Thyra heaves a dramatic sigh. “If you insist.” She sweeps to her feet and moves toward me, but then she pauses to throw back to Mother. “Do try to stay alive.”
With that, Thyra sweeps past me, scooping her arm around Cassia’s waist as she goes. My sister is frozen, her face sickly pale, but she allows herself to be swept along.
I keep my eyes on the lords, walking carefully backward, judging my pace to make sure the chain between Thyra and me never pulls taut.
Staying right where she is, Mother spits her words, and once again, it’s clear they’re for me. “I waited for you last night.”
When I don’t rise to the bait, her voice becomes shrill. “I gave you the chance to break the curse. But it seems you couldn’t accomplish even that.”
I let her barbs roll off me. These taunts are mild compared to some.
Thyra really got to her.
As the doors begin to close behind us, Galla screams at her lords and ladies. “None of you will go near that bitch! Only Rohan.” Her voice lowers, and my final backward glance tells me she’s wrapping her hands around his face. “Rohan, dearest, you’ll shadow her, hmm? You’re going to make her life unbearable. You’ll do this for me. Of course you will?—”
The doors thud closed.
Thyra doesn’t stop, stalking ahead of me along the corridor,practically pushing Cassia along with her, and for now, I’m prepared to let her take the lead.
At the intersection, she pauses only to snap. “Which way?”
“To my quarters,” I say, at which my sister tugs Thyra to the right instead of the left from which we came.
Thyra’s pace increases, powering along, observing Cassia’s nudges until we reach my door.
Thyra smacks her hands against it. “Open it.”
The moment we step inside, she wrenches on the chain, and I’m startled by the wildness in her eyes.
“Take the circlet off me,” she cries. “Please. Just for a moment.”
As soon as I release her, she wraps her hand over her mouth, her demand stifled. “Bathing room?”
I point, and she runs.
A second after she disappears into it, I’m met with the sound of vomiting.
Violent heaves.
I stop in the center of the room, a living area sparsely furnished, hardly that of the king, suddenly finding myself uncertain how to proceed.
Cassia stops beside me. “What the fuck just happened?” She tilts her head back, one of the pins coming loose from her hair, but she doesn’t bother fixing it. “Did Thyra…help Rohan?”
I take a moment to consider the impossible. “I believe she did.”
“But… how the fuck…?” Cassia drags herself to the nearest chair and sinks into it. A moment later, tears spring into her eyes. “I thought Rohan was going to die.”
“Which time?” I ask pointedly.
Cassia’s voice is heavy. “Both.”
Thyra appears in the bathing room doorway,wiping her mouth with a cloth. Tears leak down her cheeks as she leans heavily against the doorframe. “The moment Galla stood up, she lost her power. Then I planted a seed.”
“She fears you’ve seen her death,” I say.
Thyra gives a firm nod. “She won’t be able to shake that fear now.”
The tension around Cassia’s mouth increases, and the longer she stares at Thyra, the warier Cassia seems to become. “You were more poisonous than Mother.”
