Chapter 41 Thyra
Chapter Forty-One
Thyra
Cassia sweeps me into her bedroom, where she flings open the double doors of an enormous dressing room.
But she doesn’t stop there.
Striding toward the shelves lining the back wall, all of them filled with neatly folded clothing, she barely breaks stride before taking hold of those shelves and pulling them outward.
Concealed behind them is a second dressing room, even larger than the first.
This one is filled with both dresses and armor, some folded on shelves, many hanging from metal rods set around the walls, so many items of clothing that they’re crammed into the space.
A large, plush bench sits in the center of the room, and a small door on the left indicates a bathing room, while a reflective surface covers one half of the wall on my far right.
Antony takes up a position near the doors, his backward movement giving me an excuse to also step back from the reflective surface. I’m not keen on beholding my disheveled appearance right now.
Cassia doesn’t miss the way the chain clanks. She plants her hands on her hips and gives Antony a glare. “Brother. Release the chain.”
“No.”
“Thyra needs to try things on.”
“No.”
Cassia narrows her eyes at him.
He folds his arms across his chest, which only shortens the space between him and me. “Once Thyra has pointed out what she wants to try, then I’ll take it off.”
“Fine.”
Within minutes, Cassia has covered the bench and half of the floor with items of clothing, holding them up and offering them to me one by one.
I shake my head at all of them. Frilly dresses. Lacy corsets. Skirts made of bright silk.
She doesn’t appear terribly surprised when I reject them, giving me the sense she’s working toward the more likely possibilities.
Finally, she offers me a plain black corset that laces at the back, a pair of black pants, and a black overskirt that opens at the front and flows at the back. The overskirt is simple yet elegant, and won’t get in the way.
“Those,” I say, pointing at each of them.
Cassia scratches her chin. “This is Oracle?”
“It’s closer than those.” I jab my finger in the direction of the garments I rejected.
“Okay. But we need something to cover your neck. Maybe a little jewelry with some lace behind it…”
She hurries to a box on a higher shelf. The moment she moves it, the shelf’s back panel falls forward, revealing a hidden compartment behind it.
Cassia freezes. Her hands clamp around the box before her focus flies to Antony.
I can’t ignore the silver material neatly folded within the compartment. “What’s that?”
Cassia’s voice is suddenly small. “A dress I forgot about.”
Antony is like stone, his tension a palpable force across the space between him and me. I find myself stepping further back from the shelf and closer to him.
For the first time since we arrived, a heavy friction builds in the air between him and Cassia.
I may have issues with Cassia for using iron dust in her fight over the village, but I have to break the tension between her and her brother.
I focus on him. “Antony?”
His voice is impossibly tight. “It would not be wise to wear that dress.”
The dress itself is far less important to me right now than Antony’s reaction to it.
Choosing to turn my back fully to it, I close the gap between him and me, reaching out, pausing only when the threat in his eyes grows to a dangerous level. “Will you tell me what’s wrong?”
He answers me with silence, but it seems Cassia isn’t as determined to stay quiet.
“I was supposed to burn that dress. I promised Antony I would.” She takes a deep, shaky breath. “I’m sorry, brother. I truly am. I couldn’t bring myself to do it. It’s all we had left of her, and I—”
Antony moves quickly, but it isn’t toward his sister. He sweeps the armor off his right hand, swipes his hand across the circlet at my wrist, and releases me from the chain.
His actions are abrupt, leaving me teetering on the spot.
Striding from the room, he throws back, “The past is gone, Cassia. Dead and buried. All I care about now is preparing Thyra to face our mother. Do whatever Thyra asks.”
I rub my wrist. Not because it hurts. But because, despite how troubled Antony clearly is, the sweep of his hand across my skin was gentle.
Cassia wrings her hands, and I’m having a hard time reconciling the warrior who balanced on a flying eagle, firing arrows and evading Ember fire, with the distressed woman standing in front of me.
“Cassia?” It’s all the prompting I’m willing to give. If she doesn’t want to explain, I’ll let it go.
She reaches for the dress on the shelf, her hands visibly shaking, her palms hovering before she closes her fingers around its folds, drawing it slowly outward.
The dress unfurls in her grasp, revealing a breathtaking bodice and a skirt that shimmers all the way to the floor.
It’s the kind of dress that belongs to a Queen, and oh, the hum the material makes when it unfolds is intoxicating.
An echo of a song lost to time slides through my hearing like a whisper in a breeze, the same melody I’m certain I heard when I unwrapped the Dragonstone Blade. Alluring and mesmerizing. Calming and exhilarating.
My eyes widen. “That dress is Lethian.”
Just like the silken ribbon that the blade was wrapped in. The same ribbon that now adorns my arm.
At Cassia’s nod, I try to comprehend the enormity of what I’m looking at. I was shocked to see as much ribbon as there was wrapped around the blade. But this…
I might not know much about the three kingdoms, but it’s common knowledge that Lethian silk is beyond rare. Let alone silver silk like this. As if it were woven from the finest metal and sung into the shape of a gown.
“This much Lethian thread is…”
“Priceless.” Cassia places the dress carefully on top of the bench.
Every other item around it now appears dull in comparison.
“This dress is said to have been sung for the very last Lethian Queen,” Cassi says. “Love and beauty were imbued into its threads. A song of strength that’s been lost over time.”
My forehead creases at her description of the song as representing love, beauty, and strength, since the same song had whispered around the Dragonstone Blade, and all I’d felt was pain. Agony. And grief at losing my father.
Cassia’s face is suddenly pale. “But to us, this dress represents only loss.”
I try to catch my breath. “Can you tell me why?”
“Because it was last worn by Antony’s mother.” Cassia’s smile is fleeting as she gazes down at the material, her fingertips lovingly brushing the glimmering material. “She was everything this dress embodied and more.”
I purse my lips, confused by what Cassia said. “I’m not sure I understand why a dress worn by your mother would—”
Cassia jolts toward me, her hand outstretched. “Not my mother. Antony’s mother. Our father’s first wife.”
A feeling of trepidation blossoms in my stomach. I press my hand to my chest, waiting for any hint that a blade vision is about to consume me.
“You didn’t know,” Cassia whispers.
I give a small shake of my head.
Her eyes become hollow, and my dread is unbearable when she says, “Antony’s mother was slaughtered with the rest of the Vividari.”