I mentally shout at myself to push through my panic, the awful terror that threatens to pin me to the spot.
Move, Thyra! Find a way past them.
And then, just as Lilis raises her hand, preparing to unleash her icy power, her attention darts upward.
The blood drains from her already pale face.
A shadow drops over me, a heartbeat before a figure crashes down upon her, narrowly missing me.
In the rush of movement, I catch sight of a double-bladed axe, its edge glinting iron-red in the morning light, and the face of the formidable man swinging the weapon.
Black steel armor covers his body, while a cracked metal mask conceals only half of his face, its broken edges gleaming as if it were newly burned apart.
My heart stops as his gaze lands briefly on me, even as his blade cleaves the air toward the Frost Fae.
He is savagely beautiful—more so than any fae I’ve ever seen, with his eyes the wildest green, his jaw chiseled, and his lips perfectly full.
A beauty defied by the violent intentions filling his eyes.
A promise of pain.
First theirs, then mine.
Chapter Two
Antony, King of Iron
Pain. It keeps me alive.
As I race toward my waiting eagle, I thump my fist against the black, steel breastplate resting across my poisoned heart, accepting the agony the punch causes me, needing the clarity the pain brings.
I will give everything for my kingdom.
No matter if it means I have to hurt my own flesh.
Wind rushes across the top of the tower as I leap onto the back of my eagle, a giant, blue-feathered beast, the only bird willing to carry me.
He’s a monster, too.
Twenty paces ahead of me on the white platform that sits far above Starlit City, my sister is already waiting on her eagle alongside my two best male warriors.
Their leather armor and uncovered faces are a sharp contrast to the steel I wear over my entire body.
I catch my sister’s intense gaze through the slits in my helmet. Cassia’s jaw is tight, and her face is pale. The tension in her shoulders intensifiesas she waits for my command.
Our mother will kill me when I return. She wants Cassia wrapped up in silk and pitting suitors against each other in games of Mother’s making, not fighting bloody battles beside me.
Fuck that.Cassia is one of the few fae I trust. She’s also one of our kingdom’s best warriors. She can decide her own fate.
“Fly!” I roar.
Fly like your lives depend on it.Because they fucking do. Because we will never have peace…Iwill never have peace…until the Oracle is mine.
My eagle spreads his wings and rises into the air with a single, powerful beat, carrying me high into the starry darkness.
The three eagles ahead of me, including Cassia’s, soar into the air and then quickly separate to allow me to take the lead. It looks like they’re parting out of deference, but I know the truth. The other eagles are terrified of my blue beast with its blood-red eyes and longer-than-normal talons. Just as my own people fear me.
Not Cassia, though. And not the warriors I’ve bled for. I’ve proven to them that there isn’t a battle I’ll send them into that I won’t enter myself to fight beside them.
