Chapter 40 #2
I nervously eyed Rhyan before blurting out, “Two weeks.”
The turion frowned. “I see. And you’re just now completing your stay at this inn? Enjoy your visit?”
My heart thundered. “We did, very much. Didn’t we?” I asked Rhyan.
He nodded vigorously. “It was very pleasant.”
“So if I were to ask the innkeeper when you checked in— they’d tell me it was two weeks ago? You didn’t check in after that?”
That Godsdamned bitch—she’d already reported us.
I laughed nervously. “Oh, here? Well, sure. I’m sorry. I meant, we’ve been on our trip for two weeks.” I wrapped my arm through Rhyan’s trying to look like I was too besotted to remember details.
“Hmmm.” The turion eyed me up and down before narrowing his gaze on Rhyan. “Women. Can’t remember anything.”
Rhyan laughed again. “No. Now, if you’ll excuse me, I better get her home. Before she forgets where we live.”
“Just one more thing. Your names?” the turion asked.
“Right,” Rhyan said. “I’m Soturion Sean, Ka Kolina.”
I barely managed to keep the shock off my face. My mind had gone blank when the turion asked for a name, but Rhyan had managed to come up with one that was actually a lesser-known Ka in Korteria.
“Ka Kolina?” the turion bared his teeth. Fuck. He knew we were lying. It didn’t matter that Rhyan had given a legitimate name.
“Yes,” Rhyan said.
The turion scratched at his head. “I didn’t know we had any Kolinas in Vrukston.” He held up his hand. “Learn something new every day.”
Rhyan lowered his chin. “We’ll be on our way then.”
“One more thing,” the turion said, his dark gaze locked on us. “Just need to see your dagger.”
“Of course,” Rhyan said. His eyes met mine, his hand on the hilt as he withdrew and turned the blade in his palm to safely hand it over.
“Here,” he said, placing it in the turion’s hand.
Barely a second passed before Rhyan spun on his heels, withdrawing his sword, knocking his dagger from the turion, and pointed the tip at his neck.
His opponent had barely blinked before he found himself at Rhyan’s mercy.
I had my swords out a second later. A cough signaled that Sean, and the two soturi who’d been trailing us had emerged from their hiding spots.
Five against five. One for each of us.
The soturi glanced around slowly, each one sneering confidently. They thought they could take us.
But then, I watched in horror as the turion touched his ear, and blue light from a vadati began to glow. “We know who you are, Lyriana,” he said.
“Now!” I yelled.
Rhyan launched at the turion, slamming his body to the ground, the vadati rolling out down the waterway.
Realizing the innkeeper could be watching, as well as anyone else inside the buildings down the street, I pulled out my stave.
The spell came to me at once. “Ani petrova chayate lyla.” Shadows cloaked us in darkness, as if the sun had just been eclipsed, but only where we stood.
Everyone froze, shocked at the sudden nightfall, and then, all ten of us were in battle. I kept my focus on the soturion in front of me, his blond hair shorn so short it was spiky on top.
“Need two swords?” he asked as he thrust.
I blocked the hit with ease, metal clashing against metal.
He shook his head, and angled his hips, preparing to strike again, but I went in for the kill, my vision clear even in the darkness that encased us.
With one hit I knocked his sword from his hand, and with the other, I stabbed just below his armor, hitting flesh. He grunted, his eyes widening in shock as I pushed the blade in, shoving it past muscle.
He coughed, and spat, blood spewing across his armor before I grunted, and pulled the blade out. He collapsed, coughing miserably.
I slid my blade across his throat a second later, and his eyes closed.
Sean met my eyes, his soturion now dead, as well as the other two. Only Rhyan remained, battling the turion.
The Kormac warrior had flipped Rhyan onto his back, and punched him in the face. Rhyan’s eye was already swelling.
Sean started forward, and I was already regripping the hilt of my blades, ready to rush in.
But Rhyan yelled out, and with a fury I’d never seen from him before, he grabbed the man’s head, and shoved his fingers into his eyes.
The turion cried out in pain as Rhyan flipped him over onto his back.
He punched him in the face, again and again.
Rhyan reached for his sword and the turion was dead seconds later.
Rhyan got back up, his chest heaving with exertion.
“Come on,” Sean yelled. He raced across the ground and grabbed the vadati which was now clear. The connection was gone. The turion didn’t have time to announce our whereabouts, but he’d said my name. Which meant others were looking for me now.
“We can’t wait for tonight,” Rhyan said. “Lyr and I need to cross the border now.”
“I agree, and I’m coming with you.” He turned to the other two soturi with us. They all seemed to be around Sean’s age, in their early forties, with the same brown hair that Sean had—albeit with some specks of gray.
“We’ll round up the others,” one said. He had a stocky build, and a long scar down his right arm. “Most are still gathering supplies.”
Sean nodded. “Everyone needs to meet us as soon as possible beyond the border. We’ll be in the first town, Dobrava, at the eastern outpost. They have until sunset—then we head north.”
“It will be done,” said the soturion. He nodded at me and Rhyan, lowering his chin in respect. “Go.”
I quickly gathered my bag, and handed Rhyan’s back to him. We pulled our hoods up over our heads, and without another word, we ran.
My feet were flying as we crossed through the shadows that I’d called down, shadows that were still cloaking the dead soturi.
My power was becoming easier to use, less taxing.
And it was all from the red shard. But even that wouldn’t hold for much longer—not with magic being so weak by the border.
It was truly a testament to how powerful the shards were that I’d done as much as I had.
Even Rhyan had struggled with traveling here the first time, and we hadn’t been this far west.
The meadow lay ahead, and the hills leading to the Wall of the Prince.
Rhyan took my hand as we approached the valley. The collapsed cave at the foot of the mountain looked like a tomb. My stomach dropped. If Rhyan hadn’t freed himself from the rocks, it would have been his.
He squeezed my hand like his mind had gone to the same place, and at the same moment, I had that strange feeling again, like there were eyes on me. Like I was being watched.
The akadim. It had to be. They could come out in the daylight, and we hadn’t seen any since last night, but they were near. I was sure of it.
When we reached the valley, Sean turned, heading north. He was taking us around the mountain. There was no way through. Not anymore. Not that I’d have ever entered the Wall of the Prince again.
When we came to a small woodland, we stopped for a short break, catching our breath, leaning back against the trees.
“You okay, partner?” Rhyan asked.
I walked into his arms, leaning my weight against him.
“I’m fine. What about you?”
“Fine,” he said, averting his eyes from the cave.
I shook my head. It was so like him. He was the one without power this time. And he was still more worried about me than himself.
“I don’t like it here,” he said quietly.
“Me neither.”
“Are you two all right to keep going?” Sean asked.
Rhyan kissed my forehead, his eyes darkening as he glanced at the cave ruins. He stretched out his legs, then nodded. “Let’s do it.”
We ran. Our path leading us around the mountain bordering Korteria. After an hour, when my body was ready to collapse we crossed into Dobrava, the human lands. The place where magic stopped working.
I slumped against a tree trunk, leaning my head back and wiping sweat from my brow. A strange feeling crawled up my spine.
A tree branch snapped. There was an intake of breath. Not from me, or Rhyan, or Sean.
Eyes were on us, watching. The same feeling as before. But it was stronger. Much stronger.
Rhyan went preternaturally still, as did Sean, all of us wordlessly sensing the threat and reaching for our swords.
Someone appeared in the shadows, a silhouette of a man, who seemed to be wearing rags. A cloth had been strapped to one shoulder and hung down to his waist. Another appeared wearing only pants from the outline I could see. And yet another appeared, wearing only a scrap around his waist.
The kind of clothing worn by akadim.
Five more appeared, and then a dozen. Rhyan and I slowly inched toward each other—Sean joining us, until we were all back-to-back. “The akadim,” I hissed. “The ones that escaped.”
“I recognize them,” Rhyan said, his voice hushed and shaking.
My heart pounded. I had the red shard, Rhyan had the green. But more and more were approaching, their faces concealed in the shadows, their silhouettes dark.
I started to count, two dozen, then three. And more were still approaching in the shadows. Too many for us to fight at once.
I shuddered, fear gripping me, my stomach twisting like a vice.
Then one stepped forward and called out. “Arkturion. Arkturion Rhyan.”
“Yes,” Rhyan said cautiously. “Harman, right?”
“Yes,” Harman said, his voice surprisingly soft for an akadim.
He took another step forward, into a small ray of sunlight shining through the trees.
He lifted his arms out to the side. They ended in fingers, smooth and round at the end—not clawed.
And his eyes—they were dark, perhaps brown.
It was too dark to see. But it didn’t matter.
Because there was one important color that they weren’t: red.
“Your eyes are green,” Harman said. He was thickly muscled and tall. A soturion build. His skin was dark brown, and his hair was silky and black like many born of Ka Elys. Carefully, he looked Rhyan up and down. “You’re alive?”
“Y-yes,” Rhyan said. “I’m cured.” Tears welled in his eyes.
Tears that I could see were reflected in Harman’s.
“How?” Harman asked.
Rhyan’s lips trembled, and he shook his head. “I was stabbed in the heart. By my love.” He looked over at me. “With a lost shard from the Valalumir. It had healing powers, and so does she. She brought me back.”
“It wasn’t just you,” Harman said. He looked over his shoulder, and gestured.
More men, and a handful of women began to emerge from the shadows and behind the trees and some bushes.
“My lady,” Harman said, meeting my eyes.
“You saved us then. Healed us.” He knelt down on one knee.
And the rest followed. Over fifty former akadim were kneeling before us.
“We are yours in gratitude. We owe you our lives.”
And then, Rhyan fell to his knees, looking up at me, tears shimmering against the emerald green.