Chapter 60 Antony
Chapter Sixty
Antony
Whatever cruel plans Galla had for tonight, Thyra has disrupted them.
But with disruption comes danger.
Thyra may have given me the perfect opportunity to take out all of Galla’s lords, and in doing so, created the climate for the perfect diversion to slip away and get the hammer, but Galla is never more vicious than when she’s angry.
She will cut and shred and strike until there’s nothing left…
Her chin raised at a haughty angle, Galla backs toward the dais, trembling as she continues to point at Thyra and scream. “Tear that witch apart! Teach her the meaning of pain!”
As each of Mother’s ten lords spreads out, prowling to form a wide circle around us, and all the other highborn and their lowborn servants scramble to the far edges of the room, I draw Thyra close, taking the chance to speak while I can.
“When Azul swoops, fly to the temple on the western slope. Get the hammer.”
Her gaze flashes to me. “You’re coming with me.”
“Not this time.”
When she recounted to me her vision of the Vividari tomb, the full extent of her description hadn’t registered. I was focused only on her hope that she could open the chamber.
“You were walking alone.”
“Oh.” She exhales softly, as if she’s realizing it now, too. Her forehead pinches, a growing tension before she gives me a nod.
If I thought I could get her into the air already, I would, but I need to take down the lords first, or they’ll fly after her.
“Until then, stay close to me,” I say, taking note that Mother’s ladies have all hurried to the far corner near the dais, including Emiliana, who is suddenly shoved to the most exposed edge of their group.
Delphina’s are the last hands to shove Emiliana onto the open floor, where she hunches, far too close to the fight.
The way Emiliana flinched when Delphina’s hands landed on her back…
Emiliana must be injured, but I’m not sure how, even if I can guess why. Galla must have found out that Emiliana showed us the Chronicle.
I don’t have time to consider more.
The air rings with the hum of steel as all ten of Mother’s men draw their swords.
Demanding my full attention, they pace around Thyra and me, a slowly moving circle that will make it harder to determine which of them will attack first—if not all of them at once.
I quickly assess their weaponry. Their swords are steel, but the daggers at their waists are iron-bladed.
They’re wearing even more regal white tunics and pants with elaborate embroidery on the cuffs and lapels, but the shadowed hue across their torsos indicates they could be wearing leather armor underneath.
It won’t protect them from me.
They’re fools to take me on.
Thyra gathers up the circlet’s chain, pooling it in her right hand as she draws close to my left side, her pale blue eyes meeting mine.
Fuck, I wish she’d received that combat training I promised her, but she’s proven to have quick reflexes and, as she once told me, she can run fast. She may need both, but we’ll see.
Returning my helmet to my head, I draw my axe, filling the air with the deadly scent of blood and iron.
No matter what direction the men attack from, I will keep their blades away from Thyra.
“Come on then,” I snarl into the fraught silence, these moments of held breath as Galla and the powerful highborn watch on from the room’s outskirts, some with pale faces, others bright with glee. “Which of you is foolish enough to start this fight?”
Quintus is now located directly ahead of me, his sharply angular features drawn tight as he bares his teeth, but I don’t expect it will be him. Not yet. He will want the others to wear me down first.
Not that they will.
He gives a shout.
At his command, two lords leap at me, one diagonally from my right, the other from my back left, striking at me and Thyra at the same time.
In a heartbeat, I switch my axe to my left hand, whip an iron dagger from my waist, and throw it, my power carrying it straight into the eye of the man attacking from my right.
The moment the dagger leaves my hand, I swing left, my axe cutting through the air at the man coming at Thyra, my mind continuing to hum with my power over iron.
Beside me, Thyra has dropped into a crouch, no doubt to avoid the sword striking toward her, but the lord lunges faster than she can evade him, the sword’s tip headed for her heart, and his downward trajectory ensures my axe narrowly misses the top of his head.
I adjust my aim as fast as I can, needing to strike him down before he kills Thyra, but she reacts quickly, taking my breath away.
As she drops, she arcs her right hand around in the air in front of herself, as if she’s drawing circles with the chain, creating a tunnel of spiraling metal surrounding the path of the oncoming blade.
With a savage wrench, she meets the floor, bringing me down with her. I land at a crouch, bending back and bracing as she pushes into me, as far back from the oncoming blade as she can get in that dangerous heartbeat before the channel she was creating closes around the sword.
All along the sword’s blade, the circlet is now wrapped.
My ears fill with the scream of metal against metal as the man’s downward momentum drives his weapon forward.
For the briefest moment, his gloating eyes meet mine, and it’s clear he doesn’t realize what’s about to happen.
The chain’s teeth trigger.
The ruby circlet reacts with the full force of its gruesome mechanism.
Shards of steel shoot across the air as the chainsaw cuts through the sword at every point of contact.
Too late, the man tries to throw himself backward, but his momentum takes him straight into the path of the chain’s triggered section.
It whips free of the broken shards and strikes his neck, severing his throat.
Thyra rams her face against my shoulder as blood splatters across her.
My concern now is where the chain will fall. I prepare to yank her further backward, but she was smart.
She’s all pressed up against me, legs tucked in, her right arm extended to keep the chain as far from her body as possible, and only now I realize her hand is clamped around my left forearm, ensuring I don’t retract my arm and bring the chain’s triggered portion closer to either of us.
The man drops to the floor, and the chain falls with him, writhing across his shoulder, continuing to gouge deeply before becoming still again.
Fuck, that was close.
It all happened within heartbeats.
Up on the dais, Galla is screaming, her words unintelligible, but her wishes are clear.
She wants us dead.
“Stay down, Thyra.” My command is short and sharp, and I hate that I’m telling her to stay out of the fight, but she’ll be safer closer to the ground, and I’ll have free rein to move my arms without fear of striking her.
Rising to my feet, I inhale the scent of blood as the eight remaining lords come at me at once, including Quintus.
Knocking aside the first man’s sword with my axe, exposing his chest, I cleave to the right, then the left, rapidly slicing open his torso.
Without waiting for his body to hit the floor, I step left, closer to Thyra and into the path of the second man, cutting right through his upraised sword arm, slicing across his throat before swinging to the man now on my right, dropping my weight and slicing open his thigh, severing a major bloodline.
Sweeping upward, I narrowly evade the fourth man’s sword to ram my axe into his stomach, twisting and cutting him open before I step left again, grab the fifth man’s oncoming sword in my armored hand, and wrench him into the arc of my still-swinging axe.
Behind me, Thyra gives a cry of warning.
I spin in time to deflect the downward cut of the sixth man’s dagger and slice my axe savagely across his throat, nearly taking off his head.
But the seventh man’s sword shrieks across my steel armor, his blade seeking and finding the smallest chink, the gap between my chest plates and my helmet.
The only weakness.
I jolt back before the blade can reach my neck, easily evading him, but my path takes me toward Quintus, who strikes at my back.
At the exact moment that I move backward, a shadow passes across us.
A quiet eagle, its path cutting through the increasing darkness as the sun finally begins its descent below the horizon.
From the bird’s back leaps a warrior dressed in leather armor, his stature larger even than mine.
Victor drops into the space behind me, landing neatly between Quintus and me.
Victor’s iron-bladed meat cleaver slices cleanly through Quintus’s neck, sending his head sliding to the floor.
With a roar, I open the seventh man’s chest with my axe, kicking his body away from me.
His body lands with a thud, and silence falls.
The floor is covered in blood. All ten lords are dead.
Up on the dais, Galla’s mouth is open, emitting a strangled scream that twists and morphs as she stares at Victor’s exposed wounds, his face and arms fully visible, before she turns her face away.
Fuck her.
Across the room, Emiliana takes a quick step toward Victor, but now, it seems, the other ladies are determined to drag her back to the fold.
She shakes them off, punching at their arms, pulling herself free, her eyes filling with tears as she spits in Galla’s direction and then rushes to Victor’s side, a dangerous rebellion, but one I’m determined to support.
But first…
I crouch beside Thyra.
She’s blood-splattered. Gore streaks her hair, but she tips her head back, her pale blue eyes telling me she’s determined to act.
She doesn’t need to say a word.
I utter a sharp whistle.
Up on the wall, Azul answers my call, swooping so fast toward us that I’m certain he worked hard not to join the fight.
My arms wrap around Thyra, and I haul her upward, the holder of my hope, flinging her into the air.
High into the air.
As her right arm slips through my hold, my palm glides across the ruby circlet, releasing her from its hold, allowing her to soar freely upward.
No more chains.
She twists a little, her silver armor glittering, as she carves a graceful arc toward Azul.
He dips and deftly catches her before soaring higher, carrying her into the sky.
The loose end of the circlet drops to the floor. Drawing it up out of the blood, I unlock it from my other wrist and wrap it in my bare palm before pulling my armored glove back over it.
It doesn’t matter what cruelty Mother has planned for Victor and me now.
It doesn’t matter the memories I’m battling or the monstrous impulses I’m fighting.
Thyra soars into the air, carrying my hope with her.