“STOP SLOUCHING, RHYAN. YOU look like a commoner.” My father glared from across the litter, his icy aura biting as he spoke. One hand was tightened around the scroll he’d been reading while the other gripped the hilt of the sword at his waist. Shining black leather covered the handle, which led to a blade he had forced me to sharpen and polish myself under his watch before breakfast.
I’d been trapped inside this litter with him for five fucking hours since, and for days we’d been moving through the sweltering southern heat of the Empire. I wouldn’t have necessarily called what my body was doing “slouching,” but I’d broken decorum as far as noble posture went and had let myself slip, appearing less than perfect as the son of an Imperator.
A pit formed in my stomach as I tried to assess how angry he was. I couldn’t tell. The energy of his rage never matched the degree of what I had or hadn’t done. Still, I moved to sit straighter, to roll my shoulders back. It didn’t guarantee he wouldn’t take further action, but not acquiescing definitely meant he would retaliate. Beads of sweat rolled down the length of my spine as I adjusted myself, and I fought the urge to wipe them away and scratch at the itch increasing beneath my tunic under his careful watch.
But even as the temperature continued to rise, the suffocating heat was nothing to the auric stab of ice provided by my father, Arkasva Hart, High Lord of Glemaria, Imperator to the North, one of the three most powerful men in the Empire of Lumeria.
“Rhyan, you are Heir Apparent to Ka Hart, the noblest of Kavim. You’re nineteen years old, three months away from participating in the Revelation Ceremony. Three months away from becoming useful in this Godsdamned society. By the Gods, learn to act like it.”
Or else. The unspoken threat, always present behind his words, sliced through me. His aura expanded, so cold it burned as painfully as the sun beating down on our travels. From a stab of ice it had grown to a full-on storm that forced me to sit back in my seat.
Despite the freeze, I was no cooler than I’d been before. Every word out of his mouth, every mention of my upcoming Revelation Ceremony, was a lie he maintained for the sake of appearances. And every mention of it made me want to crawl out of my skin, made me feel like I was going to burst with insanity. As if I didn’t already want explode with rage at any given moment of the day.
My power, my magic, my strength as a soturion—a warrior of Lumeria—had been bound inside of me only moments after it had been revealed in an early, secret ceremony.
The unbinding had taken place on the morning of my nineteenth birthday at the stark end of winter. Snow had still coated the grounds of Glemaria, though the temperature had risen significantly. Instead of wishing me a happy birthday or celebrating the fact that I was eligible to participate in the next Revelation Ceremony, coming into both my title as Heir Apparent and my power, he’d declared I was old enough for the blade, ready to take any additional punishments—or lessons as he liked to call them—like a man.
As if to prove he was stronger than me even with my power unleashed, he’d decided I was to be unbound early. Illegally. But when you were second in power to the Emperor of Lumeria, some rules didn’t apply. For every other nineteen-year-old of the Empire, this ceremony was to be performed at the end of summer and before witnesses—before an Imperator. Technically, I supposed, we’d fulfilled that part of the obligation.
My father had brought Glemaria’s ancient Arkmage into my bedroom to perform the ceremony. I’d thought I’d still have months to go before I’d be cut, before I’d make the choice to become a soturion and earn my blade. I’d thought I’d be doing this alongside my friends, the future Soturi of Ka Glemaria. But, as usual, I’d been alone.
The Arkmage had had a dagger ready for me before my eyes had been fully cleared of sleep. He’d made the slice to my left arm, my
blood dripping into the bowl of fire the old man had conjured as I’d said the words and the Birth Bind had been removed. The first part of my oath complete.
It had taken only seconds for it to happen. For the worst to come. For my vorakh to reveal itself.
Forbidden magic. Cursed. Taboo. A blight. An embarrassment. Vorakh was the only magic absolutely illegal in the Empire, the kind of magic that rogue hunters pursued. And I’d been “gifted” with the worst of the three. The one that was most impossible to hide when it revealed itself.
Not mind reading. Not seeing visions. I could travel—appear and reappear anywhere at any time, but without any control.
As if my father had needed another reason to despise me, needed another thing to find wrong with me, or another basis for his belief that I was a plague on his name, on our Ka. The moment the golden light of the Birth Bind had disappeared, my body had vanished from his sight and reappeared, leaving me dizzy and nauseated. Terror had raced through my veins before I could process what had happened, before I could let my father’s hateful words sink in.
And then, just like that, I was gone.
One second, I’d been in my bedroom, and the next, my stomach had twisted, and I’d found myself on the cliffs of the mountains behind the fortress, my bare feet crunching in the snow beside a pack of sleeping gryphons. Next, I’d traveled to a stranger’s home in an empty living room with a roaring fire, the sounds of a family preparing breakfast in the adjoining kitchen. I’d then returned to under my father’s roof, sweating, scared, on the verge of vomiting, and confused as to how I’d traveled so quickly. I hadn’t known what to do, how to stop it from happening again.
I had been terrified of being discovered, terrified it would happen again, terrified of where my body would fall next. But I couldn’t move, my limbs were shaking, my muscles raw. Exhaustion had taken over me almost immediately, and I’d collapsed to my knees before I’d been able to assess my surroundings, retreat, or escape.
My father’s guards had been everywhere, searching every inch of the fortress and its grounds for me. They’d bound me in rope and dragged me before my Arkasva and Imperator in the Seating Room where he’d perched on his golden chair like it truly was a throne
He’d told everyone I’d ran away that morning, that I was a coward who feared becoming a man on my birthday. Only three of us had known the truth: me, him, and the Arkmage. Only the three of us had known I had vorakh. A secret that was deadly. If anyone else—like Emperor Theotis—ever learned of it, I would be executed. So would my father.
The thought, I hated to admit, was almost appealing. Almost. Despite my hatred for him, I wasn’t ready to sacrifice my life to end his. Not yet.
The Emperor had executed an entire Ka years earlier for concealing a vorakh in their family. Ka Azria, the noble rulers in the south, had been a warning across Lumeria, though not one I’d ever thought I’D have to heed. But now it was, and on that morning, I knew what my father was thinking because for once, I was thinking it, too.
We could be next.
I’d barely been unbound a quarter of an hour before he’d forced the Arkmage to put the Birth Bind back on, trapping my magic inside me. This reversal spell was not commonly—or ever, really—done, but it had been my father’s order, and so the Arkmage had done it. And then my father had made the Arkmage swear to tell no one on pain of death.
“I will take this secret to my grave, your highness,” he’d said, his eyes pleading.
“Yes, you will,” my father had said calmly.
When he’d pulled out a dagger, I’d expected him to make us all swear a blood oath.
He’d put the blade through the Arkmage’s heart instead before ordering me to get dressed and attend my birthday breakfast as if nothing had happened. Over eggs and coffee, he’d told his court of the tragic passing of the ancient man. And that had been that. A new Arkmage had been anointed by nightfall. We’d never spoken of it again.
I hated the lie. Hated how unaffected my father had been. Hated how for months, I’d lain awake at night, itching and feeling farther than Lethea with the power that had been unleashed and so quickly trapped back inside me.
Now, as he stared from across the litter, I bit the inside of my cheek, pushing my shoulders back farther and puffing my chest up
His dark eyebrows narrowed to a V as he watched me—judged me—but he said nothing.
I felt my skin crawling, just waiting for his next insult, his next command, his next—
“Better, your highness?” I asked, unable to stand the tension.
The deep lines around his mouth deepened as he frowned, his eyes continuing to assess my posture. “Were you addressed just now?” His thumb stroked the sword’s hilt at his waist, a gentler caress than I’d ever seen him use on anyone or anything with a living, beating heart.
I coughed. “No, your highness.”
“Then shut your mouth.”
My lips pursed, but I did as my Arkasva, as my Imperator bid. I shut my mouth as I stared at the green velvet curtains embroidered with silver gryphons covering each of our windows. These windows were my only means of escape, my only source of anything to look at besides my father’s hateful face, and I’d been denied. Instead of seeing the southern countryside, watching each country pass by, I was staring at the same curtains that adorned every window in his fortress back home. Worse, the curtains trapped in the heat and cut off any semblance of a breeze that passed through. I was ready to crawl out of my skin. A scream had been building deep inside me for hours, and if I didn’t get out of here soon, I would go crazy.
But I had to stay calm. I couldn’t upset him.
My life had been shrunken down to these four small walls for weeks, all thanks to my father’s obsession with making an impression and cultivating his every appearance. If we’d flown on gryphons like I’d wanted to, we’d have crossed the Empire in days with our soturi moving quickly behind us. And I’d have been free—flying, feeling the wind, able to breathe and see the sky above me without walls. But my father believed any old Lumerian could dominate an animal—it was dominating people that made one strong. So gryphons were out of the question.
Not even the threat of facing akadim on the road curtailed him. As he said, these ancient monsters were all in the north, and we were traveling south, away from them in their least favorite season. And let the beasts try!
The entire journey was farther than Lethea. Arkasvim didn’t even travel by litter across their own countries.
I tapped a finger against my leg, focusing on the movement, the feeling, the fabric of my black linen tunic, and the tap tap tap sound, trying desperately to distract myself from the sweat rolling down my nape, the itch spreading across my legs beneath my boots, and the twisting in my stomach.
If he’d at least open a Godsdamned window, let me breathe, let me see something new for fucking once…but he wouldn’t. Gods forbid a menial nobody of the Lumerian Empire see the Imperator without his permission. Gods forbid I enjoy myself for a fucking minute. He was suffering, too. I knew it. Even he couldn’t command his aura to keep him cool for an entire day in the heat. And my aura…mine was trapped, imprisoned, suffocating, cut off thanks to the bind. Of course, we had mages who could cool us off, we even had windows we could open! But my suffering was worth far more than his comfort. He got off on it.
I stared helplessly at the walls imprisoning me. Nothing to do, nothing to see. No way to escape. I’d brought scrolls to read and help me pass the endless hours of our journey, but even at our sickeningly slow-and-steady pace, I felt nauseated every time I tried to read, so they sat uselessly beside me, rolling back and forth across the bench, still sealed in their leather cases.
My father’s eyes flicked to my leg from the half-read scroll in his lap, and immediately, my finger stilled. Had I angered him? The tapping hadn’t made much noise. And my posture hadn’t shifted. Had he remembered some past offense—or rather, some past offense he’d conjured?
“What is that face you’re wearing?” He reached for his belt, his fingers tracing the hilt of his dagger. I stopped breathing, but then his hand slid along the leather strap, opening a pouch beside his sword, removing a green silk handkerchief. He wiped it across his forehead though I doubted it did him much good. He’d sweat so much the cloth was soaked.
I lifted my eyebrows in mock surprise. “Why, I’m wearing the face I was born with, your highness.”
“Do you think you are clever?”
I shut my eyes. A reflex, born of years of practice. My body stiffened and stomach tightened, and I recalled something pleasant. My last night in Glemaria. Reading alone in my bedroom for a full hour in peace. Spiced mead in my cup. A fire roaring. My blankets soft.
Inhale…exhale….
Just like that, it was over.
My eyes sprang open, and I blinked back tears. I wheezed, coughing before I could help myself.
It had been a punch to my stomach this time. Always below the face. Always where no one could see. Arms and legs were fair game back home, but since our visit to the south meant less clothing, he’d taken to aiming at my torso. Bandages covered the black and blue marks on my back thanks to my most recent whipping. My ribcage was still tender from last night...
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