Chapter Sixteen
Thyra
Iglance back into the sunlit sky, wondering if I’d rather face Antony’s mother than the innards of the forges. After all, he warned me I’d regret suggesting this detour.
But he’s already reached past me, pushing the door open. With a single sweep of his arm around my waist, he lifts me off my feet, knocking the air out of my chest as he whisks me inside.
The door swings closed behind us, dropping us into a new darkness.
The air fills with the clanking and clanging of metal, ringing so abruptly in my ears that it’s clear the door we passed through must be somehow sound-protected. None of this cacophony reached me from the outside.
It’s so loud that I nearly miss the click of the door being locked from this side.
Antony’s form is a mere blurry outline in the dark, but there’s a soft enough glow of light coming from our left that I can make out the glint of another steel latch on the door’s inner surface, even larger than the one on the outside.
“In case you’re confused,” Antony says, his voice a deep rumble in the dark. “That landing platform is solely for my personal use, and this door may only be locked by me. From either side.”
Well, that would explain why it wasn’t barred to him from the inside.
My surprise that the door can be locked from either side is overwhelmed by the increasingly dank scent of smoke and flame, and the burning iron filling the air around me.
I try to block it out, but I’m suddenly transported back to the village. The smoke filling my chest as I raced to my father, where he sat dying. His voice telling me…
I’m sorry, Thyra, for the pain you must now endure.
Tears well up behind my eyes, and I decide that it’s dark enough for me to let them fall. After all, Antony is stepping past me, his back to me.
He won’t see them.
My sadness is not for myself. My father had so much life left to live. He deserved to receive the funeral rites. He deserved to be laid to rest as he had laid his father to rest. There seems to be much he hadn’t told me, but he was always clear about the burial procedure for an Oracle.
Antony’s dark form pauses. His voice is sharp, harsh, and even in the darkness, I can tell that his back has stiffened. “You weep at your captivity.”
How did he know I was crying? Was it the change in my breathing?
“No.” My response is equally sharp. “I weep for my father.”
I promised myself I wouldn’t cry until I was alone. I should have known the king would sense my tears even in this dim light.
He responds only with silence, and I can’t stop myself from continuing, my voice hard. “I needed to bury him.”
“Why?”
It’s impossible for me to see Antony’s expression, only to judge his stillness. “Because his visions, those spoken and unspoken, needed to be laid to rest.”
Antony’s hand suddenly closes around my arm, his movements swift. “What are the consequences?”
“Consequences?” I tip my head back, my forehead creasing, wishing I had his eyesight to discern his expression.
“Curses, dark magic, evil portents—?”
Oh. He wants to know if failing to bury my father means malicious magic will be unleashed.
“There are no magical consequences.” My shoulders slump. “Only my shame that I didn’t give him the respect he deserved in death.”
Antony’s hand drops away from my arm, but his silence continues for another moment, and I’m still not sure how to interpret it.
Damn this darkness.
Although… My eyes must be adjusting a little because I finally make out the top step of a stairwell descending on our left, along with large but indistinct shapes resting against the wall directly ahead.
Antony currently stands between me and the objects, and I feel rather than see his gaze on me for another full minute.
“I’ll accept your answer,” he finally says. “For now.”
I suppose it would be wickedly malicious of me to lie about some evil my father’s death could unleash, but the burial rites are purely about respect and closure. They’re an acknowledgement that the Oracle has died, and the next has risen—and accepted the burden of foresight.
Closing my eyes, I brush at my tears, determined to set them aside again. Showing my sadness in front of Antony is fraught, and I need to bury it again now.
“Put this on.” Antony scoops one of the objects off the wall, once again demonstrating by how quickly he moves that the absence of light isn’t a problem for him.
The thing he grabbed makes a flapping sound in the air and swooshes against the floor. His comment about putting it on indicates it’s some sort of garment…
And it’s heavy.
When he pulls it around my shoulders, my legs nearly buckle.
It feels like a type of leathery coat, and it’s so long that it drags on the floor while I try to find the armholes. I finally succeed, only to discover the sleeves are also far too long for my arms.
“Stop,” he says, clearly witnessing my struggle. “I’ll do it.”
I pause, my arms extended awkwardly out from my body, the ends of the sleeves dangling.
A moment later, Antony pushes what must be the coat’s hood up over the back of my head.
Then he begins buttoning the front, starting at my neck and working his way downward.
His hands move slowly, lingering on each button as he tugs it closed, his fingertips sliding beneath the edge of the material, his knuckles grazing the front of my tunic between my breasts, making my breath catch.
Then down my stomach before brushing the front of my pelvis, a tantalizing sweep in its briefness.
I can’t stop my audible gasp at the contact, then try to smother my reaction, my body responding far more intensely than I thought possible.
An intensity that builds and transforms.
Another gasp rises to my throat as a gentle flutter unfurls within my chest.
My Oracle power spreads its wings within my body and mind.
I breathe through the briefest moment of panic that it’s happening again right now while Antony’s hands are on me, but I tell myself, if I’m unable to move for a few moments, he won’t think anything of it while he’s determinedly buttoning me into this coat.
Then a deep sense of calm washes through me, the comfort of my power intensifies, and my panic vanishes.
Even so, I can’t stop my body stiffening, a reaction purely to the force of the power taking hold of me, and then, once again, I’m watching as if from outside myself.
I’m hurrying along a wide hallway lined on both sides with pearly-white stone. Shapes are carved into the walls, but the light is dim, making it difficult to see what the images depict.
I stop halfway along, reaching toward a small indent in the wall beneath an insignia I don’t recognize, an arrow perhaps, with rays of sunlight extending around it…
At my touch, a panel appears, no wider than my forearm, and slides back into the rock, revealing a small, dark chamber, its content obscured.
For some reason, I’m filled with immense relief as I extend my hand into the chamber, feeling around until my fingers brush across a cold object.
Just as I would pull the object from the chamber, dread strikes my heart and dark light flashes around me—
I come back to myself before I can see what happens next. My mind reels with uncertainty and a sense of displacement. Every oracle vision I’ve had so far has been immediately relevant. Warning of a harm imminently upon me.
But that pearly place… I’m not there. I’ve never seen such a place. I have no way to position this vision to understand what it’s warning me about.
Meanwhile, Antony has dropped to a kneel in front of me, his head nearer to my pelvis, his black armor making it difficult to see his face.
It’s impossible to miss the glitter in his eyes as he looks up at me. Somehow, his ferocity anchors me, his touch demanding that I focus on him instead of some nebulous future I don’t yet understand.
With his face dangerously close to my pelvis, he sweeps his hands down my left inner thigh, slow strokes that banish any lingering anxiety I was feeling.
He moves lower, working his way down, as he takes his time buttoning the material around my left leg, and then my right.
Paying attention to each one, stroking through the heavy material firmly enough that I feel every second of his attention.
By the time he’s done, my breathing is quietly ragged, and not from fear.
I fight the heat building in my core. A heat I shouldn’t feel. Not now. Not ever. Not with him.
I tell myself it’s because of the dark.
In the dim light, it’s harder to remind myself who he is and why I’m here. All I can feel is the stroke of smooth metal against my body, touches that provoke pleasure instead of pain, and on the heels of my surging grief and my confusing vision, it’s a distraction I’m vulnerable to.
After he finishes buttoning my second leg, he straightens enough to plant his hands around my hips, a determined clamp, but he remains kneeling, his head still near my pelvis.
“There,” he says softly.
He sounds pleased, but I’m not sure why.
All of the extra material now wrapped around me means I won’t be able to take a single step without falling over. That can’t be convenient for him.
I find my voice to ask, “I need your help to roll up the—”
“No.” A rapid rebuke. “I’ll carry you.”
I blink into the darkness. “Wouldn’t it be easier if I didn’t wear this?”
He finally raises himself to his full height, taking his time moving upward while his hands barely move from my hips. A branded claim on my body.
He lowers his head to my ear. “As much as I would enjoy peeling the coat off you as slowly as I put it on you, do you want to risk touching iron in the forge?”
I take a moment, but it’s clear which option I need to choose. “I’ll wear the coat.”
“Good.” One big hand rises to the top of my forehead, where he tugs on the upper edge of the hood.
A gauzy material falls across my face, obscuring my view even further. He tugs again on the material, and a series of clicks tells me he’s secured the gauze to the neckline.
Without another word, he scoops me up, but instead of carrying me in his arms, he hoists me over his left shoulder.
I draw a quick breath as my midriff compresses and his arms clamp around me, one across my backside and the other around the back of my thighs.
Despite the weight and thickness of the coat, his touch is firm and confident, and…damn…as soon as he begins to walk, the sway of his body rubs his palm against my backside.
The impact of the sensation is so intense, I may as well not be wearing the coat at all.
A flush of heat burns my cheeks, but I fight it as hard as I can, squeezing my eyes closed, biting my lip, trying not to give in to the urge to wriggle against him.
Damn him for taking his time buttoning me into this suit.
Damn him for wrapping his big hand just so around the back of my thigh so the tips of his fingers brush the very edge of my pelvis, and if I just moved a little closer…
Damn, damn him for continuing his path, seemingly oblivious.
How am I going to survive this man?