39. Antony
Chapter Thirty-Nine
Antony
I’m about to storm after Thyra when a firm hand closes over my armored arm.
“Do not,” comes the command.
I swing to Stellen, a rebuke ready, but he releases me and steps back. Calmly. Unhurriedly. His head tilted slightly.
“If Thyra wants help, I will hear her call,” he says. “She needs to conquer her fears as badly as Maxim needs to conquer his.”
I want to tell Stellen where he can shove his fucking wisdom, but Thyra’s accusation rings loudly in my ears: I chose to leave her. In Stellen’s arms, to be exact.
If I were honest with myself, which I rarely am, my need to go after Thyra has as much to do with my wish to protect her as it has to do with avoiding having to face my past.
My mother’s awake.
At this moment, she’s huddled beneath the dragon’s hide on a pallet a hundred paces away. I recognize Riven where he’s crouched beside her, but from this distance, I can’t hear what he’s saying to her.
“We are no longer enemies.”
Stellen’s declaration startles me, but I snort. “What kind of wisdom led you to that conclusion?”
His wolf pads up behind him to settle herself at his side and once again, I’m reminded that he’s just a bit taller than me, a height that allows him to more than stand eye to eye with me.
“I’m no longer a king,” he says. “I assume you aren’t, either.”
I’m prepared to bite his head off at that suggestion, but I take a breath, uttering an honest answer. Too much honesty today. “I’m not sure.”
“Well, which is it?” he asks.
The ruby circlet I’m keeping hidden inside my armor indicates I’m still a king, but I’m not sure I can put a lot of trust in the blood magic that controls it. My vampyric nature could be confusing that dark magic, or the blood magic has its own agenda.
As for my people, Cassia is building a small army of those who were loyal to me, gathering them to her side while Hadrian officially controls the Iron Kingdom.
I mutter, “What is a king without territory?”
Stellen arches his eyebrows at me. “Then we’re no longer enemies.”
“You’re still a fucking Frost Fae,” I snap at him.
He shakes his head. “I’m Lethian.”
I narrow my eyes at the powerful ice spreading across the backs of his hands, over his face, and presumably across the rest of his body. He gives himself a shake, sending snowflakes into the air around him. The snow takes the soot with it and leaves him clean-faced again.
“I should have left you to suffocate in the smoke,” I grumble.
“But you didn’t.” He grins at me, a startling change to his ghostly features. “Because we’re no longer enemies.”
“Repeating it doesn’t make it true.”
Unflustered by my threatening stance, he inclines his head sharply to his left. I’m not sure why until—
“Iron King.”
My mother’s quiet voice stops me in my tracks.
While I was speaking with Stellen, she must have stepped away from the pallet and has made it within twenty paces of us. Without me hearing her approach.
Was Stellen deliberately keeping me talking?
I narrow my eyes at him. He shrugs.
Mother’s starlight gleams brightly at the corner of my eye. I may be able to walk in sunlight and moonlight, but her light is more powerful than that of any Vividari before her.
It bites.
Instinctively, I turn away.
“Iron King.” Her command is firmer as she picks up her pace, bringing her biting starlight closer. “Remove your helmet and show me your face.”
Her starlight flares and I’m certain she’s preparing to defend herself.
She should strike me down.
Discovering she was alive was a mercy I never expected, but I can’t escape the horrors of the slaughter I committed. I will never atone for my sins.
She draws to a stop and her stillness forces me to face my fears.
Slowly, I dip my head to slide off my helmet, blinking against the sweat dripping into my eyes before I raise my head, square my shoulders, and face her, gritting my teeth against the pain, telling myself to fucking bear it. “Mother, for my crimes against your people, I—”
Her sob stops me.
“Antony.” She gasps a breath, her starlight dimming as she presses her hand to her heart. “It really is you.”
Riven hovers behind her and I guess he told her who I was since she couldn’t have been expected to know.
Her arms rise as if she’d reach for me, but her once-again brightening starlight forces me to finally veer away from her.
She stops in her tracks, appearing crestfallen at my flinch, tears slipping down her cheeks. “Oh.”
I swallow hard, painfully uncertain about what to say but determined to keep my fangs out of her sight no matter what.
“I wish I could fully dim my light,” she says, “but the vampyrs would swarm. I don’t know much about how I got here or what happened while I was asleep, but Riven told me the bloodlands have extended south into Ember and my light is keeping the creatures at bay.”
She’s barely finished speaking when Stellen stalks past me with his wolf at his side. “I’ll keep the vampyrs busy.”
My brow furrows. “Your power’s depleted.”
He glares at me. “I would fight a thousand vampyrs if it meant I had the chance to sing with my mother again.”
Aeliana’s attention snaps to him, her eyes wide. “What has happened to Sineria?”
Stellen becomes still, his expression suddenly devoid of emotion. “My mother died. Along with my sister. Ten years ago.”
“Oh, no.” Aeliana’s light dims instantly, shadows forming across her face. “I’m sorry for your loss. The world is a darker place without their songs.”
Stellen’s tension fades. “You knew my mother?”
“I met with her in secret. Also with Maxim’s aunt, Miriam. They couldn’t meet each other, so I was the conduit between them. We wanted to change the course of your lives.” Her gaze moves from Stellen to me. “Did we fail?”
Impossible to answer.
Stellen takes a step back, casting me a narrowed-eyed glare, but I assess it’s not only because of my attitude toward his attempt at peace. In the distance, the vampyric shrieks are growing louder.
“Judging by the way they’re swarming, I can only buy you a few minutes,” Stellen says. “Make the most of it.”
Then, to Riven, he says, “Come with me, but stay behind me at all times. You are a second line of defense only.”
Riven gives me a solemn nod before turning away. “My king.”
Fuck it.
“I’m not,” I say, causing the young Iron Fae to miss a step. And Stellen with him. “I’m not the Iron King. Not anymore.”
A weight lifts from my shoulders, a heaviness I’ve been carrying for years, and with its absence comes a freedom I need.
My purpose is Thyra. Keeping her alive and safe is my only goal now.
Stellen acknowledges my declaration. “Good.” Then he hurries away into the darkness, his pale robes and white hair making him clearly visible, along with his white wolf.
Well, the vampyrs will certainly know whom to target.
My mother’s starlight fades as she crosses the distance to me, her power no longer biting as she peers up at me. “I have so many questions, but most importantly, there are things I need you to know about that night.”
I’m suddenly wary. “You don’t need to speak of that.”
“I do,” she says, peering earnestly up at me. “I should have been there to stop him.”
Not even remotely what I expected her to say.
“When your father forced you into the catacombs, I wasn’t there to stop him,” she says. “I was in the south, visiting Miriam. If I’d known what he was going to do, I would have—”
“Stop,” I say. “It’s done.”
“But you need to know why I came south.”
“Mother, you really don’t have to—”
Her palm presses to my armored chest, a silent but firm command for me to listen.
“When the False Queen fled with the Dragonstone Blade all those generations ago, the three generals raided her belongings.
They took the anvil, the hammer, her Chronicle—yes, it was hers—and they seized the male Blood Fae who had forged the blade.
“They divided the spoils between themselves. The Frost General took the anvil. The Ember General took the Blood Fae, since he had originated from the Tol-Dakri. The Iron General took the hammer and the Chronicle.
“The Chronicle, as you know, was kept in the royal library, but the hammer was entrusted to the Vividari. Not by choice. Once separated from the Blood Fae, the hammer began emitting a dark light and with every passing day, it grew darker and darker. The Blood Fae had cast a blood bind onto it, and one of those runes was creating the darkness.”
This isn’t news to me. The hammer crumbled when the blood bind transferred to Thyra. Stellen and I spoke about it. He was hopeful a Ferocie Scribe might be able to alter the runes on Thyra’s arms to overcome the blood bind’s purpose, whatever it might be.
“So the Vividari hid the hammer away to control its light,” Mother continues. “For generations, we guarded the hammer. But then an Ember Fae burned your brother.”
I stiffen. She’s talking about the assassin who came for me and nearly killed Victor instead.
“By a simple act of fate,” she says, “I sought to distract Victor from his pain by describing every detail of the hammer to him. Only to realize that the runes had been altered! I don’t know when it happened, but it was within my lifetime.
An additional rune had been added and the shapes of the original runes had been distorted. ”
“To what end?” I ask.
“I don’t know.” Her bright eyes are wide. “What I truly feared was how. Blood Fae are supposed to be extinct, but only a powerful Merovian could have made such changes.
“Which is why I traveled south to consult with Miriam. She told me she would try again to find out what had happened to the man who’d forged the Dragonstone Blade.
She was emphatic that I should not try to sever the additional rune, but I was certain I could destroy that rune with my starlight. Oh, my pride. And now…”
Aeliana falls silent, her cheeks pale, shadows in her eyes.
“Mother?”
“Miriam didn’t know the rune was on my arm.
Riven confirmed that for me. Because of the way I was lying, unmovable, nobody could see the rune.
Miriam must have sent Thyra to me today, hoping that her Oracle power might wake me.
She couldn’t have known the danger Thyra would be in.
” Mother straightens, head high. “What happened today is entirely my fault.”
I take hold of Mother’s trembling shoulders but carefully, fully aware of how powerful my armored grip can be. “Look around you, Mother. All is well now.”
The serpent has taken himself off to the side, his head resting on his tail. His scales have turned charcoal on his left side. He appears fully healed, but also alert, his head raised to the air, his focus swinging from the deep darkness, where vampyric shrieks are growing and coming southward.
“But all isn’t well,” Mother says urgently. “The original blood bind was intended to help the next female Oracle, not harm her.”
I give a shake of my head. Aside from how unlikely that seems, I ask, “How do you know that?”
“Because of this.” Aeliana reaches into her bodice and slips a piece of folded paper out from it. “This is the Chronicle’s blank page.”
I’m struck still by the paper’s visibly torn edge.
“Is that the missing page?” My throat is tight. “Hadrian has tortured fae to get his hands on that.”
This piece of paper is the reason Emiliana was harmed and why Victor’s heart now seethes with even greater vengeance.
Mother presses her lips together. “As soon as I realized the hammer’s runes had been altered, I asked Damian Ferocie to tear out this page for me.”
“Damian was Emiliana’s father,” I murmur.
Galla Vividari forced me to fight him to the death. Supposedly because he refused to force his daughter into Galla’s Court, but now I wonder if Galla was trying to find out where the missing page had gone.
“I feared there were forces at work that would want this page destroyed,” Mother says. “So I took it.”
“Why?” I demand to know. “What power could a blank page possibly have?”
She replies, “More than you could possibly know.”