Chapter 18 Stellen #2
“Oracle visions have a momentary paralyzing effect on your body,” I say. “Although I don’t think that’s common knowledge because I read it in an obscure text.”
“What you’ve said is correct. Except that I can speak during an Oracle vision, even if I can’t move.”
Interesting. I choose my question carefully. “Are you concerned for your safety during a vision?”
She folds her hands into her cloak. “Yes and no. When I was old enough, I was my father’s protector.”
I note the way she speaks in facts. Not a request for help.
The better she gets at this, the greater will be her chances of survival once we leave this forest.
“But there’s a new aspect of my visions that my father never had to contend with.”
Another fact.
“I have what I’ve come to call blade visions.”
Now, I’m wary. “The Dragonstone Blade has embedded itself into your arm, so—”
“You can see it?”
My brow furrows. “Of course. It’s right there.”
Her hand visibly clamps around her arm beneath the cloak. “Others can’t see it. I’m not entirely sure who can, but I suspect it’s only…”
She doesn’t seem prepared to say it, so I speak it for her. “The three kings.”
Each one of us tied to her by a thread of power.
“That makes sense, given that the curse binds us. It would also make sense,” I continue, “that once the blade embedded itself in your arm, the curse would alter your power. There has never been such a powerful curse. Tell me about these blade visions.”
She breathes more easily now, but her heart thumps harder.
“Like my Oracle visions, blade visions are out of my control. But they’re far more dangerous than a momentary paralysis.
I have no awareness of my actions during them.
None at all. I can speak and act, and you wouldn’t know I wasn’t myself except—”
“Except for your face.”
Finally, I have an explanation for the icy beauty I witnessed her transform into back at the village, and then again during the strange vision of her on the rooftop: a blade vision. Prompted by the curse.
Her lips are parted, her indrawn breath sharp, but her exhalation is softly relieved. “How did you know?”
“Because I watched it happen. Not only at the village when I first came upon you. But again later.”
“Later… How?”
To answer her properly, I need only one more confirmation. “Tell me: did you have a blade vision while you were on a rooftop in the Iron Kingdom?”
“Yes, but… I don’t understand.”
“It seems the blade’s cursed energy didn’t only pull you into a vision,” I say, watching carefully for her reaction. “It drew me to where you were. My mind left my body, and then I could see you, but it was clear you couldn’t see me.”
She’s breathless as she whispers, “You were drawn into the blade vision.” But she quickly shakes her head. “Not into my vision. You were drawn to where my body was. Not where my mind was.”
Softly, I ask, “Where was your mind?”
“That time?” She shudders. “I found myself on my knees in a field of charred earth that stretched as far as I could see. I was wrapped in white ribbons that tightened and tightened…”
My focus shifts to her right arm, picturing the blade now concealed by her cloak and the black runes that weren’t there the last time I saw her.
The dark blood bind now extends along the ivory ribbon.
I need to ask her about it, but her hand emerges from her cloak, rising to her throat, and what she says next makes my instincts prickle.
“The False Queen was there. She told me I’d be a pawn in her game of revenge.”
I control my reaction to this news.
If these blade visions are connecting Thyra to the False Queen’s spirit, then they’re far more dangerous than we can possibly know.
I remember Thyra’s scream at the time. I won’t be your pawn!
And the way she’d endangered herself.
Actions that were counter to the survival instincts she has demonstrated.
“You backed toward the edge of the roof,” I say. “You taunted death at the behest of the blade.”
Forced by the blade.
Controlled by a curse that controls us all.
What more will this blade have her do?
Even her command to me, when she told me to come for her, was spoken while her countenance was icy. During a blade vision. And therefore, without her full volition. Outside her own choices. Making her the pawn she said she didn’t want to be.
Ensuring my breathing remains even, I add, “You would have fallen if I hadn’t stopped you.”
“You stopped me?”
“Using the thread that connects us.” I press my hand to my chest. “The thread connecting your heart to mine. It’s tangible. Solid and real.”
But is it counter to the blade’s malice?
Or is it a twisted part of the curse?
Will this thread give us a false sense of control, only to snap and destroy us when we need it most? Just as all three threads were caught in the snowstorm when Thyra was dying, and only the dark thread remained…
I am well practiced in controlling myself. Emotion will never overwhelm me. Even so, I bend to retrieve my blades, needing their weight at my back. A welcome weight. Unlike the stone in my chest that grows heavier with every heartbeat.
Before I can crouch, Thyra reaches for me, her lips parted and her breathing suddenly troubled.
“If you saw me on the rooftop, then…” Her fingertips brush my arm. “He was there in the library. I really did see him.”
My brow furrows, my weapons remaining abandoned as I straighten to my full height again. “Who?”
“The Ember King. He appeared in front of me just as a blade vision ended. He pulled me out of the path of danger. He used the thread! I’m sure of it. But at the time, I didn’t understand how—”
Mindless impulses flood me.
Stronger than my logic. Burning around the stone in my chest like icy flames.
My arms snake around her waist, and I pull her close, once more like a feral wolf guarding a meal as I clamp her to my chest, as close to my heart as I can get her.
“Maxim will not visit you again.”
Thyra’s breath catches in her throat, a barely uttered gasp.
Her cheeks flush, and her heart grinds out its beats as she rises to my challenge. “Given that my blade visions are uncontrollable, how do you intend to stop him?”
I couldn’t control my descent into her vision. If Maxim was pulled into one of her other visions, then I doubt he could control his descent, either.
But there is nothing rational about the desires engulfing my mind. Vengeful. Possessive. Completely fucking unusual for me.
I repeat, harder now, my Lethian power scratching at the back of my throat, demanding a freedom I want to give it. “My enemy will not visit you again.”
Thyra exhales a shaky breath.
Her hand must have flown up between us when I reached for her because, once again, her palm rests against my heart, her fingers finding the rip in my tunic.
She searches my eyes as if she were scraping out my soul and then she responds with a softness that defies how tightly I’m holding her.
Instead of biting and scratching and clawing at me as she should, she’s quiet, a worried hitch in her breathing. “Stellen, are you—?”
I barely hear her. “I will give you everything you need.”
I stroke her back, angling my hand upward because I need to tangle my fingers in her hair and breathe her in, listen to the sounds her mouth makes.
We could stay in this forest for days, and I could sing her into a frenzy of need and pleasure over and over…
I could forget my kingdom and forget who I am and what I’ve done and forget that the curse exists…
“Stellen?” Her voice is sterner now, but it carries a concern I can’t place as she leans hard into me. Her other hand slides swiftly upward to cup my jaw before she brushes her thumb across the corner of my lips. “You’re bleeding.”
I’m…what?
My legs buckle.
The stone in my chest drops like lead.
I finally taste the blood in my mouth.
My damaged heart squeezes, sharp as the dagger that stabbed it, and now my injury is dragging me down…and down…
Thyra’s arms fly around me, but I’m already crashing to the ground.