I don’t know what darkness this will bring to me now.
Turning my back to the wall, I lean against it, wrapping my left arm around myself, keeping my right arm away from my body, closing my eyes against all of the unknowns. The barrage of dangers I can’t seem to escape, no matter how hard I try.
I tell myself, I still have the hammer.
I can break the blade.
Forcing myself to move, to focus on what I need to do, I step back toward the ledge and reach for the bony-white hammer.
The moment my fingers brush its surface, it crumbles into dust.
A gasp strangles in my throat, my heart plummeting as myfingers pass through white dust, spreading it softly across the stone.
My left arm tightens across my stomach.
This can’t be happening…
All my hope… All the faith I promised Antony I would carry…
It can’t be for nothing.
A low keening cry sounds from the far end of the tunnel—back from the way I came—before the air fills with the frantic flapping of wings, and a moment later, Azul reappears.
My heart leaps, a balm on my frayed hopes as I make out the figure on his back.
Antony.
He jumps from Azul’s back, still fifty paces away, and races toward me, muscles tensed, his arms and legs pumping.
But—oh!He’s covered in blood. Welts across his chest. His armor is gone. His weapons are nowhere in sight. His form is hunched. And his breathing…
I was about to launch myself toward him, but now I hesitate, my skin prickling at the seething sound of his inhalations.
Shaking myself, I quickly push past my fear.
He has proven to me that he won’t hurt me. It doesn’t matter how much blood he’s shed or what he’s done to get to me.
I need to reach him. I need to tell him about the runes and the hammer.
I need to ask for help. Just as he commanded me. A command that became an offer and then, like the first rays of a new day, a promise.
But as I run toward him, he slows, coming to an abrupt halt ten paces away from me.
His hand shoots up like a warning. “Stop, Thyra.”
My forehead creases as I dig in my heels, not wanting to obey him. “Antony?”
“It’s too late.” His voice is strained, his breathing harsher. “I thought I could get here in time. I really did.” Then quietly, “Fuck.”
He backs away, deeper into the shadows, but he stumbles, planting his hand on the tunnel wall to steady himself.
I immediately move toward him again. “You’re hurt!”
“Stay where you are,” he roars, his rebuke shocking me to another standstill.
He staggers backward, deeper again into the darkness, his voice lowering. “Stay… back…”
One careful step in front of the other, I disobey him, trying to see past the blood splatter across his face and his chest to the wounds beneath, to listen past the hiss of breath between his teeth for his words, torn from his chest.
