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“You better hope you’re back with their graces within the hour—not one hair on either head harmed. Or your ass is gone—forsworn forever.”
“Understood,” Rhyan said calmly. The stone’s blue light faded until it was nothing but a clear crystal that he deposited back in his belt pocket.
Rhyan turned to me, his jaw tightening. “Where’s Lady Meera?”
“I think walking along the shore…cooling off.”
“We’ll get her. The island’s abandoned. I flew out here a few times when I was scouting training spots. She should be fine. Let’s clean up these cuts and scratches.”
Rhyan leaned forward, taking my arm in his hand and turning it, then the other. He released them and leaned back, examining my back, pushing my hair aside, and then both his hands were on my face, turning me toward him. He nodded then counted the sunleaves in his hand before he popped them into his mouth and chewed, alchemizing them into gold paste.
He studied my face again, pushing more of my hair behind my ears, and smeared sunleaves over a scratch on my neck. I sucked in a breath, but the burning sensation vanished almost instantly, replaced with a cool relief.
“Did I hurt you?” His hand lingered on my face, caressing my cheek.
“No.”
“This was who was….” He coughed. “This is what’s been hurting you? What gave you the limp? The black eye?” He ran his hands over my shoulders, chasing away the cold. “The whole time?”
Tears fell down my cheeks.
His hands ran up and down my back, soothing even as he made a low growl in the back of his throat.
I turned to him. “She doesn’t mean to—She can’t help—”
“I know,” he started, but I cried out in fresh pain. A burning stab ran through my wrist.
“What happened?” He moved closer. “Where does it hurt?”
I gripped my wrist before I could stop myself. Gods, it felt like my arm had been set on fire. Rhyan shifted me to face him, taking my hand in his, turning my palm up.
“Did you strain it earlier?” he asked.
A finger ran up and down the length of my inner arm, across my tattoo. I shivered as he paused at my wrist over the scars that marked my oath as a soturion, that marked where I’d been cut when I joined his kashonim. Gently, his finger ran over the raised, mutilated skin, invisible to the naked eye.
“Blood oaths?” His jaw tightened. “Gods. That’s why you got the tattoo. To hide the feel of the scars.”
I nodded.
“When?” He held my hand, his thumb rubbing small circles over my scarred skin.
“The night they took Jules,” I said, my tears freely falling. “They discovered her vorakh at the Revelation, and you already know—I had to sit there and watch. Watch the Imperator take her away, right in front of me.” I sniffled. “I wasn’t allowed to move or cry. I wasn’t allowed to make a single sound. I had to control what they saw, pretend I didn’t care. Tristan held me down while it happened, telling me it was for the best.”
The muscles in his jaw clenched. “Was he the one who—”
“No.”
He squeezed my hand, continuing to rub circles, and then pulled me closer to him, wrapping his free arm around my shoulder.
“And then after she was outside of the temple, my father ordered the ceremony to go on like nothing was wrong. It was Meera’s turn, and she was the same. My father covered it up. Kept her vorakh secret. After the ceremony was over…Gods.” My voice broke. “I told you what happened next. Markan drugged me, dragged me home. But what you don’t know is when I woke, I was in the Arkasva’s Seating Room with my sisters. My father had a dagger.” I clutched my chest, trying to contain the sobs. I’d never spoken of this night before. Not even with Meera or Morgana. “I had no choice. I would have never betrayed my family, my Ka, but….”
“You swore the oath anyway,” he said.
“He made me.Theymade me. And a year later, I got my second.”
Rhyan blinked, his jaw tensing as he realized what I’d just admitted. “And this is why—fuck. This is why you’re with him? With Tristan? Because otherwise, he might have guessed the reason you broke up? And this is why he didn’t know about your injuries? Gods. Lyr. This whole time, you were just protecting them.”
“I was,” I sobbed, squeezing my eyes shut and burying my face against his chest.
