Chapter 11 Thyra
Chapter Eleven
Thyra
The light behind my eyelids vanishes, and a spine-chilling darkness drops over me.
My eyes fly open, but I immediately regret it.
Far, far below, the landscape races past in a dizzying rush, a wash of sharp peaks and shadowed valleys so dark, it looks like rivers of black blood flow between giant rocks.
It can only be the place known as the bloodlands.
I don’t know exactly what kind of creatures live here. Nobody could tell me. As the stories go, nobody reckless enough to travel through here ever comes out again. Nobody. This place is a wasteland whose only inhabitants are primed to deliver a painful death.
As much as I fear finding out more about this land, my immediate anxiety is caused by the distance between me and the ground below.
I squeeze my eyes closed again, only to discover that the Iron King must have been watching me because he gives a sharp command.
“Open your eyes.”
My jaw clenches. “No.”
“Open. Your. Eyes.”
I take a breath. “No.”
He gives an angry snarl, a sound of frustration vibrating in his throat, before he says, “The creatures that infest this darkness won’t give a fuck if you’re afraid of heights. You need to see them coming.”
A sigh pushes at my chest. “I see more than enough.”
Too many visions, leaving my mind exhausted.
As for my hand resting on his face, it was only the briefest vision that made me raise it. But, to my relief, it was my Oracle power, preceded by a flutter of warmth in my chest.
I foresaw a white sword and a spray of blood. That was all, but it was enough.
“Your hand is not soft,” the Iron King growls, but he hasn’t pushed me away, and for now, I’m frozen where I sit, unable to move for fear of falling.
I tell myself I’ll lower my hand when I feel safer.
Then I remind myself, I may never feel safe.
To his statement, I reply, “We only ate when we worked. The work was hard.”
“We?”
“My father and me.”
The Iron King is quiet for a moment. “You speak of the dead man back there.”
I don’t feel the need to answer since he didn’t ask a question. Not that I have to answer everything he asks.
Some questions will have consequences.
Some answers should not be given.
The difficulty is knowing which.
“Was he a good father?” the Iron King asks.
It’s a surprising question. Certainly not the question I thought he’d ask.
I want to cry an emphatic yes. Father loved me and protected me. He taught me to work hard and care for others. He pointed out the beauty in the world amidst all its viciousness. But it’s such an unexpected question, spoken in such a quiet tone, that I’m on my guard.
Some answers should not be given.
Carefully, I ask, “Define good.”
The king’s speech is halted. “Was he…kind?”
“Very.” My forehead crinkles. “Except when he was being tough on me.”
The king’s armored hand tightens against my side. “Did he beat you?”
My eyes widen. Some answers should be given.
“Never,” I say. “He never hurt me.” But I can’t stop the sudden well of tears behind my eyes. I squeeze them more tightly closed before the tears can fall. “Only by dying.”
Father thought he’d have more time. There was still so much he needed to tell me, so much I desperately needed to know about the blade.
He told me to unwrap the blade, and my path would be clear. But he also warned me that the blade could affect my Oracle visions, and he didn’t know what manipulations I might experience.
Each of the blade-induced visions have been vivid and painful, near terrifying, but the one in which whispers came to me through complete darkness, commanding me to fight and destroy the kings, unsettled me the most. That voice had no identifiable origin, and I couldn’t tell if it was even my own voice or simply a vision taking some sort of audible form.
I feel as if I’m stumbling blindfolded across a field filled with shards of glass, and all I’ll discover is pain.
I’m suddenly aware of the king’s nearness, the whisper of his breath across my cheek as he leans closer to me.
“I envy you,” he says, so softly that I could have imagined his words.
We were speaking about my father, that he was kind and never beat me, and now, when I dare to look up, the king’s savage green eyes glitter at me with the light of a strength I fear he’s barely revealed to me.
The visible corner of his lip tugs up, as if he takes delight in my sudden uncertainty.
His voice continues as a soft murmur in my ear. “What is your name?”
I catch my breath to reply. “I’m Thyra.”
The villagers knew me as Thea, because it’s a lowborn name and is similar to the first part of my true name, including the soft th sound at the start.
Now I pronounce my real name as my father said my mother would have wanted it pronounced.
Thear-uh.
Soft th. Emphasis on ear.
My answer is met with a rumbled snarl, and it seems the king’s anger is back. “That’s a highborn name.”
“So Father told me.”
“You aren’t highborn.”
He studies me, his green eyes searching my face. I focus on him, determined not to look down or even acknowledge the rush of air around me.
I’m not certain he can hear my whisper over the wind. “Are you sure you know anything about me?”
His eyebrows draw down, or, at least, the one I can see does, since the other is concealed beneath the undamaged half of his armor.
When he doesn’t answer me, I finally begin to slip my hand away from his face, but he presses his own hand against it, trapping me there.
“You don’t know anything about me, either,” he says. “Or you would never have dared put your hand on my face.”
I’m already frozen, but now my thoughts are thrown into chaos.
Everything I’ve heard about him. All whispers and rumors… Nothing’s verified. My biggest problem is that I heard many of the same things about the other two kings.
All three are brutal. Heartless and cruel. Their physical strength is unparalleled. They hate each other, want nothing more than to kill each other, and don’t care about collateral damage. I even heard they kill lowborn for sport.
Most unsettling right now, though, is that of the three kings, the Iron King is the one I wouldn’t immediately fear touching.
Not like the Ember King, whose body heat could instantly burn my hand to ash. Or the Frost King, whose icy skin could strip the flesh off my palm.
The Iron King’s power lies in his ability to manipulate iron. It certainly doesn’t coat his body.
And yet, his warning tells me I shouldn’t have made any assumptions about him or his power.
“You’re right,” I say, my voice bleak. “I was told only that you would destroy me and anyone I loved.”
The Iron King’s lips draw back from his teeth in a smile that promises me every pain I imagine him capable of delivering. “You were told true.”
His eyes gleam as he continues. “Tell me who you love. So that I may destroy them.”
He appears so gleeful at the possibility of bloodshed that I can’t help but feel some satisfaction from my answer. “Nobody who is still alive.”
My mother passed away during my fifteenth year. Father foresaw her death and wouldn’t tell me anything about it in case I tried to stop it from happening.
The king shrugs. “Pity.”
My brow pinches. “What makes you think I’m not lying to protect someone?”
The arm he’s holding around my back suddenly rises, his steel-clad hand stroking up to the back of my neck. It’s a cold touch, and I can’t stop my shiver. Or, maybe, it’s the sudden hollowness in his expression that drives a shudder down my spine.
“I believe you will lie to me about many things, but I know emptiness when I see it,” he says. “You’re alone.”
His fingers wrap around the back of my neck, not tightly, but firmly enough to remind me that he could have snapped my neck already.
Despite the clear physical threat, the corner of his mouth turns down, and the sigh that passes his lips sounds almost rueful. “Fucking powerful and yet completely alone.”
I don’t know what to make of his tone or the sudden shadows in his eyes or the fact that the dizzying height is no longer affecting me so badly. Or even that I’m sitting straighter.
I’m certain there are more important questions, but I find myself asking, “What should I call you?”
He tips his head a little, as if he’s giving it careful thought. “You should call me—”
He suddenly tenses, his focus snapping to his right a moment before a shadow streaks through the darkness on that side.
The eagle shrieks, a sharp warning sound, and I jolt as another shadow flashes through the dark on our other side.
Then another shadow appears behind us, also vanishing quickly.
Each one flickers in and out of view so fast, it’s impossible to make out their exact shape and form.
“Fuck.” The Iron King’s focus moves rapidly from one spot to the next.
I’m alarmed when the blood drains from his visible cheek.
I imagine it takes something truly dangerous to worry this man.
“It’s a swarm,” he says, and, in the next moment, he reaches for my legs. “You need to turn around, face forward, and lean low to my bird’s back. Do this, and you’ll have a chance of survival.”
I don’t question him. He’s had every chance to kill me, but hasn’t. As quickly as I can, I slide my legs away from his body, allowing him to lift me and turn me in the other direction. I fight the instinct to close my eyes at the sickening view of the cavernous valley we’re flying across.
A yawning mouth waiting to swallow me…
Forcing myself to breathe, I sink to the bird’s back and lean low over its neck, tilting my head to keep my eye on the king.
He rises to his feet and looms over me, apparently completely comfortable standing upright on the eagle’s back.
Muttering to himself, he reaches for his axe. “They fly in threes. They never swarm.” His jaw clenches. “Fuck.”
Then his eyes meet mine. “They must smell you.”
Smell me? Well, that’s delightful.
“Stay down,” he commands before his axe hums through the air as he withdraws it.
Balancing behind me, he swings his weapon slowly back and forth, a near-hypnotic motion, while, above the rushing wind, I make out a growing chime in the air.
Ringing iron. A perfectly beautiful hum.
The air begins to glow around the edges of his blade. All the while, his focus remains on the darkness around us.
A sudden shriek breaks across me. “New blood!”
Whatever creature flew through the air above us vanishes again in an instant, gone too soon for me to make out what it looked like, but other voices hiss into the night after it, each one shooting closer to us before receding.
“Tasty wench.”
“We need her.”
“Let us drink her.”
“Let us drain her dry.”
“Oh, yes, let us drain—”
With a roar, the king strikes his axe across the air, and the magic he was gathering around himself explodes up through the darkness, illuminating the sky and the creatures teeming within it.
My blood chills.
Hundreds… Horrifying hundreds…
A scream rises into my throat as the creatures swarm down upon us.