Chapter 49 #2
The force radiating out from the circlet…
It brings back a horror from my past when my father threw me onto his shoulder and carried me into the catacombs that were protected by this same blood magic. Until I became king, I couldn’t pass through that magical barrier without facing death.
I had Victor design the ruby circlets for me—three of them—using slivers of the same magic-infused metal protecting the catacombs.
My fingers hover beside Victor’s throat even as his breaths seethe in and out of his chest and I can feel him willing me to act without delay.
“Hadrian put this on you.”
“He calls himself king,” Victor snarls. “Every day, he brings me another piece of material cut from Emiliana’s dress and every day he tells me that as long as I do what he wants, he won’t cut her body instead.”
The fury in my brother’s eyes…
He loves Emiliana as I love Thyra. To be unable to protect her, to know she’s threatened every minute of every day and he can’t do a fucking thing about it…
“I can’t lose you, too, brother,” I say.
His brow furrows. “Antony?”
“If Hadrian put this on you, then the blood magic recognizes him as king, not me.”
Victor’s anger fades. “I don’t know what happened to you, Antony, but at some point, you must have died. When Hadrian latched this circlet, I believed you were gone.”
“I was. I died. And then I revived. But what does this mean for the circlet?”
Am I still the king? Did Hadrian latch the circlet during the window of time when my heart had stopped beating? A temporary power?
Or, as far as the blood magic is concerned, is Hadrian now the king?
Victor clasps his hand on my shoulder. “Anybody can touch the circlet without harming themselves or the person it’s wrapped around. The only danger to me is if you try to cut the circlet off me.” He looks me in the eye. “You have to try.” Then… “I trust you, Antony.”
But I’m shaking my head because he shouldn’t trust me. I lied to him for years.
I was certain Hadrian would have spread far and wide the fact that I’m a vampyr, but Victor hasn’t said a damn thing about it. He doesn’t look at me with fear. He doesn’t look at me any differently than he did before…
“My lungs are damaged,” Victor says, more quietly than I was expecting. “My first job was to design the tools to grind iron. I inhaled some of the dust. I don’t know what that means for me. I don’t know if the iron’s eating me slowly from the inside out. I don’t know if my time is limited.”
He places his other hand on my other shoulder, now gripping me firmly. “Antony. Brother. Hear me when I say this: I don’t fucking care if you’re a vampyr.”
Fuck.
My heart hurts. Jabbing pain.
For a moment, I think my nightly torture has arrived, that I’ve stayed too long, but then I realize it hasn’t, and somehow, that’s fucking harder to face because acceptance is not what I expected.
I allow my fangs to descend. “This is who I am.”
Victor doesn’t flinch.
He gives me a firm nod. Then he turns his head and points to the clasp. “Get this off me.”
Before I can second-guess myself, I run my forefinger across the clasp, pricking my skin to draw the smallest smear of blood that will either do nothing or—
The clasp clicks open.
Seconds later, the silver chain unravels from around Victor’s neck and slithers to the floor.
He stands straighter, a fearsome smile growing on his lips.
Victor was always the most peaceful of my siblings. Clever. Considered. Dedicated to his work. Banished to this forge.
No longer.
“Let’s go,” I say.
His grip on my shoulders hasn’t eased. “You have to stop Hadrian. That is your purpose. But I have to get to Emiliana. Hadrian let it slip that he’s making her copy the pages of the Chronicle.
He wants a replica he can read without fear of the book’s protective magic.
As long as she’s useful to him, his harm of her is constrained, but once she finishes her task, he won’t be so restrained. ”
The Chronicle is one of our most important windows into the history of our land. When Thyra read its pages, the illustrations came alive for her, imparting secrets only she could see.
I doubt Hadrian knows about that, but he must want unfettered access to the Chronicle’s stories.
Victor continues. “Emiliana is my purpose.”
I’m quiet as I take in his meaning. “My battle is not yours.”
Damn. I wanted him by my side.
I mentally rage that he didn’t stand at my right hand during my reign.
He would have been a formidable general in my army.
I should have defied Galla’s power and struck at the status quo long before Thyra challenged me to do so.
I should have shattered the paths of least resistance that I’d settled into.
Too late for that now. My focus can only be on the future.
“Do not allow the woman you love to become collateral in this war, Victor,” I say. “Free Emiliana and go to the mountains on the eastern border. Find Cassia. Tell her what’s happened—if she doesn’t already know. Above all, promise me you’ll stay alive.”
“I will.” He grips me for another moment, refusing to release me from his gaze. “Don’t underestimate Hadrian. His ambition stretches far beyond the Iron Kingdom’s borders. He wants to be able to deploy iron dust against all of his enemies.”
My focus flickers to the sketches on the wall behind Victor.
“Weapons,” Victor confirms. “I took a grave risk and ensured they each have a flaw. They won’t cause the level of devastation Hadrian wants. But hear me, brother: these weapons will still kill.”
I take in the designs. The canisters. The mechanisms. “He wants to use these against Frost and Ember, doesn’t he?”
“He’s planning a test, but I don’t know when, and I don’t know which kingdom he’ll strike first. He’s paranoid about spies and is deliberately spreading incorrect information to deflect from his true intentions. I couldn’t tell you what’s true and what isn’t.”
Thyra is in Frost.
My mother is in Ember.
But which will Hadrian strike first?
Aside from that fear, I wish I could tell Victor that my mother’s alive. He’d welcome that news. He loved Aeliana. Cassia did, too. My mother was kind to both of them. But that knowledge could get Victor killed.
A commotion outside his workroom warns me we’re out of time.
“This way.” Victor hurries through the adjoining door into his library, where he scoops up a satchel and shoves multiple books into it.
I don’t follow him right away, stopping to peel off the protective suit and snatch up the ruby circlet from the floor.
I won’t leave it behind for Hadrian to try to use again.
I can’t be sure if his power over the circlet was only temporary while I was dead.
If, somehow, we can both control the circlets now, I’m not about to leave this one here.
When I step through the adjoining door, my focus is arrested by the full suit of black steel armor positioned against the wall. Victor always had backup armor waiting for me.
He glances up from his hurried retrieval of books. “I made some improvements. The helmet has multiple moveable plates around your mouth and jaw.” He gives me another uncharacteristically vicious grin. “In case you want to use your fangs.”
My only hesitation is time, but I’m ripping off the leather protective suit and reaching for my armor before I know it. I won’t be able to hide in the shadows in this armor, but Hadrian will know I’m alive the minute he finds Victor gone.
I turn away from Victor before I pull on the chest plates so he won’t see the unhealed wound across my heart.
The rest of the armor fits seamlessly to my body, the heaviness of the metal quickly settling around me, a welcome weight.
I can’t stop my smile as I slide on the helmet and rapidly test the segments Victor described that will allow me to expose and use my fangs. “Perfection.”
Victor stands tall opposite me, but there’s no time for him to bask in the praise he deserves.
“Hadrian will have guards at the back exit,” he says, setting off for the door at the other end of the library while I stay close on his heels. “I couldn’t try escaping before now because the guards would trigger the circlet and take off my head.”
Quickly, we exit the library and enter an unlit corridor. When I first brought Thyra through here, I told her this door gave Victor the illusion he could leave at any time.
Now, he can.
A firebrand rests on the wall, but Victor doesn’t light it. “You can see in the dark. Lead the way.”
I stride past him, grab his hand on the way, and rest it on my shoulder, and so we proceed along the corridor to the external door.
There, we pause.
Outside this door is a narrow platform, not big enough for more than two guards. There’s no railing, and the small platform is situated at the top of a narrow staircase so tall that falling from it would be lethal. That is, for fae who can’t levitate like I can.
Sadly, this door opens inward, so we won’t knock any guards off the platform simply by opening it.
“One last thing,” Victor says. “Hadrian is irate about the missing page from the Chronicle.”
I straighten. “The torn-out page.”
“He thinks Emiliana’s father had something to do with its removal.”
My jaw clenches hard. Galla forced me to kill Emiliana’s father in a game for her entertainment.
“That page has been missing for as long as I can remember,” I say.
“Emiliana and I spoke about it several times. She doesn’t know what happened to it. She never saw it and neither did her father. It was ripped out long ago. But the story her father told her is that the False Queen herself wrote a message on that page.”
This is news to me. “No wonder Hadrian wants it.”
My thoughts are a storm. When Thyra touched the Chronicle, the pages came alive for her. Somehow, her power allowed her to see the events in the pages as if they had been happening right in front of her.
“Victor.” I grip his arm, speaking carefully. “One last question: has Emiliana ever mentioned the Chronicle’s pages coming alive for her?”
“Coming alive? What do you mean?”
Victor’s questions and the crinkle in his brow tell me the answer is no. That ability must be unique to Thyra.
The last thing I want is for Hadrian to find out what Thyra can do. Just as I can’t risk Hadrian finding out that my mother’s alive. Even if Victor didn’t want to impart this information, it’s best if he doesn’t know it.
“It’s nothing,” I say, quickly coming up with a plausible explanation for my question. “The last time Emiliana opened the book, it played tricks with the light.”
“Shimmering, yes.” Victor nods. “Emiliana describes it as layering. The illustrations in the Chronicle were drawn multiple times, the first three times in white ink. The next layers were drawn in color. Also multiple times.”
Huh. It seems my quick lie was not such a falsehood after all.
“Luckily, Hadrian only requires simple copies,” Victor says.
“Emiliana’s father wasn’t taught the white ink techniques, so he couldn’t teach her, either.
” My brother’s shoulders are tense. “Hadrian made a point of mentioning this to insult Emiliana to my face. I swear, Antony, I fear what he can do, but if you find a way to end him, I won’t mourn. He isn’t the brother I thought he was.”
A death I never imagined I would want to bring about.
Clearing my throat, I try to focus on what’s more immediately important. “If you have the chance to steal back the Chronicle when you free Emiliana—”
“Believe me, brother,” Victor says, “I will try. That book is all she has of her people.”
It’s the closest to a promise he can make me and now, we’re well and truly out of time.
“Be ready, brother,” I say.
I unlatch the door and it grinds against the floor as it opens.
I brace for an onslaught, a fight, but silence greets us.
The guards I saw earlier outside this door are gone.
In the distance, I can hear shouting. An alarm finally being raised.
“I guess they’ve discovered the bodies,” I mutter.
Without realizing it, I created a useful diversion, but it won’t be long before the guards will return to their post.
It also won’t be long until I’m vulnerable.
I resist the urge to press my now-armored hand to my heart and the growing heaviness within my chest, a feeling like a sinking stone that will soon hit bottom and take me with it.
Victor pauses on the platform, but he doesn’t speak.
He knows as well as I do that we can’t delay any further. There will be no long goodbyes.
He gives me a nod.
I swallow past the lump in my throat.
I don’t know when I’ll see him again, just as I don’t know if or when I’ll see Cassia again.
Even a week ago, I wouldn’t have had to fight these deeper emotions. Harder emotions.
But Thyra… Her blood now pumps through my veins…her softness mingling with my brutality…
I remind myself: I fight for her now.
Within seconds, Victor disappears down the staircase.
I remain where I am, crouching to the platform, watching over him, fully prepared to intercept any eagles that might soar at him through the darkness.
Any foe that might come after him. From this location, I can more easily levitate upward and take any eagle riders down before they get anywhere near Victor.
Reaching the bottom of the stairs, Victor vanishes into the shadows of the alleys between towers.
The heaviness in my chest warns me I’ve waited too long.
I lift into the air, testing my ability to fly against the new weight of my armor. Adjusting my trajectory slightly, I keep to the shadows.
I’m now racing to beat the pain that’s coming for me.
Just in time, I find a dark corner between towers, barely safe, but I don’t have a better choice.
A golden haze of energy descends over my vision and drags me down to the ground, my knees buckling until I’m curled against the white stone wall.
Then, as it does every night, the blade vision strikes.