Thyra’s eyes grow slowly wide. She glances from her arm to Victor and then to me, but she doesn’t tug out of my hold.
I wipe my expression clean.
“Ink that I intend to give her,” I reply smoothly. “A depiction of the blade. Just as it appears in your research, brother.”
He nods. “Very well. I’ll fetch your replacement armor now.”
With that, he walks to the door on the right side of the room, but before he can step through it, I say, “Bring me a ruby circlet too.”
He pauses, his back to me. “If you’re certain.”
“I am.”
It’s time for him to help me with my second problem.
While Victor disappears into the gloom of his library, my hand remains around Thyra’s wrist.
Her fingers close over my thumb, the closest she can get to gripping my hand in this position.
She wouldn’t hold on to me if she knew what I intended to do to her.
Her voice is a bare whisper, as light as breathing. “He can’t see it.”
It seems she’s right.
Victor can’t see the blade.
Which begs the question: Who can?
Chapter Twenty
Maxim
Ilost her.
I lost the Oracle, and I lost the Dragonstone Blade.
A roar pushes at my throat, but I can’t let it out. I have to smother it as I oppress every other need and want that rages through my mind and body.
My golden serpent sails through the open air at the southern edge of the bloodlands’ darkness, staying within the sunlight but flying close to the perpetual night.
The only way to survive within the bloodlands is to either outrun the vampyrs or, in my case, burn them to ash.
Certainly, I could have cast firebolts at them, but I couldn’t risk hitting the Oracle. I can’t let my fire burn uncontrolled, or I’ll kill my own serpent and, again, the Oracle.
Too many times, my power has made me powerless, but never more so than today.
So I continue flying at the edge of the darkness.
Always, I’m at the edge of darkness.
Following its curve, I take the longer path across the IronKingdom. Soon enough, I will reach the towers Antony set up to defend his borders and then…
What then?
Another roar pushes at my throat. I have no plan. I could easily breach the Iron Kingdom’s initial defenses, but I’d invite a response from the entire Iron Army. Antony may have taken a defensive stance during his reign, but I’m fully aware he has built up his forces to formidable levels.
If I were willing to burn the Iron Kingdom to the ground, I would have done it already. Fucking years ago.
