Chapter 3
Chapter
Three
MORGANA
I rose naked from the river, letting the water sluice from my bare skin.
It glistened in the moonlight, as I wrung out my hair, feeling more refreshed than I had in hours.
More energetic, and more powerful, despite how much magic I’d drawn on through the night.
I’d never been this strong. Never this precise with my power.
And never with this level of authority. It was heady. Addictive.
And it was all thanks to a fresh scar that appeared on my right wrist. As of tonight, I had three.
One for my Revelation Ceremony when I became a mage.
One for the kashonim I’d formed with the apprentice I left behind in Bamaria.
And the third, Aemon had sliced into my skin tonight when I claimed my shield.
Ereshya’s shield. Ancient and bronze and full of power.
We had finally liberated it from the hands of the Emperor.
No longer could they draw upon that magic, that energy.
No longer could they use the orange shard embedded within to enact their will.
My shard, the one which represented my light of the Valalumir, was back where it belonged.
But more than that. I didn’t just possess the shard, and the shield.
Because also within was Ereshya’s blood. Blood that now flowed through my veins.
The tides had turned overnight. Lyr wasn’t the only one who could call on Rakashonim now.
She wasn’t the only one who could join her power with that of her past self.
From now on, I could embody the full strength and power of the Goddess I once was.
The queen who’d ruled over the akadim a thousand years ago.
Maraaka Ereshya was back and with a vengeance.
I’d felt this intense connection to the shard and my shield the moment I laid eyes on it.
But now, after weeks and weeks of dreaming of Ereshya, and remembering my past life, remembering coming down here, getting used to a mortal life, deepening my relationship with Moriel, and fighting in the War of Light, I felt her presence like she was alive.
Like I was her. Like the line between us had vanished.
I’d placed my shield on the grass just beyond the water while I’d bathed.
The orange light emanating from its center rose up to meet the clear protective dome I’d cast. The effect had created small bursts of rainbows to illuminate the night.
It was startlingly beautiful, but also a powerful reminder for no one to touch the shield, or touch any of my possessions.
Not that I expected anyone traveling with me to dare.
I’d hardly given my court permission to look at it.
Even now they barely dared to look at me.
And they were all completely under my thrall.
Between the moonlight and the refraction of the shard, my naked skin glowed with every color of the original Valalumir light.
At that moment, I was an eternal flame come to life.
I stepped onto the grass and retrieved my stave—more than aware of the red eyes covertly watching my every move.
Trying not to, but being unable to drag their gaze away.
With a flick of my wrist, I released the dome.
The rainbows vanished but the orange light of the shard continued to glow, mixing its illumination with the moon until it filled the clearing with its color.
Moontrees looked like the sun, and the grass had turned to bronze.
I summoned Lissa, my maid. She stepped forward from the shadows, holding out a towel in her hands. I nodded for her to approach and slowly took it from her, wrapping it around my body.
The sense of being watched began to grow.
Now that I was somewhat clothed, the akadim, my army, felt freer to look upon me.
To look without incurring my wrath. But even so, their subdued growls and heavy breathing still carried an undercurrent of vicious violence.
It was as thick as the scent of the spices that filled the city every summer.
I could practically taste it now—their lust, their violence.
But I stood easily, knowing that every single one, every deadly akadim waiting before the river, wouldn’t dare disobey or attack me.
Especially one.
The one I’d coveted. The one I’d wanted most. He was who I’d needed for what came next. The most powerful warrior in Lumeria. After Aemon, he was the strongest, the deadliest the Empire had ever seen. And now he was mine. My soldier.
My general. An unstoppable beast.
Lord Rhyan Hart.
I looked out at them all in the meadow. My akadim wore silver collars around their necks, binding them to me.
I gazed almost transfixed at the mix of colors in the night.
The red of their irises, the silver of their collars, and the orange of my light.
It was all a reminder of the power I’d accrued.
The power that was owed to me—that I deserved.
I’d been born the second daughter to the Arkasva, born second in line to the Seat of Power, and only now did I realize how unnecessary that title had been.
How beneath me.
I didn’t require a Laurel of the Arkasva. I wasn’t like Lyr who had always craved it, or like Meera who had devoted her life to withstanding its weight and burdens.
What I had was better. A crown. A shard.
Because for me they were weightless, freeing. Offering me more. More than I’d ever dreamed of.
I’d been up the whole night gathering my forces, collecting my akadim, bending them to my will.
And I’d barely slept the night before that.
Not since the death bells rang for Emperor Theotis.
Not since I’d gotten a whiff of the death tolls I knew would ring again for Imperator Kormac, the new Emperor Avery. And yet, I wasn’t remotely tired.
“My clothing?” I asked Lissa. “Everything’s clean as I asked?
” She’d been instructed to wash my dress and cloak in the river, something she had to do manually without magic since she was human.
I could have washed them myself with a thought.
But I’d wanted to give her a task away from the akadim she still feared.
We were on our way to meet Aemon, our king.
He was with the rest of our assembled court—newly made akadim, vorakh we’d rescued from the Palace, and some Lumerians who’d already joined our cause.
I wanted to ensure that when I arrived, I made a powerful entrance as queen.
“Ma-Maraaka,” Lissa answered timidly. “Y-Yes. Everything is clean, just as you asked.” Her eyes furtively shot toward the akadim standing only a few feet away, waiting for my next command.
I’d saved her from their violence, given the order that she was not to be touched.
But I didn’t think anything would take her fear of the creatures away, it was in her nature.
“Thank you,” I told her, trying to offer a reassuring smile.
But Lissa could not return the gesture.
“Hold my clothes out for me,” I told her.
She retrieved them at once from her basket as I reached once more for my stave. With a wave of the twisted sun and moon wood in my hand, my garments were dry.
I turned the stave on myself, drying and curling my hair, and adding black liner to my eyes, and red to my lips.
I’d never been able to perform glamour magic before—the art was incredibly difficult, and only mastered by a few who studied for years.
Apparently, it had been more of an art form in Lumeria Matavia.
And one retained and guarded by the Afeya.
But now that I had the orange shard, now that Ereshya’s blood was mine again, glamour and spell work I’d only dreamed of performing came to me with ease.
I dropped my towel on the ground, naked once more. Knowing full well that the akadim—new and hungry and still ready to attack Lumerians in every way—would hunger and lust. And yet—they could do nothing. Would do nothing.
Not without my permission.
Parthenay, I commanded in my mind. Come.
A moment passed, and then another. And then finally the former chayatim that loyally served Aemon reached my side.
Her eyes narrowed and the golden Valalumir star on her cheek—a sign that she’d previously served the Emperor—lit up. Her gaze roamed down my body, then back to my face, as her lip curled in disgust. You called, she thought bitterly.
I laughed. “I did.” I pointed to the ground. “I need you to take my towel back to the carriage, so Lissa might dress me.”
Your towel? She looked murderous as she spotted it on the ground. Then she shook her head. “I am Aemon’s Second. Not your lady-in-waiting.”
I glared. You mean Maraak Moriel. Not Aemon.
Her aura withdrew. “Forgive me,” she said.
“Forgive me, Your Majesty.” I stepped forward, and could feel the walls of her mind going up.
She’d been chosen by Aemon for a reason, one that had caused him to free her from the Palace, from her life as a chayatim—even before he rescued his own sister who’d been enslaved.
Parthenay was a master at mind-reading and according to Aemon, had been the strongest vorakh of that kind ever to live in the Palace.
She could break down even the most advanced mental walls, and read through layers upon layers of protection.
But not even all of her years of training could keep me out of her head. Not when I possessed my shard.
Maraak Moriel’s Second, I pushed the thought back to her. That means that you’re to be wherever he’s not. And you are to do what he would do. And right now, he’s not here to pick my towel up for me.
He is a king, Parthenay argued.
And I am his queen. And I promise you, he’d love to take the opportunity to find me like this. He would have dried me off himself. Just as he bathed me when he first revealed himself as Moriel to me. Were he here now, he wouldn’t hesitate. So, be his Second. Do your duty. Pick. It. Up.