Chapter 58 Thyra
Chapter Fifty-Eight
Thyra
This is my fault.
I’m frozen in shock, barely able to breathe.
I thought to save Rohan, but the seed I planted in Galla’s mind must have burrowed too deep.
Or… she’s seen her chance to force Antony into one-on-one combat, ensuring he has to undo the ruby circlet, allowing me to be separated from him.
Cassia’s pleading breaks my heart. “Brother… Please…”
“Rohan is strong enough to challenge me,” Antony says, his words blunt. “But he won’t win. Only Stellen and Maxim could have a chance against me.”
The awful constriction in my throat is so tight I can barely speak. “There has to be a way to stop this.”
The cold savagery in Antony’s eyes only grows more intense as one of his arms finds my back, slipping around me.
“If I knew how to defy Galla Vividari,” he says, “I would have done it years ago.”
A scream builds within my throat.
Damn this curse!
Frustration and fear…monstrous and overwhelming fear…grow within me.
If only I could tear the Dragonstone Blade out of my body, smash it, and end all of this pain.
I reach for my power, desperately hoping for that calming flutter, a vision that will show me a way forward for Cassia, to prevent the harm to Rohan, even if it’s a narrow path. Even if it’s a nearly impossible path—
Antony’s hand brushes the back of my neck, a sudden, urgent movement, his murmur low and urgent. “Maybe there is something.”
His next words are for Cassia, his cold gaze seeming to pin her to the spot. “If I give you a command, will you obey me without question?”
Her weight lifts a little, as if she’s finding her feet, the sliver of hope she must be feeling giving her strength. “What is it?”
“Get Fortuna and fly to our family’s temple in the mountains. Take your armor and weapons. Go quickly. Don’t delay and don’t stop until you get there.”
Cassia’s brow furrows. “Brother?”
Antony’s arms tighten, one around her, one around me, holding on to us both. “Will you obey me, Cassia, or do you intend to defy your king?”
She stares at him for another second before she slips her arm up to swipe at her tears. “I’ll do as you ask.”
With a nod, he releases her. “Then go. Now.”
She teeters a little before she regains her balance, spins on her heel, and hurries away.
Antony is suddenly galvanized into action. “We need to move to the landing platform. Stay ahead of me so I know you’re safe. I’ll tell you which way to turn to get there. Quickly.”
I don’t hesitate, breaking into a jog that becomes a run when he matches my stride and urges me to go faster.
Together, we race along the corridor outside the training room, ignoring the rapidly kneeling guards, catching sight of Cassia’s disappearing back as she heads along one of the other walkways.
“Left,” Antony commands, and I turn in that direction, taking the corner sharply but smoothly, pounding along the new corridor, following his directions left again, and then right, before we shoot through the opening into the clear air.
Out in the distance, seven eagles have already taken to the sky, soaring away, and I’m certain I make out Quintus’s golden-haired form on one of them.
Azul waits directly ahead of us, his blue feathers fluffed up to make himself appear even bigger than he is, and I can only imagine the way the other birds would have steered clear of him.
Only one other eagle remains on the platform, its wings spread, about to take to the air.
Rohan faces away from us, hunched over his bird.
Antony barely slows down, giving a sharp whistle, a low note quickly followed by a high one.
Azul immediately responds by launching himself, not toward us, but in front of the other bird, blocking its path before it can take flight.
To that eagle’s credit, it doesn’t cower, veering to the left and seeking the open air beyond Azul’s extended wings, but its change of direction brings it across Antony’s path.
“Rohan!” Antony roars. “If death is what you want, claim it now.”
Azul is blocking his way, and his eagle rears up wildly.
Rohan leaps off its back, landing lightly opposite Antony, his expression anything but blank now.
Antony shoots me a final, quiet command before he steps into the other man’s path. “Move with me, Thyra.”
Every muscle in my body tenses as I anticipate their moves, darting left and right, keeping the chain loose while staying clear of the fight on Antony’s other side.
Within seconds, Antony kicks Rohan’s legs out from under him, forcing him to his knees, one arm around his throat, his armored forearm pressing hard against Rohan’s neck.
Antony’s voice is now low and controlled. “Did you volunteer?”
Rohan’s only response is a caged snarl, rasped as he tries to free himself.
“Did you fucking volunteer?”
“No!” Rohan’s arms drop to his sides, and his shoulders slump. “But I would have, if given the choice. Life with Galla Vividari is a slow death. At least you’ll make it quick.”
Antony releases him, and Rohan slumps forward, his hands planting on the platform.
“I’m giving you the chance to spend your final hours with Cassia.”
Rohan’s brow furrows as he lifts himself slowly to his feet. “What?”
Antony shrugs. “You’ve been ordered to shadow us, yes?”
“I have.”
“Then shadow us.”
Stepping back from Rohan, Antony scoops me up into his arms before leaping deftly onto Azul’s back, at which the monstrous blue eagle rises smoothly into the air, coasting above the platform.
Rohan’s attention is suddenly on the distant, lone eagle soaring east away from the city. Cassia’s chestnut-brown bird. Easily recognizable even from this distance.
Without taking his eyes off Cassia, Rohan leaps onto his eagle’s back, and within seconds, he soars into the sky, following close behind us.
It’s lucky Azul is so fast, or Rohan might overtake us.
Where I’m sitting in front of Antony, I sense the tension in his posture now that we’ve taken to the air, the high chance that we’ll encounter interference, and I can’t shake off my sense of foreboding until we leave the Starlit City far behind.
Even then, I continue to scan for threats.
If my Oracle power were not so unpredictable, I could hope to be forewarned of danger, but I can’t rely on it.
Halfway to the temple, I lean back into Antony, needing to know. “What happened last time?”
I catch the question in his eye and continue, “Cassia said Galla would withhold her starlight like she did last time.”
Antony’s response is a low murmur in my ear. “She forced me to kill Lady Emiliana’s father. He was trying to protect Emiliana, refusing to let her join Mother’s Court. Mother wanted him out of the way. So she held a celebration and chose him as her entertainment.”
My heart sinks to hear it. Antony told me that Emiliana isn’t free to decide her own fate. Choosing whom to love is simply the tip of a sword that must have cut deep through her life.
“He fought with dignity, and I gave him a swift, clean death,” Antony says.
He falls silent, and I don’t ask him anything more about it.
Below us, the landscape changes, becoming farmland extending for miles. I recognize this time the Thistleberry trees growing in the orchards we pass along the way, but this time, Antony begins pointing out other structures.
“My army trains in this region,” he says, pointing to what looks like a farmhouse far below.
“That’s the main barracks down there, and on that mountain ridge over there is the aviary where we raise eagles.
Once an eagle bonds with a rider, they undertake aerial and endurance training.
Once they’re ready, I assign them to a tower.
” He shifts a little. “They operate well without me, but I’ve never ignored them for this long. ”
“Tomorrow,” I say firmly, and then suggest, “Maybe I could train with them?”
He doesn’t scoff at my suggestion. “Given what happened this morning, that’s a good idea.”
Finally, we approach the mountains where herds of the four-legged animals Antony called stags roam. They scatter through the trees, sleek beasts running wild and free, disappearing beneath the foliage.
Antony’s voice sounds once again in my ear, but this time I’m not sure what he’s referring to. “You didn’t flinch.”
I crane to see his eyes. “What do you mean?”
“When Rohan charged at you, you didn’t flinch.”
Only now that Antony’s asking about it does it occur to me that I probably should have considered my safety in that moment, but I wasn’t fearful. “He wasn’t going to hurt me. He needed to get to Cassia. I was simply his excuse.”
“How could you be sure?”
I exhale a slow breath, feeling once again in my soul what I realized after my first encounter with Galla.
My answer is so quiet I’m not sure Antony will hear me over the rushing wind. “I am all things to all people.”
He’s quiet. Then, “You were the conduit he needed.”
“His path to her.”
If only I were so certain about my own path.
As we spear toward the highest peak where the white temple huddles within the trees, I make out Fortuna already settled on the lush grass, her head raised and attention on us, Cassia standing beside her, one hand on her saddle as if she has only just dismounted, her head tilted to the sky.
Antony’s voice sounds again, low but clear. “I need to intercept Rohan before he reaches Cassia. Otherwise, he won’t hear a word I say.”
With that, he unclicks the circlet from around his wrist, separating us and leaving himself free of it.
As I wrap the loose end of the chain around my arm, he says, “Stay with Azul until I return to you.”
“I will.”
The moment we soar toward the ground, Antony leaps from Azul, dropping the distance to the lush grass below us, landing deftly, and racing to stand between Cassia’s position on the ground and Rohan’s approaching eagle.
Cassia darts forward, but Antony’s firmly upraised hand stops her in her tracks. Even from the sky, I can see how hard she’s trembling, seeming unable to stay still, beginning to pace back and forth.