Chapter 46
Chapter Forty-Six
Thyra
Itake a deep breath as I prepare to step outside the Rose Room, tipping my head back to accept the early morning sunlight shining through the panel in the ceiling.
I’ve left my armor in the back garden, hidden behind the closed wall.
I checked on it right after I woke up, finding it floating midair.
It hummed at me, vibrating when I drew nearer, as if it hoped I would reach for it.
It was still in the shape of a half-formed cocoon, waiting for me to step into it.
An impulse I resisted with all my might, even when its humming became a soft sigh in the air.
I promise myself I’ll wear it again soon.
For breakfast, I ate only a small amount of bread. If training will be as tough as I anticipate, I don’t want to vomit. Not least because food is precious here.
I didn’t have a lot of choice when it came to clothing.
I pulled on the warm undergarments, finding them tightly-fitted, followed by a corset.
Over the top, I drew on the closest-fitting tunic and pants I could find in the basket, since I don’t want to risk wearing loose clothing that can be grabbed.
The garments are nowhere near as flexible as my armor, but they’ll have to do.
Stellen was right about the undergarments. They’re warm.
I pull on my fur boots but nearly don’t reach for my cloak. I’m overheating already.
I fold it over my arm, resolving to pull it on when I step outside, and then I pause, my hand reaching for the door.
Heat rushes to my cheeks as I try to push away the memory of my last interaction with Stellen, the shivery tingles all through my body as I attempt to forget how powerful a simple yearning melody can be.
I give myself a savage shake.
He was right to walk away.
He was right when he said that I have to be truly free before I can know what my heart wants.
He was right…
So why does my heart feel hollow?
I’ve felt this hollow before. Many times since the day the three kings found me. Since then, I’ve tried to fill it with hope and faith, sometimes even with fear, and still the emptiness returns.
Turning my right arm over, I picture the blade’s image now concealed beneath the long sleeve of this ill-fitting tunic.
I fight my frustration—another emotion capable of flooding the hollow in my heart.
I’m no closer to breaking the curse.
I’m fucking further from breaking the curse.
But I need the combat skills to take on fae who have been training to fight their whole lives.
The carnage on the field outside the Alak-Teah proved to me how violent the Frost Kingdom can be.
Not that different from the Iron Kingdom, considering the bloodshed between Antony and his stepmother’s lords. Antony protected me…until he didn’t.
I have to be able to protect myself.
Determination replaces my frustration and I finally pull open the door, stepping out into the chill air, prepared to pull on the cloak before the cold seeps through my clothing.
Stellen waits at the far end of the path, standing within the arched entrance, his expression unreadable.
He is as blank as new snow.
I wonder if he was listening to my heartbeats or my ragged, fraught breathing before I calmed myself just now.
Heading toward him, I quickly scan my surroundings and at the same time begin pulling the cloak around my shoulders, preparing for the awkward process of slipping into the leggings and body suit portion of the garment.
“Leave it off.”
Stellen’s whisper reaches me across the distance. Surprising, since he told me to always wear this cloak outside.
I reach him a moment later, the garment half over my shoulders, but my attention is drawn to the splatter of blood across the left shoulder of his tunic. “Are you hurt?”
“No.” His expression remains blank. Then softens. “It was nothing I wasn’t expecting. Leave your cloak on the ground. It’s time to learn how to jump safely onto Nara’s back.”
I blink at his quick change of subject, but I’m not about to argue. When I needed to alight onto Azul’s feathery back, I had to find clever ways of getting myself high enough to reach him. It was never easy on my own.
If I’m to become self-sufficient, I need to know how to ride a wolf. “Show me.”
“Left hand here. As high as you can reach.” He demonstrates by placing his hand on a spot at the side of Nara’s shoulders.
“She’ll lower herself as much as she can for you, but you’ll need momentum to make it up.
Aim to swing your right leg over this part of her back.
” Again, he demonstrates. “Now, try it.”
Nara waits patiently as I start with placing my hands across her back, getting a sense of her shape and how I might take hold without ripping out her fur.
Then I contemplate how to make a run-up.
I won’t always have space to gain momentum, but here on the path, I can at least make it easier for myself the first time.
Judging the distance, I act it out first, counting the steps to reach her, stopping and then mimicking the action of placing my hand on her side, testing the movement of my upper leg.
“Okay,” I mutter to myself, ready to try it for real.
Launching myself forward from five paces away, I make it to her side, leap, plant my hand on her shoulder—
And hurl myself too far over her other side.
Fuck!
It’s only because I grab a handful of fur that I don’t fly right over her and crash onto the other side of the stone path. As it is, I end up dangling on her other side, quickly letting go and sliding to the ground so I don’t rip out her fur.
Stellen strides around Nara, his eyebrows raised, his blank expression vanished. “You’re fast. Speed gives you more strength than I expected.”
I’m not insulted. Being underestimated has kept me alive. “I got good at running.”
He appraises me, his icy gaze passing from my head to my toes before he backs away and folds his arms across his chest. “Slow down. Trust your strength. Try again.”
Rounding Nara, I whisper an apology to her, but she doesn’t appear perturbed, doesn’t snarl at me, so I hope that means I didn’t hurt her.
This time, I start from nearer to her, hoping that a shorter run-up will mean a more controlled ascent.
It works.
Then nearly doesn’t.
I land on her back and keep sliding, clenching my thighs and throwing my arms around her neck to stop myself sliding off her other side again.
I manage to stay put, my right leg dangling, left leg hooked, clinging for dear life, a grin breaking across my face. “I did it.”
“Again,” Stellen says.
For the next hour, I practice until I can leap safely onto Nara’s back from as few as three paces and as many as five. I suspect she’s helping me more than she should, adjusting her balance to counter any over or under shooting on my part, but I won’t complain about it.
Leaning down to rub her neck after what feels like my hundredth ascent, I wait for Stellen to tell me to get off and do it again, but he tilts his head and says, “Let’s go.”
He scoops up my cloak and hands it up to me.
I’m too warm to put it on, so I fold it in my lap, ready for when I have a hint of cold again.
When he slides onto Nara’s back behind me, I remain straight-backed and then allow myself to relax into him. My stomach and thigh muscles are already sore and the day is only beginning.
He slides his arms around me, pulling me even closer, and I accept the quiet support.
“Nara,” he calls. “Take us to the training grounds.”
The trip to the palace wall feels short today. Mere minutes to navigate through the maze of individual buildings.
“Will you signal your troops before you leave the palace?” I ask, thinking of the icy display he and Lilis created yesterday.
“I only use that signal when I’m about to pass through the city,” he replies. “My troops know to expect me at any time. But you should also know that Lilis is the only soldier with permission to step foot inside the palace walls.”
Sure enough, Lilis waits for us inside the palace gate, dressed in armor and carrying a sword at her back. She’s on her wolf, both of them quietly waiting.
I can’t see the back of Lilis’s head, but her purple eyes are much brighter than they were yesterday. Her hair is tightly braided, and she sits upright and alert.
She bows to Stellen as we approach, giving me barely a glance. “Lord.”
As Nara draws level with them, Stellen merely says, “Report.”
“News from the towers is that the Iron Fae have pulled back from the boundary,” Lilis says. “Multiple fights were witnessed around the Iron towers—fights between Iron Fae, Lord, not between us and them—and then the towers went quiet.”
Stellen barely reacts to this news, but it fills me with dread. No doubt a power play is happening right now, a fact that is quickly confirmed when Lilis continues.
“Our spies report the Iron King has disappeared and a power struggle is now being fought between his youngest brother, Hadrian, and the Iron Fae still loyal to Antony, who apparently won’t accept that Antony’s disappearance means he has perished.
As for Galla Vividari, her lords are all dead, she has no protection, and at this stage, it appears Hadrian has imprisoned her on Mount Vividari. ”
As if he knows nothing about it, Stellen asks, “What proof is there of Antony’s death?”
I fight to keep my expression clean as the hollow in my heart expands again.
“None, Lord,” Lilis replies. “There are whispers he died in the bloodlands, but then…” Her focus flickers to me. “There are also whispers the Oracle died there too, and we know that isn’t true. Ultimately, our spies report there is no body and no planned funeral.”
No funeral.
If Antony’s sister, Cassia, were there… But she isn’t. She escaped. And Victor, who also loved his brother, has no power over his own destiny, let alone to demand a funeral even without a—
A body.
As if that’s what Antony has been reduced to.
There won’t be a body if nobody retrieves it.
The Iron Fae won’t go looking for Antony because they won’t go into the bloodlands.
I fight the burn of tears behind my eyes.
I can’t betray any emotion in front of Lilis. She was physically vulnerable yesterday but not today. Around her, I must always stay alert and vigilant against a strike in my back.
Stellen’s silence makes it harder to keep my expression clean. The longer he takes to speak, the more my sadness could betray me.
By some small mercy, Lilis’s focus is purely on Stellen. She leans forward, her eyes even brighter. “Lord, if I may, with the turmoil in the Iron Kingdom, now would be an excellent time to strike—”
“What news from the north?”
Lilis blinks. “But—” She immediately stops.
I can’t see Stellen’s expression, but Lilis pales.
Licking her lips, she changes topic. “The Northerners have fallen quiet, Lord. No reports of bloodshed overnight in or around the northern villages.”
“What about sightings of wolves?”
“None.” Then she adds, “Yet.”
“It will only be a matter of time.” Stellen’s arms tighten around me. “And Iker? What news of him?”
Lilis’s expression wipes so suddenly clean that it’s like a wall of ice falling across her features. “Not a whisper, Lord. Even after I had the bodies returned, as you commanded.”
“Truly as I commanded or did you have them dumped at Iker’s gate?”
For the smallest moment, I wonder if Stellen is guessing or if he might have heard something, given his ability to overhear conversations and events from afar.
Lilis stares straight ahead, fixing her gaze on the wall. She speaks as if she were picking her steps across a field laden with sharp blades. “Given the state of the bodies, Lord, it seemed best to use wagons and leave the fallen for their families to…sort out.”
Stellen is silent for a very long moment and just as his silences matter to me, they also seem to matter to Lilis.
She looks directly at him now. “You said there would be further punishment—”
“Follow us to the training grounds.” His command is quiet but sharp. “I want to inspect the troops.”
“Of course.” Lilis’s focus rises to the guards on the wall, who have been watching on. “Open the gate!”
As soon as the portcullis begins to lift, Lilis surges ahead of us, but I don’t miss the threatening glance she casts me when, no doubt, she thinks Stellen isn’t looking.
It’s a warning I can’t ignore. I must watch my back. The threat she poses to me is just another reminder that training for combat has to be my greatest priority right now.
As we pass through the gate and into the second circle, Lilis gives a shout and every soldier stops what they were doing, bowing low.
As we head along the path to the right, the training grounds come into view. The large field of what appears to be shallow snow stretches out ahead of us, divided into four quadrants.
In one quadrant are multiple cordoned areas where soldiers are engaged in hand-to-hand combat. To the left of that is another quadrant containing a series of thick poles set at intervals, each pole bearing rounded spokes sticking out around its shaft.
Behind those first two quadrants, separated by a path, are more cordoned areas in which soldiers are fighting with blades, their bodies protected by leathery suits. The final quadrant contains straw figures.
None of the quadrants are empty of soldiers.
Again, Lilis gives a shout.
All of the soldiers step back from their tasks—except two, both of them in the hand-to-hand combat quadrant, who take advantage of their opponents’ unguarded compliance to deliver late blows.
My blood boils at the dishonorable attacks.
I’m also not surprised. I’ve met those two men before. They accompanied Lilis to the coastal village.
While their opponents stumble but remain bowed, the two men have ended up closer to each other, separated only by the cordoning rope.
Even without Stellen’s sharp hearing, I make out what they’re whispering beneath their breath.
“I told you: the Oracle is that fucking lowborn we cornered.”
“A lowborn. It’s insulting.”
“She must be a pretender. A fraud.”
As Lilis slides off her wolf, her head turns briefly, allowing me to see her smirk.
I’m not sure if she’s sneering at the two men because they’re wrong about me or with them because she thinks I’m an affront to all highborn fae.
It’s difficult to forget that when she and those two fae surrounded me, she threatened to torture me for information.
I have to avoid her and them as much as possible.
“Your training starts now,” Stellen murmurs in my ear. “But don’t worry, I’ll be watching.”
Wait… Watching?
Won’t he be teaching me?
Before I can question him, Stellen slips to the ground.
I follow him, leaving my cloak on Nara’s back and landing lightly, prepared to speak, but he’s already gesturing Lilis to his side.
Her expression is blank again, her smirk gone. “Yes, Lord?”
“I promised you another punishment, Lilis.” Stellen casts me a chilling glance, his command to Lilis filling me with dread. “You will train Thyra.”