5. Thyra
Chapter Five
Thyra
Iinhale the frozen air and the scent of blood clinging to the wind and then I make my choice.
At high speed, I retract the thread from around Lilis’s neck.
My soft, commanding cry vibrates through my fingertips, pushing the thread outward so it won’t hurt her before it wraps around my right palm.
I leap forward, away from her, my muscles responding to my impulses with a furious pace, the end of the thread snapping in the wind while the bulk of it stays snug around my palm.
Opposite me, Brunkil’s wolfish eyes widen.
He was prowling closer to me, treating me like prey, his claws extended, ready to subdue me.
I don’t think he planned to kill me. An Oracle is too valuable to lose.
Perhaps he should have.
My left arm pumping, I snatch the wood-hilted dagger from my right thigh as my legs carry me across the five paces between us.
Brunkil’s snort carries spittle to the snow, his alarm fading as rapidly as it appeared.
I anticipate his transformation into his wolf form, the same approach he used to evade Stellen’s sword when they first fought. At that time, Brunkil’s shifting shape left Stellen slicing through nothing but empty air above Brunkil’s collapsing fur coat.
Now, I throw myself low, my right arm swinging down then quickly up again, scooping the air beneath Brunkil’s chest as his form hunches, half fae, half wolf.
My dagger hits his heart.
The collision knocks him backward and I’m ready, my leg muscles screaming as I launch myself upward again, springing from the ground, ripping the dagger vertically through his shoulder and into his clavicle, where I let it go.
My right palm connects with the side of his neck, where his skin has half transformed into fur.
The silver thread responds to my exhale.
As Brunkil’s body flies backward, I wind the thread around his neck, run the two steps up his torso so I can use his shoulder as a springboard, and launch myself into the air.
Up. I wrench the thread tightly around his throat, slicing all the way through.
He doesn’t make a sound.
His half-transformed head hits the snow and his body topples forward.
His fur coat floats down on top of him, a pool of blood spreading out from beneath it.
I continue to sail upward, the silver thread trailing at my side.
Airborne, I float for impossible seconds, the yellow ribbon in my braid whipping at my nearly-bare chest, the wind trying to thrash me to the ground, but vampyric powers thrum through my body and gravity will have to wait.
From this vantage point, I make out a rapidly approaching form racing toward us from the northeast. I recognize Lilis’s white wolf and the man the wolf carries on its back.
I would never have been able to make out the rider’s details before the blood bind gave me Antony’s sharp eyesight or discern its stealthy paws against the snow without Stellen’s sharp hearing.
Especially through the shouting and furious howls of Brunkil’s pack as they converge on my location.
They’ll tear me apart.
I take a deep breath as gravity catches hold of me.
Fighting my impulse to scream a command at my armor where it continues to bind Lilis and keep her down, I control my exhale, conscious of the thread trembling in my hand and how violently it wants to react.
These threads were sung together with love and passion, but I’ve used them to draw blood.
The first time I took a life, that of an assassin who came to kill me, I was left shaking and in shock afterward. Today, I’ve cut lives short without a second thought and maybe, soon enough, the aftermath will hit me.
Soon enough, I’ll have to face the death I’ve caused.
But for now, I put the consequences aside, hiving them off, because Stellen’s life hangs in the balance if I don’t.
As the shapeshifters leap toward me, my soft cry draws every silver thread holding Lilis down back to me. The threads lift upward, as softly as feathers, before shooting back to my body in a collision that feeds my soul.
The magic within this armor has formed a bond with me so strong that I feel pain every time they reconnect—the pain of having been parted from them.
While the majority of threads conform to me, the rest whip through the air, a whirlwind of sharp needles driving the first row of shapeshifters back from me.
Through the wash of silver strands, I make out Lilis, wide-eyed, jumping to her feet.
Her forehead deeply pinches, her lips part, and her head draws back as she stares at Brunkil’s body. “I’m…free.”
From my threads, too.
Which means she could turn on Stellen, who lies in the snow right behind her. Of course, she’d have to go through Nara first, and Lilis has proven she won’t hurt a wolf.
Nara hunches protectively over Stellen’s form, her teeth bared at Lilis, daring the fae to come closer.
Just as I plow toward them, Fable shoots out from the shadows of the gate, remaining in her small, gray wolf form, incredibly fast as she races toward me.
Damn! I don’t want to fight her.
She leaps over the heads of the other shapeshifters and I swing to face her, bracing for attack.
Her body transforms into her fae form as she lands lightly in front of me, coming to a stop at a crouch.
Tension thrums through my body as I try to keep both her and Lilis in my sights, one now on either side of me.
Fable draws herself upright, fully naked, shoulders squared. The scars across her back extend around her sides, visible across her right hip. Blood seeps from fresh wounds on her left shoulder and arm.
On the inside of her right arm, invisible to everyone including me, a white feather is inked into her skin. Her mother was a Ferocie Scribe who used that magical ink to draw the feather when Fable was a little girl.
I wouldn’t know the inked feather was there except that I saw it in an Oracle vision that showed me Fable’s past. In the vision, her mother, whose face I couldn’t see, told Fable the feather would give her wings.
But her mother also gave her a puzzling command: never fly east into the shadows.
I brace, ready to fight, even though I really don’t want to hurt Fable.
As the descendant of a Ferocie Scribe who knew how to use white ink magic, Fable may be one of the few fae who can help me change the nature of the blood bind on my arm.
Fable’s lips draw back from her teeth. “Brunkil was my father.”
My heart sinks. I don’t know much about pack culture, but I might have just made even more of an enemy of her.
A moment later, her tension fades, her expression softens, and she gives me a small smile. “And now, I too, am free of him.”
Her expression hardening again, she swings away from me, her claws extending and teeth sharpening as she faces the other shapeshifters, casting a snarl back at me. “Take Stellen and run, Thyra. It’s time for me to claim my pack.”
At her declaration, the shapeshifters begin regrouping, forming smaller clusters behind two male shifters. Both of them had hung back during the main fight, but now that Brunkil is dead, it seems they want to take his place.
“I will not bow to another man,” Fable growls at them. “Let’s get this over with.”
For the briefest moment, I pause at her back, but I can’t get involved.
I may not know much about pack laws, but I’m certain she has to win this fight on her own.
Also, Lilis is once again a threat to me.
I prowl toward her, bending to wrench back the wood-hilted dagger from Brunkil’s body and return it to my thigh.
Lilis braces opposite me. The hours I trained with her tell me to treat her with suspicion, even while her arms remain at her sides. She might not carry a weapon any longer, but she’s fully capable of killing me without one.
“Edgar’s nearly here,” I say, keeping my focus on her while remaining aware of the battle beginning at my back. “You can stay and fight me, Lilis, and I will end you. Or you can leave with Edgar. That’s your choice.”
“You should have killed me already, Thyra. The Winter Strife—”
“Will remain in play.” I acknowledge the reality without any hesitation.
She nods. “Until Stellen dies.”
“If he dies.”
Through the thrashing of claws and teeth behind me comes the sound of stealthy paws.
Lilis’s white wolf is about to appear around the side of the compound, carrying Edgar, the man who will never abandon Lilis. No matter what she’s done.
She takes the risk of glancing in that direction, clearly hearing her wolf’s approach now. Her teeth clack together as she glares at me. “Fuck.”
She edges to her left, the tension in her body telling me she’s preparing to run.
A part of me wishes she would fight me, because it would tell me she thinks Stellen might live.
Now, all she has to do is wait for Stellen to die of his wounds.
She hesitates another moment, casting him a final glance before she says, so quietly I would miss it without his power, “You love a king who can’t love you back, Thyra. You should know the truth about Stellen before you follow him to your death. If he survives…ask him about his brother.”
Brother?
Stellen had a sister, not a brother.
His sister and mother died. I promised I wouldn’t make him speak of it. All I know is that their deaths broke him.
Lilis is impossibly quiet opposite me, her muscles tense, and her deep exhale carrying a sudden pain. “Ask him whom else he killed that day.”
I don’t know what she’s talking about, but the ache in her voice is like a chain wrapping around my heart.
A second later, Edgar and the white wolf race around the side of the compound.
Lilis breaks into a run, sprinting across the snow toward the wolf, catching hold of Edgar’s outstretched hand before she swings herself up onto her wolf’s back.
She wraps her arms around Edgar’s waist, and I catch a mere glimpse of his gold-flecked eyes before they race away.
I don’t have a second to waste.
I need to get Stellen onto Nara’s back and get away from the shapeshifters.
Behind me, one of the male contenders lies, unmoving, on the ground while the other man circles Fable in his fae form, his claws raking the air.
My focus now completely on Stellen, I wrench him upright, facing the split-second decision to leave the dagger in his chest.
I can’t risk that he’ll lose more blood if I take it out.
Avoiding pressing on the weapon, I haul him up onto Nara’s back.
Even with my increased strength, I struggle with Stellen’s weight, my fear for him growing while I grapple to seat him in front of me, his swords in their scabbards only making the task more difficult.
His wounds aren’t still bleeding, but with every press of my hands, I hum desperately to my armor. Now that I’m touching Stellen, I can wrap some of the silver threads over his injuries, even if it does little to help him.
Quickly ready, I cry, “Go, Nara! Get us to Juniper. As fast as you can!”