Chapter 18
Chapter
Eighteen
LYRIANA
“Auriel!” I hissed.
“Yes, Meka?” he asked me, his voice low.
We were being led into the palace by the Queen’s silver- skinned sentries, walking down the long quartz dock as waves lapped along the edge.
When we reached the promenade, the crystal beneath our feet shifted to moonstone, as we walked inside.
There were long swaths of pure gleaming white, interrupted by sudden flashes of bright, glowing blue.
Every step we took seemed to create another spark.
It reminded me of the ashvan back home, the glowing blue lights that erupted beneath their hooves.
The ethereal music continued to play—still without any sign of musicians or the accompanying singers, until we arrived in what I believed to be Queen Ma’Nia’s throne room.
We paused before a small pool of water, the moon perfectly reflected inside. Beyond that was a dais where Queen Ma’Nia stood. Ramia was perched beside her, sitting on a chaise much like the one she had in her office at the library.
“Don’t you think it might have been important to tell me that it was you? That you did all of this?” I asked, weakly gesturing around.
“Well,” he hissed back, “Considering you were there when it happened, I forgot I had to. Until we were about to dock.”
“That’s when you decided to tell me? You waited until the last second! Gods! You could have warned me.”
“Well technically you knew,” he seethed.
“I didn’t! I wasn’t there! That was Asherah! How many times do I have to tell you? I barely remember anything.”
His eyes darkened. “Well I tried!”
“Yes, you waited until the last possible minute. You really tried so hard!”
“Oh, don’t act so innocent yourself. You remember more from back then than you think. More than you’re willing to admit.”
My cheeks flushed. He was right. There were times when I felt like her, when I felt like I was her as I looked at him.
Even just moments ago, I had a memory of being Asherah.
Of Auriel looking at me with unbridled desire.
And I remembered feeling a matching need for him, for his body.
The need to claim him and be claimed. I felt it coursing through me.
Heating and tightening down my stomach, between my legs.
And I could still feel it now, despite what we faced.
We were surrounded by the Moon Queen’s full court of Afeya, but I shook my head, glaring at Auriel.
Because once again, there was important information I didn’t have—information I needed.
He’d been the one! He had cursed the Afeya.
Every problem I’d ever had with them, every run-in—was all Auriel’s fault.
And now because of it, because Queen Ma’Nia had been able to use that knowledge against me, I was in another Godsdamned Afeyan bargain.
The sensation in my chest brought about by the contract had already calmed, but like last time, I felt its presence. I was aware of it there, pulsing, turning, shimmering with every beat of my heart.
Auriel’s eyes were on my chest, staring at it with as much worry as Rhyan’s had when I’d made my first contract.
I groaned. “Whatever I do or don’t remember is irrelevant. Because I didn’t remember this!” I gestured around us. Not once in any Valya I’d read had it mentioned it was him. Nor in any of the history books. They always just said that the Afeya were cursed. Passive.
I took a deep breath and looked slowly around the room, at the tall white and silver columns, the open ceiling with the moon above, and the sea of faces in the shadows watching us. Little stars exploded in the air. The Afeya’s auras being pushed out.
“I can’t help it if I have a thousand years of information to sort through—most of which was barely accessible to me after I arrived.”
“But then you remembered,” I said. “It all came back to you.”
“And right after we had to flee for our lives. Believe me, I’m not trying to keep secrets from you.
Okay? I swear. But in case you didn’t notice, we haven’t exactly been on vacation these last few days.
You’re the most wanted traitor in the Lumerian Empire.
Every other person we meet wants to kill you.
All I’ve been doing is trying to keep you alive. ”
“I can keep myself alive!” I nearly shouted.
“You can.” He leaned in toward me. “But for a little while there you weren’t.”
“And somehow, despite all of that, I still think you should have told me! You should have told me you were the author of the curse before this! Before we were sailed into the country of the very people you condemned,” I snapped.
“Before I made another bargain! Now I’m indebted and tied to Queen Ma’Nia.
Another Afeya and a whole other court. And we’re trapped inside a palace of Afeya who’ve had a thousand years to be mad at you.
” And me by association, unless there was even more I still didn’t know, or remember.
“Well maybe,” he gritted, “that’s why I didn’t mention it.”
“You should have!” I hissed.
“And if I had, you wouldn’t have made a bargain?”
I groaned. “I didn’t know! She knew what she was doing and I wasn’t going to risk not succeeding. Nor wasting any more time. Not when it comes to Rhyan.”
“Realms!”
“Have you two quite finished?” Queen Ma’Nia asked, sitting back in her throne.
The seat was so wide she was able to sweep her knees up beneath her.
Delicate feet peeked out from her pearl skirts, and a large pearl, one the size of my big toe, was fitted around hers, attached to a silver ring.
“If not, by all means, continue this lover’s quarrel. ”
“We’re not—” I closed my mouth. We weren’t lovers. But we weren’t … not … exactly either.
“Not lovers?” The Queen shrugged. “Maybe not in these bodies. Not yet. But these iterations of your minds? You’re close. I’ve never seen two souls so intertwined. So deeply connected.” Her violet eyes flashed, and I felt naked. “Nor have I ever seen two souls who are so in love.”
My throat dried, and I stared ahead, afraid to look at Auriel. Afraid to meet his gaze.
“Perhaps, had you cursed yourselves, you’d still be Asherah, and this fight could be over.”
My chest squeezed. I hated that thought.
I knew there was pain in our past. Rhyan had felt it so keenly in his dreams. He’d felt Auriel’s memories like they were his own.
Losing me. Losing Asherah. And I knew that the part of my soul in the Celestial Realms, that part of me that was still Asherah was up there, alone, missing Auriel.
Pained. But if we’d never reincarnated—Rhyan never would have existed.
Would have never been born. And that was a world I didn’t want to be a part of—no matter what it cost.
Auriel’s eyes softened as if he read my mind, then he faced the Moon Queen and cleared his throat. “I know it’s been a while since we last spoke, Your Majesty.”
The Moon Queen nodded. “It has been some time,” she agreed.
Then she laughed. “For you. Not so much for us. You see, time moves differently here.” Her voice had slowed, becoming something hypnotizing and melodic.
She ran a finger down the length of her thigh.
“Very differently than what you know.” She wiggled her big toe and the pearl shone.
“When I married my husband, RaKanan, King of the Sun Court, something quite strange happened. We mixed together the elements and energies of the moon and sun, not just with our bodies, or in our beds.” She held Auriel’s gaze.
“But together we joined the spirit of those entities, threaded together their timelines, and cycles.”
“Timelines?” I asked. “Your Majesty?”
She laughed again. “Yes. One cycle of the sun within El Zandria and Khemet is the equivalent of the full turn of a moon beyond our lands.”
I froze, parsing out her words. “One cycle of the sun?” I shook my head. “But it’s night here. Night fell long before it was supposed to.” We were at sea for hours. But we still had plenty of time before sunset. “There is no sun.”
The Queen clicked her tongue. “Night did not fall. It cannot do such a thing here. It just was, as it always is. In Khemet, the night is eternal. Just as the sun never rises in El Zandria.” She gestured to the east. “The day simply remains. But time moves. Hours pass and they mark the cycles which appear stagnant to us.”
So a constant moon, and a constant sun, but still there were twenty-four hours. One cycle, one day. Sunrise to sunrise again. Was she saying—Gods, was she saying that a day’s cycle was the equivalent of a moon’s?
“I’m sorry,” I said, sweat beading at my brow. “But … you’re telling me that if we spend a day here in Khemet, a month will have passed in Lumeria?”
The Queen nodded. “Even just traveling through our waters, crossing through the coast of Bamaria to El Zandria, you entered our timeline. Nearly half a day has passed for you here. Yet weeks have passed out there by my count.”
Weeks? Weeks! No, no, no. That couldn’t be!
It couldn’t. Fuck. That meant I’d missed weeks of finding my family, of being able to tell them where I was, what had happened to me.
Weeks I’d lost that I needed to find Rhyan.
Sean could be with him by now and I had no idea if Branwyn had gotten through to him, or if he believed her.
“That’s nature,” the Queen sing-songed. “Ask your soulmate, your mekarim.”
Endless levels of floors between the columns, rising up and up, began to fill with faces.
Afeya leaned over the banisters, some were hanging from them, their feet dangling in the air.
And all of them were laughing and giggling.
Their auras were flung out, away from their bodies, leaving shadows and clouds and stars exploding everywhere I looked.
I took a deep breath, my pulse pounding through me. Two Afeyan contracts beating in my heart against the light of the Red Ray.