Chapter Nineteen
Antony
The extended silence behind me as Victor considers my pierced armor is starting to worry me. Even more than how Thyra might react once I reveal why I really brought her here.
Whatever object is stuck in my armor, it seems to have given Victor pause, and that can’t be a good thing.
When he mutters a perplexed-sounding, “Huh,” I can’t keep the sharpness from my voice. “What is it? What do you see?”
He answers my question with a question. “Has it pierced your flesh?”
Assuming he means the object that struck me, I say, “I think so. It stung at the time. But I can’t feel it anymore.” My tone becomes firmer. “Brother, what is it?”
“It’s metallic. But as for what it is, I’m not entirely certain.” He points to the chair in front of the workbench before nudging me toward it. “Sit down so I can get it out and show you.”
I respond with a growl as we move forward. “I’m not a patient person, Victor, you know this—”
“I know it well. Now sit down.” His big hand lands on my uninjured shoulder, while he also manages to grab hold of the chair, scoop it further outward, and within seconds, I’m sitting in it, still facing the workbench.
He nudges me to lean forward, at which I prop my elbows on my knees.
Quickly removing my axe from its built-in holder at the back of my armor, he places the weapon on the workbench before hunching over me again.
“Whatever the object is, it’s welded to your armor,” he says. “Judging by how firmly it’s lodged, I’ll have to pry the plates apart to avoid ripping a wound in your flesh.”
“Don’t fuss, brother.” I reach for the concealed latches at the side of the plates that will allow me to release and remove the upper sections of my armor. “I’ll take my armor off—”
“Do not, brother. Not unless you want to tear a hole in your flesh.”
I give a growl in frustration. “Welded, you say?”
“Solidly.”
Searching for an explanation, I venture, “Debris flew around in the explosion.”
“An explosion of ice and fire, I’m assuming?”
He knows all metals well, not just iron, and can tell at a glance when elements of heat or cooling have interacted with them.
As he gets to work with his tools, disconnecting sections of the intricately interlaced plates, he says, “So this is the Oracle.”
“So it seems,” I reply, my focus drawn to Thyra as she leans against the wall.
Her dull black hair falls about her shoulders, clumped in places now.
She might have had it tied back at some point, but now it’s half down and half up.
If it wasn’t for my keen eyesight, the strands would merge with the muted color of the stone she’s leaning against. Her blue eyes appear even more faded, her drawn features a sign of fatigue.
The day is only half over.
She will need far more energy than she’s currently exhibiting when we reach Mother.
Victor draws my attention back to him when he finally gets around to the question I expected him to ask much sooner than now. “What happened?”
I didn’t inform anyone of where I was going before I left. I couldn’t risk word spreading and the threat of other forces converging on the coastal village.
I’m certain Cassia will be fielding questions even now. I experience a twinge of guilt about this, but my sister can handle herself. She’ll evade any interrogation like an expert and let Mother and her advisors stew.
Even in this closed and private environment, I choose my speech carefully. “I came into possession of information about the Oracle’s whereabouts. When I arrived at the coastal village where she was reported to be living, Stellen and Maxim had also arrived.”
Victor’s focus snaps up from his task. “Both of them?”
I give a single nod.
“Fuck. Brother.” Victor abandons his task to grip my uninjured shoulder, his voice suddenly anything but calm. Deep with an anger I know he’ll have trouble controlling. He may seem even-tempered, and he may retreat from the public eye, but a rage burns in Victor that I fear will one day explode.
“Did you kill them?” he asks, speaking through gritted teeth.
He wants me to say yes. Needs me to tell him I ended our enemies.
My heart sinks at the terrible hope in his eyes, but I can’t lie to him. “I had to choose between killing them or seizing the Oracle. I chose her.”
Victor’s hand claws my shoulder. How badly he wants Maxim dead. Nothing short of the annihilation of all Ember Fae will bring my brother peace.
The only time I was ever grateful for my father’s sadistic cruelty was the night he caught the man who burned Victor.
That fae’s screams pealed out for hours, but nothing will ever drown out the memory of my brother’s cries, my mother’s wails, or my own sorrow that Victor bore the flames instead of me.
His green eyes are stony. “You chose the Oracle.”
I remain silent, letting him expel his fury.
“You should have fucking killed them, brother. You should have torn them apart.”
He takes a breath, and I reach up, my hand landing on his.
“Soon enough.” I give him a determined smile. “You know as well as I do that the Oracle is the key to our future.”
Only to claim her did I leave my enemies alive. For now, this will hurt them far more than death could.
Victor breaks my gaze to consider Thyra, and I wonder if he’ll feel differently toward her now.
She appears to have the same question, lifting herself off the wall and squaring her shoulders, facing him without flinching.
A soft exhalation passes Victor’s lips. “Thyra is the key. She’s more important than revenge.”
The tension finally leaves his hand, and he releases my shoulder, his focus returning to his work. Thyra sinks back to the wall, but she’s even quieter than she was before.
I tear my focus from her when, with a few swift twists, Victor removes the first piece of my armor. A second piece follows soon after. He places both on the workbench before making an unhappy sound. “Now I understand why you’re not in pain.”
He taps my back—or at least, I catch the movement from the corner of my eye, but I don’t feel it.
“Your skin is burned in this spot. You wouldn’t feel a thing.” He doesn’t dwell on it. “I need Thyra’s help with this part.”
“Fine.” I incline my head at her. “Thyra.”
She lifts herself once more off the wall, approaching without any hesitation, but the closer she comes, the more visible her fatigue becomes.
She’s moving slowly, and the pinch of tension between her eyes remains even as she appears focused on Victor’s instructions.
His head is bowed. “I need you to put pressure on either side of the projectile while I extract it. You’ll have to press hard, do you understand?”
“I understand.”
Even when she’s standing close to my back, and I’m certain she’s pressing against me, I can’t feel her hands on that part of my back. Not until the pressure she exerts pushes at me hard enough that I move forward an inch.
I fight to suppress my shudder. Not because of her touch. Far from it. I’d give anything to feel it right now.
My brother thinks Maxim’s Ember fire did this to me. Of course, he would. And of course, that’s the story I’ll tell.
But I know better.
My right fist suddenly clenches in my lap.
I need to thump my chest. I need the pain. I need to feel it.
Instead, I wrap my fingers around the edge of the workbench in front of me, both hands gripping so tightly that my metallic gloves threaten to crack the wood.
“Push harder,” Victor says, and Thyra’s weight against me increases.
“There.” Victor’s jubilant declaration reaches my ears as if it’s coming from far away.
I gulp air. Close my eyes.
Tell myself it’s a good thing I’m a fucking monster. It lets me do what I need to protect my kingdom without regrets.
Opening my eyes, I remind myself I’m in control. I’ll punch my chest and deliver the mind-clearing pain soon enough. “Show me.”
“Just a moment,” Victor mumbles, snatching up a cloth before continuing to Thyra. “Press this to the wound in case it bleeds.”
It won’t. I know it won’t.
But I guess she obeys him because the edges of the cloth tickle the nearest parts of my back that must not have been burned beyond feeling.
Victor places the set of pliers he was using down on the workbench, depositing the silver object he extracted onto the surface in front of me.
It’s mangled. Curled over on itself like a leaf that a butterfly used for a cocoon. One end of the cylinder has multiple sharp points, as if the metal melted and spread out in the air, only to cool into sharp points.
But its original form was undoubtedly circular. And it’s etched with—
My head draws back quickly. “That’s a Frost coin.”
Mangled, curled into a cylinder, sharpened at one end. But it’s clearly Frost currency, used only by highborn fae because of its value.
Victor turns the mangled coin over. “Why would Stellen bring coins to a fight? That seems an odd thing to do.”
“Unless the coins were already there.” I catch Thyra’s eye, knowing full well she could lie when I ask her, “Are these coins used in the village where I found you?”
She shakes her head. “Not silver ones. The villagers trade with all kingdoms, but payment is always in the lesser coins: nickel and copper. I’ve never seen a silver coin before.”
I want to shrug it off.
So Stellen or one of his people brought a bag of coins for…some unknown reason.
“Did they intend to pay someone?” Victor asks.
My lips twist because I don’t like this mystery. “Pay for what?”
Victor arches his eyebrows meaningfully at me. “That may be an important question.” He shrugs. “Or a completely irrelevant one.”
He leaves the mangled coin on the bench as he turns his attention to my helmet.
“Well,” he says. “At least you have half of what you need.”
My brow furrows at him. I don’t think he’s talking about the broken steel covering my face. “What do you mean?”
“Forgive me, brother, for pointing out the obvious.” He straightens and gestures at Thyra. “You have the Oracle but not the blade.”
Where she stands behind me, Thyra’s head tilts sharply. I’m certain my own expression mirrors hers. The inside of her right arm is clearly visible, and so is the blade’s image.
Come to think of it, Victor should have reacted to it already, even if he thought it was only an inked image. He’s studied the blade’s history thoroughly, to near obsession, in fact.
“I have the blade.” I wrap my hand around Thyra’s arm. “This may look like ink, but it’s far more than it appears.”
Victor glances at her arm. “Ink?”
I prepare to explain how the blade sank into Thyra’s skin, along with the way she used it to create four threads of power, even if I’m still puzzling over what they meant.
Before I can speak, Victor squints at me. “What ink?”
Thyra’s eyes grow slowly wide. She glances from her arm to Victor and then to me, but she doesn’t tug out of my hold.
I wipe my expression clean.
“Ink that I intend to give her,” I reply smoothly. “A depiction of the blade. Just as it appears in your research, brother.”
He nods. “Very well. I’ll fetch your replacement armor now.”
With that, he walks to the door on the right side of the room, but before he can step through it, I say, “Bring me a ruby circlet too.”
He pauses, his back to me. “If you’re certain.”
“I am.”
It’s time for him to help me with my second problem.
While Victor disappears into the gloom of his library, my hand remains around Thyra’s wrist.
Her fingers close over my thumb, the closest she can get to gripping my hand in this position.
She wouldn’t hold on to me if she knew what I intended to do to her.
Her voice is a bare whisper, as light as breathing. “He can’t see it.”
It seems she’s right.
Victor can’t see the blade.
Which begs the question: Who can?