At the same moment, I’m aware of a thump as the book flips itself closed on the cabinet behind me, several golden fragments poking between its pages, caught there, writhing, before they melt back into its fore-edge.
Antony dives toward the Oracle.
Toward Thyra.
Finally, I know her name.
The moment he touches her, the thread connecting Thyra and me snaps, a painfully sharp sensation radiating through my chest.
In the next instant, I’m wrenched back to the desert I was flying over.
Only to find myself plummeting toward the ground.
Fuck!
My serpent’s golden body spirals around and around me, coiling along my downward path, as if he’s trying to catch me or at least slow my descent.
His desperate hisses meet my ears.
I reach for him, straining to snag hold of one of his horns, but I’m falling too fast.
The ground rears up at me, and all I can do is wrap my arms around my head before I crash into the hard sand.
Crack. The sudden stop jars through me.
My spine shatters. My ribs cave in. Every bone in my legs and arms breaks.
Agony floods me, more than I can tolerate.
I can’t breathe. Can’t think.
All I have is fire.
Fiery pain. Fiery rage. Fiery…nothing.
Flames spread in every direction around me, roaring across the dead landscape, leaping toward my serpent’s airborne form before I pass out.
Chapter Fifty-Two
Thyra
“Thyra!” Antony dives toward me, catching hold of my arms as I struggle to process what happened.
The Ember King.
He was here.
Right in front of me.
He appeared out of nowhere, covered from head to toe, wearing a hood and face mask, but there was no mistaking the fire in his dark-brown eyes.
His heat threatened to consume me, tear me down more sharply than the metal blades flying at me.
Yet he tried to shield me?—
“Thyra!” Antony’s hands tug at me, rapidly checking me over, and running the length of me as I remain kneeling on the floor.
“He tried to shield me,” I whisper as I finally look up.
