Leaning low over my wolf’s neck, I acknowledge the danger we’re about to head toward. “You will need your courage now.”
Her response is to gnash her teeth at the air, welcoming the promise of battle.
As she launches herself into a run, kicking up ice and snow, a cold smile grows on my lips.
No matter the darkness I’m about to face, no matter what physical pain I might have to push through, I will seize the Oracle.
I will destroy anything and everything I have to, and I will make the Oracle mine.
Chapter Sixty-Four
Antony
The scent of blood and death fills my chest.
The sun is minutes from disappearing below the horizon, but I will not be at Galla’s mercy.
Not today.
She advances on me, stepping through her lovers’ blood, dragging the gore with her trailing gown, a growing fury on her lips. “You killed them.”
Returning my axe to my back, I pull off my helmet, no longer concealing my thoughts. My quiet rage. “No, Galla,” I say, quietly, calmly. “You killed them.”
She pulls to a stop, her breathing shallow, her lips twitching. I’ve always addressed her as Mother. Somehow, the use of her name seems to rankle her even more.
Her voice lowers. “I will hurt you, Antony, like I’ve never hurt you before.”
I return her furious gaze, but I’m calm. And the calmer I become, the more she trembles, the more intensely her lips and her hands twitch. Compulsively. Shuddering.
“No, you won’t,” I say. “Your men are dead. And there willbe no more. From now on, you will only have ladies.” I incline my head at the women huddled in the corner. “Only them. If they perish, you will not replace them.”
Galla sucks in a breath, as if she would scream a retort, but I move toward her, pulling the assassin’s knife from the holder at my waist. “You tried to kill the Oracle.”
She gasps, backpedaling through the blood. “I didn’t.”
“You brought me here, to a place of pain. The place where your people were killed. You wanted to hurt me. But you didn’t succeed.”
When I pause, Galla’s focus flashes from the knife to Victor and Emiliana, both of whom have remained behind me, then to her ladies, and finally to the highborn.
“Nobody will help you, Galla,” I say, and in the next breath, “Victor will no longer live in the forge. From now on, he will stand at my right hand. Emiliana is no longer your lady. She will live wherever she wishes—with Victor, if that’s what she chooses. As for you, Galla, you seem to love pain so much that I’m going to indulge your cravings.”
Galla’s face pales as the back of her feet bump up against the dais, and she nearly topples backward.
“You’re going to live here,” I say. “In this place of pain.”
She blinks at me. “Here?”
I nod. “At the edge of the bloodlands. Where you will have no choice but to release your power each night. Assuming you want to live.”
“You can’t keep me here!” Her voice rises, a sign she’s rallying, remembering her power.
But I smile, allowing all of my savage impulses to surge.
Whatever blood was left in her cheeks drains from her face as she stares back at me, wide-eyed.
“I can and I will,” I say. “Whether or not you’re comfortable is upto you.”
At the corner of my vision, the sun’s rays finally disappear.
