Chapter 56 Thyra
Chapter Fifty-Six
Thyra
Iwake up alone.
Jolting upright, I dislodge the pillow that was nestled to my chest, a poor substitute for Antony’s body.
Disappointment fills me. Both that I fell so deeply asleep and that he chose to leave me.
The silver dress has reshaped itself around my body, forming a loose, flowing nightgown that drags against the sheets as I slip to the edge of the bed, trying to gather my thoughts and intentions and to make sense of the mess of my emotions.
My body aches.
Muscles. Breasts. Core.
But the sting of the cut across my cheek has vanished.
The shackles hang against the wall on the side I’m facing, and the ruby circlet lies in a heap on the floor.
I have no idea how long I slept or what time of day or night it is. There are no windows, no indicative rays of sunlight or starlight.
Clearly long enough for Antony to leave—
My breath catches when the back wall on the other side of the bed comes into view.
I can’t stop my smile or the warmth flooding my chest.
There Antony stands, his back to the wall, facing the door, fully dressed in armor, his unmoving state telling me that, like at the cabin, he may be asleep where he stands. A guard watching over me, breathing so quietly and deeply that I didn’t sense his presence until I glanced backward.
The table near him is laden with food, much of it consisting of fresh fruit and fluffy-looking pastries, so he must have left the catacombs and returned at some point. All while I slept.
Carefully and quietly, I allow my bare feet to find the floor, trying not to wake him.
Gravity brings a rush of wetness down my inner thighs that shocks me back to a reality I’m not ready to acknowledge.
Oh. I was so reckless.
Sex is a natural part of life in coastal villages, but pregnancy is taken very seriously. Bringing into the world another mouth to feed isn’t done lightly. For that reason, all males are taught to pull out before they finish.
All my adult life before now, I’ve guarded my body and never allowed myself to form attachments. I can count on one hand the number of times I’ve had sex, and never was it so intense. Never so overwhelming. And never did I risk pregnancy.
I take a breath, my fingertips pressing to my bruised lips, a moment of remembrance, but not of regret.
I’m certain I would take the same risks again.
“If you’re worried about a child,” Antony’s rumbling voice sounds. “Don’t be.”
I lower my hand, slipping around the bed and reaching his side. I should take care of the liquid between my legs, but I need this moment with him.
Reaching up to his helmet, I tug on it.
I’m not certain, even after last night, that he’ll remove it so easily, but he bends his knees and tips his head, allowing me to slide it off his head.
After placing the helmet lightly on the little table at the side of the bed, I reach up and press a kiss to his lips. “Good morning.” My brow puckers. “Is it morning?”
One corner of his mouth hitches up. Even with his helmet off, he appears uncharacteristically calm. “Very much so. It’s past breakfast.”
I guess I needed to sleep. I suck on my lower lip, which is sore, but I don’t care.
I kiss him again. A little deeper, accepting the tingle of contact against my already tender lips before I murmur, “You sounded very certain about children.”
His eyes narrow at me, but it’s a lazy motion. “Confirming anything for you would be a huge risk for me, Thyra. Obviously, a king who can’t produce an heir would be a liability.”
I give him a nod, focusing on what’s important to me right in this moment. “I really don’t need to worry?”
“You don’t need to worry.”
“Well, then…” I whisper against his lips. “Let me take care of myself, and I’ll come back and we can—”
With a groan, he pulls me close, his lips crashing into mine. My head spins with renewed desire, shots of heat striking directly into my core, but he pulls back far too soon.
“As much as I want this,” he says, “you need to conserve your energy for what lies ahead of you today.”
A world of darkness waits for us outside this room. I’m forced to recognize that my desire to stay comes partly from a place of fear. The sooner I leave, the sooner that darkness will swallow me again.
“Thyra.” He stops me before I can step toward the bathing room, his voice ragged. “You’re mine to protect. Now more than ever.”
When he first captured me, he declared I was his. A possession in his control. But this is different.
His to protect.
An offer. Not a command.
I give him a firm nod. “I am.”
It’s only once I’ve entered the bathing room that I reconsider what he said, telling me I’ll need my strength today and that he’s determined to protect me.
I’m suddenly wary of what might have happened while I was sleeping.
I want to step back out right away, needing answers, but the sooner I take care of my body, the better able I’ll be to focus on what lies ahead of me.
After quickly washing up and using the cup at the sink to drink my fill of water, I tightly braid my hair. The Lethian dress responded to my bodily needs and answered Antony’s touch last night, but it seems determined to retain its nightgown form for now.
My cheeks heat as I recall the way it transforms most readily when my physical need grows…
Stalking from the bathing room, my face still flushed, I say, “You told me to ask for help when I need it. Well, I need help turning this dress into a suit of armor.”
Antony has remained a sentinel beside the bathing room door, his helmet off, but I’m not sure how much longer he’ll remain uncovered like that.
A lazy smile crosses his face as he reaches slowly for me, his hands closing around my hips, before he drags me up against him and his lips feather mine.
Mere seconds later, he gives a disappointed huff. “That happened fast.”
Glancing down, I confirm that the tightening sensation around my body was, indeed, the formation of a supple suit of armor around me.
The suit includes boots and reaches up to the base of my neck, leaving my head and hands bare.
Briefly patting my hair, I discover that some of the magical strands have woven up into my tresses, securing my braids even more tightly in place.
I, too, feel cheated that it didn’t take longer, but my need for information surpasses any disappointment. “What happened in the night?
Any shred of relaxation in his posture vanishes.
“First,” he says, “I want you to know that I’ve never allowed iron to be ground to dust. Our power doesn’t allow us to control any piece of iron smaller than a fingernail.
It’s for that same reason we can’t control the blood pumping through another fae’s veins, even though some healers say blood contains iron.
Iron dust would be extremely dangerous, even for the fae using it. ”
My face falls at his certainty. Does he think I lied? “But…”
“But someone’s grinding iron without my knowledge,” he says, immediately allaying my concern. “When I find that fae, and any fae working with them, I’ll end them.”
Breathing easily again, I ask, “Second?”
He gestures to the far side of the table.
Reaching it, I stare, suddenly frozen, at the elaborately decorated envelope resting beside the fruit bowl.
“Read it,” he says, but I hardly hear him.
Such a simple object. An envelope. And yet the emblem depicted on it has made my heart pound.
“This insignia.” I run my fingers across the pearly-white paper, tracing the mark: an insignia that looks like an arrow surrounded by rays of light.
It feels like a lifetime ago that I stood for the first time within the Iron Forge while Antony buttoned that heavy leather coat around me. An oracle vision had struck me then. A vision for which I had no context at the time.
In it, I was hurrying along a hallway as pearly white as this envelope, reaching for a panel on the wall bearing this same insignia.
“Thyra?”
Carefully, I ask, “What is this emblem?”
“It’s the Vividari’s symbol.” He pulls himself off the wall. “Why? What’s wrong?”
“I’ve seen it before. In a vision. But I couldn’t make sense of it.”
Quickly, I take a seat and slip open the envelope, trying to process the information inscribed on it as fast as I can.
“This is happening tonight.” My back is unbearably stiff with tension as I hurry on, murmuring as I read, “On Mount Vividari.” The implication of this isn’t lost on me, the cruelty in it.
Neither is the timing of the event. “Well before sunset.” I set the envelope down.
“Galla wants to demonstrate her power in my presence.”
But how does my vision fit into this?
“There’s more.” Antony steps to the side of the table, a shadow looming over me.
He keeps his explanation brief, clipped, and emotionless, telling me he went to see Victor in the night and relaying to me everything they spoke about.
All the impossibilities of gathering together the tools that created the blade.
“Lost, unattainable, or unknown,” he finishes. “And once again, Galla Vividari has power over my kingdom’s future.”
My bare hands close so tightly around the invitation that I’m scrunching it. “No,” I whisper. “Not entirely.”
I reach for him, grateful when he responds by kneeling beside me, placing his hand on the table where I can rest my smaller hand in his.
Again, speaking carefully, knowing that my question could force him to remember things he wants to forget, I ask, “Do you know what the tomb looks like?”
His eyes narrow, and he stays quiet for so long that I don’t expect he’ll answer me.
“White stone.” The corners of his mouth turn down, and his shoulders hunch, his voice becoming low and harsh. “The bodies are in individual chambers in the walls. What was left of them.”
Pearly white stone walls with panels and chambers.
One of which hides the hammer.
As much as this information gives me what I hope is clarity about my vision, it also brings him pain.
I lean toward him, opting for actions instead of words, pressing slowly to his chest, nudging my forehead to his chin until his breathing quiets.
Then, “Antony?”
“Yes?”
“I think I can open it.”
His hand flies from the table to my back, a firm grasp. “How?”
“I had a vision I couldn’t reconcile until now. I saw myself walking alone along a corridor made of white stone. I stopped at a panel marked with the Vividari emblem and opened a small chamber set into the wall. Whatever was inside that chamber, I was pulling it out when the vision ended.”
“You can open the tomb?”
“I’m certain of it.”
A smile flashes across his face, a brightness that lights up his eyes to a breathtaking emerald. With it, all of his savage beauty intensifies, making my heart pound. But his expression darkens so quickly and completely that it’s a crash back to reality.
“Hope is dangerous,” he says, his voice hard. “You said it yourself: Your visions are warnings of harm.”
Just like that, he pulls away from me, snatches up his helmet from the other side of the room, and shoves it over his head.
I’m not about to let go of my hope, rising to my feet and following after him. “No, I said my visions allow me to prevent harm. To help others. Retrieving the hammer is the first step to doing something good—”
He spins to me so fast that he nearly knocks me over, but my reflexes are fast, my quick repositioning keeping me upright.
Regret floods his eyes, unmissable.
“I am not good,” he snarls. “I’m not capable of goodness. I am lies and death and pain.”
I stand my ground. “And that’s all you expect in return.”
Squaring my shoulders, I tip up my chin and face his rage.
All this rage because the chance of hope, real hope, can only be terrifying to him after a life lived with murder, trauma, and betrayal.
He takes a simmering step toward me, but I respond with a command. “You will take me to Mount Vividari, Antony, King of Iron. I will retrieve that hammer. And you will protect me from anyone who tries to stop me.”
I surge toward him, meeting his forward momentum. “Because I will be the spark of hope in the darkness. I will carry that burden, and I will hold its weight for both of us.”
In his wild green eyes, I see once again his beauty, but now more clearly, I understand how his nature is defined by violent intentions. Always, the expectation of pain.
He can’t hold hope for longer than a heartbeat because it’s too treacherous. Too quickly stripped away and mutilated.
I lower my voice, fighting my own fear that I, too, will crash and fail. “Will you let me carry this weight?”