons.
Rhyan closed the door behind him, as I dropped my bag on a stack of mats. I was hit with the musty smell of the room, now tinged with my own scent and Rhyan’s familiar musk. I’d gotten used to it in the past month. I’d even begun to find it comforting. Safe.
“He’s gone,” Rhyan said immediately, green eyes blazing. A single red scar ran through his left eye, starting above his brow and ending at the top of his cheekbone. He looked me up and down, his gaze studious, assessing, as he folded muscular arms across his chest. “Are you all right?”
I pushed the loose strands of my hair behind my ears and tucked stray pieces into my braid before I stretched my arms across my chest, trying to relieve the tension still tight in my shoulders. “That depends. Which ‘he’ are you referring to?”
Quite a number of unwelcomehe’swere currently in Bamaria, not even including the newly formed legion of soldiers from Ka Kormac—two thousand men, all from a foreign country, all loyal to a foreign Ka led by my worst enemy. The Imperator had been gradually bringing the soldiers into our country for years. And recently, he’d used the excuse of unrest in Bamaria to arm the streets with his soturi until we were basically being occupied—even if no one in Bamaria was willing to say it out loud.
“The Afeyan messenger. Mercurial’s gone.” Rhyan’s jaw tightened. He still stood in front of the door, his shoulders tensed. It was a protective stance, one I’d seen him take a hundred times now, as if he was preparing to defend me from anything or anyone who came through that door.
“How do you know?” I switched my arms, reversing the stretch. “He’s never supposed to be here, and yet he seems to have a habit of appearing when and where he’s least welcome.” Like my apartment. Or the track when I was in the middle of a run.
Rhyan shifted his weight, looking uncomfortable, one hand resting on his waist. He wore a black practice tunic and a leather practice belt with seven hanging straps. The weighted bronze ends of the leather pieces reached mid-thigh. Below his tunic were his old boots laced up to his knees. They were his boots from the North, from his home country of Glemaria. I knew he favored them over Bamarian sandals even if we didn’t have the right climate for them, at least not for another few weeks. Bamaria had a snowy season, but it was brief.
“I had a meeting this morning, after his appearance,” Rhyan said, finally moving away from the door. “Regarding your…security detail.”
My nostrils flared. It was still a tense subject between us—the fact that for over a month, Rhyan had been secretly a part of my security team, one of my escorts, a personal bodyguard watching over me. No one had told me, not even him. It had explained his constant alertness, the way he was always tense and ready to fight.
“Right. Of course. Did it occur to anyone that I ought to have been included in this conversation regarding my own safety and security?”
Rhyan flinched at my harsh tone.
In the last few days, we had grown closer. I’d even slept in his bed—I was injured, and he was on the floor, but still, there was an intimacy that had not existed between us before. Not to mention he was the first person I’d ever let see or treat my wounds. He was the first person I’d trusted enough to tend to them. In some ways, it was the most intimate I’d ever been with another person.
“I’m,” he coughed, “a rather low-level member on the team—you know, being forsworn and all. I apologize that I can’t speak to your lack of invitation to the meeting. But I am telling you now.”
I softened. Rhyan hadn’t had a choice in the matter to become my guard. He’d been exiled from his own country a year earlier, accused of murdering his mother, wife to the Arkasva, and Imperator of the North. He was also rumored to have killed another soturion in training. I didn’t believe that either rumor was true no matter who else believed it. Rhyan could be dangerous and violent, and I had no doubt in my mind he was physically capable of what everyone said. But capable was all. He was good through and through. I’d never doubted that for a second.
