I try not to look down at the floor where the assassin lies, but Antony has to step over the man’s legs.
I catch a glimpse of the dagger the assassin tried to strike me with, the dark wooden hilt startlingly similar to that of the weapon that killed my father.
How did I not foresee this attack tonight?
I’m certain I can’t count on blade visions to help me, but why didn’t my oracle power warn me?
I don’t have answers, and the shock my body’s going into makes rational thought nearly impossible.
When we reach the bathing room moments later, only the softest glow of starlight shines through a small opening in the ceiling, also seemingly glass-covered like the ceiling in the main room.
The darkness in here is numbing, but it doesn’t stop my shivers as I press my head to Antony’s neck.
Tremors I can’t control are now beating through my body, and there’s nothing I can do about them.
He could hurt me. Badly. And I wouldn’t be able to stop him.
I’m completely at his whim.
Chapter Thirty-Five
Thyra
Antony’s voice sounds softly in my ear as I tremble within his arms. “I won’t hurt you, Thyra. Not right now.”
If only I could make my mind work, I might consider that he limited his promise toright now, as opposed to ever, but his hand leaves the back of my head to pump a lever on the wall, and a second later, cold water hits my back.
I flinch as the water streams over me, pouring from the wide, speckled spout jutting from the wall above us.
“Accept the cold.” Antony’s command is as quiet as his vow not to hurt me. “It will wipe away the past. I promise.”
With that, he takes another step into the pouring water.
The stream is so wide and so constant that it covers us both. I’m forced to close my eyes as the water beats down on both of us while he holds me.
“Open your eyes,” he says, the same order he gave me in the bloodlands. “Look, Thyra. Look down.”
I try to do as he asks, cracking open my eyelids, burying my head further into his neck to keep the spray out of my eyes.He’s holding my hair out of my eyes, or it would be flat against my face right now.
“Do you see?” he asks, his lips brushing the top of my earlobe. “The blood is draining away. The past is falling away with it, and soon it will be gone, and you won’t have to fear it anymore.”
The blood splashing off us is so dark that I can see the streams of it swirling off our bodies and falling to the smooth floor, flowing around and around Antony’s feet before it disappears through a grate the size of his fist.
As I watch, the darker streams start to lighten. There’s less and less blood in the water.
The awful liquid is washing away, and with it, any hesitancy I had to accept his help washes away too.
While he keeps one hand planted firmly on my back, his other hand rises into my hair, slowly separating the clumpy strands, helping the water ease through them.
I close my eyes, accepting the soothing sensations, the warmth of his palm against my scalp, the careful way he’s stroking down the back of my neck, and then to the side.
I need this comfort, even if it’s delivered by a man I should fear.
His fingertips brush my jaw as he urges me to tip my head slightly, allowing the water to flow across the wounds on my neck and the places he smeared with blood.
I imagine it all washing away. Becoming part of the past.
But I’m acutely aware of the blood trapped between my body and his, where I press against him.
