Chapter 8 Thyra
Chapter Eight
Thyra
My mind fractures.
The Dragonstone Blade holds me in its thrall, its golden power gleaming around me.
Moments ago, the Ember King accused me of withholding peace from this land, rejecting any responsibility for the destruction of this village.
Moments ago, I held the smallest hope that I could reason with these men. I thought I could offer myself up to them in exchange for protecting this village, and maybe…just maybe…I could forge a path through the devastation awaiting me.
Now, my screams suffocate in my throat as a stream of molten gold shoots up my arm again, a single line of power that disappears beneath my tunic.
And then, suddenly and stunningly, it appears to split.
Three threads of power burst from my chest, spearing through the air in front of me, each thread striking toward one of the kings.
The three men have remained concealed in shadow and smoke, and I can’t see exactly where the threads connect with their bodies, but I feel it happen.
The impact shakes me so hard that my legs wobble.
I gasp as the Ember King emerges first from the smoke on my right, flames licking around his hands.
He wears armor that appears to be made from some kind of leather with multiple straps, the color of deep orange ochre crisscrossing his broad chest. Pants made of a similar material cover his muscular legs down to the tops of his beige boots.
His body gleams with sweat, his tan skin glistening, the fury of the flames rising off his hands all the way up into the air at his sides, accentuating his square jaw and the sultry curve of his lips.
Heat fills his dark-brown eyes as his gaze runs from my head to my toes, but it’s a dangerous heat.
A heat that will burn me.
He doesn’t yet appear aware of the thread of power stretching between us, and while I don’t understand what that thread means, I need him to listen to me.
“I don’t know why you hate me—”
The moment I speak, the Frost King darts from the shadows on my left, in the opposite direction of Maxim.
I prepare to defend myself, to spin to him, when the blade catches the light again.
A second stream of molten gold shoots up my arm. It doesn’t split, but instead—
My mind fractures.
It physically splits.
A new scream rises to my throat as my perception cleaves into three.
Three complete thirds, each one focused on a king, while my body remains intact.
My cry never leaves my lips.
Suddenly, I find myself continuing to speak with the Ember King as if nothing happened, and, at the very same time, I’m spinning to the Frost King.
He has jolted to a stop, his reactions as quick as a wolf’s.
He’s taller than the Ember King and also leaner, although his shoulders are broad, his waist narrow, and, even though plates of silver armor cover most of his body, his movements speak to his physical strength.
His hair is white, the long, straight strands falling past his shoulders, both sides tucked behind his pointed ears.
His features are otherworldly, beautiful in their iciness; his pale gray eyes mimic smooth stone, his high cheekbones are razor-sharp, but his lips speak to a passion that defies his cold power.
I heard a whisper that his mother was Lethian, and the shape of his ears and the near-white color of his eyes confirm it. A peaceful people lost to the passage of time.
He carries two long swords at his back, both with pearly-white hilts, and brings with him the chilling scent of winter. It wafts across my face like dancing snowflakes, defying the Ember King’s blistering heat, cooling my skin.
The Frost King’s gaze is forbidding, but surprisingly troubled.
I prepare to speak to him when another stream of golden light courses up my arm.
No! Not another!
This time, it brings a vision from the blade—
I’m falling, plummeting into darkness. Complete darkness. As I fall, teeth strike and tear at me, hot blood flows across my arms and legs and chest. My life bleeds from me, but then, a wash of ice explodes across me. A chilling hope—
As I come back to myself, words fall from my lips, rushing from my mouth, even though I don’t yet understand their meaning. “Come for me when the stars go out. Find me where the light hides.”
Simultaneously, another vision hits me, consuming a piece of my fractured mind—
I’m running as fast as I can, my heart pounding while growls and shrieks fill my ears and the hot breath of beasts hits my back.
I can’t run fast enough. Paralyzing fear threatens to overwhelm me, but then my footsteps crunch on sand, fire blossoms across the air, and once again, I have the smallest sliver of hope—
To the Ember King, I whisper, “Come for me when the sun turns bitterly cold, and the sand bleeds iron.”
I don’t know what those two visions mean or where the events within them happen or even when. All I know is that they fill me with fear, and if the Ember King and Frost King don’t do as I ask…
I don’t know if I’ll survive.
At the very same moment as I speak to the Ember King, a new threat approaches.
The Iron King steps from the shadows directly ahead of me.
While my other fractured parts continue to face the Ember King and the Frost King, my present self faces the Iron King.
I gasp when I recognize him.
He’s the warrior who raged against the Frost Fae when they trapped me. His blade barely missed my head, the same axe he used to cut through the icy wall blocking my escape. He let me go. A mistake on his part, I’m sure, although he clearly didn’t know who I was at the time.
Our encounter happened so fast, I didn’t have the chance to study him, but I do now.
“You,” I whisper.
“Me,” he snarls, prowling toward me, a towering form, his shoulders impossibly broad, his torso clad in large, fitted plates of black armor that extend up and over his shoulders as well as down around his legs.
The steel does nothing to conceal the thickness of the muscles on his arms and legs, and the closer he comes to me, the more strongly I inhale the scent of burning iron.
His axe swings down by his side, its sharp edges cloaked in the scorched blood of the Frost Fae he fought.
He stops a mere three paces away from me, looming over me, his shadow blocking out, once and for all, the sunlight that had glinted on the Dragonstone Blade.
His presence up close is dizzying. His gaze is unrelenting, except for the briefest moment when his focus flickers to the thread that has shortened between him and me, the rope contracting as he approaches.
There’s no doubt he sees it. Also, no doubt, he despises it.
“Whatever power you’re using to beguile my enemies, it will not work on me,” he says.
Both the Frost King and Ember King remain unmoving, each more than five paces away from me, their eyes glazed and, even now, within my mind, I’m telling them…
Wait for me!
Let me go!
The Iron King leans toward me, and I fight the pull of energy around him, the magic that seems to radiate out from him with every ragged breath he takes.
“You may fear them,” he whispers, his lips curving into a smile. “But I’m the real monster.”
His arms shoot out to seize me, and I respond on pure instinct, lifting the Dragonstone Blade and preparing to defend myself with it.
My eyes widen because it’s gone!
No, not gone.
The blade has turned itself vertical, lifting itself parallel to the underside of my arm, where I couldn’t see it, while it still felt like I was holding it. Before my eyes, the blade is adhering to my skin, sinking into my flesh.
With a shout, I stumble back from the Iron King, clawing desperately at the dagger, trying to leverage it off myself and keep it at bay.
He pauses, his brow furrowed and his shoulders tense.
Not for long.
Stepping toward me again, he moves with the stealth of a predator while the golden metal sinks into my arm and the ivory ribbon rises of its own accord, twining up and around my limb.
I can’t stop it. I can’t halt the blade’s descent into my flesh. I don’t feel any pain. Instead, deep fear thrums through me, an overwhelming force that threatens to consume my hope even as I fight back against it.
I can’t give in to shock, or I’ll be lost.
Within heartbeats, the blade has merged with my body, and so does the cloth, and now they appear as an elaborate, inked artwork adorning my arm.
The blade’s golden hilt sits across my palm while its cross-guard wraps around my wrist like a bracelet, and its sharp tip points to the inside crease of my elbow.
The ivory ribbon is like white ink trailing along and around my arm from my palm all the way up to my biceps, stopping below the edge of my tunic’s short sleeve.
As I continue to back away, the Iron King follows after me, matching each step I take with one of his own, the thread between us remaining taut until I hit the wall behind me, pressing up against it as if it will somehow give me answers or provide my freedom.
My father’s body lies within reaching distance, his form even more collapsed now.
Oh, Father…
Why?
I raise my head, facing the Iron King as he looms over me.
His furious green gaze collides with mine.
A whisper tears from my throat as I seek meaning from the two visions now writhing within my mind. Visions of darkness, claws, teeth, blood, and beasts.
“You must earn what you desire,” I choke out, even if I don’t know what that means.
With that, the blade’s energy finally, finally begins to recede, leaving me to slump against the wall, my thoughts filled only with questions for which I have no answers.
“What I desire?” The Iron King gives me a smile that sends a shiver down my spine, demanding my complete focus once more. “Why don’t we find out what that could be?”
I close my eyes and bury my fears as I accept the only path that now seems available to me. “To you, I will submit.”