42. Antony
Chapter Forty-Two
Antony
What secrets does this blank page hold?
Before Mother can answer my question about the page’s nature, the shrieking in the distance grows even louder.
An object flies toward us.
I sweep my arms around my mother, pulling her to the side before a severed limb splats on the ground beside us. “What the—”
Well, thank fuck it’s a vampyric limb, not belonging to Stellen or Riven.
Frustratingly, my sharp eyesight is failing me as I try to see what’s happening in the distance. Most likely a consequence of staring into my mother’s starlight for so long.
A second later, the form of a giant eagle stalks from the deep darkness, his feathers sticky with blood.
Azul. My instincts prickle as I consider how long he might have been skulking in the darkness. After all, he headed off to find Thyra before I did.
Beside him, Stellen strides, his swords covered in vampyric blood while Riven hurries ahead of them alongside Stellen’s wolf.
Mother draws a sharp breath, her jaw dropped and her starlight gleaming around her hands. Her focus is on Azul. “That is not an ordinary eagle.”
I shrug. “I’m not an ordinary Iron Fae.”
Mother gives me a small smile. “It’s time I did something about this darkness.”
She presses the torn and folded page into my armored hand.
I flinch before I realize that whatever magical protections this page would have once carried must have been destroyed when it was ripped out. The only fae who can safely open the Chronicle are the Ferocie. If the magical protections had still been part of this page, I’d be dead already.
“Give the page to Thyra,” Mother says. “She’ll be able to read it.”
“Wait. You said this page is the reason you believe the original runes were meant to help Thyra. But if this page is blank…?”
Mother gives me a grin, her starlight brightening as she swings away from me. “Light reveals all, Antony.”
Azul passes her by, the giant eagle sweeping his head low, the closest to a bow I’ve ever seen him offer.
After acknowledging the eagle’s gesture with a nod, Mother calls back to me. “I’ll wait a few moments for you to get yourselves clear. I may not be able to bring light to the bloodlands, but this darkness is new and weak.” Her voice hardens. “This dark magic will not defy me.”
Quickly, I deposit the precious page into one of the safely concealed segments in my black armor and then I pull my helmet back on.
I call out a warning to Aeliana. “If you do this, Galla and Hadrian will see your starlight and know you’re alive.”
She half-turns, her power flashing in her eyes. When I was a boy, she was a source of light and love, but now, she is like a sharpened blade.
She snarls. “Let them.”
A shiver races down my spine at the realization that this woman, whom I viewed only as a mother through the lens of a boy’s eyes… Well, she’s a fucking warrior.
Her starlight builds in the air around her, sharp as knives cutting across the darkness.
“Where will you be?” I call again, forced to divert my focus from her brightening light. “After this?”
“I will go to Miriam,” she says. “We must regroup and determine the best way to help Thyra. Whatever you do, keep Thyra safe.”
It’s clear that Mother’s command isn’t directed only at me when Stellen answers her first.
“With my life,” he says, stealing the response I was about to utter.
Off to the side, the serpent snakes across the ground and rises into the air, circling above us.
Azul eyes the beast, seeming particularly focused on the serpent’s charcoal scales. The eagle’s feathers ruffle before he swings to Riven, squawking at the young man so loudly that Riven jumps. A rational response to Azul’s threatening screech.
“Good thinking,” I mutter. Then more loudly to Riven, I say, “Azul will take you to Cassia.”
Riven’s face lights up. “She’s alive?”
“And gathering an army,” I say, then add, more quietly, “Rohan will be happy to see you. He’s with Cassia.”
“They’re free?”
A deep scar cuts across Riven’s chin. Self-inflicted. Difficult for a highborn to achieve without deliberately keeping a wound open. Riven disfigured himself so Galla would never conscript him into her Court like she did with Rohan.
“They’re free,” I say, taking a rare moment of peace from Riven’s grateful smile.
Azul doesn’t waste time swooping at Riven, who quickly leaps onto the eagle’s back. As they soar across the air above me, heading directly east, Riven leans over and calls, “Take the dragon’s hide with you! Maxim will need it. I folded it for him.”
Stellen is already bending to the ground, picking up the dropped hide before alighting on his wolf’s back.
“Move, Antony!” he calls as he races by. “Unless you’re keen to meet your end.”
I hesitate another heartbeat.
Fuck, but my mother was clever. She gave the missing page to me and not to Stellen, forcing me to return to Thyra. For now.
Starlight explodes in the distance and my survival instincts kick in.
Time to find Thyra and pray she’s unharmed.