56. Stellen
Chapter Fifty-Six
Stellen
Thyra’s heavy heartbeats drum in my hearing, fading as she rides away.
I wait until I’m completely certain she won’t be able to hear me and then I wait a few moments more before I say, “The False Queen was in love with a Blood Fae.”
Antony’s shadow extends across the rocky cliff as he steps into the light, his axe now in a harness at his back. “Maxim is a Blood Fae.”
“A fact that would see him hunted if his people knew.”
Antony narrows his eyes at me. In Thyra’s presence, he constrains his savage nature, but now that she’s gone, he is once again a monstrous threat.
I would not want to fight him now.
His sharp gaze, which encompasses the swords at my back, tells me he could very well be making a similar assessment of me.
We are only peaceful in each other’s presence because of Thyra.
Antony’s threatening snarl confirms that his thoughts align with mine. “Did Thyra tell you exactly what she read in the Chronicle?”
I cast my mind back to the Alak-Teah, when Thyra first spoke of breaking the blade. I didn’t ask her for specifics because I knew that disturbing the gravestone would come at a terrible cost and I didn’t want to draw attention to it at the time.
“Actually, no,” I say. “She told me she read the Chronicle in your royal library, and she told me about her theory: that we needed to bring together all of the pieces that were used to create the blade.”
Antony leans against the side of the trapdoor, but I don’t take his stance for nonchalance. His focus is now on the far distant mountain ridges, where he may yet be able to make out Thyra’s silhouette in the dark.
“Then the actual words might make a difference to you,” he says, his focus flicking back to me. “What was done must be undone. Unmade as it was made. To break the curse, break the blade.”
My Lethian power surges to my throat as I fight against my sudden dread.
Heartless me would not have felt this fear.
Now, it’s impossible to restrain my power, my Voice humming, these dangerous words taking root in my mind. “Unmade as it was made.”
“What was done must be undone,” Antony says, his gaze now startlingly hollow.
“Those words aren’t about the blade,” I snap. “They’re about the curse.”
Antony’s focus returns to the mountain ridge, although I’m certain he can’t see Thyra now. “That distinction wasn’t clear to me until today.”
In fairness to him and Thyra, the information in the False Queen’s letter and her claim of innocence are the reasons I view the Chronicle’s message differently. An injustice occurred and has been perpetrated by generations, and now…
“History is undoing itself.” I jolt away from the tower wall when my frost power surges and threatens to shatter the stone. “Thyra is the catalyst.”
Antony inclines his head. “Where our ancestors became kings, we are kings who have become generals again. You and I.”
“Descendents of the men who went to kill A’Isha and her ladies,” I say. “Men who betrayed her son, who was prince and heir to the Serulian throne.”
Now I’m the one searching the distance for Thyra, straining to hear her heartbeats. “And yet,” I whisper, “in the False Queen’s letter, she didn’t mention the Ember General.”
Antony gives a single, wry shake of his head. “No, she did not.”
He gives no warning and neither do I.
His axe is at my throat as quickly as my sword is at his.
Warmth blossoms at my neck, proof of how sharp he keeps his axe, while my sword cuts just as neatly, drawing a trickle of Antony’s dark blood with the lightest pressure.
My vow fills my throat with power. “If you betray Thyra—”
“I will kill you,” he finishes.
A vow between us. Against each other. For her.
Power floods my Voice as I say, “We may yet be destined to end each other, Vampyr.”
Fangs descending, he replies, “A promise sealed in blood, Lethian.”
A vow that does nothing to assuage the dark question rising within my mind.
Are we fated to betray Thyra?