Chapter 29 #2
I nodded. “Okay,” I sniffled, my chest contracting painfully.
Being in a cave, sitting by the fire, having my injuries tended to …
Auriel had done this once before already, on the night he’d appeared.
But Rhyan and I, for a while, this had been our life.
Our own private world. For weeks we’d been on the run, alone like this.
Together. And the pain of it, of him not being here with me, of him not being the one to sleep beside me tonight felt like a fresh knife to my heart.
“Auriel?” I said, my voice shaking.
“Lyriana?”
“I miss him,” I cried. “So much.”
“Oh, I know you do, Meka. I know. Come here to me. Come here.” But he was already standing, moving to my side, and pulling me against him in a hug.
He let me cry against his chest, and rest my head in his lap when I grew too tired.
Then he stroked my hair, and my back, until I finally drifted to sleep.
The red shard glowed ever so slightly as it lay beside me, my eyes closing.
The next morning, I woke up early and ready for training. Though the skin on my arms was still healing, the use of my arms, and the control in my hands had returned. For the first time in days, I felt restored.
I used my glamour magic on Auriel to change his armor again.
I’d perfected the spell a little more, not having to perform it under as much pressure as before.
It was still nowhere near as convincing or detailed as what Aiden could do.
He truly was an artist, and I hoped I’d get the chance to tell him that when I saw him again.
When I saw everyone again. Wherever they were.
Standing back to check my work on Auriel’s appearance, I decided it was perfectly passable as long as no one looked too closely.
Auriel appeared to be wearing the standard silver armor issued by Ka Kormac.
I decided to also change his eyes from green to black.
They didn’t suit him at all—but he would definitely blend in with the other Korterians.
After doing a quick perimeter check for any threats—animal, akadim, and Kormac, he took the ashvan by himself out to the nearest town. The plan was for him to listen for news, open his senses, and gather food for me. Because he insisted I eat before I trained. Like Rhyan would …
So I did, knowing there was no way around it—even if I felt energetic, even if I was eager to start.
Auriel was just as strict as Rhyan, if not more.
So, while I waited for him to return, I practiced the Dance of Asherah, holding the sword.
It was something I used to do with Rhyan when I was growing accustomed to even holding a weapon, to building the muscle necessary.
He thought it would help if I held it while moving in a way that felt natural to me. A way I had already mastered.
Again, the shard glowed ever so slightly with my movements, like it was attuned to me. And my heart warmed.
Auriel returned to the cave not long after, standing stunned as he watched me dance.
My skin heated, and I put the sword down, almost embarrassed.
Though I had no reason to be. I was doing an ancient dance—one named after myself.
My old self. And by the look on his face, he’d recognized it at once.
This wasn’t just an Asherah-inspired dance. This was her dance.
Our eyes met, and for a moment, I remembered the way he’d looked at me in my vision. His eyes had held a similar intensity on the hill.
But he quickly shook his head, and the blaze of warmth that had accompanied his aura seemed to calm.
He set down the breakfast he’d found, proudly reading off the menu he’d created.
I was impressed. It was his first time having to go out on his own since he’d returned.
And he’d brought back a proper feast, and most importantly, coffee.
We settled down to eat, but not before I made a point of un-glamouring his eyes, and his armor.
A little while later, when I was fed—and by the Gods, caffeinated for the first time in days—we began training.
Hours were spent parrying and thrusting our blades, moving through basic exercises.
I was already accustomed to holding the red shard, thanks to my earlier dance session.
But I needed to wield the sword, not just hold it.
I was paying attention to everything, wholly focused on every movement, every step, every turn.
I had to understand the shard’s weight and its precise movements.
I had to know the speed in which I could use it.
The force a stab required. And most importantly, I had to perfect the art of hitting my target.
The heart.
I was determined for the shard to become an extension of my arm, to become as much a part of me as the light inside had been. And with every move I made, I was growing closer and closer to making this happen.
Auriel and I moved through our drills over and over; I was ravenous to learn, to practice.
To become a master. And when he suggested we break, I refused.
I had to keep going. Every time I felt tired, I saw Rhyan’s face, saw the pain in his eyes when I’d picked him up.
And the way they’d turned red in my dreams—my nightmares.
It wasn’t until we were both dripping with sweat, until my arm was practically numb, and my fingers could no longer hold the hilt, that I relented.
We took turns bathing in a nearby spring, careful to give each other privacy.
Then we packed up our things, and rode on the back of our ashvan into town.
This time, my hair was glamoured to more of a white blonde in the hopes of differentiating myself from any stories that had spread about me.
I also made a point to change the color of my eyes, black like Ka Kormac.
Two soturi now knew I was here, but they had no proof it was me.
Hopefully that was enough to keep me safe.
I decided to change Auriel’s hair as well, and matched his eyes to mine again. When we caught a glimpse of our reflections in a river, the effect was startling. Combined with the way I’d transformed our armor from gold to silver, if no one knew who we were, they’d think us regular Kormac bastards.
Back in town, we kept our heads down moving from pub to pub, listening to people talk.
Listening not just for stories of akadim, but of people going missing.
If Rhyan was leading a horde, or an army of akadim in Korteria, then surely, they were feeding.
Which meant Korterians had to be vanishing, or seeing more of the demons than ever before.
There’d been at least six back in Vrukston.
And if we were close, there’d be even more.
Especially since I had a feeling the akadim were being encouraged not just to maim and kill, but to make more of themselves.
To grow Morgana and Aemon’s numbers. But we heard little to back up our theories.
I had another coffee, and so did Auriel. And over the course of the day, we ordered more beers than we could drink, letting them mostly go to waste. Then we stepped in and out of every small shop that had people inside.
It wasn’t until dinnertime that night when someone finally mentioned Bamaria again.
Or rather, fucking southern New Korteria.
There were protests mentioned—though, considering we were moving further west through the country, they might have been referencing the same protests we’d already heard about.
It was entirely possible it was just taking longer for the news to travel.
But I couldn’t be sure. Unless we went back east, I didn’t think I’d find out the truth of what was really happening back home.
Eventually though my name did come up. A lot.
What we heard were mostly things not worth repeating.
Or more speculations that I was dead after having gone missing for a month.
The other popular story, besides my death, was that I was pregnant with Kane’s baby.
That rumor was followed closely in repetition by another rumor about me being pregnant with our new Emperor’s baby. And then the Bastardmaker’s.
I even heard Rhyan’s name thrown in a few times.
Apparently, I’d been impregnated by everyone.
But the majority of the time Rhyan’s name came up, it was less about our affair, and more about condemning him as a vorakh.
Gloating over his stripping, and excitement for more to meet his fate.
Auriel had to hold me back a few times from punching Korterians laughing over it.
But, I noted, there was no mention of him as an akadim— or even any mention of the akadim attack on the capital at all.
The Emperor had truly kept that under wraps, making it all about me, and the vorakh.
The story that seemed to be going around Korteria was that Rhyan succumbed to his wounds after the stripping.
The deaths I knew had taken place were being downplayed.
And the ones acknowledged were being blamed on me and the vorakh they accused me of freeing.
I wanted to scream at them all. They were so fucking worried over a group of people who weren’t a threat to them or their lives. In fact, they seemed most afraid of the very people who were the most threatened by the Emperor himself. The people who if found, would lose everything.
And despite the overwhelming presence of akadim we’d seen here just the night before, no one seemed overly concerned or worried about the danger they were in.
And the most disturbing—they’d just lost the one thing that protected them from akadim.
And thanks to Emperor Avery’s lies, they had no idea they’d lost it.
Daylight.