22. Antony
Chapter Twenty-Two
Antony
Ahushed voice washes over me, along with a sharp, metallic tapping sound.
“We found him,” says a female voice. “Over here.”
A voice I’d know anywhere.
“Cassia?” I try to force my gritty eyes open, squinting into the sunlight, trying to make out my sister’s face as she leans over me.
Her hair is braided back. She’s wearing leather armor that bears the scars of battle, and her green eyes are duller than they were the last time I saw her. Even so, she manages a smile.
“Hey, brother,” she murmurs. “We’re going to get you out of there, okay?”
Out of where?
I’m cold. Frozen. But all I care about right now is the danger my sister’s in. The last I saw of her, she was fleeing with her soulmate, Rohan. If Hadrian catches either of them, he’ll have them imprisoned. Or worse.
“You shouldn’t be here, Cassia. It’s dangerous—”
“Hush.” Her focus moves to my right. “Azul, we need to get out of here as fast as we can. Hadrian’s salvagers will be here any minute. They’re desperate for every piece of fruit they can retrieve for his fucking weapons.”
The tapping speeds up. Tap-tap-tap-tap.
My focus swings to my left, the direction from which a shadow casts over me.
I jolt to find myself face to face with the monstrous blue eagle.
He glares at me, his red eyes narrowed to slits, before he resumes violently striking his beak against what I now realize is a block of ice encasing my entire left side.
With every strike, Azul’s beak chips through the freeze and hits my armor, making that metallic sound I heard.
Another figure appears behind Cassia, leaning in. “Antony.”
“Victor?”
His tall frame blocks out even more of the light, the scarred side of his face in shadows. “I’m here.”
“You were supposed to run. You should be in the mountains—”
A final crack sounds and the constriction lifts from my left side.
Victor reaches for me. “Can you stand on your own?”
I try to heave myself upright, but I manage only to slip to the side in an ungainly heap, the breath wheezing from my chest.
My damn heart. My frozen limbs.
“That’s a no,” Victor mutters. “Not surprising after two days buried in ice.”
It’s been two days? Some fucking snowstorm. If we had the Ember Kingdom’s burning sun, this frost would never have lasted so long.
“Right,” Victor says. “Up you go.”
I prepare for my brother to hoist me over his shoulder, but he and Cassia dart backward, clearing the space around me.
Azul moves in a flash, beating his wings and launching himself into the air, catching me in one of his talons on his way up.
Fucking fuck!
A second later, I’m airborne and rising higher into the sky.
Below me, the orchard is a mess of broken branches and scattered fruit. Blocks of ice have hardened around some of the trees.
From the sky, I make out Cassia and Victor racing toward eagles before they rise into the sky after me, quickly soaring upward.
My poisoned heart plummets as I search the ground for what I’m certain will be the bodies of my warriors, but I don’t see another soul.
I don’t know what happened to them, but Thyra would tell me to have hope.
That’s difficult when the pressure on my back increases with every moment I’m gripped in Azul’s talon, and I feel like my body is about to snap in two.
A moment later, Victor’s bird soars up beneath us.
Azul quickly lowers his flight path and within moments, the two birds are flying in sync, at which Victor stands up on his bird’s back.
He reaches up for me while Azul slowly opens his talon, releasing me into Victor’s hold.
“Bury your pride, big brother,” Victor calls over the wind as he grips me tightly and slides me down onto his eagle’s back in front of himself.
I can’t quell my frustration at the weakness of my limbs, snarling through my chipped helmet. “You know I can fucking levitate, right?”
“I guessed as much.” Victor adjusts his hold on me, knowing exactly where to grip me so the armored plates I’m wearing don’t tear off mid-flight. After all, he designed this armor. “Accept the help, brother.”
I fight the slump of my shoulders. “What happened to my warriors? We were heading east when the storm hit.”
Victor’s tone is soothing as he lifts his hand from my chest to gesture ahead of us. “See for yourself.”
Far in the distance, I make out a flock of eagles, all soaring east like we are. “They’re alive.”
“They wouldn’t leave you,” Victor says. “They were trying to dig you out when we found them. You were buried deep. Two trees on top of you. They’d managed to move one, but Azul picked up the other.”
My brow furrows as I try to follow their path ahead of us. My eyesight isn’t serving me well right now, but I put it down to being frozen. “Where are they headed?”
“The eagles know where to take them.”
Before he can elaborate, a whistle cuts across the wind.
Cassia soars up beside us.
Her chestnut-brown bird, Fortuna, sails past as Cassia calls out, “We have company!”
Victor cranes to the right, where movement has caught my eye.
I home in on the single bird not far behind us, my eyesight clearing enough for me to discern the details before blurring again. “That’s a scout.”
The lone rider is quickly banking to the left, hurriedly turning tail, no doubt to report back to Hadrian.
“Don’t worry,” Victor says. “Azul will take care of them.”
The vicious blue eagle is suddenly right on top of the scout, snatching the rider from the eagle’s saddle. Blood sprays the air, trailing across the sky before Azul drops the rider’s body to the field below.
He isn’t done.
Azul soars back to the now-riderless eagle, shrieking and swooping while the other eagle attempts to fly backward, its wings spread wide.
The two eagles face off for a tense moment, but within seconds, the other eagle tucks its wings and hunches its shoulders, subservient body language.
Seeming satisfied with that, Azul soars toward us and the other eagle follows.
I’ve never seen eagle behavior like that. Eagles are raised to obey their riders and nobody else. “What just happened?”
I can hear the grin in Victor’s voice. “Azul happened. And now we’ve got another bird.”
“Who exactly is we?” The last time I saw Victor, he was imprisoned in the forges. Hadrian had threatened the life of Victor’s soulmate, Emiliana, to force Victor to make weapons for him.
“You’ll see, brother.”
I huff. “At least tell me you rescued Emiliana?”
Again with the audible smile. “I rescued Emiliana.”
My brow furrows as I focus in on Victor’s voice. “Wait…” I try to swivel, grateful that some of my strength seems to be returning. “The last time I saw you, you’d been exposed to iron dust. Your breathing was damaged and so was your voice.”
“The snowstorm,” he says. “It hit everything, including our hideout. Damn near killed me and the others, but when I came to, my chest was clear.”
“Frost,” I mutter.
“Frost,” Victor says. And then, grimly, he adds, “But not the ordinary kind.”
“Fucking Frost King.” Thyra wanted me to agree to a truce with Stellen and to my astonishment, he and I managed to come to an understanding. Temporary and breakable, but an accord nonetheless.
“We assumed Stellen made the snowstorm,” Victor says, “to repel Hadrian’s attack and to punish the Iron Kingdom.”
As much as it pains me to speak in Stellen’s defense, I say, “If it weren’t for Stellen, every single one of those warriors flying ahead of us would be dead. If he created the snowstorm, I don’t think it was to punish Iron Fae.”
I don’t need the Frost King’s Lethian power to hear the disbelief in my brother’s voice. “What?”
“He saved my warriors and let me take them with me.”
“That seems…”
“Unlikely,” I say, nodding. “Until you factor in Thyra. Which is why I’m not certain the snowstorm was maliciously intended.”
“Ah, Thyra.” I don’t miss my brother’s deep exhale, which is quickly snatched away in the wind. “Do you know where she is, brother?”
My forehead creases at this question. “In the Frost Kingdom.”
Victor falls silent for a long moment. Long enough that the furrow in my brow deepens. “Victor?”
“She isn’t in the Frost Kingdom.”
Every muscle in my body tenses and I’m levitating off the eagle’s back before my brother’s arms become a clamp forcing me to stay put. If my energy hadn’t been depleted, there’s no way he’d have succeeded. “Where is she?”
“We don’t know.” Victor speaks rapidly. “There was an uprising in Frost. The Winter Strife was invoked. Lilis is queen now. From what we’ve been able to find out, Stellen is dead and Thyra hasn’t been seen since.”
Fuck, fuck, fuck!
I felt Thyra’s pain.
Agony struck my heart.
The blade’s power burned through me.
She was in trouble. She was hurting. And then the snowstorm hit and I was knocked out.
Victor’s voice reaches me through the buzzing in my ears.
“Brother! Listen to me. We’re trying to locate her. Azul has been searching. He’ll find her. Are you listening to me? Azul will find her. You know he will.”
My focus flashes to the giant, blue eagle who chooses that moment to soar overhead, his bloodied talons raking the air, a menacing beast whose presence I suddenly find reassuring.
Yes, Azul will find her.
But he won’t be alone. As soon as I understand the situation with Victor and Cassia, I’ll be at Azul’s side, looking for Thyra. I may not be able to stay with her, but I sure as fuck won’t let any harm come to her.