Chapter 15 #2
Branwyn shook her head. “What could you do? You were not Arkasva, nor Arkturion. And then you were away, and for good reason. You had to save your sisters.” My sisters. Morgana and Meera.
I’d only saved one.
Branwyn’s eyes swept over me. “Lyriana, it’s not your fault.”
But it felt like it was. This was my country.
These were my people. And they deserved safety.
Privacy. Dignity. They deserved to keep their own resources for their families, to not have foreign soldiers invading their homes stealing from them, intimidating them.
Especially the wolves. It was going to stop.
Somehow, I was going to find a way. I was going to banish them from my country.
I had far more than one wrong to right. But Rhyan was first.
“Branwyn,” Auriel said, “I’m sorry for all that’s happened. But this is important. Can you get in touch with Sean?”
She pressed her lips together, and shook her head.
“I don’t know. We have one illegal vadati that we keep in secret.
It’s shared between us and our friends. Everyone on the route you took to get here.
There’s a handful of allies that it can connect to across the Empire.
We use it to communicate, but it always depends on who has the stone.
” Branwyn’s eyebrows drew together. “I told him to take it with him. But he refused. He wanted to keep it here, in case anyone else needed it more than him. In case you did.”
“Fuck,” I said. We had a spare vadati, but now there was no way to contact him. “Branwyn, I need you to trust me on this. We can’t explain right now, and this is going to sound farther than Lethea, but I need you to believe me.”
Branwyn nodded. “Okay.”
“You need to get in touch with Sean. Tell him to abandon the mission.”
“What?”
“Tell him there’s another way. Tell him I said not to hurt Rhyan.”
But before I could explain further, another knock exploded against the front door.
We all froze, barely daring to breathe.
“Are there any wards in place?” I asked.
Branwyn shook her head. “I was about to before they—”
The knock sounded again. Louder, more violent this time. The walls upstairs shook with the force.
Auriel’s jaw clenched, his brows furrowed and I knew we had the same questions. Were these soturi looking for the men we just murdered? For Sean? Or for us? Or worse—just here for Branwyn?
My throat dried, my stomach twisting.
Blue light erupted from my palm. The vadati I’d stolen from the dead turion.
“Shit!” I hissed. Auriel clapped his hand over my mouth.
“Turion Tiberius,” came the call.
I closed my hand around the stone. “We need to go, now!”
Auriel was already making his way to the balcony, reaching for my hand, and gesturing for Branwyn.
But she shook her head. “If I don’t answer the door, they’ll surround the neighborhood. They could hurt everyone we’re friends with—all of our allies. The number of soturi out there now—we don’t stand a chance.”
“Come with us. We’ll take the route,” I said.
“No. I need to be here. I’ll try to get word to Sean. But I need to let the soturi find me.”
“Tiberius!” shouted the soturion. The pounding started again.
I took Branwyn’s hand, urging her to come with us, but she shook her head sadly. “You need to get out. If I stay, I can hold them off. They’ll be distracted by the carnage.”
So I pressed the stone into her hand. It was all I could do for her.
“It’s okay,” she said. “They won’t suspect me. I’m a mage. They know I can’t fight.”
“What will you tell them?” I asked.
But Auriel’s eyes widened as he nodded slowly at Branwyn.
“The truth,” he said. “Tell them it was me. The soturion on the run with Lyr. I’m already wanted—this won’t change things.
But it’ll give you protection. Turn me in.
Say you hid up here out of fear—that I came by looking for a place to hide, but you recognized my description. And you refused me.”
“Auriel.” Branwyn’s face fell.
“Do it,” I said. “And please, tell Sean not to hurt Rhyan. Trust me.”
“I will.”
“And Branwyn,” I wrapped my arms around her, “be careful.”
“You, too,” she said, and opened the door to her balcony.
“Come on,” Auriel said.
The front door burst open.
“Now!” Auriel hissed.
We raced onto the balcony, and Auriel leapt without a thought, his boots landing softly in the backyard.
My breath hitched, looking over the balustrade. I was still afraid of falling—especially after the last time I was in the sky. But Auriel held out his arms. “Meka! Jump! I’ll catch you.” I pushed one leg over the banister, and then the other.
There were yells now coming from the house. Tears burned behind my eyes. I jumped.
I landed in Auriel’s arms a second later.
But before I could scramble to my feet, he took off, racing to the neighbor’s house, knocking on the back door and rushing inside.
“Red Gryphon!” he shouted.
A soturion who looked to be about Sean’s age rushed to meet us. “Red Gryphon?” he asked, his Glemarian accent thick.
“Yes. Sean’s gone. Branwyn’s alone—she sacrificed herself so we could get away, so we could sound the alarm. We killed five wolves. But there’s more. She needs help. Now!”
The soturion nodded. “I’m on my way. I’ll warn the others.”
“Thanks,” Auriel said, and in a flash we were back outside.
I was still in his arms.
“Let me down,” I said. “I can run.”
Auriel released me, but his hand wrapped around mine, our fingers entwined.
I didn’t know if Auriel had memorized Sean’s route in reverse, or Sean and him had spent time going over it while I was recovering.
I started to suspect the latter as we raced into backyards, jumping in through windows, and climbing back out.
All the while Auriel shouted “Red Gryphon” in each new home.
It made me think that Sean had lied to me.
A little. He’d made up his decision the moment he’d heard the news.
He was always going to go after Rhyan. And he was preparing Auriel, giving him a way for us to escape when he was gone.
My heart was racing when we reached the final house. We were back at the waterway, about to cross into the forest.
I looked back, and my stomach sank. The street was full of soturi. They were spreading out, going one by one to each house, pulling people outside, their swords out and ready to attack.
If we hadn’t taken Sean’s route we’d have been caught by now.
“There’s a port at the edge of the forest, right?” Auriel asked, racing forward. “I’ve been studying the modern maps.”
“There is. Right at the edge of Urtavia proper.” Right where the trees ended, and the waterways and shops began.
I leapt over tree trunks, and loose branches and bramble as we raced through the trees, sprinting faster and faster. There was a clearing up ahead, and shouts in the distance. Chanting. Then we stopped, just at the edge of the forest.
The city was full of Lumerians. A mob had formed—not unlike the one I’d seen all those months ago on Auriel’s Feast Day. The day Rhyan had returned to me. The first time I’d seen him in three years.
“Shekar Arkasva! ” came a shout.
I stilled, my chest tightening. False Arkasva. It was what the Emartis used to say about my father. Before they murdered him.
But the chant continued. “Shekar Arkasva! Unseat Arianna!”
“Skin the wolves!”
“Arianna’s a fucking traitor!”
“Kormac’s a tyrant!”
By the Gods. Bamaria hadn’t turned on us. They were seeing the truth.
And then fireworks exploded into the air, taking on the shape of a glittering seraphim. Not a black one. Not the symbol of Arianna and the Emartis, the rebels who murdered my father. But a red seraphim.
Batavia red.
Bamaria was rebelling. Uniting.
But then the wolves came.
Soturi in silver armor were everywhere, swords out, my people screaming and fighting back.
“Lyriana!” Auriel said. “Now! We need to run.”
Because just at that moment, with countless soturi swarming the city, we’d been spotted. And not just by any Kormac wolf. But worse. We’d been seen by Turion Dairen. And he recognized me at once.
His mouth opened, shouting my name at the same instant he started to run, and reached for his pocket. For a Godsdamn vadati stone.
“Fuck!” Auriel snapped. He was already tugging me away, and then without warning, he lifted me into his arms, pushing into the crowd before us, crashing into people, until they finally parted and we made our way to the port. He pushed me into the carriage, and climbed in behind me.
I looked out of the window and saw Turion Dairen not far behind, his vadati glowing blue.
“Fuck. Fuck!” Auriel shouted, then closed all the windows and practically barked at our seraphim. “Gryphon Island!”
The floor tilted, and then we were off, heading back to Auriel’s tomb.