Warrior of the Drowned Empire #2
The Afeya Mercurial comes to see Rhyan in the cells, and confirms Kane’s identity as Shiviel.
He also reveals that Auriel and Asherah weakened Shiviel’s soul in such a way that he remains weak through every incarnation, even now when he’s Kane.
Otherwise Lyr wouldn’t have survived their encounter.
Mercurial also reveals to Rhyan that Meera’s reincarnated identity is Cassarya, Goddess of the Blue Ray.
This means they only have one Guardian left to identify: the Guardian of the Violet Ray, the Goddess Hava.
Mercurial tells Rhyan he’s already found her, once.
He also warns that Lyr’s new healing powers are tied to her ability to call on kashonim with Asherah.
When she does this, she is calling on a power known as Rakashonim, a magic so strong and volatile for a mortal, that it was the cause of death for Asherah.
And if Lyriana continues to call on it, without the aid of the red shard, the shard she was supposed to find per their bargain, she will be in mortal danger.
He urges Rhyan to leave Seathorne and to take Lyriana with him.
But before he can learn any more, his father arrives to inform him of Lyriana’s bargain.
Learning that Lyriana has finally submitted to Kane, and that Rhyan himself must also marry someone of his father’s choosing, anger takes over him.
He can feel Auriel’s energy rising to the surface, and swears that if his father harms Lyriana in any way, he will kill him, not just in this life, but in every life, and again in the afterlife—a threat his father seems to take seriously.
Lyr and Rhyan reunite and argue over his father’s motives, and their arrangement with him.
Rhyan worries about the role Jules is playing in his father’s manipulations.
He knows how desperately Lyriana wants to rescue her, and worries it’s making her easy to manipulate.
But tension flares between them as Lyriana confronts Rhyan from hiding that Kenna was his lover, and that he never told her what happened with Garrett, or the night his mother died.
Too fearful for her safety, Rhyan tries to convince Lyriana to leave with him.
But they finally agree, that as painful as it will be, they have a duty to protect the orange shard from falling into the wrong hands.
And with the Valabellum, and both Imperators after them, this might be their only way to do so.
Rhyan however, has new suspicions about his father’s motives in rescuing Jules, and fails to tell Lyr what he learned about Rakashonim.
Lyriana’s engagement to Kane is announced, as is Rhyan’s to a Glemarian noblewoman, Lady Amalthea, who seems to make him uncomfortable.
They are thrown into Glemarian society, appearing at public events to show off their engagements which protects them from Ka Kormac, and also dispels any rumours of their alleged love affair.
Lyr resumes soturion training, though she is forced to pretend she’s still powerless.
In the evenings, Lyriana, Rhyan, Meera, Dario, and Aiden prepare to steal the shield, studying blueprints of the Emperor’s Palace, and the schedule of soturi on guard duty.
Unable to reach Lyriana and Rhyan now that they’re under Imperator Hart’s protection, Tristan turns his attention to saving his best friend.
But when Galen uncovers a series of failed bribe attempts by Tristan to disqualify him from the games, he no longer trusts him.
Galen refuses to leave, determined to face the Emperor for what happened to Haleika.
He doesn’t care about the consequences. Imperator Kormac, aware of Tristan’s actions, promises him Galen will be safe, but only if he apprehends Lyriana and Rhyan in the capital.
Back in the North, Aemon returns to the Allurian Pass with a guest, a chayatim, one of the vorakh previously enslaved to the Emperor. The mage has visions, and a noticeable beauty mark. Aemon introduces Morgana to Andromeny, his older sister—the vorakh who murdered Tristan’s parents.
As the weeks of preparation for the Valabellum pass, Lyriana and Rhyan feel the strain of being unable to talk, or see each other in private.
His father’s spies are everywhere. For a month, they parade around Glemaria and attend balls with their betrothed partners, pretending their relationships are genuine.
Every touch Kane gives Lyr makes her sick, but her contract with the Imperator leaves her unable to refuse.
Luckily, his advances remain on the dance floor.
While Lyr has done everything she can to keep the Imperator happy, and prepare to steal the shield, Rhyan has been conducting his own research into Rakashonim, and trying to understand what weakened Shiviel, so he can save Lyriana in this lifetime.
Sneaking out to Asherah’s tomb, he finally remembers what happened.
Shiviel had captured Auriel, and Asherah came to his rescue.
Together, they cut his soul in half, separating him from his power.
The act created a small child out of Shiviel’s soul: a secret eighth Guardian.
His father finally tells him that he knows about Rakashonim, and that it will kill Lyriana if she continues to call on it for power or healing.
Just before their departure, Mercurial returns, violently reminding Lyr of their deal and the pain she will suffer if she does not claim the Red Shard for herself.
Unable to see a way out of her bargain, or to stop Morgana and Aemon from claiming more of the Valalumir’s power, she cannot agree.
Mercurial tells her that Rhyan’s still keeping secrets, including the fact that her power can not only kill her, but everyone around her.
Lyriana and Rhyan attend a ball the night before the Valabellum in the Emperor’s honor.
For the first time in months, she must face Imperator Kormac and her Aunt Arianna.
A dance with Imperator Kormac confirms the truth—he knows she’s guilty of murder.
And he’s been keeping one more secret: Rhyan’s vorakh.
He orders her to end her engagement to Kane, and resume her wedding to his son, Viktor—or he will have Rhyan arrested for vorakh.
Before Lyr can act, masked warriors from the Valabellum arrive at the ball.
Tristan watches in horror as the soturion dressed as Moriel, the warrior who will, according to tradition, die enters.
It’s Galen. Imperator Kormac again demands Tristan’s loyalty in exchange for his friend’s life.
But before everyone, Galen murders the Emperor.
The Palace enters a lockdown, but Rhyan finds a way into Lyr’s bedroom.
At last he confesses the secrets he’s been keeping: his memories of Auriel, his nightmares about Asherah’s death, his research on Rakashonim, why he had to kill Garrett, and finally, his suspicion that Jules is the reincarnation of Hava, and that’s why his father is willing to rescue her—because he’s collecting reincarnations of the Gods and Goddesses.
Rhyan also reveals the truth about Lady Amalthea and Lady Kenna.
His father was forcing him to sleep around after he spent a year refusing to court because he’d fallen in love with Lyr.
Amalthea was the first, and Kenna was the one who allowed the practice to stop.
With no more secrets between them, Lyr and Rhyan reunite, their love stronger than ever. Later in bed, Rhyan proposes marriage.
Imperator Kormac is chosen as the new Emperor, and sends for Tristan to reveal the Empire’s darkest secret.
The vorakh Tristan arrests are not stripped and killed, they are made to serve in the Palace as chayatim.
Tristan is taken to a room full of chayatim he personally captured.
Galen is being interrogated and tortured by them.
When Jules enters, revealing she is alive and a chayatim, Tristan is offered one final chance to save Galen: use the lockdown to bring Rhyan and Lyr to the new Emperor.
Tristan finds Lyr’s room, and reveals to her and Rhyan what he saw, as well as his own secrets—he’s vorakh.
Lyr and Rhyan agree to help him save Galen and Jules.
As they leave, Dario, Aiden, and Meera join.
Dario and Aiden manage to admit they were forced to obey Rhyan’s father through blood contracts, but they were on his side all along.
The six of them enter the interrogation room, and manage to get a hold of a badly beaten Jules and Galen.
They escape the Palace and fly to Cretanya on gryphon-back, then seek shelter in the inn owned by the in-laws of Rhyan’s Uncle Sean.
Lyr accepts Rhyan’s marriage proposal, and together they guard their friends and family through the night.
But then Imperator Hart’s nahashim finds them.
The group of eight escape to the woods, but Imperator Hart uses his blood contract to order Lyriana, Dario, and Aiden to freeze, and allow his nahashim to strangle them.
The only way to break free of his orders is to allow a day to pass, or to create physical distance between them and the Imperator.
Rhyan rushes at his father, uses his vorakh, and they vanish.
It works. Lyr, Aiden, and Dario are able to move again, and Meera, realizing she is Cassarya, discovers she can control the snakes and sends them away.
They all return to the inn and wait for Rhyan to resurface. But time passes and he doesn’t return.
Jules has a vision: Rhyan’s been captured by the Emperor, tried and found guilty for having vorakh.
Since the Valabellum was cancelled, Rhyan will be publicly stripped for entertainment instead.
Lyr knows that all of her friends and family are in danger, wanted for crimes against the Empire, and half of them are injured or weak.
But if she can get to Rhyan fast enough, they can escape.
He can travel with her, but he can only take one.
Lyr vows to go save him alone, and leaves Dario to protect the others.
Lyr steals an ashvan and rides furiously back to the capital, but there are too many soturi standing between her and Rhyan.
She decides to call on Rakashonim, but she needs every ounce of strength she can get.
So, she breaks into the Throne Room, and steals the shield, killing the Blade, the Empire’s warlord, in the process.
Just before she fights her way out, Morgana enters, followed by akadim who can walk in the sun.
Everyone in the Throne Room is murdered, everyone except Lyr.
She can hear Rhyan being brought out to the arena, and begs Morgana to let her take the shield and save him.
But Morgana refuses. She’ll allow Lyr to touch the indigo shard and absorb some of its power, but nothing more.
Out of time, Lyr accepts, and calls on Rakashonim.
She fights her way into the arena, killing anyone who tries to stop her as Rhyan is mercilessly stripped of his magic.
Lyr reaches the dais, and using her magic, carries a deathly weakened Rhyan through the arena.
But before they can leave, Morgana and Aemon’s akadim attack.
As Lyr fights them off, one demon gets to Rhyan.
Lyr calls on Rakashonim once more to save him.
But suddenly finds herself beside the statue of the Guardian of Bamaria, with no way to get to Rhyan.
Screaming, she breaks off the onyx head of the gryphon and throws it into the water.
Her power intensifies, and she threatens to unleash a deadly tsunami, until a voice stops her, and someone appears, speaking in High Lumerian.
The God Auriel, Rhyan’s previous incarnation, has regained physical form.
Alone in the woods, a forsaken Rhyan attempts to stop the transformation to akadim by ending his life.
When he cannot, Asherah appears to comfort him, but without physical form, she can do little to stop what’s happening.
His transformation to akadim complete, Rhyan goes in search of his first kill.
He finds a mage who seems familiar to him.
But instead of attacking, he finds himself agreeing to serve her, as she places a collar around his neck, joining their power together in kashonim.
He asks her name, and she answers, ‘‘Ereshya.’’