Chapter 1 #2
I remember the scent of burning skin when he used his starlight power in the bloodlands the first time we flew through here.
I thought it was the scent of burning vampyr flesh—and it was, but it was also his own.
The coin that had struck him in the back during the fight with the kings had burned into his skin.
Now I’m sure it was because of Antony’s own starlight power interacting with his vampyric flesh.
He confirms it when he says, “A little.” But his eyes are brightening, glistening black orbs. “Why don’t we see how far you get?”
With that, he opens his arms, freeing me from his hold.
I don’t move an inch. Not yet.
Not even to take my hands from his face.
The moment I move, I’m certain it will trigger whatever hunting instinct is controlling his impulses.
I’m weaponless. No stronger, physically, than I was when he and I first met.
The hammer I brought with me to this place has disintegrated into dust. The runes that decorated the hammer’s surface transferred to my right arm, now lined up along the image of the ivory ribbon twining from my palm behind the blade’s hilt and to my biceps.
If Antony were still himself, he would have asked me what happened to the hammer. He would have demanded an explanation for the runes that have joined the image of the Dragonstone Blade along my arm.
I told him I was a fast runner, but as quickly as I might be able to sprint, I don’t have a hope of outpacing him.
If I knew how to control the Lethian armor covering my body, I could command it to extend up over my face and protect me.
Except that Antony seems to know exactly how to part the threads to gain access to my body, so even that won’t do me any good.
“I’ll run,” I say, my palms remaining clamped around his jaw. “But first, you will tell me a truth.”
He narrows his eyes at me, his arms twitching at his sides, and I worry that I won’t be able to delay him.
“Don’t worry,” I murmur. “It will be an easy truth.”
He relaxes a little, his eyes brightening again. “Ask me.”
I tilt my head to the side, my dull, black hair falling across my shoulder. “Once you catch me…assuming you can…will you kill me or turn me?”
I don’t know exactly how turning happens, but from what Antony said, it seems he drank his attacker’s blood just as Antony himself was on the cusp of death.
His hungry smile grows. “I will kill you.”
My heart squeezes, and then he continues.
“Before you die, I will offer my poisoned blood to you. It will be your choice.”
A terrible choice.
But more than that, what shatters my heart is facing him now as if he’s a stranger. As if the past three days never happened, and he is my enemy once more.
I count heartbeats, count breaths, moments of my remaining life, and then I run.
Not toward the light.
I dart to his left, certain the only reason he doesn’t catch me is because I surprised him.
“Azul!” I scream, focusing solely on reaching the eagle, desperately blocking out how quickly Antony adjusts his forward momentum and matches my footsteps.
My feet fly as I sprint across the rocky tunnel floor, my arms pumping, heart-thumping fear pouring energy into my muscles.
The blue eagle is only twenty paces away. At my cry, he launches himself toward me, wings spread, but he won’t be able to lift off the ground until I’m on his back. I can’t leap as high as Antony can.
Even when Azul is crouched, his back is too high up for me to easily reach.
Frantically, I scan the tunnel walls for a low enough ledge, a jutting rock, something—anything—that I can use as a springboard.
Desperately, I try to block out the rush of air behind me and the terrifying reality that no matter how fast Azul races toward me, no matter how fast I run, I won’t make it to the eagle in time.
Antony’s hands close around me, a crushing grip wrenching me so suddenly to a stop that he lifts me off my feet.
Azul skids to a halt, shrieking and flapping his wings, his glowing, red eyes wide and wild as I’m jerked away from him.
My legs and arms are still moving, slamming backward against Antony’s chest and thighs, kicking, elbowing, clawing my fingers around his bare arms, raking his skin, fighting as hard as I can.
With every kick, every struggle against his grip, I cling to the memory of these same arms wrapping around me as his lips collided with mine, stealing my breath, a thief of my heart.
“Antony!” I cry. “Fight for your life. Fight for your soul—”
My cry strangles in my throat as his hand sweeps up my neck and closes around my jaw, pulling my head to the side, exposing my neck where the armor doesn’t protect me.
The touch of his fangs against my bare skin freezes every muscle in my body for fear I’ll rip my neck open with my struggle.
Opposite me, Azul shrieks, a deep, threatening sound, his wings spread, his focus on Antony, but he won’t be able to attack while Antony’s holding me so close.
The sudden slump of the mighty eagle’s wings to the tunnel floor crumples my heart.
A moment later, molten gold energy rushes up my right arm, the briefest flash, a warning that a blade vision is about to take over me, and for once…
I welcome it.
Because during a blade vision, my body may continue functioning in the present, but my mind goes elsewhere.
I don’t want to be here anymore.
Tears escape from my eyes as the blade vision snatches my consciousness away…
I stand in a field of snow, shivering violently. I’m not sure what I’m wearing, certain only that my feet are bare.
A jagged, dark-gray stone rests in the snow ahead of me, as high as my waist, with an inscription etched on its surface that’s too obscured by falling snow for me to read.
Fluttering at the top of the stone’s rough surface is a yellow ribbon, appearing caught in a groove, refusing to lift into the wind.
With every icy breath I take, my heart turns cold.
So cold.
An impossible winter grows within me…
I’m wrenched back to myself, inhaling the scent of dank rock, my ears filling with Azul’s desolate cry, followed by Antony’s crooning voice at my ear.
“Don’t stop fighting, Oracle.”
Not Thyra. Oracle.
I finally accept that the man who asked me to carry his hope…who told me he needed me to stay alive…who might have loved me…
That man is gone.
Antony is Vampyr now.
He sweeps my hair away from the back of my neck, his fangs raking down my exposed skin, scraping so hard that I sense the warmth of blood trickling down my skin, the coppery scent filling my chest.
“I told you I was a monster.” Antony’s breath is featherlight against my bleeding neck. “I warned you. Over and over. You told me I wasn’t. For a time, I believed you.”
Fighting the threatening dark, I try once again to thrash in his arms, recklessly risking tearing my throat against his teeth.
His arms remain like iron as he asks, “Is this monstrous enough for you?”
Pain pierces me as he drives his fangs deep into my neck.