It’s cruel of me to use his love for his family against him. He can claim to be a monster as often as he wants, but he cares for them.
“My hands are covered in Lethian armor,” I continue. “My right hand is protected by the Dragonstone Blade. I may not be able to survive a knife to my face, or walk safely into a place protected by blood magic, but I’m certain I can touchthatbook withthishand and not succumb to whatever magic protects it.”
He draws to a stop. “You don’t know that.”
“Antony… Before the blade vision struck, I saw something I can’t explain, and I don’t know what it means. I need clarity, or I could send us both down a dangerous path based on bad information.”
“What if the blade won’t let you see more?” he asks. “What if your other self—your blade self—simply closes the book again?”
My other self.
To think of myself as a different person during those moments makes my head spin, but I run with it.
“Fuck my other self,” I snap. “Let me try.”
Without warning, he scoops up my right hand, making the chain clank between us. Even with his helmet on, his glare burns.
“This hand,” he says, his voice grating as if his teeth are clenching. “You always risk this hand.”
I don’t know what to say to that, but when I attempt to slip my hand from his, I’m gratified that he lets me go.
Step by step, I back toward the table until the chain pulls taut, and unsure if he’ll let me continue.
Finally, he moves forward, allowing me to step all the way back to the table, although the tension in his shoulders is severe.
The Chronicle rests benignly on the glass tabletop. It looks harmless. Despite my insistence that I’ll be okay, now that I’m reaching for it, my heart thumps.
I extend a single finger, holding my breath as I carefully lower it to the book’s leathery cover.
A jolt of energy passes through my hand, a shock of pain that makes me gasp, my instincts telling me to pull back.
To my relief, the shooting pain stops at the base of my fingers. Right at the top of the Dragonstone Blade’s hilt, leaving me in no doubt that it’s only because of the blade that I’m not either dead or in terrible agony right now.
I force myself to relax, keeping every other part of my body away from the Chronicle as I run my finger to its fore-edge, slip my hand between the pages, and begin the slow process of opening the book.
“It hates me,” I say, Antony’s tension radiating across me like a physical force.
The energy rising from the parchment tells me it considers me an invader, and it will strike me down at the first chance it gets.
“But,” I continue, “the blade is protecting me.”
Finally, easing the book all the way open, a feat that requires me to use multiple fingers of my right hand, I prepare for what I’ll see.
It isn’t the page I was looking at before.
“Darkness!” I nearly let go of the book, keeping the tip of my finger on the parchment in the nick of time.
The same swirling field of ash that I saw in my blade vision spreads across the open pages in front of me, the image moving as if it’s real.
Dust rises from the ground, lifting into a sky covered in clouds, reminding me of the bloodlands, but this field is flat and void of inky rivers.
The same awful shrieking sound I heard in the blade vision rises around me, making me wince, so painful that tears spring to my eyes.
My heart… Oh…It feels like someone’s tearing strips off it.
“Antony, please, will you tell me what you see on these pages?”
“That’s the far east.” He jabs his finger in the direction of the page while keeping his distance. “There’s nothing but miles of barren land out there. It’s polluted with dust storms. See the text there? It describes how the land changed when the curse struck. But, Thyra—” His focus rises from the page to my face, his scrutiny even more intense than when I declared I wanted to open the book by myself. “What’s wrong?”
