Chapter Seventeen
Thyra
Desperately, I seek to refocus myself away from the tantalizing rub of Antony’s hold.
Danger lies ahead of me, and I can’t allow myself to fall prey to the threats I may face, let alone the sensations heating my body.
We’ve reached the top of the stairs and, because I’m now facing backward, I can only see what we pass, not what’s ahead.
As I lift my head, intending to crane and see our path, an object glints sharply on my left.
Drawn back in that direction, I squint hard. The further we descend the staircase, the brighter our surroundings get until I finally make out a metallic object embedded in the armor covering the back of Antony’s right shoulder.
Whatever it is, it’s protruding nearly exactly where his shoulder blade must be.
I can’t tell if, or how far, it might have pierced his armor and the flesh beneath, but Antony certainly hasn’t behaved as if he’s badly wounded in that shoulder. Although it would explain why he hoisted me over his left shoulder when he seems to be dominant on his right side.
As we reach the bottom of the stairwell and the distant firelight grows much stronger, I ask, “Are you hurt?”
His back stiffens. “Possibly. But I can’t feel it.”
I test how far I can lift my left arm to reach the object, although I certainly don’t intend to yank it out. “Do you need me to—”
“No.” He stops still for a moment before he resumes our path. “Victor will take care of it. We’ll reach him soon.”
Louder clanging noises greet me when we emerge into a room whose walls flicker with reflections of bright flames.
I have a sense of a vast space and catch glimpses of metal tables along with thick, metal anvils, a multitude of fire pits, and workers all dressed in leather aprons.
What astonishes me is that their faces are bare as well as their necks and arms, although their hands are gloved and they’re wearing some sort of transparent contraption across their eyes.
When the nearest man looks up as we pass, raising his focus from the arrowhead he’s hammering, my heart sinks.
Scars crisscross his face, red welts that speak of iron burns, the same kind of scar resting across my right rib. More scars decorate his arms. His eyes are faded blue. So are those of the other men I can see.
They’re all lowborn.
The worker takes only a quick glance at Antony and me before hurriedly returning to his work. Likewise, the next worker barely looks up. They certainly don’t acknowledge their king.
As if Antony reads the question in my mind, he says, “Don’t expect them to grovel. I’ve made it clear they’ll serve me best by working hard, not fawning at my feet. And before you judge me about their scars, know that they choose this work because I pay them well.”
“What about protecting their bodies?” I ask, unable to keep the sharp judgment from my voice despite his explanation.
“The thickness of leather required to protect their skin will hinder their movements.” He drags one hand across my lower back, as if to remind me of the weight around my body, but all it does is intensify the press of his other hand where it remains across the back of my thigh.
“Anything less can catch fire and cause worse burns.”
I press my lips together. Surely there’s a better way. Somehow. The villagers always found clever ways to prevent injuries when harvesting shells or handling the sharp spines of the ripplefish.
Before I can speak, a loud voice shouts from ahead of us, and it seems not all of the workers are as focused as the others. “My king!”
Attempting to crane my head to the right, I make out a tall man with beefy jowls and thick lips, also bearing a host of scars on his face and arms. He stands on the left of Antony’s meandering path through the workspace, a hammer gripped in one meaty hand.
He can only have moved out from behind his workbench, but his movements are unsteady.
Despite the fact that Antony doesn’t acknowledge him, he steps further into our path, bringing with him a sickly, cloying scent.
I recognize the smell.
It belongs to a particular sweet liquor, apparently consumed only by highborn.
A case of bottles was smuggled to one of the coastal villages where my father and I stayed before.
The smuggler sold each bottle at an exorbitant price, and a villager was killed over one of them.
I was never sure of the details, but it was clear that this drink had a violent effect on lowborn.
Antony doesn’t break his stride, but it seems the jowly man isn’t sober enough to move aside.
“You brought a gift for Victor!” he guffaws.
His hand darts out, palm flat, swinging toward my backside as if he’s about to slap it.
Antony’s right fist smashes into the man’s face so fast I barely follow it.
The sickening crack sends a jolt down my spine.
Blood sprays across the air, splattering the floor and nearest workbench as the man’s entire body spins with the force of the punch.
He crashes into the bench, missing the nearest fire pit by inches before sliding to the ground in a clearly unconscious heap.
Antony barely misses a step, and within seconds, we’ve passed the man’s collapsed form.
I no longer need to crane to see him.
I shut my eyes to the blood pooling across the floor around his head.
Antony’s voice roars into the sudden silence. “You know the rules! Come near my gifts and I’ll fucking kill you.” Then lower, “Throw him in a cell. And get the fuck back to work.”
As the other men galvanize into action, Antony mutters beneath his breath, “I’ll kill him later.”
I attempt to suppress a shiver, but not successfully.
Now Antony misses a step, but it can’t be because of me. Surely.
As he resumes walking, his left arm clamps more tightly around me, compressing my breathing before his hold loosens again.
He doesn’t say anything more, and moments later, we pass into a wide corridor. Then another.
Finally, we stop.
Still processing how easily he delivered violence and how quickly he moved on from it, I crane again, this time to see a large wooden door, far bigger than the one we passed through to enter the forge.
Antony doesn’t knock, pushing it open without hesitation, and we pass into a softly lit room.
Drawings cover the nearest walls, yellowed pieces of parchment decorating nearly every inch from the floor to the ceiling.
All of the sketches depict weapons. Swords, knives, bows, arrows, every kind of spear and axe I could ever imagine, along with depictions of larger contraptions with enormous cogs and rods, the likes of which I’ve never seen before.
The air smells clean in here, faintly like soap. A soft whooshing sound indicates some sort of ventilation mechanism, but there aren’t any windows to the outside world, at least not that I can see.
Antony finally stops in what could be the center of the room.
The door clicks closed behind us.
Whatever the light source, it’s behind me. That is, the direction Antony’s facing.
After the altercation outside, his voice is quieter than I expected. “Victor.”
I try to see the man he must be speaking to, but even arching my neck, I can’t make out more than the side of an enormous figure sitting in a chair, stooped over a workbench. The figure lifts a large hand, one finger raised, as if to ask for patience.
“Done,” comes the quiet murmur before the figure finally moves.
I can’t crane my head any longer. My neck is already killing me. I’ll have to make do with what I can hear.
A creaking sound reaches me, then soft scraping. Perhaps the chair is being pushed back?
“Brother,” comes the reply. A deep voice. A welcoming tone with a surprising hint of happiness.
Then, heavy footfalls sound, and a moment later, new hands close around me. Not Antony’s because he hasn’t moved them. “You brought her to me. Thank you, Antony.”
Within seconds, my feet are on the floor, and Victor’s features remain in the shadows now that he’s standing outside the light source.
He quickly lifts the gauzy material covering my face, and I catch a glimpse of a smile before he jolts back into the darkness. “This isn’t Emiliana.”
Antony’s hand is on my back, a steadying force. He sounds almost contrite. “I’m sorry, brother, I didn’t realize you’d misinterpret who I was carrying—”
Victor’s voice is now hard. “Who is this lowborn, and why have you brought her to me?”
“This,” Antony says, again more softly than I was expecting, given how upset his brother seems, “is the Oracle.”
Silence greets me from the other side of the room.
It extends for a very long minute, during which neither man speaks nor moves.
Finally, Victor says gruffly, “That doesn’t tell me why she’s here and not in chains within the Constellation.”
Antony gives a heavy exhale. “She’s here because I’m here. And I’m here because of this.” He gestures to the broken helmet before he adds, “I need your help with something else, too.”
“I see.” Victor gives an equally heavy sigh. “Well. Since fixing your armor will require me to step into the light, I should ask: How strong is her stomach?”
Antony shrugs. “I guess we’ll soon find out.”
How strong is my stomach?
At that moment, the gauzy material Victor lifted off my face drops back across my eyes.
It swishes against my nose, an irritating tickle.
If only I could find my hands in this giant suit to reach up and deal with the itch.
All I manage is to swipe my arm across my face, but at least it relieves the irritation.
Antony catches my arm, pushing it firmly down before he reaches for the gauze and secures it up against the hood for me.
I’m surprised by his stony expression, his lips compressed into a hard line, and a hint of hollowness in his eyes as he speaks. “Thyra, meet my brother Victor.”
The enormous man shuffles back toward the circle of light, his feet coming into view first.
He’s wearing boots. Nothing unusual there. And black pants, also not unusual.
But I’m curious to see that he keeps the right side of his body angled backward, approaching me from his left, a method that results in a shuffling gait.
As he continues to move forward, he allows me to see his jaw, strong like Antony’s, the curve of his left cheekbone, the perfect angle of his nose, and the deep green shade of his eyes, also very similar to Antony’s.
Although it’s once again a surprise, given that Iron Fae supposedly all have brown eyes.
All the while, and even more sharply as he steps further into the light, he angles his right side backward, keeping it hidden from me.
I consider how perfect his features are, how flawless his skin is, how luminescent his eyes are, or at least the one eye that I can see. A perfection that all highborn carry.
For the briefest moment, his lips press together, the same gesture his brother makes when he seems to expect the worst.
Then Victor turns the rest of his body into the light.