Chapter 24
Chapter Twenty-Four
Maxim
I’m wrenched back to myself, shivering and cold for the first time in my cursed life.
Every muscle in my body is tensed. The image of Thyra crashing toward an icy rock wall strikes me hard.
I couldn’t fucking stop it. Not even by taking hold of the amber thread between us and pulling as hard as I could, trying to slow her down. It worked before, but not this time.
“Thyra!”
My shout mixes with another voice as I rush to understand where I am and what threats exist around me.
I’m lying on my back at the edge of the black mountain ridge.
I expected to wake up at the bottom of it. Or to not wake up at all.
Before the golden energy seized me, I was kneeling on Antony’s chest, pinning him down, my fiery hand around his throat, ready to take his head off.
I would have succeeded if my mind hadn’t been dragged from my body.
Now, he’s the one looming over me, but his head is raised, his focus on a point far off to my right, his hands held close to his chest, his biceps bunched as if he, too, had been pulling with all his might.
His fists close around empty air, and then his focus snaps to me.
He shouted Thyra’s name at the same time as I did.
It seems he might have just now realized it.
I launch myself up and away from him, arms defensively raised, fire crackling across my palms.
The power that took hold of me—I’m now certain it took hold of him, too.
Antony doesn’t remain on his knees for long.
Rising to his feet, he lowers his empty fists, exposing his chest.
Blood trickles from an angry wound gaping across his heart, a much wider fissure than the cuts I tore into his flesh.
I didn’t give him that wound.
Before I can speak, he gives voice to the fear whirling around my mind. “Thyra’s in danger.”