Chapter 2
Chapter
Two
LYRIANA
“Shhh. Hey. Hey,” Rhyan spoke softly, his arms protectively circling around me.
There was only the moon and the stars for light as we stood beneath them.
“I’ve got you. I’ve got you. Deep breaths.
It’s all right.” He pulled me closer, and I buried my face against his armored chest while my hands remained protectively wrapped around my body.
“Breathe with me. Come on, Lyr. You can do it. It’s all right.
I’ve got you. You’re safe with me. I swear. ”
My breath hitched, a sense of dread washing over me. I wasn’t safe. I wasn’t …
Thunder clapped, the crash echoing as lightning struck in the distance.
Rhyan slid his arm behind my knees, and scooped me up until he was cradling me against his chest. He walked forward, his boots sinking into the damp sand of the abandoned beach. The Guardian of Bamaria stared out into the water beside us.
A clap of thunder echoed across the shore. The Guardian’s head flickered, going in and out of existence, vanishing and reappearing in such rapid succession, I felt dizzy just looking at it. Until it stopped. Until a headless gryphon loomed over me.
I blinked, and its head was back, its onyx eyes trained on the ocean as usual. I felt strange. Panicked. This wasn’t what I remembered of that night. Because that’s what this was—a memory.
Breathing still felt difficult as I clung to Rhyan, watching the tides come in, their watery surface reflecting flashes of starlight.
The air cooled even further, and rain fell softly around us, landing in thick, fat droplets that pattered against the sand.
“You see the waves?” Rhyan angled his body, offering me an easy view of the Lumerian Ocean.
“The waves,” he said again, his voice a whisper.
His arms shifted and tightened against me.
“Just watch the waves, rolling back and forth. Back and forth. Nice and easy. Just keep watching. I’ve got you.
You’re all right.” He nuzzled my cheek. “Mekara.”
I shook my head. “You didn’t call me that last time.
” The raindrops pebbled against my forehead, falling into my eyes until my vision blurred.
“And it wasn’t raining.” I remembered that night all those months ago so clearly.
It had been cooler than it had been in weeks, marking the start of the fall season.
We were celebrating Days of Shadows. Waves had been crashing against the shore.
And after two years of silence, I’d broken my blood oath.
I’d told Rhyan the secret I was prepared to die for.
I’d told him about Meera’s vorakh. A storm had been brewing in the distance, making the waves crash, agitating our seraphim.
But it hadn’t been raining. Not like this—not when we’d been here together. Alone.
Rhyan shrugged, continuing to hold me and stare into the dark of the water. “Does it really matter? We can make the memory whatever we want.”
“Yes,” I protested. “It does. We can’t just change them. My memories of you matter.”
“The past hasn’t gone anywhere.”
“No,” I cried, a sinking feeling in my heart.
“But you have. Don’t do this. Don’t change the memories.
They’re all I have now. All I—” There was another more visceral memory, the memory of what had just happened.
The thing that could not be changed, could not be undone.
I had a strange feeling—a sensation filled with the horror of it all—as reality crashed into me, forcing me to remember.
It was breaking the spell on us. “No. No.”
“What is it?” Rhyan asked. “Partner? What’s wrong?”
I shook my head. “Memories are not enough. We were supposed to have more time together. We were supposed to have decades, years. We were supposed to make more memories. Do more things. We were supposed to—”
Marry me.
I sobbed. “This isn’t the way it’s supposed to be between us. It’s not right. And it’s not …” I was choking on my words, my chest heaving. “It’s not enough. Rhyan, this will never be enough. I don’t want this. I don’t want any of this. I only want you. You. Here. Now.”
“I am here, Lyr, I’m right here.” His eyes dipped to my chest. To my heart. “There. And I’m here. Holding you.”
“No … Rhyan! You’re … You’re not here.” I tightened my grip on him, shaking my head wildly, the tears were burning my eyes. “You’re not with me. I tried. I tried so hard. But I couldn’t find you.”
A raindrop fell onto his forehead, slipping down the length of his scar. Slowly, it descended down his cheek. “Lyriana,” he said, his voice full of emotion. And then his eyes dampened, tears welling and running down his face.
“Rhyan!” I sobbed. “Where are you? Where did you go? Tell me where to find you! Tell me how to help you. Heal you. Save you.” I pushed myself out of his arms, until I was standing before him, grabbing and shaking his shoulders. “Tell me! ”
His gaze hardened, his lips tightening, as his already pale skin seemed to whiten.
“Oh, Lyr. My Lyriana. I didn’t want it to be true.
Not yet. But I’m not here.” Something shone in his eyes.
Like his own memories had returned. “And I’m not …
I’m not all right. I’m … I’m somewhere else now.
Something else.” The muscles in his jaw flexed, and he looked away, his gaze refusing to meet mine.
The scar that ran through his left eyebrow darkened, lengthening down his cheek.
It was angrier and redder than I’d ever seen it.
As if his father had just freshly carved it into his skin.
He had done that though. That was exactly what he’d done tonight to Rhyan—and worse. He’d turned him over to the Emperor. Carved into him. Hurt him. Tortured him.
Stripped him of his magic. His power.
There was a flash of blinding light. A scream of pure, unbridled pain. The sound of a whip flying in the air. The whoosh of a Valalumir star soaring.
I stilled. The memories. The truth. They were returning with more force. We didn’t have much time left.
“It’s okay,” he assured me. “Partner, just ignore them. Forget them all. Don’t listen. Don’t look. Just stay here with me.”
“I can’t. I have to save you,” I cried.
I reached for Rhyan’s face, and traced the scar from his dark eyebrow down to his cheek, feeling him shiver beneath my touch.
I reached the edge of the scar, the edge of the line I knew so well because I’d traced it with my fingers a hundred times.
Because I’d kissed it just as many when we were together.
But the scar didn’t end where it was supposed to—tapering off to clear, pale skin.
It ran all the way across his cheek, expanding, and lengthening, reaching for his earlobe, and slithering toward the line of his jaw.
My eyes widened as even more red lines began to appear, crisscrossing his face, circling around his neck.
His eyes were on mine, blazing and green as emeralds, his chest heaving.
His aura swept over me. But it felt foreign.
Not like his, not like anything I’d ever felt from him before.
Rhyan’s aura had always been like a soothing cold, the peace of being tucked safely into your bed on a snowy night.
He was fresh air when I needed a breath, water when I was overheated from exertion.
And always, always my anchor in the storm.
But the aura I felt now was icy, and violent. And above all else, dripping with a nauseating fear.
In the distance, the waters of the Lumerian Ocean began to recede further and further from the shore, exposing more and more rock and sand beneath it.
Rhyan watched calmly as the water surged towards the horizon, its waves rising higher, reaching for the night sky.
Thunder clapped and I could feel the waves preparing to break, preparing to rush at us.
There was enough power brewing now, enough magic in the air for me to realize exactly what was coming.
A tsunami. One that wouldn’t just cover the island, or Bamaria. It would be enough to drown us all. To sink the whole Empire.
A second Drowning.
“Rhyan,” I said, taking his hand, our fingers threaded together. “We have to go! We have to get out of here.” But my voice sounded distant and far away, barely audible over the roaring tides. “The storm is coming. Now. Hurry! ”
Blinking slowly, his green eyes bored into mine. Emerald. Beautiful. But sad and resigned.
“Lyr. Mekara.” Rhyan shook his head. “Even you can’t heal me now.”
He turned his back on the abandoned shoreline and held his arms out as the waves rushed forward, racing toward us. The waters surged, swallowing the rocks on the beach, as it covered the ground, moving faster, and rising higher.
“RHYAN! ” I yelled.
He frowned, suddenly taller as he looked down at me. And I realized, to my horror, his eyes had changed. The green of his irises that I’d dreamed of for years, the green I knew so well, that I loved since I was a girl, had been replaced with red. The glowing red eyes that only meant one thing.
Akadim. A demon. Death.
The waters burst behind Rhyan, the waves reaching like tentacles for his body, until it wrapped itself around him. Trapping him, binding him.
His hand reached out for mine one last time. “Lyr … I love you.”
And I screamed, as the water swallowed him whole, pulling him beneath the tides. “RHYAN! ”
There was a burst of light behind my eyes, the sound of thunder crashing, and rain pouring.
I jolted awake, my eyes soaking wet. I was already sobbing, hugging myself, my entire body convulsing.
“Rhyan! Rhyan!” I cried out his name, but the sound was choked, barely more than a strangled whisper. Still shaking, I tried to take in my surroundings. To remember where the hell I was.
I was in a cave, laying on a blanket I didn’t recognize, not far from the mouth. I was close enough to see outside, to see the beach in the dark. And I remembered. I was on Gryphon Island. For the first time in months, I was back in Bamaria.
My home country.