She gives a quiet sigh. “Okay. But you do have the blade, yes? I managed to sneak into the forge to see Victor last night, and he didn’t think you had the blade, but I’m sure I saw it at the village. Thyra was holding it.”
“I have the blade,” Antony replies. “It’s hidden.”
Not a lie.
She responds with, “Okay, then. Don’t tell me anything more about it.”
Antony seems happy to change the subject. “Yesterday, you said there was something you needed to tell me about your encounter with Maxim.”
Cassia’s voice sounds more troubled now. “It was strange. He had me in his grasp. His fist was literally around my throat, and then he just went…blank.”
“Blank?”
“It was as though, suddenly, he wasn’t there anymore. His mind was somewhere else. His hand loosened, I smacked him across the head, and he fell to his knees. He didn’t even retaliate. I made it all the way back to Fortuna before he seemed to come back to himself. I swear there was something wrong with him.”
I’ve paused, my senses prickling. I’m not entirely sure about the timing of the Ember King’s interaction with Cassia, but it would have been around the time Antony and I were in the forge.
I had a blade vision that left me breathless. In that vision, a rope made of flames had wrapped around my waist, burning across the iron dust already coating my body…
Catching my breath, I listen carefully for Antony’sreaction, his silence stretching until he finally says, “I don’t have an explanation.”
Cassia’s next statement is a strained whisper. “If he hadn’t blanked out, I’d be dead now. He really had me?—”
“Look at me.” Antony’s command is harsh. “You’re alive.”
I imagine her shaking her head. “Taking him on was so fucking stupid.”
“Yes. It was. Promise me you won’t do that again.”
“Oh, believe me. Never again. But Antony, if you ever fight him, you need to know that he can heal broken bones?—”
“What?” The tone of Antony’s voice indicates this is a surprise to him. I certainly didn’t know this about the Ember King.
“I broke his ribs,” Cassia says. “He called on his fire, lit up his own body from the inside, and I watched his bones heal in an instant. Please,please, promise me you won’t ever fight him unless you’re completely confident?—”
Antony cuts her off with a firm, “Today’s problems first.”
She falls silent, and I quickly finish washing up, pulling on the fresh bloomers and hurrying back to the dressing room to try on the black pants first. They’re so long that I need to tuck the hems up inside each leg, but they fit me well enough otherwise.
As I reach for the overskirt, preparing to button it into place, Antony’s voice sounds from outside the room again. “Thereissomething else you can do for me. I want to take Thyra to the ancestral library this afternoon.”
I catch Cassia’s quickly indrawn breath and then her cryptic response. “Do you mean…?”
He speaks a little more slowly this time. “Can you help with that?”
“I can. Whatever you need. Tell me, and I’ll do it.”
“Good, because I also want youto train her.”
Cassia seems to take a moment. “Train her?”
“Combat. I want her to be as strong as you. Will you do it?”
Another pause. “If you’re sure?” There’s a smile in her voice now. “Because you know, if she’s as strong as me, she’ll be able to wallop you.”
He scoffs. “If you say so. But, yes, I’m sure.”
They fall silent again.
