Chapter 25 Antony
Chapter Twenty-Five
Antony
“She’s safe.”
I freeze. My focus flies to Thyra. My rage is volatile, but oh, Thyra’s either recklessly brave or fucking suicidal to say such a thing to me right now.
She’s looking up at me, her faded eyes burning a hole in my soul. Her hands remain resolutely at her sides, her palms pressing to her thighs, as if she’s fighting a dangerous urge to reach out to me even though I warned her not to touch me again.
Fear makes me sound like a beast growling at her. “What did you say?”
“Your sister is safe.”
I step right up to Thyra, bending my head to hers. “Do not play games with me, Thyra.”
Her breathing becomes rapid. She’s frozen and clearly terrified, and yet, she rallies, gritting her teeth and shouting back at me, “Your sister’s safe!”
Her cry halts every whisper within the crowd.
A hush falls.
I’m unconcerned about the deathly silence around us or that every fae in the throng is listening to us, highborn and lowborn alike. I feel like I’m tearing out of my skin.
I should be in the sky already. I shouldn’t be standing here while Cassia needs me.
“Why would I believe you?”
“Because I foresee it,” Thyra says, her voice clear in the hush, but as soon as the words leave her lips, her cheeks turn white, and her eyes go blank.
It’s so different from what happened when the blade’s power streamed up her arm that I’m taken aback.
She’s standing in front of me, but it’s clear her mind is…somewhere else.
I try to reconcile what I’m seeing now compared to how she behaved back at the village as well as in the forge, when the blade’s energy pulsed through her. She was alluring and focused then.
Now, she appears sightless.
I quickly try to recall what she looked like when she had visions in the bloodlands and told me where to fly. She was lying beneath me, but just like now, her eyes were wide open and glazed, staring sightlessly outward.
And yet, she Sees.
“Bruised neck, still breathing,” Thyra cries, her eyes remaining glazed, her voice seeming to tear from her throat. “Scorched feathers, still flying. Tears burned to smoke, but she’s nearly home.”
Lady Delphina edges up behind me, craning to see Thyra. “Is she having a vision?”
I ignore Lady Delphina. I stand close enough to Thyra to press my forehead to hers. I’m not sure if she can hear me when I say, “Thyra. Don’t lie to me. Not about this.”
Her eyes slowly come back into focus, and for a brief moment, a smile forms on her lips. She appears more serene than she has any reason to be while she’s chained and subjugated to my whims.
“I will never lie to you.” Her voice rings out again, echoing across the hushed crowd. “Your sister is already home.”
A heartbeat later, movement in the sky behind Thyra draws my focus skyward, and my poisoned heart stops.
A chestnut-brown eagle appears in the distance, soaring toward us.
Cassia’s eagle. Clearly carrying my sister since she’s standing up on its back, balancing with all her strength and agility on display.
A cheer rises up around me, cries of jubilation rushing to a crescendo. My people know Cassia’s bird, the eagle named Fortuna. And it seems Cassia has spotted my blue beast because she’s heading straight for us.
Fortuna rushes downward, barely finishing landing in the middle of the street before Cassia leaps from her back and races toward me.
She’s calling out, but her voice is rasping in a clearly painful way. “Brother!”
Before she crashes into me, I catch sight of black bruises around her neck…
Bruised neck, still breathing.
Then Cassia’s arms fly around me in a hug that, for once, I wish I could feel.
“Brother.” She’s speaking rapidly, her voice rasping, a painful sound. “I was reckless. Fucking reckless, but I had to try.” She turns her eyes up to me. “He was right there, Antony, and all I could think about was Victor. I had a chance, so I took it. I fucking tried.”
It’s possible I should be concerned by what she’s trying to tell me, but I only care that she’s safe.
“Who was there?” But as I speak, her bird ruffles its feathers in the background, and instantly I know the answer.
Scorched feathers, still flying.
“Maxim,” I snarl before Cassia can answer.
Her lips part as if she’s about to say more, but I cast her a sharp, warning glance. There are too many listening ears here.
She seems to remember herself. A second later, her focus lands on Lady Delphina and then shifts to Thyra. Stopping on the ruby circlet.
She blinks at it for a heartbeat, but if she’s surprised I’ve put Thyra in the circlet, she hides it quickly.
“You got the Oracle.” Tears of what can only be relief streak down her cheeks. “You brought her to us. Brother, we’re saved.”
Without another word to me, she turns to the crowd.
Cassia’s indrawn breath is sharp as she raises her hands and shouts through what must be painful bruising. “My brother fought the Frost King and won!” she cries, her voice rising to a jubilant scream. “He fought the Ember King and won! Our king won!”
It isn’t entirely accurate. I didn’t fight them, but she may not know that, and right now, it doesn’t matter.
The crowd was already shouting with joy, and now they erupt. A roar of voices rises up around us as they shoot to their feet.
“Antony, King of Iron, has claimed the Oracle,” Cassia roars, pressing her fist to her heart. “Our king has saved us!”
“King of Iron,” comes the responding cry. “Our king! King of Iron. Our king!”
Cassia half-turns back to me, her eyes bright and her smile even brighter as the cheering continues.
A moment later, Lady Delphina sidles up to me with a soft, “Well, that turned out far better for you than I thought it would.”
She arches her eyebrows before she slinks away, her entourage scurrying after her. No doubt she’ll dash back to Mother to warn her that their plan backfired.
She may not need to.
The cries from the crowd are spreading, a deafening roar extending much farther than I thought it would.
I should be celebrating. My sister is safe. My people are on my side once more. And the Oracle is mine.
So why am I suddenly fixated on the hollow that has returned to Thyra’s eyes?
Why should it consume me?
“Brother.” Cassia’s voice breaks through my heavy thoughts, but this time, she speaks in a hush. “Take the Oracle wherever you need to take her. I will keep our mother busy.”
I consider Cassia’s offer for a moment, but I’m not sure I should take her up on it. “You need to get yourself to a healer, not pander to our mother’s schemes.”
“I’ll heal on my own. But brother—” Her focus flickers to Thyra. “When you’re ready, there’s something I need to tell you about Maxim. About what happened during my encounter with him.”
Every piece of information about my enemies is valuable, but the quietness in Cassia’s voice tells me she can’t speak freely until we have absolute privacy.
She steps away from me. “Go, brother. Don’t waste a moment longer.”
A whistle is already on my lips, my eagle soaring through the air toward me.
I haul Thyra up into my arms, deftly avoiding becoming tangled in the circlet as my eagle soars past.
Catching his wing joint, I swing us both up onto his back.
In the next moment, we’re in the air, but this time, I’m taking Thyra where I want.
Where I’ll have her all to myself.