Chapter 30
Chapter Thirty
Thyra
“Thyra! No!”
Antony’s shout reaches me as the temple’s rooftop rushes back into view.
A scream strangles in my throat.
I lean out into space at the edge of the roof, the rushing wind at my back, and only Antony’s fist clutched around my tunic keeps me from falling.
I don’t know how I got here—or how I managed to bring Antony with me.
His whistle shrieks within my ears a heartbeat before his eagle appears, a blur of blue at the corner of my vision.
I startle when the bird sails past me, its wings outstretched, and it looks like the eagle is about to crash into me. At the last moment, it tips sharply onto its side, wings tipped out of the way, its body colliding with my back with enough force to propel me onto the roof.
Antony’s arms close around me as I careen into him, but whatever shock I felt at finding myself in such a precarious position is overwhelmed by the intense fear rising within me.
All I can hear is the woman’s voice, whispering in my mind.
Do not fight me. You will not win.
As Antony attempts to pull me further to safety, I shove at him, both hands planted on his armored chest.
Because he was already moving so rapidly backward, my push adds to his momentum, allowing me to create enough space between us for me to raise my arm.
I rip at the blade’s image with my dirty fingernails.
Tearing at the ink in my skin.
“Get it out!” My scream echoes around me as I scratch and rip with my fingernails. “Get it out of me!”
Antony’s eyes have widened. He shouts, but I don’t hear what he says.
In my mindless panic, my focus shifts to the circlet. If I can trigger its metal teeth, they’ll saw through my limb. They’ll saw through the blade too.
I just need a way to trigger them.
My wild gaze flies to Antony’s axe, the blade resting on his back. It will do the trick.
With a snarl, I throw myself at him, leaping as high as I can, crashing into his chest, reaching desperately across his shoulder.
My left hand is dangerously close to swiping across the weapon’s sharp edge before my fingers close around the top of the shaft.
But I can’t draw it. Not from this angle. And he’s already pushing me away, his arms and hands like iron against my body, uncompromising in strength, wrenching me away from the axe before crushing me to his chest.
“Thyra!”
Never mind. I have my own teeth. My right arm is wedged between his chest and my collarbone, perfectly positioned. All I have to do is bend my head a little, closing my teeth around the circlet’s metal links.
“No.”
If I weren’t so angry, so fucking panicked, I might imagine I heard fear in his voice.
In the next moment, he yanks my arm away from my mouth, his hands quickly imprisoning both of my wrists, forcing my arms away from my body.
All I can do is scream at him. “I want it out! Let me get it out.”
“No.” His roar turns into another whistle, and once again, his blue eagle soars toward us.
As it approaches, Antony sweeps me into his arms and leaps upward, landing perfectly on his bird’s back, but somehow, he twists me mid-air, so I’m facing away from him.
With a hard shove, he forces me to bend at the hips, lying face-first against the bird’s feathers while he pins my arms behind me.
The wind rushes past me as the bird continues through the air, away from the temple, soaring through the darkness above the forest.
Only now that I’m facing downward am I aware that tears flow down my cheeks.
Angry tears.
Resentful tears.
I struggle against Antony’s hold, bucking against him, pulling away, and then pushing back, using whatever I can to upset his hold on me.
I catch his soft, “Fuck,” over the sound of the wind before he repositions his hold on my arms, keeping them pinned behind me, but now it feels as if he’s using only one hand to do it.
Damn him for being so strong.
In the next moment, he drops his body over mine, pressing down on me.
His steel-covered face is close to mine as he reaches out with his now-free right hand to tap the bird’s neck twice. I recognize the action he takes when he wants the eagle to dive.
The sudden drop forces me to stop struggling. My stomach lifts, and I squeeze my eyes closed until the eagle levels out, and then a soft thump tells me we’ve landed.
In a flash, I open my eyes, but Antony is already pulling me from the bird’s back, keeping hold of my wrists as he puts me back on my feet and propels me forward along the ground.
I face a small, glistening lake, surrounded by forest on its other side, while a cabin sits a hundred paces away on my left.
Antony continues to propel me forward, straight for the lake, and for a moment, I think he’s going to walk me right into it, but he stops at its edge, where he forces me to my knees.
Once again, he pushes me down, ramming me forward so I’m bending at the hips, facing the water while my arms are pinned at my back.
“Look at yourself.”
The edge of the lake is crisp and clear. Completely still. A near-mirror reflecting the starry sky. And my face.
I stop struggling.
A latent tear falls from my cheek and into the water, sending brief ripples outward, disrupting my reflection before the water settles again.
I am…
Not me.
If my hands were free, I would run them over my cheeks, my forehead, my chin, my lips.
This face reflected back at me is not mine.
It’s beautiful. It belongs to a highborn. In the starlight, I can’t tell exactly what color my eyes are, but they’re luminescent, shining, bright. My lips are curvier, my eyelashes fuller, and my hair…
Oh, my hair is thick and shiny, falling about my face, the tips skimming the water when I lean a little closer, sending ripples through my reflection again.
The water quickly stills while the strands remain immersed, drawing my focus from the reflection to the hair falling past my face. It’s lush and wavy. Not just an illusion on the surface of this lake.
But then, as I watch, the strands transform. A quick glance at my reflection tells me my features are morphing back into the face I know.
My hair is once again lank. My features are drawn and pale. Dull.
All I can manage is a gasp. “I don’t understand. How is this happening?”
And why?
The pressure Antony was applying to my back eases before he pulls me, more carefully this time, to his chest. His hold on my chained hand remains strong, but he no longer pins my arms behind me.
I purse my lips, trying to form words, but I don’t know what question to ask first. A storm of uncertainty builds within me because I don’t know if this change happens every time the blade gives me a vision or only sometimes.
Judging by the way Victor responded earlier today, it would seem that, just like the blade, only Antony can see it.
He speaks before I can.
“When the blade’s magic courses along your arm, your countenance transforms.” His voice is low, and it sounds as if he’s picking his words carefully. “You take on the appearance of the perfect Iron Fae. A woman I would—”
For some reason, he stops there, and I don’t know what he was going to say, because in the next moment, he lowers us both to the ground, enabling me to face him.
I sink to my knees while he also kneels opposite me.
And now, finally, he releases me completely, except for the circlet that continues to attach us to each other.
With swift movements, he wrenches the steel glove and armor off his right hand and arm, baring his skin on that side, while he leaves the armor and the circlet on his left arm.
The moment he places the pieces of armor on the grass, his bare hand returns to me, sweeping across my chained palm.
His exposed hand passes across the links.
To my shock, the circlet drops away, sliding onto his lap.
His bare hand captures my now-freed wrist, cushioning it while his thumb brushes my skin.
I jolt, my back stiff and my lips pursed in uncertainty.
I tell myself not to trust this freedom. Not even when he reaches up to his head with his gloved hand to pull off his helmet and place it on the grass beside his discarded arm covering.
His black, jaggedly cut hair falls across his face.
I remind myself that without his armor…without the cage of it…he is even more terrifying. Even though his voice remains quiet.
“What were you trying to do? Back on the roof?” His thumb presses to the pulse point at my wrist, resting on the blade’s cross-guard while the chain lies between my outstretched arm and his lap.
“I wanted to cut the blade out of myself.”
“You risked losing your hand.”
“If that’s what it takes.”
“You put your body on the line.” He shakes his head, and it sounds as though he’s rebuking himself. “Always when I least expect it.”
I return his gaze, refusing to look away from the shadows in his eyes. The promise of violence and pain seems to grow more intense the longer his features remain uncovered.
Softly, his thumb moves back and forth across my skin, his bare skin on mine, gentle and light, a sharp contrast to the viciousness in his eyes and the hardness of the steel he wears across his legs.
His entire face is bared to me with all its nuances. His tight jaw, the press of his perfect lips, the furrow between his eyebrows.
“I didn’t lie about being a liar.” He breaks the silence between us, speaking with a regretful twist to his lips. “But I need you to know that I’m about to speak the truth.”
I wait for him to continue, giving him the barest, wary nod.
“I put this chain on you to protect you from my mother.”
My forehead puckers, and I consider him carefully. It seems a horrible way to offer protection. “Why?”
“Because she and I are in a power struggle, and whoever controls you will win that struggle.”
My lips settle into a line before I arch my eyebrows at him. “You forget the first part of the promise I made. I said I wouldn’t fight you, but before that, I vowed I would fight your people. That would include your mother.”
A smile flickers around his mouth, but it fades, and the darkness in his expression grows. “You don’t understand how precarious your life is now that you’re here, because I suspect you’ve never been exposed to true cruelty.”
I tip my chin up. “I’ve seen cruelty. I saw it today when flames struck innocent villagers.”
Antony shakes his head at me, a warning in his voice. “Not like my mother’s cruelty.”
I want to object, but the darkness in his eyes stops me.
“Allow me to tell you a story,” he says, “that will demonstrate what you’ll face once I take you back to the Starlit Court—and unfortunately, I have no choice but to do that.”
I give him another brief nod, indicating that I’ll listen.
“There was once a lady in Mother’s Court who attracted the attention of one of her lovers.
It didn’t matter that his attentions were unwanted.
Mother was incensed.” Antony pauses, and the tension around his eyes increases.
“She punished the lady by sending five brutish men to her bedchamber and ordering the guards to ignore the woman’s screams. The next morning, they pulled what was left of the lady’s body out of her room.
Mother made sure I was there to see it. That is what she is capable of. ”
My lips have parted, my stomach turning. I can’t stop my shudder. “What did you do?”
“I was seventeen. My father had died three years earlier. My reign was young, and my army’s loyalty to me was fragile. I couldn’t do a fucking thing. But I vowed to always know what was happening in Mother’s Court and to never let anything like that happen again.”
“Did you succeed?”
“Fuck no.” He scowls. “Mother is untouchable. You see, Thyra, when a single fae holds a kingdom’s safety in the palm of their hand, they hold unchecked power.” His gaze burns me now. “You, Thyra, are my check on my mother’s power.”
He leans back slightly and takes a deep breath, his broad chest rising and falling deeply. “And now you must surely understand how much power you have over me.” He blows out a soft exhale. “That is the truth.”
I believe him.
I can only guess what it cost him to tell me.
Still softly, still slowly, his thumb runs across my palm, a soothing motion that draws my focus to my hand, and then to the chain that lies beneath it.
“The circlet keeps me at your side,” I say, speaking my thoughts aloud. “I can’t be physically separated from you.” I try to smile, but it feels gruesome. “No brutes can come to my bedchamber at night. You would kill them.”
“I will kill any man who touches you, Thyra. Whether lowborn, highborn.” He pauses. “Or another King.”
As his threat sinks into the space between us, I gently raise my eyebrows and test the boundaries of his promise. “But not your brother.” Who he clearly loves.
Antony’s eyes narrow at me, glittering and cold.
Or…I could be wrong.
“Victor would not be so stupid as to lay a hand on you,” he says. “Neither would Hadrian.”
Slow and smooth, his thumb runs along my palm to my wrist, and then up along the blade’s image, stopping at the inside crease of my elbow. The action brings him closer to me.
Dangerously close.
Especially because what I need to say could draw his ire.
Trying to speak through the constriction in my throat, I whisper slowly, “I need you to help me.”
His forehead crinkles, and he tips his head a little, the glistening black strands of his jagged hair falling away from his eyes. “With what?”
“Help me break the curse.”
His voice is low and mesmerizing. “Tell me how, and I will.”
I try to bring moisture to my dry lips. “I need you to help me figure that out.”
I expect a return of his disbelief, rage, suspicion, and distrust. Anticipating it, I hurry to add, “You told me I must ask for help if I want it. Well, I need your help.”
His eyes narrow, but I refuse to look away.
The expected rage doesn’t eventuate.
His hand continues to circle my arm as he asks, “Tell me what you see of me in your visions.”
He’s testing me. I sense it.
“My first vision was of you,” I say.
The corner of his mouth hitches up as if this amuses him. “A likely story meant to play to my ego.”
“It was of iron,” I continue, ignoring his skepticism. “I was covered in iron dust. Chains were wrapped around me, and I was trying to tear them from my body because I was burning. So badly. But not with pain. It was…”
His thumb grazes across the inside of my elbow, a quiet sensation that feels anything but soothing now.
“It was what?” he prompts, leaning closer still.
“It was need.”
I swallow, try to shake myself, but I can’t tear myself from his gaze. All the pain he promises me with those wild, green eyes. Pain and maybe…
Something else.
My voice is barely audible. “I couldn’t quench it.”
His bare hand skims my biceps to the edge of my tunic sleeve before trailing up across my shoulder and then lifting off me, his palm now close to my cheek.
“I wonder,” he murmurs. “If breaking the curse could be as simple as quenching that need?”